Benjamin West, Moses Shown the Promised Land, 1801. CC0.
Deuteronomy 29 and 30 · Doctrine · Featured Study
The Land Covenant
Deuteronomy 29 and 30 record the covenant Moses made with Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant made at Horeb, another name for Sinai.
Before the people crossed the Jordan, the covenant foretold their exile and promised their return.
These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant He had made with them at Horeb.
- First taught
- Deuteronomy 29:1 “…with the Israelites in the land of Moab,…”
- Fullest statement
- Deuteronomy 30:1 to 10 “…will bring you into the land your fathers…”
Before the people crossed the Jordan, the covenant foretold their exile and promised their return.
Summary
The land covenant is the second covenant God gave Israel through Moses, in Moab in Deuteronomy 29 and 30, on the edge of the land, with the generation about to cross the Jordan. It foretells exile and promises a return, and readers divide over whether it stands as a covenant of its own or renews the covenant of Sinai.
- Deuteronomy 29:1 names this covenant in addition to the covenant the LORD made with Israel at Horeb.
- Chapter 29 foretells exile for breaking the covenant before Israel has entered the land, and chapter 30 promises a gathering from the nations when Israel returns to the LORD.
- The LORD promises to circumcise Israel's heart, and Paul reads the word made near of chapter 30 as the word of faith in Romans 10.
- Dispensational writers, who read Scripture in successive eras, read the chapters as a covenant of their own, and many other commentators read them as the covenant of Sinai renewed.
In Addition to the Covenant at Horeb
The covenant made in Moab stands beside the one made at Sinai nearly forty years before.
These are the words of the covenant that the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant He had made with them at Horeb.Moses names the covenant by its place, Moab, and by the covenant it stands beside, the one made at Horeb.
I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you, but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God, as well as with those who are not here today.The oath takes in those standing before the LORD that day and those who are absent from the assembly.
I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you, but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God, as well as with those who are not here today.The oath takes in those standing before the LORD that day and those who are absent from the assembly.
Moses speaks to the second generation, the one that will cross the Jordan, and Horeb is Sinai's other name.
The Hebrew phrase the Berean text renders “in addition to” can mean a second covenant set beside the first or the first covenant renewed, and the church has divided over the two senses.
The chapters that follow renew the terms for the new generation and leave the question open.
In its plain sense verse 15 reaches the people of Israel absent that day, and a long line of Jewish and Christian readers also hears in it every generation still to come.
Deuteronomy 29:9 to 13, every rank enters the oath1 passage
So keep and follow the words of this covenant, that you may prosper in all you do. All of you are standing today before the LORD your God—you leaders of tribes, elders, officials, and all the men of Israel, your children and wives, and the foreigners in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water— so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which He is making with you today, and into His oath, and so that He may establish you today as His people, and He may be your God as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.Here the covenant of Moab ties itself to the promise made to the patriarchs.
The Land Promise Across Scripture
Ten texts carry the promise of the land and of a changed heart from Abraham to Paul.
The promise of the land runs from Abraham through Moab to the prophets of the exile.
- What the text gives
- the LORD gives Abram's descendants the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates
- Text
- Genesis 15:18
- What the text gives
- all the land of Canaan, given to Abraham's descendants as an eternal possession
- Text
- Genesis 17:8
- What the text gives
- when Israel's uncircumcised hearts are humbled in exile, the LORD remembers His covenant and the land
- Text
- Leviticus 26:40 to 42
- What the text gives
- a covenant made in Moab in addition to the covenant at Horeb
- Text
- Deuteronomy 29:1
- What the text gives
- the LORD uproots Israel from its land and casts them into another land
- Text
- Deuteronomy 29:28
- What the text gives
- gathered from all the nations and brought into the land their fathers possessed
- Text
- Deuteronomy 30:3 to 5
- What the text gives
- the LORD circumcises their hearts so that they love Him and live
- Text
- Deuteronomy 30:6
8One heart and an everlasting covenant
- What the text gives
- gathered and planted in this land, with one heart and an everlasting covenant
- Text
- Jeremiah 32:37 to 41
- What the text gives
- brought back into their own land and given a new heart and the Spirit
- Text
- Ezekiel 36:24 to 28
- What the text gives
- Paul reads the word in the mouth and in the heart as the word of faith
- Text
- Romans 10:6 to 8
Steps 4 to 7 are Deuteronomy 29 and 30, the steps before them are the promise to Abraham and the warning of Leviticus 26, and the steps after them are the prophets and Paul.
The heart circumcised, One heart and an everlasting covenant, A new heart in the land, The word near
Exile Foretold, Then the Promised Return
Chapter 29 describes the land laid waste before Israel has entered it, and chapter 30 opens on the far side of that exile.
So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’ And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt.The nations ask why the land lies waste, and the answer given is the covenant abandoned.
“When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today, then He will restore you from captivity and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you.The order is exile first, then repentance among the nations, then the gathering.
Before a single tribe has crossed the Jordan, Moses describes a land of burning sulfur and salt, likened to Sodom and Gomorrah, and the watching nations asking why.
The answer the people give is covenant breach, and the curse falls as its consequence while the covenant's promise stands after it.
Chapter 30 meets repentance with a gathering from the farthest horizon, in terms wider than any one historical return.
Deuteronomy 29:18 to 19, the root of bitter fruit1 passage
Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit, because when such a person hears the words of this oath, he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.The warning narrows from the whole people to one hidden idolater in the camp.
Deuteronomy 30:4 to 5, gathered and brought into the land1 passage
Even if you have been banished to the farthest horizon, He will gather you and return you from there. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply more than your fathers.The promise answers the uprooting of 29:28 point for point.
What the Chapters Leave Unsaid
Moses names the exile and the return and gives no date for either.
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.This verse stands between the curses of chapter 29 and the promises of chapter 30.
The chapters name no year for the exile, no generation for the return and no route for the gathering.
The Heart Circumcised and the Word Made Near
The promise of 30:6 is the hinge of the two chapters, and Paul reads the verses after it of the word of faith.
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.The return is paired with a changed heart, and the change is the LORD's own work.
In Deuteronomy 10:16 Moses commanded the people to do this work themselves, and here the LORD promises to do it Himself.
The sign given to Abraham in the flesh in Genesis 17:11 is here promised as a work within, and Leviticus 26:41 had already called Israel's heart uncircumcised.
The hope runs on into the one heart of Jeremiah 32:39 and the new heart of Ezekiel 36:26.
For this commandment I give you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven, that you should need to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it for us and proclaim it, that we may obey it?’ And it is not beyond the sea, that you should need to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it for us and proclaim it, that we may obey it?’ But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may obey it.Moses places the law within every hearer's reach on the day the covenant is made.
But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or, ‘Who will descend into the Abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming:Paul quotes these lines and reads the word that is near as the word of faith he preached.
Paul reads the passage's nearness as a picture of the righteousness that comes by faith.
Three Hebrew words carry the two chapters.
| Word | Strong's | Where the chapters use it |
|---|---|---|
| berith, covenant | H1285 | chapter 29, verses 1, 9, 12, 14, 21 and 25 |
| shuv, to turn or return | H7725 | seven times in chapter 30, of Israel's return to the LORD and His return to Israel |
| levav, heart | H3824 | eight uses in the chapter, among them the heart circumcised in 30:6 and the heart that turns away in 30:17 |
Teachers on Deuteronomy 29 and 30
Seven quotations from Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes follow the chapters in order.
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The covenant made in Moab, Deuteronomy 29:1
The quotation1 quotation
“It does not lie in the power of ministers to fix the terms of the covenant; they are only to dispense the seals of it. This is said to be besides the covenant made in Horeb; for, though the covenant was the same, yet it was a new promulgation and ratification of it.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Deuteronomy 29:1Puritan
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
Why the covenant was renewed, Deuteronomy 29:13
The quotation1 quotation
“The principal design of the renewing of this covenant at this time was to fortify them against temptations to idolatry. Though other sins will be the sinner's ruin, yet this was the sin that was likely to be their ruin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Deuteronomy 29:13Puritan
1662 to 1714 · Matthew Henry
Commentary on the Whole Bible
The secret things, Deuteronomy 29:29
The quotation1 quotation
“But if any ask further why God would be at such a vast expense of miracles to form such a people, whose apostasy and ruin he plainly foresaw, why he did not by his almighty grace prevent it, or what he intends yet to do with them, let such know that these are questions which cannot be answered, and therefore are not fit to be asked.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Deuteronomy 29:29Puritan
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Commentary on the Bible
A return wider than Babylon, Deuteronomy 30:5
The quotation1 quotation
“Will bring thee into the land - As this promise refers to a return from a captivity in which they had been scattered among all nations, consequently it is not the Babylonish captivity which is intended; and the repossession of their land must be different from that which was consequent on their return from Chaldea.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Deuteronomy 30:5Evangelical
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Commentary on the Bible
A promise yet to be fulfilled, Deuteronomy 30:6
The quotation1 quotation
“God will circumcise thine heart - This promise remains yet to be fulfilled. Their heart, as a people, has never yet been circumcised; nor have the various promises in this chapter been ever yet fulfilled. There remaineth, therefore, a rest for this people of God.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Deuteronomy 30:6Evangelical
1762 to 1832 · Adam Clarke
Commentary on the Bible
The Word made flesh, Deuteronomy 30:12
The quotation1 quotation
“It is not in heaven - Shall not be communicated in that way in which the prophets received the living oracles; but the Word shall be made flesh, and dwell among you.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible · on Deuteronomy 30:12Evangelical
1798 to 1870 · Albert Barnes
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
The righteousness of faith, Deuteronomy 30:11
The quotation1 quotation
“Ignorance of the requirements of the law cannot be pleaded Deu 30:10-14; hence, Deu 30:15-20 life and death, good and evil, are solemnly set before the people for their own choice; and an earnest exhortation to choose the better part concludes the address. Deu 30:11-14. ‘The righteousness which is of faith’ is really and truly described in these words of the Law; and, under Paul’s guidance (see marginal references) we affirm was intended so to be.”
Albert Barnes · Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869) · on Deuteronomy 30:11Evangelical
Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke, Albert Barnes
Two Readings of What Kind of Covenant This Is
The readings agree on what the text says and divide over whether Deuteronomy 29 and 30 make a covenant of their own.
The land covenant, a covenant of its own5 paragraphs
Dispensational writers, following C. I. Scofield's notes and carried forward by Charles Ryrie and Arnold Fruchtenbaum, read these chapters as a covenant in its own right, distinct from Sinai.
On this reading the covenant guarantees Israel's title to the land on terms that outlast any one generation's obedience.
Its older name, the Palestinian covenant, came from the passage's setting in Moab, on the edge of the land, and the name land covenant is used here.
Its holders point to the covenant set in addition to Horeb and to a gathering that Adam Clarke read as wider than the return from Babylon.
The objection is that the chapters renew the blessings and curses of Sinai for a new generation.
Covenant renewal, Sinai renewed in Moab4 paragraphs
A wide range of commentators, older and modern alike, read the same chapters as the Mosaic covenant renewed for the generation about to cross the Jordan.
Peter Craigie holds this view in The Book of Deuteronomy (1976), and he takes the covenant in addition to Horeb as a renewal built on it.
Matthew Henry held that the covenant was the same, in a new promulgation and ratification.
The objection rests on the wording of 29:1, which names this covenant apart from Horeb, and on the circumcised heart, which the holders of the first reading take as new.
Where the two readings meet2 paragraphs
Both readings hold that the covenant is renewed in Moab, that the exile is foretold, that the return is promised and that the circumcised heart is the center of the passage.
MannaFest's tradition, Wesleyan-Pentecostal and dispensational, reads Deuteronomy 30:1 to 6 as a promise to Israel that still stands, on the ground Adam Clarke gives at 30:5, a return wider than the one from Babylon.
Choose Life
Moses closes the covenant with a choice set before the people and heaven and earth called to witness it.
I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, and that you may love the LORD your God, obey Him, and hold fast to Him. For He is your life, and He will prolong your life in the land that the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”The choice is for the LORD Himself, who is Israel's life and will prolong their life in the land.
Moses set the same choice of blessing and curse before the people at 11:26 to 28, ahead of the statutes of chapters 12 to 26.
The covenant that names the curse also names its remedy, a heart the LORD will change, and it sets the choice before those He means to bring home.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710)
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1832)
- Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832 to 1869)
- C. I. Scofield, The Scofield Reference Bible (1909), its notes.
- Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Moody, revised 2007)
- Peter C. Craigie, The Book of Deuteronomy (NICOT, Eerdmans, 1976)
- Strong's lexicon, H1285, H7725 and H3824, as the site's word pages give them.
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