A Bible passage very few Christians have reckoned with.
This is the last in a series of four posts: (1) Sourdough bread: Flour and water. That’s it. (2) Abraham and his guests (3) Hospitality in ancient times (4) Deuteronomy has no interest in an afterlife.
Mixing up a batch of bread one night, I recalled a Bible verse:
Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-bowl.
That’s Deuteronomy 28:5.
The story of the book of Deuteronomy runs as follows. After the Exodus, after their 40 years’ wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites — numbering at least three million persons — camped on the plains of Moab, east of the Jordan River, across the river from Jericho; and began preparing to cross the river and conquer the Promised Land.
For whatever reason, it was known that Moses would not cross with them.
He assembled all the people together, and admonished them that, once they would cross over, they should adhere to all the commandments God had given them at Mt. Sinai.
The Bible records various feats of shouting that are hard for me to imagine, but so, apparently, it was. There is the Rabshekah’s shouting at Jerusalem (2 Kings 18); Peter’s speech on Pentecost to a crowd that exceeded 3,000; Jesus’ preaching to the 4,000 and the 5,000. So it’s hard for me to imagine how Moses made himself audible to three million people. But that’s what Scripture says.
And he kept at it for quite a long time.
The exact words he uses make it hard to tell from whom come all these commandments that he talks about — him or God — or who exactly is speaking, him or God.
At chapter 28, he goes into a really over-the-top enumeration of the blessings that will come to the people, if they do keep those commandments.
If you will only obey the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; 2all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the Lord your God:
3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your livestock, both the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading-bowl.
6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
7 The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you; they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways. 8The Lord will command the blessing upon you in your barns, and in all that you undertake; he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 9The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. 10All the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you.
11The Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground in the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you. 12The Lord will open for you his rich storehouse, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all your undertakings. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. 13The Lord will make you the head, and not the tail; you shall be only at the top, and not at the bottom—if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today, by diligently observing them, 14and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I am commanding you today, either to the right or to the left, following other gods to serve them.
There is a similar passage at Deuteronomy 11.
Here Moses goes into great detail about the things God thinks are important, including very fine details about life in this life: “You will be blessed in your kneading bowl.” But they are all in this life, not the next.
It is fairly common for Christians to ask, “Where will you spend eternity?” For this life is temporary, transitory; whereas heaven and hell are, they believe, eternal.
The evidence of this text is that there is no “next life” to speak of.
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