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292
The Beginning of the End
And he challenged the Hebrew multitude: “What great nation is
there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this
law which I set before you this day?” The laws that God gave His
ancient people were wiser, better, and more humane than those of
the most civilized nations of the earth. God’s law bears the stamp of
the divine.
How must these words have moved the hearts of Israel as they
remembered that Moses, who so glowingly pictured the blessings of
the beautiful land, had been, through their sin, shut out from sharing
the inheritance of his people:
“The land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and
valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven;” “a land of
brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys
and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and
pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you
will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land
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whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper;” “a
land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your
God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end
of the year” (
Deuteronomy 11:11, 12
;
8:7-9
).
“So it shall be, when the Lord your God brings you into the land
of which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to
give you large and beautiful cities which you did not build, houses
full of all good things, which you did not fill, hewn-out wells which
you did not dig, vineyards and olive trees which you did not plant—
when you have eaten and are full—then beware, lest you forget the
Lord.” “Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of
the Lord our God. ... For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a
jealous God.” If they would do evil in the sight of the Lord, then,
said Moses, “You will soon utterly perish from the land which you
cross over the Jordan to possess.”
Moses completed the work of writing all the laws, statutes, and
judgments that God had given him and the regulations concerning
the sacrificial system. The book containing these was placed for
safekeeping in the side of the ark.