In Chapter 28 we've been studying a list of things that will go wrong for the Israelites if they forsake the Lord and do not obey His commands. Yesterday we learned that things would go wrong in the home and in the workplace, things would go wrong with the health of those who live in sin, and the nation would begin being defeated in battle.
Our passage today picks back up on the theme of enemy attacks that will occur as a result of turning away from the Lord. When the heathen marauders and enemy armies invade the land, much loss will take place and so will many atrocities. "You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them." (Deuteronomy 28:30-31)
These things are a sharp contrast to verses 1-14 of our current chapter in which success in every area of their lives was promised to the Israelites as a reward for their obedience to the Lord. The Lord said if they remained faithful to Him, no enemy could stand against them. No one could take what was theirs. But the penalty for disobedience is failure instead of success. It's invasion rather than security. It's loss rather than gains.
We will find situations later in the Old Testament when the Lord allows enemies to plague the people due to idolatry rising up in Israel. For example, in the book of Judges we'll find a generation of Israelites turning toward idolatry and we'll be told, "They aroused the Lord's anger because they forsook Him and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. In His anger against Israel the Lord gave them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, whom they were no longer able to resist. Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the Lord was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress." (Judges 2:12b-15)
If the Israelites turn to idolatry, their enemies will not only invade and conquer but will also take their citizens captive. "Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand." (Deuteronomy 28:32) Later in the Old Testament, when idolatry becomes rampant among the Lord's people, Assyria will conquer the ten northern tribes of Israel and Babylon will will conquer the two southern tribes. These foreign invaders will take captive many citizens of Israel. The warning of verse 32 will come true; their sons and daughters will be given to other nations.
If the nation turns from the Lord, other people will reap the crops that the people of Israel have sown. Other people will live in the dwellings the people of Israel have built. Kings from foreign lands will rule over them and oppress them. Hard labor, hunger, and disease will follow as a result of becoming the subjects of cruel and ungodly overlords. "A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days. The sights you see will drive you mad. The Lord will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. The Lord will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or to your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you." (Deuteronomy 28:33-37) These things will actually take place later on in the Bible. Nations that didn't even exist when Moses relayed these warnings from the Lord ("a nation unknown to you or to your ancestors") will come and do the very things predicted in the text we're studying today.
The Lord issued the frightful warnings of Chapter 28 because He did not want any of these things to happen. He went into a great deal of detail about the horrors that would ensue if Israel forsakes Him and turns to false gods. He wanted to paint very vivid pictures in their minds of what would happen if they became like the nations around them---nations who served worthless idols and engaged in all sorts of unclean and atrocious behaviors. The Lord spent far more time talking about the consequences of idolatry than He did talking about the blessings for faithfulness, and He did this to impress upon their minds the life-and-death seriousness of the subject at hand.
Unfortunately, human beings often have a tendency to have to learn lessons the hard way. I confess that many of the lessons I've learned were learned the hard way. Warnings haven't always been enough to dissuade me from going off course. Warnings weren't enough to dissuade Israel from going off course either, but I want to take a moment to put forth the opinion that no other nation on earth would have done any better. If the Lord had chosen some other group of people in ancient times and made a covenant with them, they'd have done the same things Israel did. In fact, any other group of people would likely have fallen away from the Lord even sooner than Israel did, for at least Israel had forefathers who faithfully served the Lord. At least the Israelites had the heritage of those who feared the Lord's name, as King David phrased it in Psalm 61:5. If the Lord had called some nation other than Israel, He would have been calling a nation that had already forsaken Him somewhere back in the mists of time, and that nation would have had a harder time resisting the lure of sin than Israel did. So in my opinion, Israel resisted longer than anyone else would have, and we dare not shake our heads over the Israelite's mistakes and think we'd have done a better job if we'd been in their shoes. I think we'd have fared far worse. My Gentile ancestors bowed on their knees at pagan altars and babbled to useless blocks of wood and made offerings to gods that never existed. If the Lord had called to my ancestors the way He called to the people of Israel, my forefathers would have sinned against Him far sooner and far more abominably than Israel ever did.
We must study the deeds of the Bible characters with compassion in our hearts, not with judgmental attitudes. We can't read about them and shake our heads and cluck our tongues and imagine we'd have done a better job of things if we'd been in their place. We are human beings just like they were and we would have made the same mistakes. I think my heathen Gentile ancestors would have sinned against the Lord even sooner and perhaps in more shocking ways. So let's read of the mistakes made by Bible characters with broken, compassionate hearts. That's how I'd want people to read about my own mistakes.
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