Deuteronomy 30:2

Verse 6 is the heart of the passage: “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” The verb mûwl means to circumcise, and Strong’s adds “to cut short”. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham, cut in the flesh (Genesis 17:9–14). It marked a person as belonging to God’s covenant people. Here God uses the same word of the heart. The lêbâb, heart, is the whole inner person: thought, will, feeling and moral choice. A circumcised heart is one from which God has cut away the hardness, stubbornness and rebellion that stand between a person and the love of God.

Verse 1 gathers up everything Moses has said. “All these things” are the blessing and the curse he has set before Israel in Deuteronomy 28 and in the covenant words of Deuteronomy 29–30. The word behind “things”, dâbâr, means a word or speech, and also a matter or a thing, so “all these things” are the matters God has spoken. The curse, qᵉlâlâh, is a curse, or an object of cursing. Blessing and curse had been laid out plainly, the blessings to be spoken from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal, so Israel would know exactly what had come upon them and why.

Moses is speaking to the second generation, those who came through the wilderness, and he speaks of things that would happen long after his death. “It shall come to pass” is certain. The northern kingdom was carried off by Assyria in 722 BC and Judah went to Babylon in 586 BC, and the people found themselves where this verse places them, “among all the nations”.

There they “call them to mind”. The Hebrew phrase is literally “return to your heart”. The exiles think again about the words they ignored and about what their disobedience has brought on them. This remembering is the first step of the turning that Hebrew calls teshuvah, repentance, and verse 2 follows it at once with the return itself.

Verses 2, 8 and 10 describe Israel’s side of the restoration. “And shalt return unto the LORD thy God” uses shûwb, which means to turn back or return. It is the Old Testament’s main word for repentance, a turning away from sin and idolatry and back to God, and it comes again in verse 8 (“thou shalt return”) and in verse 10 (“if thou turn”). The people return “unto the LORD thy God”, to a person who is still their God.

“Obey his voice” joins shâmaʻ, to hear, with qôwl, voice. To hear God’s voice in this sense is to listen and then do what he says. The same verb lies behind “obey” in verse 8 and “hearken” in verse 10, and it is the verb of “Hear, O Israel” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The commands are those Moses gives “this day”, the whole body of the covenant laid before them on the plains of Moab.

“With all thine heart, and with all thy soul” asks for the whole person. Nephesh, soul, means a breathing creature, life, self or person, and together with lêbâb it takes in everything a person is. The phrase stands in verses 2, 6 and 10, first as Israel’s turning, then as God’s gift, then as the turning again. The prophets make the same call. God says through Jeremiah, “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13), and through Joel, “turn ye even to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). Solomon at the dedication of the temple asked God to hear his people when, carried away captive, they would bethink themselves, repent and return to him with all their heart and soul (1 Kings 8:46–50).

“Thou and thy children” brings the next generation into the return. The covenant’s demands and its promises reach parents and children together, which is why verse 6 promises the circumcised heart to “thy seed” as well.

From verse 3 onward the LORD is the one acting. “Turn thy captivity” is in Hebrew shuv shvut, an idiom meaning to restore someone’s fortunes. It covers far beyond release from captivity, reversing all that exile had taken from them. Moses uses the verb of returning for God’s side as well: Israel returns to the LORD in verse 2, and in verse 3 the LORD “will return and gather thee”.

The name Yᵉhôvâh, rendered “the LORD”, is God’s personal covenant name, connected with the verb “to be”. It tells us who is making this promise, the God who bound himself to Israel and keeps his word.

“Have compassion upon thee” uses râcham, a deep and tender pity often likened to a parent’s love for a child. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him” (Psalm 103:13). He is the God who proclaimed his name to Moses as merciful and gracious (Exodus 34:6), and who keeps his covenant (Psalm 89:34). His compassion is the reason for the restoration, and Israel has earned none of it.

“Gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.” Qâbats, gather, means to collect or assemble, of people brought together for a common purpose. Pûwts, scattered, means to dash in pieces or disperse. The scattering was the curse Moses had already warned of (Deuteronomy 28:64), and the LORD who scattered is the LORD who gathers. The prophets repeat the promise. Through Jeremiah God says, “I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations” (Jeremiah 29:10–14), and again that he will gather them out of all countries and bring them back to dwell safely (Jeremiah 32:37).

Verse 5 says where the gathered people go: “into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it.” ʼÂb, father, is used of a father or of a forefather far back, and “thy fathers” reaches back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom God promised this land (Genesis 12:7). The verb yârash, possess, means to occupy and inherit, and Strong’s explains it as taking a land by driving out its former tenants and holding it in their place. The verb comes back in the same verse, “possessed… possess”, to say that the children will hold what their fathers held.

“He will do thee good” uses yâṭab, which in this form means to do good, to deal well with someone. “And multiply thee above thy fathers” uses râbâh in its causative sense, to make many, to increase. God promised Abraham descendants like the stars (Genesis 15:5), and his first blessing on mankind was to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). Here the restored people will outnumber the generations before them.

Verse 9 lists the blessing. “The LORD thy God will make thee plenteous” uses yāthar, which means to remain or be left over, and here it is causative, to leave over. The people will have something left over in every part of life: “every work of thine hand”, their labour and daily work, “the fruit of thy body”, their children, “the fruit of thy cattle”, their flocks and herds, and “the fruit of thy land”, their crops. These were the blessings Israel’s life in the land depended on, the same ones God had promised for obedience in Leviticus 26:3–13.

“For good” stands twice in verse 9. The word ṭôwb is broad, covering what is pleasant, beautiful, right and prosperous, and its return in the verse says that God means all this abundance for his people’s welfare.

Then comes the reason: “for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers.” Śûś, rejoice, means to exult, to be glad and delight. God takes pleasure in his people, and the exile was a time when that joy was withheld. Now he will rejoice over them again, as he did over Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jeremiah hears God say that he will rejoice over his people to do them good (Jeremiah 32:41), and Zephaniah that he will rejoice over them with singing (Zephaniah 3:17).

Verse 7 reverses the curses: “And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.” ʼÂlâh, curse, comes from a root meaning to adjure, curse or swear. The English “curse” in verse 1 translates a different word, qᵉlâlâh. “All these curses” are those of Deuteronomy 28:15–68, which had fallen on Israel, and now God lays them on Israel’s oppressors. Râdaph, persecuted, means to run after, pursue or chase, usually with hostile intent.

God had told Israel, “I will be an enemy unto thine enemies” (Exodus 23:22). A psalm says that the wicked man’s mischief returns upon his own head (Psalm 7:16), and Isaiah foresees Israel taking captive those whose captives they were (Isaiah 14:2). God sees what his people suffer, and he answers for it.

The curse that drove Israel out fell finally on Christ: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). By the cross he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), and he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet, the last of them death (1 Corinthians 15:25–26). He turns our captivity, delivering us from the power of darkness into his kingdom (Colossians 1:13–14) and freeing us from the service of sin (Romans 6:6).

He is also the obedient Son that Israel was called to be. He said, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), and he was obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8). The words of Psalm 40:8, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”, are applied to him in Hebrews 10:7. His preaching began with the call to return, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17), and he ties obedience to love: “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Those who are in him are a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Jesus is the gatherer of this passage. He had compassion on the crowds because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). He grieved over Jerusalem, “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings” (Matthew 23:37). He goes after the lost sheep until he finds it (Luke 15:4–7), he has other sheep to bring into one fold (John 10:16), and he said, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). The good God promises in verse 9 comes to us in Christ too: the right to become sons of God (John 1:12), his righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21), the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8) and life more abundantly (John 10:10).

This passage shows us a God who warns honestly and then keeps both his warnings and his promises. He drives his people out when they break his covenant, and the same hand gathers them from the farthest places on earth. Compassion moves him, he rejoices over the people he restores, and his name, the LORD, stands behind every verb of their homecoming.

It shows us too that God gives what he asks. He asks for a return with all the heart and soul, and then he promises to circumcise the heart so that his people love him and live. That promise came to its fullness in Christ, who bore the curse, obeyed where Israel failed, and gathers his people by his Spirit from every nation. Whoever has wandered far from God has these words: “from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee.”