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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Deuteronomy 30:1 - 30:1
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Nevertheless the rejection of Israel and its dispersion among the heathen were not to be the close. If the people should return to the Lord their God in their exile, He would turn His favour towards them again, and gather them again out of their dispersion, as had already been proclaimed in Deu 4:29. and Lev 26:40., where it was also observed that the extremity of their distress would bring the people to reflection and induce them to return.
Deu 30:1-3
“When all these words, the blessing and the curse which I have set before thee, shall come.†The allusion to the blessing in this connection may be explained on the ground that Moses was surveying the future generally, in which not only a curse but a blessing also would come upon the nation, according to its attitude towards the Lord as a whole and in its several members, since even in times of the greatest apostasy on the part of the nation there would always be a holy seed which could not die out; because otherwise the nation would necessarily have been utterly and for ever rejected, whereby the promises of God would have been brought to nought, - a result which was absolutely impossible. “And thou takest to heart among all nations,†etc., sc., what has befallen thee - not only the curse which presses upon thee, but also the blessing which accompanies obedience to the commands of God, - “and returnest to the Lord thy God, and hearkenest to His voice with all the heart,†etc. (cf. Deu 4:29); “the Lord will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and gather thee again.†×ֶת־שְ×בוּת ש×וּב does not mean to bring back the prisoners, as the more modern lexicographers erroneously suppose (the Kal ש×וּב never has the force of the Hiphil), but to turn the imprisonment, and that in a figurative sense, viz., to put an end to the distress (Job 42:10; Jer 30:8; Eze 16:53; Psa 14:7; also Psa 85:2; Psa 126:2, Psa 126:4), except that in many passages the misery of exile in which the people pined is represented as imprisonment. The passage before us is fully decisive against the meaning to bring back the prisoners, since the gathering out of the heathen is spoken of as being itself the consequence of the “turning of the captivity;†so also is Jer 29:14, where the bringing back (הֵשִ×יב) is expressly distinguished from it. But especially is this the case with Jer 30:18, where “turning the captivity of Jacob's tents†is synonymous with having mercy on his dwelling-places, and building up the city, again, so that the city lying in ruins is represented as שְ×בוּת, an imprisonment.
(Note: Hupfeld (on Psa 14:7) has endeavoured to sustain the assertion that שִ×בוּת is a later form for the older and simpler forms, שִ×בִי, שִ×בְיָה, by citing one single passage of the Old Testament. The abstract form of שְ×בִי is שְ×בִית, imprisonment (Num 21:29), then prisoners. This form has been substituted by Jeremiah for שְ×בוּת in one passage, viz., Deu 32:44; and the Masoretic punctuators were the first to overlook the difference in the two words, and point them promiscuously.)
Deu 30:4-5
The gathering of Israel out of all the countries of the earth would then follow. Even though the rejected people should be at the end of heaven, the Lord would fetch them thence, and bring them back into the land of their fathers, and do good to the nation, and multiply them above their fathers. These last words show that the promised neither points directly to the gathering of Israel from dispersion on its ultimate conversion to Christ, nor furnishes any proof that the Jews will then be brought back to Palestine. It is true that even these words have some reference to the final redemption of Israel. This is evident from the curse of dispersion, which cannot be restricted to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, but includes the Roman dispersion also, in which the nation continues still; and it is still more apparent from the renewal of this promise in Jer 32:37 and other prophetic passages. But this application is to be found in the spirit, and not in the latter. For if there is to be an increase in the number of the Jews, when gathered out of their dispersion into all the world, above the number of their fathers, and therefore above the number of the Israelites in the time of Solomon and the first monarchs of the two kingdoms, Palestine will never furnish room enough for a nation multiplied like this. The multiplication promised here, so far as it falls within the Messianic age, will consist in the realization of the promise given to Abraham, that his seed should grow into nations (Gen 17:6 and Gen 17:16), i.e., in the innumerable multiplication, not of the “Israel according to the flesh,†but of the “Israel according to the spirit,†whose land is not restricted to the boundaries of the earthly Canaan or Palestine (see p. 144). The possession of the earthly Canaan for all time is nowhere promised to the Israelitish nation in the law (see at Deu 11:21).
Deu 30:6
The Lord will then circumcise their heart, and the heart of their children (see Deu 10:16), so that they will love Him with all their heart. When Israel should turn with true humility to the Lord, He would be found of them, - would lead them to true repentance, and sanctify them through the power of His grace, - would take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, a new heart and a new spirit, - so that they should truly know Him and keep His commandments (vid., Eze 11:19; Eze 36:26; Jer 31:33. and Deu 32:39.). “Because of thy life,†i.e., that thou mayest live, sc., attain to true life. The fulfilment of this promise does not take place all at once. It commenced with small beginnings at the deliverance from the Babylonian exile, and in a still higher degree at the appearance of Christ in the case of all the Israelites who received Him as their Saviour. Since then it has been carried on through all ages in the conversion of individual children of Abraham to Christ; and it will be realized in the future in a still more glorious manner in the nation at large (Rom 11:25.). The words of Moses do not relate to any particular age, but comprehend all times. For Israel has never been hardened and rejected in all its members, although the mass of the nation lives under the curse even to the present day.
Deu 30:7
But after its conversion, the curses, which had hitherto rested upon it, would fall upon its enemies and haters, according to the promise in Gen 12:3.