Deuteronomy 30:1 - Meaning and Application

These verses may be understood either as a conditional promise or as an absolute prediction. Mainly, they belong to all people, not Israel alone, and their purpose is to assure us that even the greatest sinners will be forgiven and restored to God’s favor if they repent and turn back to him. This is the heart of the covenant of grace, God’s saving agreement with sinners through mercy in Christ. It leaves room for repentance after failure and promises pardon when there is true repentance, which the covenant of innocence did not do.

Notice first how this repentance is described, because it is the condition for these promises. It begins with serious reflection, in verse 1. “You will remember” what you had forgotten or ignored. Thoughtful reflection is the first step toward conversion, turning back to God. The prodigal son, the wasteful son in Jesus’ parable, came to himself first, and then he returned to his father.

What they should remember is both the blessing and the curse. If sinners would truly think about the happiness they have lost through sin, and the misery they have brought on themselves, and then remember that repentance can free them from that misery and restore that happiness, they would not delay in returning to the Lord their God. The prodigal son remembered the blessing and the curse when he thought about his hunger and the abundance of bread in his father’s house (Luke 15:17).

Repentance also includes sincere turning back to God. Reflection should lead to godly sorrow and shame (Ezekiel 6:9; Ezekiel 7:16). But the life and soul of repentance is returning to the Lord our God, as verse 2 says. In verse 10, this is described as turning with all your heart and with all your soul. We must return to God as our Lord and ruler, as our Father and giver, as our highest goal, and as the God who is in covenant with us. We must turn away from everything that stands against him or competes with him. This return must be genuine, with the whole heart and soul, and it must be complete, not half-hearted.

This repentance also shows itself in steady obedience to God’s holy will: “if you obey his voice” (verse 2), you and your children. It is not enough for us to do our duty ourselves, we must also train and lead our children to do it. It may also mean that the blessing will remain with their children, if their children stay faithful. This obedience must be directed toward God himself: “you will obey his voice” (verse 8), and “listen to it” (verse 10). It must be sincere, joyful, and whole, with all the heart and all the soul (verse 2). It must come from love, and that love must also involve the whole heart and soul (verse 6).

God looks at the heart and soul, and he requires them. He will have these, or nothing, and he will have them fully, or not at all. This obedience must also be universal: “according to all that I command you” (verse 2), and again, “to do all his commandments” (verse 8). Anyone who allows himself to break one commandment makes himself guilty of despising them all (James 2:10). A sincere heart respects all of God’s commandments (Psalm 119:6).

Now consider the favor promised to those who repent. Even if they are brought to God through trouble and distress among the nations where they were driven (verse 1), God will still receive them kindly. That is often why afflictions are sent, to bring us to repentance. Even if they are driven to the farthest parts of heaven, their penitent prayers will still reach God’s gracious ear, and his favor will still find them there (verse 4). From any place, the way to heaven is the same. Nehemiah used this promise when he prayed for scattered Israel (Nehemiah 1:9).

God promises that he will have compassion on them, as people who are proper objects of his mercy (verse 3). God shows indignation against sinners who keep on sinning (Deuteronomy 29:20), but he has compassion on those who repent and grieve over their sin (Jeremiah 31:18, Jeremiah 31:20). True repentant people can take strong comfort from the compassions and tender mercies of our God, which never fail but overflow.

He also promises to turn their captivity and gather them from the nations where they were scattered, even if those places are very far away (verses 3-4). One Chaldee paraphrast applied this to the Messiah, the promised Savior, saying that the word of the Lord would gather them by the hand of Elijah the great priest, and bring them by the hand of King Messiah. This fits God’s covenant with the Messiah, that he would restore the preserved ones of Israel (Isaiah 49:6). It also fits the purpose of Christ’s death, to gather into one the children of God who were scattered abroad (John 11:51-52). To him the gathering of the people will belong.

He promises to bring them back into their land (verse 5). Repentant sinners are not only delivered from misery, they are restored to true happiness in God’s favor. The land they enter is not the same as Eden, the garden Adam lost, but in some respects it is better.

God will also do them good (verse 5) and rejoice over them for good (verse 9). There is joy in heaven over the repentance and conversion of sinners. The father in Jesus’ parable rejoiced over the return of his son. God will also multiply them (verse 5), so that when they become many, there will be food enough for every mouth. He will make them increase in every work of their hands (verse 9). When a nation turns back to God, it brings national plenty, peace, and prosperity.

The Lord will make them abundant in the fruit of their livestock and land, for good. Many people have plenty, but it harms them. The prosperity of fools destroys them. It is truly for good only when God also gives grace to use it for his glory. He will also turn the curses that had been upon them against their enemies (verse 7). While God was gathering them and reestablishing them, they would face opposition, but the same curses that had weighed on them would become protection for them by falling on their adversaries. The cup of trembling would be taken from them and given to those who had afflicted them (Isaiah 51:22-23).

God will also give them grace to change their hearts and rule there (verse 6). “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart, to love the Lord.” The heart must be circumcised in order to love God. That means the uncleanness of the flesh must be put away, along with the foolishness of the heart, as the Chaldee paraphrase explains it. See (Colossians 2:11-12) and (Romans 2:29). Circumcision was a sign of the covenant. The heart is circumcised to love God when it is strongly bound and set apart for this duty by that covenant bond.

It is God’s grace that changes the heart, making it willing to love him and obey him. This grace is given to all who repent and seek it earnestly. In fact, verse 8 seems more like a promise than a command: “You will return and obey the voice of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 30:8). The same God who calls us to return also promises the grace that enables us to do so. If that grace does not work as it should, the fault is ours, not his.

This is one of the great strengths of the covenant of grace, that everything required in it is also promised in it. “Turn at my reproof,” God says, “and I will pour out my Spirit” (Proverbs 1:23). Moses also calls God “the Lord your God” twelve times in these ten verses. That reminds repentant sinners that they may draw courage from their relationship to him. As Jeremiah says, “We come to you, for you are the Lord our God” (Jeremiah 3:22). If they return and begin again to do their first works, they will be restored to their former honor and joy, like a child welcomed back and given the first robe.

In the warnings of the previous chapter, God is called simply “the Lord,” as the God of power and the Judge of all. But in the promises of this chapter, he is “the Lord your God,” the God of mercy who is in covenant with his people. This passage can also be read as a prediction of the Jews’ repentance and restoration. “When all these things have come on you” (Deuteronomy 30:1), first the blessing and then the curse, then the mercy kept in reserve will take effect. Though their hearts were deeply hardened, God’s grace could still soften and change them. Though their condition was terribly miserable, God’s providence could set right all their troubles.

This was certainly fulfilled when they returned from captivity in Babylon. It was a striking sign of repentance and reform that Ephraim, who had been joined to idols, gave them up and said, “What have I to do any more with idols?” That captivity cured them of idolatry, and then God planted them again in their own land and blessed them. Some think this promise will be fulfilled even more fully when the scattered Jews are converted, grieve over the sin of their fathers in crucifying Christ, return to God through him, and are brought into the Christian church. But who can see what God will do when he brings this about?