Old Testament Commentary - Deuteronomy 30

by Don R. Hender


Scriptural Text [& Editorial]
Commentary & Explanation
Footnotes ~ References ~ JST
             CHAPTER 30            

Scattered Israel shall be gathered from all nations when they remember the covenant—Moses places life or death, blessing or cursing, before the people.

 1 AND it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the ablessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,
 2 And shalt areturn unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;
 3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy acaptivity, and have bcompassion upon thee, and will return and cgather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered theea.
 3a whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee Moses knew and prophesied and sealed upon Isreal their fate of scattering and then being gathered in again. Thus were the keys of both the scattering and eventual gathering of Israel set in the hands of Moses. And thus also it was the proper order of things that in the latter-days that the keys to the gather of Israel be restored to the earth by the hand of Moses unto the prophet Joseph Smith in the Kirtland temple on April 3, 1836 (See D&C 110).
 4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of aheaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
 5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
 6 And the LORD thy God will acircumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to blove the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
 7 And the LORD thy God will put all these acurses upon thine benemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.
 8 And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.
 9 And the LORD thy God will make thee aplenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the LORD will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers:
 10 If thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou aturn unto the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.
 11 ¶ For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not ahidden from thee, neither is it far off.
 12 It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?
 14 But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy aheart, that thou mayest do it.
 15 ¶ See, I have set before thee this day alife and good, and death and bevil;
 16 In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to awalk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his bjudgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the LORD thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.
 17 But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;
 18 I adenounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
 19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and acursing: therefore bchoose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
 20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest aobey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy blife, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.