NOTES for Deu 11:1-32

The blessing and the curse of which God speaks are expressed in the Book of Deuteronomy in the simplest possible terms: they are life and death. We rarely think about religion in such terms. Words about peace of mind, a moral foundation, and so forth are more familiar to us. Yet the nature of our relationship with God has not changed in three and a half thousand years: with Him there is still life, and without Him there is death. We begin to understand this only in extreme situations, when we have to cry out, “Lord, save me!” Then the question of religion moves from the plane of “how to fast” or even “how to pray” to the plane of “to be or not to be.”