Wow. God paints an amazing image of what life will be like if these laws are upheld. All that buildup of rules and rituals and banishing or killing everyone and everything that might sully the camp feels like it just came to a crescendo in this passage. This is God’s side of the covenant. It’s only one small section, compared to the previous chapters upon chapters of things the Israelites have to do to uphold their end, but it’s very powerful in it’s simplicity. In exchange for obedience, God will make the rains come and the crops grow, so that you’ll still be eating last year’s harvest when you have to move it outside to make room for this year’s harvest. Everyone will have lots of kids to continue their names and everyone will be well-fed. All of the neighboring nations will be terrified of the Israelites and will run away from them. Even the mean animals will leave the land.
On the other hand, if the people don’t follow the rules, God will throw down wasting diseases and famine and deliver them into enemy hands. God mentions that then the land will have the rest that it did not have when the people lived there. This seems to assume that the people would rebel against God by breaking the Sabbath. Is this some kind of foreshadowing or is it just one further reiteration of how important it is to keep the Sabbath? (it is very important)
Even if this happens though, and I think that even if I didn’t know how this story ends, it would still seem like God is assuming that this will be the case, God will not forget the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob completely. He will still watch over them even when they are sick and scared in foreign lands for when they decide to apologize return to the Lord.
The very last part of the book outlines another form of voluntary sacrifice called dedicating. I don’t completely understand this one, but it sounds like you just take something like your ox or a patch of land or your daughter over to the temple and give it to the priests, then immediately buy it back from them. I guess having specific objects or people connected to your offering makes it more personal than just giving the temple money.
No comments:
Post a Comment