Devotions

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prosperous instead of predators

Deuteronomy 28:53-58 (JDV)

Deuteronomy 28:53 “You will eat your offspring, the meat of your sons and daughters Yahveh your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you.
Deuteronomy 28:54 The most sensitive and refined man among you will look grudgingly at his brother, the wife he embraces, and the survivors of his children,
Deuteronomy 28:55 refusing to share with any of them his children’s meat that he will eat because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you in all your towns.
Deuteronomy 28:56 The most sensitive and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the land because of her refinement and sensitivity, will begrudge the husband she embraces, her son, and her daughter,
Deuteronomy 28:57 the afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you within your city gates.
Deuteronomy 28:58 “If you are not careful to watch all the words of this instruction, which are written in this scroll, by fearing this glorious and awe-inspiring name – Yahveh, your God –

prosperous instead of predators

A few months ago, I was feeling ill, so I decided to skip the evening meal, and just go to bed. But after lying in the bed for a while, I discovered that I could not sleep. My stomach was growling so loudly that it was keeping me awake! I got up and ate a few crackers and that helped me sleep. I could have survived without it, but my hunger was insistent.

Anyone who has ever experienced hunger knows that it has a way of exposing selfishness. The siege threatened in this text would bring hunger to the whole land, and make otherwise sensitive and refined people into predators who consume their own. It is hard to imagine such a scene. But it was entirely preventable. The Israelites had merely to stay faithful to their own covenant with God, and they would have stayed prosperous, and not become predators.

I fear that some Christians go their whole lives without considering the fact that they too are under a covenant. Many of the commands of the Mosaic covenant do not apply to us in the same way, but all of the commands of Christ do. If we ignore the commands of our Lord, we run the risk of suffering like this, and it too is entirely preventable.

Lord, draw us to your words, that we may live by them, becoming prosperous instead of predators.