The Promised Land Covenant (Updated)

Greetings, my friends. I’m Art Wolinsky and I’d like to welcome you to another edition of The Messianic Jewish Expositor.

I have a question for you today. Do you believe that the One and Only God, the God of Israel promised a Land to His people, the Jewish people, a long time ago? Well, He most definitely did and He did it more than 3,000 years ago. He made a covenant with the Jewish people, in fact He made more than one covenant with the Jewish people promising them a Land that would always be theirs. These covenants were unconditional, in other words unbreakable. Yes, we serve a wonderful God who makes covenants and promises and always keeps them. So let’s talk about these covenants and especially one that is called The Promised Land Covenant, a name given to it by Matthew Bryce Ervin in his wonderful book One Thousand Years With Jesus.

Now God made a number of covenants with the Jewish people. The first covenant was made through Abraham and that one is referred to as the Abrahamic Covenant. It is an unconditional covenant. The second covenant God made with the Jewish people was through Moses. That was the Covenant of The Law, a conditional covenant of 613 rules and regulations. The third covenant is unconditional and although it is hard to believe, this covenant which is to be found in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy, is frequently missed or overlooked by rabbis, pastors, and Bible students. The fourth and fifth covenants that God made with the Jewish people are the Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant. The New Covenant was given by the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah. These last two covenants are also unconditional.

But what about the third covenant that God made with the Jewish people? You may have noticed that I didn’t say much about it. This third covenant is an unconditional one, meaning that the promises made by God in this covenant will be fulfilled regardless of anything that the Jewish people - the Nation of Israel - do or don’t do. It was also given by God through Moses toward the end of the wilderness wanderings just before Moses died which was just before the children of Israel entered the Promised Land with Joshua. Again, this covenant is an unconditional covenant and so it is different from the Mosaic Covenant or Covenant of the Law, which is very much a conditional covenant. This third covenant is important for all born again believers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to know about. Let’s read about this covenant now:

Deuteronomy 29:1 NIV

1 These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

So this covenant with the people of Israel, made in Moab just across the Jordan river to the East of the Promised Land was in addition to the covenant the LORD made with them at Horeb, which is Mount Sinai, nearly 40 years earlier. This covenant is not simply a restatement of the conditional Mosaic Covenant which was made after the people first left Egypt. This covenant, variously referred to as the Deuteronomic Covenant, the Palestinian Covenant, the Land Covenant (courtesy of Dr. Arnold Fruchtenbaum), and the Promised Land Covenant (the best name for it in my opinion), has new and different things in it that are of great importance as we shall see. It reinforces the Land component of the Abrahamic Covenant, the first covenant made by God with the Jewish people. It is an important covenant and many believers, both Jew and Gentile, do not know about it. Another important aspect of it is that it refutes Replacement Theology (sometimes referred to as Theological Antisemitism) which is a teaching that Israel has been replaced by the Church and so the covenants that God made with Israel are no longer in effect and there is no Promised Land for the Jewish people.

This third covenant, The Promised Land Covenant, comes after all the curses of Deuteronomy 28 which were proclaimed to the Jewish people. We’ll talk about that in a moment. Yes, even after the long list of curses in the Mosaic Covenant, to be found in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, which have still not yet all come to pass, the LORD guarantees to the Jewish people that all His promises to them for good, the blessings, will yet come to pass. Bear with me please and I’ll show this to you. But let’s first reread the first verse of Deuteronomy 29:

Deuteronomy 29:1 NIV

These are the terms of the covenant the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

Interestingly this verse, which is the first verse of chapter 29 in the Bibles that most of us read today is instead the final verse (verse 69) of chapter 28 in some Jewish or Hebrew Bibles such as The Jaffa Tanach published by ArtScroll (a well respected orthodox Jewish publishing house). Is this an important distinction? I would say that it is. In support of this opinion, what is presented by Moses in chapters 29 and 30, contains new information (as we shall see shortly) whereas that which comes before chapter 29, i.e., what is in chapter 28, is not new. It is especially important to see that what is in the first six verses of chapter 30 is new. I believe that God very much wants us to see that, because in Deuteronomy 30:6 we have a striking foreshadowing of the new birth which comes to us through the saving work and ultimate sacrifice of our Messiah, i.e., Yeshua, the Lord Jesus. And while originally given to the Jewish people, this applies to both Jews and Gentiles today. It is for both. If you are a Jewish person reading or listening to this you probably think that the new birth, becoming born again, is only for Gentiles, for the Goyim, because Jesus spelled it out so clearly in the gospel of John. Let me assure you that such is not the case! In fact the very first born again believers were all Jewish and they never stopped being Jews.

I mentioned a moment ago that the first six verses of Deuteronomy 30 are especially important because they make clear what is new in The Promised Land Covenant. Let me read to you Deuteronomy 30:1-6. If you have a Bible handy, why not follow along.

Deuteronomy 30:1–6 NIV

1 When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you (again, these are to be found in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28) and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, 2 and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, 3 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. 4 Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. 5 He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. 6 The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

Now folks, having a circumcised heart so that or in order that a person can love God with all his heart and soul or her heart and soul and live - that means live forever - that’s a reversal of Genesis 2:17 when God said “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” A circumcised heart means salvation, being born again, and I want you all to know that.

And now let’s zero on on just the first three verses of Deuteronomy chapter 30 in the NASB version of the Bible:

Deuteronomy 30:1–3 (NASB95)

“So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.

Please pay attention to the word and in “and when you and your children return to the Lord your God”. This English word is what we call a conjunction, a coordinating conjunction. It refers to a relationship between two clauses in a sentence. It links two clauses together.

Now please look at the New Revised Standard Version and note the replacement of the word and with the word if.

Deuteronomy 30:1 NRSV

1 When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you,

Notice that in the NRSV the word if is used instead of the word and. If is also a conjunction, but it is a subordinating conjunction, which introduces a conditional clause. Therefore it makes this covenant a conditional covenant which is not what God intended. The KJV, NKJV, RSV, NIV, NASB, ESV, the CSB, the Tree of Life version, and the Jewish Publication Society Tanach (1985), all have and. Only the NRSV has if.

Could the NRSV be correct? Could the Promised Land Covenant be conditional? The NRSV is the only popular version that translates Deuteronomy 30:1 in a conditional manner.

How can we know if the NRSV is correct or if the other nine versions are correct? We certainly don’t want to conclude that the majority rules. Just because nine versions use and and only one version uses if does not necessarily mean that and is correct. Now certainly nine to one is something that we don’t want to ignore. But is there something else that can show us which translation is correct?

There is something else that can help us and that is what God says elsewhere in His word on this subject. Remember: the Bible never contradicts itself. So let’s look at what the Bible says elsewhere. Let’s begin by revisiting the covenant that undergirds all of the unconditional Jewish Covenants including the New Covenant. Let’s revisit the part of the Abrahamic Covenant which is most relevant to our current discussion.

Abraham was upset because he did not have a male heir “from his own loins” and he told the Lord that his chief servant, Eliezer, would therefore be his heir. The Lord answered and said otherwise:

Genesis 15:4–10 NIV

Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.

Then the Lord, while Abram was in a deep supernatural sleep, cut a covenant with him. Only the Lord ratified this covenant by moving between the pieces. Abram was asleep.

Genesis 15:17–21 NIV

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Once again please note that only The LORD moved between the cut animals, not Abram and The LORD. That’s what makes this covenant dependent on God alone. It is an unconditional covenant.

Now after the Lord cut this covenant with Abram, 400 hundred years later He made another covenant with the Jewish people, the Mosaic Covent (the Covenant of the Law). As we noted earlier this was a conditional covenant that contained 613 commandments. The Jewish people broke this covenant. They could not keep these 613 laws. Nobody could. Consequently, a large number of curses were pronounced upon the Jewish people by the Lord. I said earlier that we would talk about the blessings and the curses. We’ll do that now. Just four verses are enough to show you how bad it was going to be for the Jewish people.

Before I read from Deuteronomy 28 I want you to know that in this long chapter in the Torah, verses 1-14 list the blessings that the Jewish people will receive if they obey the commandments of Adonai and verses 15 - 68 list the curses that will come upon the Jewish people if they do not obey the commandments. That’s 54 verses for curses and 14 verses for blessings. That’s almost 4 times as many verses for curses as for blessings. To me that is frightening!

Here is a small sampling of the curses:

Deuteronomy 28:64–67 NIV

Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.

But in spite of these curses God clearly stated that He would never cast away His people Israel.

Leviticus 26:44–45 NIV

Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the Lord their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’ ”

The covenant that the Lord said He would not break is the Abrahamic Covenant. And the Lord promised even more.

Deuteronomy 4:30–31 NIV

When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you (all the judgements in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28), then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.

Please remember that the Abrahamic Covenant was confirmed to Isaac, to Jacob, to Jacob’s 12 sons, and to the Nation of Israel as a whole.

Let’s look at another passage that is key here:

Ezekiel 36:24–27 NIV

“ ‘For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Based on these passages, and others, there is no doubt that God is going to do all that He promised His people He would do in the Promised Land Covenant (Remember, the Promised Land Covenant begins with Deuteronomy chapter 29). Therefore the word and in Deuteronomy 30:1 is the correct word and the word if is not the correct word. The Promised Land Covenant is unconditional.

Why did the NRSV translators use if instead of and?

Surely these translators knew that the normative translation is and. Perhaps these translators, or at least some of them, don’t believe that God has plans to restore Israel. Or perhaps some of these translators are angry at the Jews, in other words perhaps some are antisemites. Some scholars would refer to these folks as Theological Antisemites, that is to say they use their interpretation of the Bible to justify removing God’s blessings from the Jewish Nation. One thing I believe for sure: It was not an accident that if was chosen. The Promised Land Covent is unconditional and God will fulfill it.

Conclusion and Application

As I bring this message to a close I’m very much aware that I must give you some guidance based on what I have told you about The Promised Land Covenant. God has promised a Land to the Jewish people and the promise is based on an unconditional covenant. God has guaranteed this Land to the Jewish people. And although I haven’t gone into the details in this message the exact borders of the Land are specified exactly in God’s word. The promised land is much larger than the boundaries of modern Israel and the Land is promised to the Jews alone. The land is not to be divided up among different peoples. The Messiah, Yeshua or Jesus, will rule the entire world from the capital of this land, Jerusalem, when He returns. Those who have divided up this land will one day be punished by God:

Joel 3:1–2 LEB

For look! In those days, and in that time, when I will return the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations, and I will bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will argue a case against them there concerning my people and my inheritance Israel whom they have scattered among the nations, and my land that they have divided.

Folks, that day is drawing closer. If you want to please Adonai, I ask you to bless His Chosen People. He will reward you. Why not stand up for God’s chosen? Share the gospel with them. And pray for their salvation. For chosen people does not equal saved people. They must be saved the same way you and I are. And remember the person who saves you is Jewish, just like the person who saves them. His Name is Yeshua Ha Mashiach, Jesus the Messiah.

Thank you for listening my friends. This is Art Wolinsky, The Messianic Jewish Expositor.

So, please stay tuned. We'll talk more about this in the next podcast. Thank you for listening. This is Art Wolinsky, the Messianic Jewish Expositor, signing off.