What is the meaning of the word malediction? Who can have a good life with God’s blessings today?
The word malediction is an interesting expression, it is a phrase uttered in casting of a spell in order to bring about an evil curse with the intent of destruction to the one it is spoken against. Who would cast that type of curse today?
Deuteronomy 30:19-20… I do take the heavens and the earth as witnesses against YOU today, that I have put life and death before you, the blessing, and the malediction; and you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring, 20 by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice and by sticking to him; for he is your life and the length of your days, that you may dwell upon the ground that Jehovah swore to your forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give to them.
Moses made a declaration in a song and put it before God’s people, he was forcing them to make a conscious choice to do right or to do wrong. So, life and death were put before them. But who was casting the curse against God’s people or who were behind the curses?
There are two things of interest in this passage of Scripture: First mankind is obligated to love God and listen to him. For a fact it means our life and a blessing to us if we will love God with a whole heart and listen to him by obeying him. Matthew 22:37
Next, heaven and earth are witnesses against us today. Who are the heavens and the earth? Is this a metaphoric expression or is there something more to it? What was going on that Moses would utter such a declaration toward the people of Israel? We will answer these questions under the subheading Heavens and Earth Are Witnesses
Seek Life
How do we seek life and the blessing of God? The nation of Israel was now going to have to make a conscious choice everyday of their lives. Who were they going to listen to? Were they going to listen to the secret desires of their heart and the thoughts being whispered in their heads. Or were they going to listen to the commands of God?
See up to this point of their lives they relied on Moses for direction from God, but Moses was not going to be around forever. They needed clear direction in their lives that they could refer to daily. That direction came in the form of a Law Covenant.
Deuteronomy 30:15-18… See, I do put before you today life and good, and death and bad. 16 [If you will listen to the commandments of Jehovah your God,] which I am commanding you today, so as to love Jehovah your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judicial decisions, then you will be bound to keep alive and to multiply, and Jehovah your God must bless you in the land to which you are going to take possession of it. 17 “But if your heart turns away and you do not listen, and you are actually seduced and bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I do tell YOU today that YOU will positively perish. YOU will not lengthen YOUR days on the ground to which you are crossing the Jordan to go to take possession of it.
Matthew 22:37… And he (Jesus Christ) said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
Like Israel we are able to be blessed by loving God, first by walking in his ways, second by keeping his commandments statutes and regulations so we can understand his decisions. This takes loving God with your whole heart, soul, and mind.
Then this would bring about the blessings into our daily lives. So, why is God not blessing Israel today? Is God’s Love not unconditional?
The nation of Israel was now going to pass into the promised land without Moses, they were now going to be led by Joshua. The eye witnesses to the deliverances and events of God’s power with his saving hand were not going to be around. God’s people needed a daily reminder. Though the conditions in Israel have changed God has not changed. God is the rock, solid and the place we can build our house upon. But again, and again, the nation of Israel has proved it has not built itself upon the true God.
New Conditions in 1948
Even after 5/14/1948, with the reestablishment of the promised land and the blessing of God, Israel has slowly turned its back on the true God. They have now formed a multi-national government, they have allowed and accepted alternate family lifestyles, abortions are legal. They have put their trust in other gods of this world, and at the pressure of the world they have made bad peace deals for land and have even given money to their enemies all in the name of making peace. They have looked to others for protection and guidance in their negotiations for peace, namely the USA.
God is not one you should make angry! You should not make him jealous, nor should you say in your heart he does not care. God is not to be mocked. What you have sown you shall reap! Galatians 6:7
Though he fulfilled the rebirth of the nation he will not hold back punishment for their wrongdoing forever. How was the following prophecy fulfilled and why does Jacob still find himself in trouble today?
Jeremiah 30:1-9… The word that occurred to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying: 2 “This is what Jehovah the God of Israel has said, ‘Write for yourself in a book all the words that I will speak to you. 3 For, “look! there are days coming,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “and I will gather the captive ones of my people, Israel and Judah,” Jehovah has said, “and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their forefathers, and they will certainly repossess it.” 4 And these are the words that Jehovah has spoken to Israel and to Judah. 5 For this is what Jehovah has said: “The sound of trembling we have heard, dread, and there is no peace. 6 Ask, please, O men, and see whether a male is giving birth. Why is it that I have seen every able-bodied man with his hands upon his loins like a female that is giving birth, and all faces have turned pale? 7 Alas! For that day is a great one, so that there is no other like it, and it is the time of distress for Jacob. But he will be saved even out of it.” 8 “And it must occur in that day,” is the utterance of Jehovah of armies, “that I shall break one’s yoke from off your neck, and your bands I shall tear in two, and no more will strangers exploit him as a servant. 9 And they will certainly serve Jehovah their God and David their king, whom I shall raise up for them.”
Has the nation of Israel been serving the true God? Where is this King David that has been promised to be raised up from among the people?
Jacob’s Trouble
The nation of Israel as a whole has not looked to the one whom they have pierced. They have not identified God’s beloved son. God’s love has conditions and so, they will not go free of punishment, the sin is their own!
Jeremiah 30:10-15… “And as for you, do not be afraid, O my servant Jacob,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “and do not be struck with terror, O Israel. For here I am saving you from far off and your offspring from the land of their captivity. And Jacob will certainly return and be free of disturbance and be at ease, and there will be no one causing trembling.”11 “For I am with you,” is the utterance of Jehovah, “to save you; but I shall make an extermination among all the nations to which I have scattered you. However, in your case I shall make no extermination. And I shall have to correct you to the proper degree, as I shall by no means leave you unpunished.”12 For this is what Jehovah has said: “There is no cure for your breakdown. Your stroke is chronic. 13 There is no one pleading your cause, for [your] ulcer. There are no means of healing, no mending, for you. 14 All those intensely loving you are the ones that have forgotten you. You are not the one for whom they keep searching. For with the stroke of an enemy I have struck you, with the chastisement of someone cruel, on account of the abundance of your error; your sins have become numerous. 15 Why do you cry out on account of your breakdown? Your pain is incurable on account of the abundance of your error; your sins have become numerous. I have done these things to you.
What song did Moses teach to Israel before they went into the promise land? Has the nation of Israel truly understood the words of the song? Has this song been a witness against them?
The Torah is a Witness Against You!
This is the song of Moses to Bnei-Yisrael that has proved to be a witness against them.
Deuteronomy 32:1-43… “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak!
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. My teaching will drop like rain; my words will descend like dew. They will be like gentle rain on the grass; they will shower down like rain on young plants. 3 I will announce the name of the Lord. Praise God ascribe greatness to our God! 4 He is like a rock; what he does is perfect, and he is always fair and just. He is a faithful God who does no wrong, who is righteous and virtuous.
The nation of Israel does not pronounce God’s name, they are scared and superstitious about using it. So how will the fulfillment of the restoration prophecy happen without pronouncing God’s name?
5 They have done evil against him, they are corrupt. They are no longer his children; they are perverted and crooked people. 6 Is this the way to repay the Lord, you foolish and unwise people. Is he not your Father who ransomed you? He made you and established you. 7 Remember the old days. Think of the years already passed. Ask your father and he will tell you; ask your elders and they will inform you. 8 God Most High gave the nations their lands each nation its inheritance, dividing up the sons of man. He set up borders for the people and even numbered the Israelites the sons of Israel.
The people of God in the land of Israel still allow the sexual practices of other gods and they tolerate the wrongdoing that is in among them. They have forgotten the law of God that there should be no rivalry of any other god in the land of Israel.
9 The Lord took his people as his share Jacob as his own special inheritance. 10 He found them in a wilderness, a windy, empty unformed land. He surrounded them and brought them up, guarding them as those he loved very much, the pupil of his eye. 11 He was like an eagle building and stirring up his nest, that hovers over its young. It spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its feathers. 12 The Lord alone led them, and there was no foreign god helping him. 13 The Lord brought them ride over the heights of the land and fed them the fruit of the fields. He suckled them with honey from the rocks, bringing oil from the flint rock. 14 There were milk curds from the cows and milk from the flock; there were fat sheep and goats. There were sheep and goats from Bashan and the best of wheat. You drank the juice fermenting blood of grapes.
15 Jeshurun got fat and kicked; they were fat, firm and you gorged. They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock who saved them. 16 They made God jealous with foreign gods and angry with idols. 17 They made sacrifices to demons, not God, to gods they had never known, new gods from nearby, gods your fathers did not fear. 18 You left God who is the Rock, your Father who bore you; and you forgot the God who gave you birth. 19 The Lord saw this and rejected [spurned] them; his sons and daughters had made him angry.
20 He said, “I will turn away my face from them and see what will happen to them. They are evil people a perverted generation, unfaithful children.
21 They used things that are not gods to make me jealous and worthless idols to make me angry. So I will use those who are not a nation to make them jealous; I will use a nation that does not understand to make them angry. 22 My anger has started a fire that burns down to the place of Sheol; the grave. It will burn up the ground and its crops, and it will set fire to the base of the mountains. 23 “I will pile troubles upon them and shoot my arrows at them. 24 They will be starved and sick, destroyed by terrible diseases. I will send them the teeth of animals
and gliding, poisonous venom of creatures that crawl in the dust. 25 In the streets the sword will kill; in their homes there will be terror. Young men and women will die, and so will babies and gray-haired men. 26 I will dash them to pieces as I said, and no one will remember them. 27 But I didn’t want their enemy to brag; their enemy might misunderstand and say, ‘Our hand is lifted up we won! The Lord has done none of this.’” 28 They are a nation that has no sense; they do not understand. 29 I wish they were wise and understood this; I wish they could see what will happen to them at the end.
30 How can one person chase a thousand people, and two people cannot fight ten thousand unless their Rock has sold them, unless the Lord has given them up [surrendered them; 31 Surely their rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies judge. 32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the terraces of Gomorrah. Its grapes are grapes of poison— bitter clusters on it.
33 Venom of serpents is their wine— poison of vipers so cruel. 34 Is it not stored up with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?
35 Vengeance is Mine, and payback, for the time when their foot staggers. Surely their day of disaster is near— what is prepared rushes on them. 36 For Adonai will judge His people— for His servants, He will relent when He sees that strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free. 37 He will say, ‘Where are their gods, the “rock” they took refuge in? 38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libation? Let them rise up and help you and be a shelter over you! 39 See now that I, I am He! There are no other gods beside Me. I bring death and give life, I have wounded but I will heal, and none can rescue from My hand.’
40 “Yes, I lift My hand up to heaven and say, ‘As I Myself live forever, 41 when I sharpen My lightning sword and My hand seizes it in judgment, I will return vengeance on My foes, and those who hate Me I will pay back. 42 I will make My arrows drunk from blood, and My sword will devour flesh— the blood of the slain and the captive, the head of the leaders of the enemy.’ 43 Make His people rejoice, O nations, for He will avenge the blood of His servants. He will return vengeance on His foes and atone for the land of His people.”
If Moses tells God’s people to call on God’s name in this song, why is God’s name hidden today from the people of Israel? Why are the people of Israel allowing the unclean thing to dwell in the land with them?
Heaven and Earth Are Witnesses
Deuteronomy 30:19 God said he would take the heavens and the earth to be a witness against his people. Was this a metaphoric expression or something more? How do the heavens and the earth bear witness against us today? Who or what do the heavens and the earth represent? Who has been casting the cursing’s against Israel?
Micah 6:1-3… Hear, please, YOU people, what Jehovah is saying. Get up, conduct a legal case with the mountains, and may the hills hear your voice. Hear, O YOU mountains, the legal case of Jehovah, also YOU durable objects, YOU foundations of [the] earth; for Jehovah has a legal case with his people, and it is with Israel that he will argue.
The way God speaks to the mountains and the earth here in this passage of Scripture, it seems as if they are alive and not as some kind of inanimate thing.
Also in Ezekiel 36:1-15 God is speaking to the mountains and to the land that it would no longer be a humiliation among the nations. The land would no longer eat up mankind from off of it. But let’s focus on the following specific Scriptures:
Ezekiel 36:12-15… And upon YOU I will cause humankind to walk, even my people Israel, and they must take possession of YOU, and YOU must become a hereditary possession to them, and YOU will not bereave them again of any more children.’ 13 “This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘For the reason that there are those saying to YOU: “A devourer of humankind is what you yourself are, and [a land] bereaving your nations of children is what you have become,” 14 ‘therefore humankind you will no more devour, and your nations you will no more bereave of children,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah. 15 ‘And I shall cause no further humiliating talk by the nations to be heard concerning you, and reproach by peoples you will bear no more, and your nations you will no more cause to stumble,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”
Could the land cause an intentional bereavement of children? But God tells the land they will no longer be doing this bereaving. Are we really speaking of inanimate things causing this bereavement? Who is God specifically speaking to. Something within the mountains and the lands and the rivers?
Yes, God is speaking to the spirit forces that are in the air. They are the ones that are bereaving mankind of their children. They are the ones who are bearing witness against God’s people. These are the ones that are bringing about curses and maledictions to people today. These are the ones that whisper in the ears of mankind trying to appeal to the wicked heart. To bring them in direct opposition to God’s commandments. These are the very ones that are pronouncing the curses against mankind so that God would have to bring adverse judgments against them. The apostle Paul even makes mention of such things at:
Ephesians 6:11-12… Put on the complete suit of armor from God that YOU may be able to stand firm against the machinations of the Devil; because we have a wrestling, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places.
God has indeed put life and death before us all, he has put before us the blessing or the malediction. Every one of us need to choose to be obedient to God alone seeking out his ways and make them our own. Love God with our whole heart. Hate what is bad, reject the wicked whispering of these world rulers.
Jacob’s trouble all has to do with not following God’s commandments and not loving their God. So, that God brings against them the nations to bring about this time of distress.
God is provided the Torah, the song of Moses to Bnei-Yisrael, the Heavens and Earth as witnesses against his people. When will the people in the land of Israel wake up and turn back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob?
Come Lord Yeshua for you are the King over Jeshurun the arm of Yah, Amen.
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