Jewish Commentary: Deuteronomy 4:27-31; 30:1-10

The Jewish orthodox sages and Rabbis understood the literalness of all of the Old Testament prophecies. Premillennialists and dispensationalists are in good company in seeing the Bible interpreted in a normal, literal hermeneutic. Someday, the eyes of the Jews will be open in seeing the Lord Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah. Meanwhile, their interpretative notes and commentaries on great prophetic passages continue to support the “rightness” of looking for future prophecy being fulfilled actually, and literally!

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 Deuteronomy 4:27-31; 30:1-10

Restoration of Israel to the Land 

4:27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples. This is the prediction of the great scattering by which Israel will be disbursed throughout the nations of the world for their sins. Their ultimate sin is in the rejection of their own Messiah! However, a warning to Christians: the Church does not replace Israel. The main point in these verses is that God will restore the Jews, based on their repentance, back to blessing, and back to their own Land, the Holy Land! Repentance was the message of both John the Baptist and Christ. The majority of the Jewish people refused to do this. The consequences of idolatry are exile from their native land, dispersion to the four winds of heaven, and diminution of numbers.

    4:28 From there you will seek the Lord. Before the exile to Babylon, in their own land they served images as symbols of something higher. But in exile the Israelite would sink to the level of fetish-worshippers and grovel to idols of wood and stone (Hoffman) Such things cannot, however, permanently satisfy human souls that have known higher things. This very lowering of moral standards called forth a spiritual reaction among the religiously-minded, the “remnant” in “the Exile.”

    4:29 You will seek the Lord your God. The idea of “seek” is repentance. But the sinner must “seek” God; i.e. he must feel the “loss of God, and take active measures to find Him and regain His favor.” And that search must be with the sinner’s whole heart and soul. Sincere repentance always and everywhere secures the Divine Mercy. It would be so in the Exile, if they sought God with a radical change of heart, and the devotion of the whole being. And indeed it was in the Exile that repentant Israel would find God, rediscover itself.

    4:30 In the latter days you will return to the Lord your God. The repentance will come at some far future moment. The Jews will search and find their God. They will recognize their Messiah! The repentance will be sincere. The object of their repentance will be the person of the crucified King!

             It will come about in that day that I will set about to destroy all the nations
            that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out on the house of David
            and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication,
            so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for
            Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him, like
            the bitter weeping over the first-born. (Zech. 12:9-10)

   4:31 A compassionate God. Although He is a “devouring fire” to those who are perversely wicked, He is merciful and gracious to the sincerely penitent; and His hand is outstretched to receive the sinner returning to Him.

    He will not fail you. He will not give you up forever (Hoffman); or, He will not withdraw His hand from upholding you. (Rashi) God is not through with the Jewish people.

    He will not forget the covenant with you fathers. This would be the Abrahamic covenant, not the Mosaic covenant, the Law covenant, which they broke when they came out of Egypt (Jer. 31:31-34). This is the basis of Israel’s selection and eternal preservation.

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    30:1 So it shall be … the blessing and the cursing. Punishment is not God’s last word with Israel. Restoration to the Land, in the Kingdom, with the Messiah, is. When Israel seeks God, Israel will find mercy at the hands of the Lord, and be brought back to the Land of their fathers and find peace. Israel has experienced the curse. This judgment will continue into the Tribulation period, but the blessing will culminate in the Kingdom reign of the Son of David!

   Call them to mind in the nations. The Jews are still going back to the Land from the nations. This will accelerate as the world draws closer to the Tribulation period.

    30:2 You shall return to the Lord your God. Israel will take to heart the hard lessons learned in the Exile. With “heart and soul” implies repentance!

    30:3 The Lord your God will restore you from captivity. God will change the fortunes of Israel, restore them to their former state of blessing. The Talmud renders this: And the Lord you God will return with your captivity. When Israel was in Exile, God was, so to speak, in Exile along with him. The Divine Cause which it is Israel’s mission to champion was in eclipse!

    He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. The world is witness to the re-establishment of the nation of Israel and the continual return of the Jews from around the world.

    30:4 He will bring you back. Who could deny what has happened the last fifty years in the Land! From all parts of the globe the Jews have returned!

    30:5 The Lord your God will place you into the land which your fathers possessed. The Land belongs to Israel; they hold the title deed to the Land from their father Abraham. The Land is not the Arabs, the Muslims. How can Replacement Theology people say the Church has replaced Israel. These promises are not fulfilled in the Church! 

    30:6 The Lord you God will circumcise your heart. Physical circumcision was a sign of the Abrahamic covenant, and even commanded in the Mosaic covenant, the Law. Also, it was for hygienic purposes that made the Jews cleaner in the physical sense than the pagan world. But the physical became a sign of the spiritual. When the Kingdom comes, and the Messiah is reigning, God will cut away the “flesh” that brings illness to the heart. This was repeated in the New covenant prophesied by Jeremiah in 31:31-34. And it is repeated in a parallel thought in Ezekiel 36:23-29. God will “remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, … And you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers …” (Nachmanides)

    30:7-8 A judgment will fall upon the nations that cursed the Jewish people. Christ repeats this idea. When He returns He will judge the nations that mistreated the Jewish people (Matt. 25:31-46).

    30:9 The Lord will again rejoice over you. God will prosper Israel in the Kingdom (the 1000 year reign of the Messiah). In every way they will be blessed—materially, with children, with livestock. And more, “the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers.”

    30:10 If you obey the Lord your God. The “If” is the Hebrew word key and does not imply a doubt. It should be translated “When.” It is for certain that they will someday turn to the Lord; there is no question about it! As mentioned in Jeremiah, the Jews will plant within their hearts God’s laws and moral principles. Whether on stone or parchment, the law goes nowhere! Outward laws and principles do not really change people. God’s moral commandments must be internalized. This comes about with the incorporation of the New covenant that is ratified by the blood of the Messiah!

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Sources:

    The Pentateuch and Haftorahs.
    Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period, Michael Avi-Yonah and Zvi  Baras (Jerusalem: Massada Publishing, 1977).
    The Messiah Texts, Raphael Patai (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1979).
    Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period, William Green, ed. (Peabody, MS: Hendrickson, 1999).