A Hedge of Curses: Deuteronomy 27 (4)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 128.1, 2
Blessed is every one who fears the LORD,
Who walks in His ways.
When you eat the labor of your hands,
You shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.

Psalm 128.1, 2
(Fountain: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood)
How blessed are they who fear You, Lord, who walk within Your ways!
Rejoicing in Your bounteous Word, they prosper all their days!
They prosper all their days, they prosper all their days!
Rejoicing in Your bounteous Word, they prosper all their days!

Today’s Text: Deuteronomy 27.16-19

Preparation
1. Who is protected by these curses?

2. To which of the Ten Commandments do these curses relate?

Meditation
The cursing of idolators (vv. 14, 15) seems to have been intended to represent the first four of the Ten Commandments. The curses that follow illustrate violations of the last six commandments. They seem to have been chosen as examples of extreme hardening of the heart against the justice and goodness of God.

The fifth commandment is in view in verse 16. Treating parents with contempt is the opposite of honoring them. Honoring our parents and others who are in positions of authority brings blessing. We should expect to know the cursing of God if we treat them with contempt.

In verse 17 the eighth commandment is illustrated by bringing a curse on anyone who, by moving a landmark, deliberately steals from his neighbor. As with having contempt for one’s parents, it is the intentionality of this theft that brings the curse upon the perpetrator.

The sixth commandment forbids killing and includes the positive injunction of doing whatever is needed to care for our neighbor’s wellbeing. Verse 18 reinforces this commandment by bringing a curse to anyone who deliberately leads a blind person in the wrong direction. Doing so reveals a heart hardened to neighbor love, and provokes the curse of God.

In verse 19 justice is perverted against those who are protected by it – strangers, orphans, and widows, among the most vulnerable of people in any community. This violation of the eighth commandment brings the curse.

In each of these cases we can see that the heart of the one who is cursed has become so far from the heart of love that it must be described for what it is: cursed. Hopefully, a community’s pronouncing such a judgment on one would have the effect of waking them from their evil to repentance and renewal. If not, it would result in some form of retributive justice, such as exclusion from the community or even death.

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
The Law is set up to show God’s love for us. He is tender and merciful and cares for His own. Here He is cursing contempt, theft, cruelty, and injustice shown against parents, neighbors, the disabled, strangers, orphans, and widows. He is warning us to guard our hearts, because it is easy to fall into sin. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life” (Prov. 4.23). And He longs for us to show a pure heart of love to Him and to our neighbors. So much so that He says, “I will give them a heart to know Me…and they shall be My people…” (Jer. 24.7). And knowing Him, we know love. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.” “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love… Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (I Jn. 3.16; 4.7, 8, 11). His love and care for us spur on our love for Him and others. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4.19). It is how to avoid the curses; and to this we say, “Amen!”

Reflection
1. What do the threats of curse say about God’s love for those who are the victims of injustice?
 
2. How does the threat of curse create a “hedge” around our behavior?

3. How does growing in love for God help us to grow in love for our neighbors?

What follows refers to the Second Table of the Law; and, first, He pronounces those cursed who should be undutiful (impii) to their parents; for the word קלל, kalal, which means to despise, as well as to curse, is put in opposition to the honor which, by the Fifth Commandment, is due to our father and mother. John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Deuteronomy 27.1

Help me to love my neighbors, Lord, to keep Your commandments as I…

Closing Prayer: Psalm 128.3-6
Ask the Lord to guide and strengthen you today, that you might be a blessing to all the people you meet.

Psalm 128.3-6
(Fountain: There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood)
Their homes with happy children bloom who fear Your holy Name;
their tables and their every room declare Your glorious fame!
Declare Your glorious fame, declare Your glorious fame!
Their tables and their every room declare Your glorious fame!

O Lord, from Zion send Your peace, and prosp’rous make our ways;
thus may Your blessings e’er increase upon us all our days!
Upon us all our days, upon us all our days!
Thus may Your blessings e’er increase upon all us all our days!

T. M. and Susie Moore

Listen to our summary of last week’s study in Deuteronomy by clicking here. You can download all the studies in the series by clicking here. And check out our current ReVision series on encouragement.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from Church Fathers from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: Ancient Christian Commentary Series III, Joseph T. Lienhard, S. J. ed. in collaboration with Ronnie J. Rombs, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001). All quotations from John Calvin from John Calvin, Commentaries on The Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Order of A Harmony, Rev. Charles William Bingham M. A., tr. and ed. (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1863. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (available by clicking here).