Deuteronomy 7:14 – Blessed Above All Peoples

The Lord wanted to bless His children Israel.  He told them time and again all that He wanted to do for them.  When they responded positively to His giving them the Ten Commandments, listen to the yearning of Yahweh’s heart in Deuteronomy 5:29:

Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever!”

To that end, God tried to help them by giving them guidance, such as what He said in Deuteronomy 6:20:

When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’”

The Israelites must have wondered why God wanted to be so good to them.  In Deuteronomy 7:6 and verses following He expounded on this:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.”

Maybe what God said was too good to be true.  In the passage Deuteronomy 7:12-24 He tells them of the many ways He would shower His children with His love:

v13 – He will bless the fruit of their womb, i.e. they will be fruitful and multiply (just like He wanted for Adam and Eve and Noah’s family)

v13 – He will bless the fruit of their ground, i.e. everything they touch in the earth will produce in abundance

v14 – He will bless them above all peoples on the earth, i.e. none will be more blessed than Israel

v15 – He will take away all their sickness and disease, i.e. unlike other nations, He will keep them from affliction

v16 – He will enable them to prevail in battle above all other nations

v18 – He will help them to remember what He has done for them in the past

v20 – He will go before them in battle so that others flee as though attacked by a swarm of hornets

v24 – He will make a way to destroy all opposition so that none can stand before them

In return for all these blessings, what did Israel have to do?

Yahweh required them to have believing loyalty in Him.  They were to reject all other gods and put their faith in Him alone.

How simple was that?  Deuteronomy 7:26 makes it clear:

And you shall not bring an abominable thing into your house and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction.”

All that God detested, Israel was to detest.  When He told them to utterly destroy certain people and their idols, He had a reason.  They were to obey unquestionably.

So simple, yet so difficult.  Their wicked, sinful hearts were continually led astray.

And all these blessings?

They had a taste of them during David’s and Solomon’s reigns.  Before and beyond those years?  Lost opportunities.

Yet, the promises of God will be fulfilled when Jesus returns and all Israel is saved (i.e. the 1/3 remnant per Zechariah 13:8).  God’s beloved will finally realize all these blessings.

Why?

Because they will sing “Hosannah in the Highest!” to their Messiah Jesus Christ, and He will finally reign in their hearts.

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