The Torah offered to the people, judging by Moses' words, is not simply a law or a moral code, even one given by God. The issue is a path. More precisely, two paths...
The Torah offered to the people, judging by Moses' words, is not simply a law or a moral code, even one given by God. The issue is a path. More precisely, two paths: the path of life and the path of death. The connection of each path with blessing or curse is not accidental here. A blessing, in the original sense of the word, presupposes that God grants a person strength, not necessarily some special, supernatural strength. It may mean the strength needed for the most ordinary life in this world.
From the beginning, after all, God intended the human being to live in constant communion with Him, not separately from his Creator. Constant communion also presupposed that the human being did not possess the autonomous source of energy that all animals have. According to God's design, the human being could receive everything necessary directly from God, and receive it in abundance. He did not need to make stores of energy. It was enough simply to give room within himself to that "breath of life" that everyone receives at the moment of birth. Before the fall, that is exactly how it was; afterward, however, the problems began. The human being became too much like an animal to live by God's "breath of life," drawing all necessary energy directly from it. Human nature changed after the fall, but for the human being, unlike animals, such a condition proved unnatural and brought with it many problems.
God's blessing is what returns the human being to the long-lost norm, to the extent that a person can and is ready to receive it. The Torah becomes the path on which a person sets out when he receives God's blessing. This path leads him to the land promised by God, but it also turns out to be an inner path, leading the person deep within, where he can meet God by becoming aware of His presence in his own heart. This path is not easy, but it is accessible to everyone: the commandment is not across the sea and not in heaven; it is "on the lips and in the heart." One can, of course, refuse the path, but then the alternative to life is death. The loss of strength and the loss of God, and therefore also the loss of the God-given land, which can belong to the people only as long as they themselves remain God's in the full sense of the word.
30 Promises upon their repentance, Deu 30:1-10.
The righteousness of faith set before them, Deu 30:11-14.
Life and death offered to their choice, Deu 30:15-20.
30:19 Chuse life - They shall have life that chuse it: they that chuse the favour of God, and communion with him, shall have what they chuse.They that come short of life and happiness, must thank themselves only.They had had them, if they had chosen them, when they were put to their choice: but they die, because they will die.
30:20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God - Here he shews them in short, what their duty is; To love God as the Lord, a being most amiable, and as their God, a God in covenant with them: as an evidence of their love, to obey his voice in every thing, and by constancy in this love and obedience, to cleave to him all their days. And what encouragement had they to do this? For he is thy life and the length of thy days - He gives life, preserves life, restores life, and prolongs it, by his power, tho' it be a frail life, and by his presence, tho' it be a forfeited life. He sweetens life by his comforts, and compleats all in life everlasting.