God Teaches His Law to a New Generation
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And he challenged the Hebrew host: “What nation is there so great,
that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I
set before you this day?” The laws which 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 he who so glowingly pictured the blessings of the
goodly land had been, through their sin, shut out from sharing the
inheritance of his people:
“The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys,
and drinketh water of the rain of heaven”; “a land of brooks of water,
of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of
wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land
of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without
scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are
iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass”; “a land which the
Lord thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon
it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.”
“And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee
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into the land which He sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst
not, and houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and
wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which
thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; then beware
lest thou forget the Lord.” “Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget
the covenant of the Lord our God... . For the Lord thy God is a
consuming fire, even a jealous God.” If they should do evil in the sight
of the Lord, then, said Moses, “Ye shall soon utterly perish from off
the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it.”
Moses completed the work of writing all the laws, statutes, and
judgments which God had given him, and regulations concerning the
sacrificial system. The book containing these was placed for safe
keeping in the side of the ark.
Blessings Conditional
Still the great leader was filled with fear that the people would
depart from God. In a sublime and thrilling address he set before them