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These are not just a list of curses and blessings. This list was prophetic in Moses’ time and historic in ours. These things didn’t come upon the Israelites all at once, in a simultaneous fashion. These blessings and curses ebbed and flowed, came in waves through history as the people would live in obedience to God for a few generations, than slide into disobedience, then reformation would come and they would return to obedience for a while and then disobey again.
Ki Tavo starts off with instructions on to commemorate the yearly festival of First Fruits (Deut. 26:1-11), which is probably the most ignored of the LORD’s appointed times in the Torah. It also is so intertwined with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
We are given a liturgy of what the supplicant is supposed to say to the priest when he brings the first fruits of his harvest and also what the priest is supposed to do with these gifts.
Supplicant: “I declare this day to the Lord my God that I have entered the land which the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.”
Priest: (Receives the gift basket and sets it in front of the altar)
Supplicant: “An Aramean [sought to] destroy my forefather, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there with a small number of people, and there, he became a great, mighty, and numerous nation. And the Egyptians treated us cruelly and afflicted us, and they imposed hard labor upon us. So we cried out to the Lord, God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the Lord brought us out from Egypt with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm, with great awe, and with signs and wonders. And He brought us to this place, and He gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now, behold, I have brought the first of the fruit of the ground which you, O Lord, have given to me.”
Supplicant: (Prostrates himself before the Lord.)
Aram was in the territory we call Syria now. This is the land where Abraham’s family settled after leaving Ur of the Chaldeans. Abraham and Lot moved on but most of them stayed behind. Who are the “The Aramean” and who is the “forefather”? This line is a reference to Laban “the Aramean” and Jacob “the forefather.”
This is the only time in the Torah where we read about a military army coming after Jacob and his family to kill them. At this time, Jacob has 11 sons, all of them young. Benjamin isn’t born yet. Yet, Laban is sending a military cohort to try to kill his own nephew. The only reason Laban didn’t kill Jacob is because of God’s direct intervention. Jacob was supposed to die, but he didn’t and the only reason he didn’t die is because of God’s direct intervention.
Jacob’s flight to Egypt was also due to God’s direct intervention, following Joseph down there. The Egyptians enslaved them after the death of Joseph and the 12 patriarchs. Slaves aren’t allowed to be a nation. Slave revolts are rarely successful, so God’s liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt was truly miraculous, even more so because the Israelites did not lift a finger militarily to liberate themselves.
God is the one who should get the credit for every success and good thing that happens in our lives. We should give credit where credit is due. We like it when God sends good things, but He also warns us that He can send bad things as consequences for evil actions.
The orphan, the “stranger,” the widow and the “Levite in your gates” and the poor are all in God’s charge. The tithe belongs to God and He has instructed us how to distribute His tithe and we are to use it, in part, to take care of His charge. This is how we receive God’s blessing, by obedience to Him. We show our gratitude and thanks to God by obedience to Him. We give Him the first fruits of our land, not by slaughtering the fruit of our wombs.
In pagan cultures, such as the Canaanites, they would sacrifice their children to receive a blessing from their gods. They would go to the temple where they had their child killed and “thank” the child for his death and ask for the child’s blessing. They would give more honor to their dead children than to their god. We can’t give worship and praise to those who have no power to provide blessings.
We may do something either begrudgingly or willingly but if it was the right thing, God still gives credit for doing the right thing.
Blessings vs. curses
Deuteronomy 27 describes differences curses, and most of them are consequences for private sins/transgressions/iniquities, not public sins/transgressions/iniquities. A sin is a sin, even if God is the only one who sees them. Sins that are private will be humiliated openly, based on God’s prerogative. If someone is constantly being publicly humiliated, they are likely sinning against God.
However, if our obedience is secret, we are publicly blessed. If someone is constantly receiving public blessings, it’s probably because they are walking in obedience to God, even if that obedience is private.
The blessings of God includes blessings of offspring, food, travels, enemies struck down, supplies, work and holiness. God gives these in different measure to people.
On a national level, God’s blessings include that other nations will fear and respect your nation, the land, people, animals will be fertile, it will get enough rain, plenty of food, no debt and other nations will look to your nation for leadership and follow your nation.
As the individuals in the nation are blessed, those blessings rise up to the nation as a whole. If individuals disobey God and is humbled and humilated, then the nation will be humbled and humiliated.
A nation that has some blessings and some curses, is in transition, either from a cursed state to a blessed state or from a blessed state to a cursed state.
It is our job to ask God in humility to find out if our spiritual life is in a trajectory from cursing to blessing or from blessing to cursing. We rectify this with repentance, but it’s easier to go downhill than uphill so the process of repentance is a lot of work.
Very few nations and/or peoples have ever achieved these blessings. The nations that God has abundantly blessed, based on the trajectory of their history include Rome, Parthia, Ancient China, Spain, Imperial England and the USA. These nations were all blessed for different reasons, none of them were “Torah observant” by a strict definition, but God doesn’t judge gentile nations using the standard that He uses to judge nations that know about the Torah.
I see that China’s ascendency may be evidence that God is either blessing them or it might just seem like God is blessing China because America is beginning to reap the curses it is earning by the abundance of the private and public sins of her people.
Our downfall, either on an individual or a national level, is not the fault of other people or other nations. We need to look at our own sins, transgressions and iniquities. We focus on our own repentance rather than the sins of others, the nation benefits. When all the people in the nation focus on their own repentance — rather than the sins of other nations — the world benefits.
Summary: Tammy