Law Repeated
415
After the public rehearsal of the law, Moses completed the work
of writing all the laws, the statutes, and the judgments which God had
given him, and all the regulations concerning the sacrificial system.
The book containing these was placed in charge of the proper officers,
and was for safe keeping deposited in the side of the ark. Still the great
leader was filled with fear that the people would depart from God. In
a most sublime and thrilling address he set before them the blessings
that would be theirs on condition of obedience, and the curses that
would follow upon transgression:
“If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy
God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command
thee this day,” “blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou
be in the field,” in “the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground,
and the fruit of thy cattle.... Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be
when thou goest out. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up
against thee to be smitten before thy face.... The Lord shall command
the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest
thine hand unto.”
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice
of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all His commandments and His
statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall
come upon thee,” “and thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb,
and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.”
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end
of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods,
which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole
of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling
heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang
in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have
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none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God
it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!
for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight
of thine eyes which thou shalt see.”
By the Spirit of Inspiration, looking far down the ages, Moses
pictured the terrible scenes of Israel’s final overthrow as a nation, and
the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome: “The Lord shall