Agreeing With God’s Curses

When you cross the Jordan River . . . the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali must stand on Mount Ebal to proclaim a curse.   Deuteronomy 27:12-13

Shortly before God’s people came into the land of Canaan, God brought them to a place where there were two hills, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. When the people came to the pass between the mountains, Moses sent representatives from each tribe to the tops of these two hills.

The Levites were to shout out curses from God’s law as the people passed through the valley below. Imagine you are one of a vast crowd of people walking along a path, and high on a rock above, you hear a group of men shouting, “Cursed is anyone who carves or casts an idol and secretly sets it up” (Deuteronomy 27:15). When you hear this, you have to join with all the other people by saying, “Amen!”

You walk another few yards, and you hear somebody else shouting, “Cursed is anyone who dishonors father or mother” (Deuteronomy 27:16), and again you say, “Amen.” The word amen means “so be it,” and so when you say this, you are saying, “That’s what I am asking God to do.”

When the people said “amen” to the curses, they were saying to God, “Lord, if I am stupid enough to choose a path of disobedience, I want you to intercept me and bring that plan to nothing (that’s what the word curse means, something is set apart for destruction). If I use deception, expose me. If I sin in secret, bring it into the open. If I start living for myself and for my pleasure, take pleasure from me until I find pleasure in you.”

How do you feel about making that kind of commitment to God? Suppose you want to keep your options open. If you had been at Mount Ebal, you might have mumbled your response and tried to mask that you never said “amen” at all. There is only one way into God’s blessing, and it goes past Mount Ebal, where you renounce sin and call on God to keep you from it.

For further reading, see Deuteronomy 27