30:9,10
The years of judgement and oppression would be temporary. The end result is that Israel will be a prosperous nation. The Lord will delight in Israel. “If you obey ....” It is sometimes difficult to know exactly how to interpret parts of the Old Testament, such as here. I have been looking at it in terms of how it points to Christ and the gospel, and this is a good thing to do. Yet this verse seems to make it all obedience dependent, but that was the whole reason the Law “failed” (see Jer 31). Perhaps the way we should take it is that the purpose of the gospel is to produce an obedient people. It is God who brings this about, and He does so through the gospel.
30:11
“... is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach”. Now at one level this is absolute nonsense, for obeying the Law proved to be well beyond them. Indeed, living a consistently “good” life is beyond all humanity. But why is it too difficult? It is not because the required actions themselves are too difficult. Each one is quite possible, but we are all corrupted by sin, and so it proves impossible. Sometimes when we read or hear of someone doing something wrong it is just plain evil, but other times we might think “how can you be so stupid”, yet we will then find ourselves doing something incredibly stupid.
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