GOD'S DEALINGS WITH MEN continued

THE PALESTINIAN COVENANT

Deut. 30:3

            The truths we are about to examine are commonly called the Palestinian Covenant.  Sometimes it is called the land Covenant.  Whether you are a dispensationalist or not, let us notice some facts of Scripture, beginning with Deut. 28:63.

            To understand the statement of this text, it is necessary to go back to Deut. 28:63ff.  God had promised the people of Israel that He would bless them and give them all the land from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates River.  This is the same as the total land of Eden.  He gave that promise to Abraham and then confirmed it with Isaac, and Jacob.  In Deut. 28:63 we read that God rejoiced over them to do them good.  That is He had fulfilled His promise to multiply them and rejoiced Himself in it.

            He here also gave them a warning.  He challenged them to obedience of the Mosaic Covenant or God's Law.  He warned that if they were disobedient He would also rejoice in the destruction of them, and they would be taken from the land.  God rejoices in the fulfillment of His word.  Verse 64 warns that God will scatter them among all people.  The Jews believe this is something more than the Babylonian Captivity, and I agree with them.  He said He would scatter them among all people from the one end of the earth to the other end.  This was a chastisement for their idolatry.  See verses 64, 65.  This will be referred to in Deut. 30:1 of our text.  This dispersion is described as having no rest for their feet.  They would have a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.  God said their life would hang in doubt and they would live in fear. 

            Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD the Jews were scattered just as our Lord had described here.  They lived in fear, and they still do.  Psalm 83:2 speaks of the enemies of God making a tumult.  Verse 3 goes on to express the crafty counsel of God's enemies against His people.  In verse 4 the Psalmist says of those enemies, "They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance."  Is that not what the president of Iran said? The prophecy of Psalm 83:4 has been fulfilled right before our eyes.

            With this warning in Deut.28 we come to Deut. 30:1.  Our Lord spoke of these things coming to pass.  He speaks of Israel calling to mind while they are scattered among the nations of the world, where the Lord had driven them in chastisement.  There God also speaks of Israel's repentance of which we shall say more in our next post.

            We have definitely seen a dispersion that did not take God by surprise, but was prophesied before Israel crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land.  Our attention is also called to their prophesied repentance of which we have not time or space to write in this post