Deuteronomy 29:1-29 - The Secret Things of God

Deuteronomy 29:1-29

The Covenant Renewed in Moab

1 These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb.

2 Now Moses called all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land— 3 the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day. 5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn out on your feet. 6 You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine or similar drink, that you may know that I am the LORD your God. 7 And when you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we conquered them. 8 We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh. 9 Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

10 “All of you stand today before the LORD your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, 11 your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water— 12 that you may enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into His oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today, 13 that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

14 “I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, 15 but with him who stands here with us today before the LORD our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today 16 (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, 17 and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold); 18 so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood; 19 and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’—as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

20 “The LORD would not spare him; for then the anger of the LORD and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the LORD would blot out his name from under heaven. 21 And the LORD would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law, 22 so that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid on it:

23 ‘The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ 24 All nations would say, Why has the LORD done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ 25 Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; 26 for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. 27 Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. 28 And the LORD uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

29 “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

The secret things of God are not all revealed to we mortal men and women as we have seen with Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace in Ephesians 3:5, 9 and 1 Corinthians 2:7, as well as Colossians 1:26 for us to look back and marvel at God’s unveiling word given to us.  Some things clearly are to remain hidden until they are revealed as they happen as we see in Revelation and Daniel especially as well as in Matthew chapter 24, which things remain veiled in their fullness right now.  We can be at peace in not knowing everything since that is told us here and in other parts of scripture.  What is important is the covenant of grace in the Son of God which secures our present and future, having covered our past lives of sin (Hebrews 7:25) with the guarantees of eternal forgiveness (Isaiah 45:23, 1 John 1:9) to follow.  The old covenant of works required unattainable perfection (Leviticus 18:5, Romans 10:5) that only God could accomplish (Romans 10:8-9, 10-11, 13) in keeping the Law perfectly for us and so these requirements here are a picture of that that point us to the need of grace for salvation in this new covenant of God’s work of grace to impute righteousness to us in Christ.  The common elements here are God’s leading out of bondage of Egypt to the Law in Sinai as representing deliverance from sin’s enslavement of us all from birth to then hear His word and need of righteousness.  It also shows us how we now stand before the Lord in the new covenant that He makes with us as with the old one here, but this one is predicated on His obedience for our continued deliverance and not our own perfection which is impossible apart from Him and His work.  The people of God then could not keep this covenant and suffered the consequences; we have Christ who kept all points of the Law of that covenant for us so we are no longer required to in order to be saved from our just due of His wrath on our sin.  What grace!  The curse of the Law has been lifted from our shoulders and has been once had for all been nailed to the cross (Galatians 3:13, Colossians 2:14) of our curse!  This then shows us these secret things hidden (Luke 24:26-27, 31-32) since the be but now unveiled to the eyes of our hearts with more to follow as time unwinds and events unfold before His return.  We then should stand in awe and live with joyous obedience for Him in holiness until then.