Reading: Deuteronomy 7-9, Psalm 55
Today’s reading opens with two themes closely woven together: extermination and blessing. Not things you see stuck together really often, but here there is a reason. God is about to use the people of Israel to carry out judgement on the people of Canaan. He is simultaneously creating a place for his chosen people to live in peace and learn his character-forming laws.
Once again God reminds Israel to avoid the temptation to be influenced by the peoples around them when they enter the land of promise. They are to totally eradicate the nations and their ways of worship, keeping nothing. Total war. If they do this, they will have peace and prosperity. He warns them not to make peace with any of the nations in Canaan, and they will have abundant crops. He tells them to eradicate the Canaanite places of worship throughout the land, and his people will be free to disease and plague. The prosperity God promises is all tied up with the eradication of the nations of Canaan.
But why? One of the great questions that the ancient world’s religions tried to answer was why some people prospered and others did not. Why one harvest season was good and another was not. The question of why soon gave way to how. How do we make sure we are the people who prosper, that our harvest seasons are good? By doing what the gods want us to do. By being what they want us to be. By being strong enough that our service to the gods is more valuable than someone else’s.
The God of Israel drops something really shocking on the people of Israel. He has chosen them not because of any of these things, but in spite of them. He did not choose Israel when they were strong, but when they were weak. He did not choose Israel because they were obedient- as we have seen repeatedly demonstrated they were not. He did not choose them because they were the kind of people God wanted. He is planning to turn them into the people he wants. He did not choose them because they were more able to serve him than others. He is going to use them to punish nations stronger than they are.
God chose the people of Israel because he loved them and in fulfillment of his promise to Abraham, and for no other reasons than that. We should take a moment to talk about the concept of love here, since it is used extensively in Deuteronomy. As one might expect, the ancient Hebrew concept of love is a bit different than the emotional conception we have in modern English. For the people of Israel, love was primarily about faithfulness. Keeping promises. Being a trustworthy person. When we read about love in the Bible, we aren’t reading just about emotions but about character quality. It does have emotional overtones- kindness, a kind of fondness- but it is much more than that. God chooses Israel because he is faithful to them and to his word to their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In sharp contrast to the Canaanite nations, Israel’s God is faithful to them before they do anything at all.
Moses returns to his argument by story as proof of this and as a warning to because obedient to the words God is giving them. God will do what he has promised, but the consequences for disobedience are part of that promise. Moses once again reminds the people of how God rescued them from Egypt. How God brought them to the promised land and gave them the laws by which they can approach God in the tabernacle. How God’s choice of them has brought them great prosperity. But the he’s not done. Moses also reminds the people of the disasters of the golden calf, of the grumbling in the wilderness, and so on. He reminds them that while God has promised prosperity for obedience, he has promised judgment for disobedience. The God of Israel loves them, so he is faithful to his word- a fact both comforting and terrifying.