You stand today, all of you, before the LORD your God: your leaders, your tribes, your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, and the stranger who is within your camps, from the one who chops your wood to the one who draws your water, so that you may enter into the covenant with the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 29:10-12

The children of Israel were standing before God as a people who had witnessed His faithfulness. He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt, sustained them throughout the wilderness, and brought them to the land He had promised to their fathers.

However, God also knew what was coming. Near the end of the reading, the LORD tells Moses:

Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers; and this people will arise and play the prostitute with the foreign gods of the land, into the midst of which they are going, and they will abandon Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

Deuteronomy 31:16

I think we sometimes read the story of Israel as though God entered into covenant with Israel and then discovered along the way how unfaithful His people could be. Scripture tells us something very different. Before Israel had fully entered the land, God already knew that they would turn away from Him. He knew that they would pursue other gods, that judgment would follow, and that they would eventually be scattered among the nations. None of what would happen surprised Him.

This makes the words Moses spoke just one chapter earlier even more significant:

Then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. If any of your scattered countrymen are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back.
Deuteronomy 30:3-4

Before Israel’s future rebellion had even taken place, God was already speaking about their future restoration. This is an important truth that we should not overlook.

The restoration of Israel was never based upon Israel being perfect. If it were, there would be no restoration. God Himself foretold Israel’s disobedience, their dispersion among the nations, and their eventual return.

When I look at Israel today, I do not see a perfect nation. I see my people with all of our strengths and all of our failures. I see a nation in which many still do not know the one and only true God. I see many who have returned physically to the land but have not yet returned spiritually to Him.

At the same time, I see something that generations before us could only read about in the Scriptures. I see the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob gathered from nations around the world and living again in the land of their forefathers. Israel’s restoration does not testify to Israel’s perfection. It testifies to the faithfulness of God.

However, Deuteronomy does not allow us to stop there. God’s faithfulness does not remove human responsibility. The same Moses who spoke about Israel’s future restoration also placed a very personal choice before the people:

I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding close to Him.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20

God knew what Israel would do, but Israel was still responsible for its choices. The same principle applies to each one of us.

It is easy to read the Scriptures and examine Israel’s failures. It is easy to look at previous generations and wonder how they could have turned away from God after everything He had done for them. It is also easy to look at the world around us and judge the choices other people are making. However, eventually the Word of God brings the question back to each one of us personally.

We must ask ourselves what we are doing with what God has revealed to us. Paul writes:

So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.

Romans 14:12

There is coming a day when each one of us will stand before God. I will not give an account for someone else’s faithfulness, nor will I be able to hide behind someone else’s disobedience. I will give an account of myself to Him. That reality should cause each of us to consider Moses’ words seriously. God has revealed the way of life, and each one of us must decide what we will do with what He has revealed.

This also points us to the reason the Father sent His Son, Yeshua our Messiah. None of us can stand before God on the basis of our own righteousness because we all fall short. Our hope is found in what God has provided through His Son. A life that has truly been changed by Him should then be reflected in how we live, whom we obey, and where we place our trust.

The Haftarah adds another important dimension to this week’s reading. After reading about Israel’s rebellion, dispersion, and restoration, we hear Isaiah declare:

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning.
Isaiah 62:1

Isaiah does not look at Jerusalem only as she was in his day. He looks forward to what God has promised Jerusalem will become. A few verses later, we read:

On your walls, Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who profess the LORD, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem an object of praise on the earth.

Isaiah 62:6-7

Shabbat Shalom,
Moran