“Adonai said to Moshe, ‘You are about to sleep with your ancestors. But this people will get up and offer themselves as prostitutes to the foreign gods of the land where they are going. When they are with those gods, they will abandon me and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger will flare up, and I will abandon them and hide my face from them. They will be devoured, and many calamities and troubles will come upon them. Then they will ask, ‘Haven’t these calamities come upon us because our God isn’t here with us?’ But I will be hiding my face from them because of all the evil they will have done in turning to other gods.”-Deuteronomy 31:16-18
The Lord delivers some bad news to Moses and Joshua.
He tells them after both of them are dead and gone, the Israelites, who they sacrificed so much to lead, are indeed going to apostatize and do all of the terrible things they were warned not to do.
In other words, they will break the terms of the covenant and as a result the Lord’s anger will flare up against Israel and…
…He will hide His face from them.
In Hebrew, the word for face is PANIM.
Literally this says God will Hide His PANIM from them, but the real meaning is a bit different.
In this context, PANIM is referring to the Lord’s presence.
The Lord is literally going to withdraw His presence away from His people.
Understand that to have the Lord’s PANIM (face) or presence in your life means a whole lot more than God just being near you.
And the same goes for the word SHEMA which means a whole lot more than just to hear something.
Having God’s PANIM shining upon you means His favor and blessing is upon you.
Hence, within the context of what we’re studying here in Deuteronomy Chapter 31, the Lord is informing Moses and Joshua that because of Israel’s rebellion, He is going to remove Himself (meaning His supernatural protection and blessing) from over the people of Israel.
And how will the people respond?
Well, first they’re going to play ignorant and pretend they don’t know what’s going on and why all this tragedy is happening to them.
However, later, they will be struck with the realization that it’s because of their rebellion that they are experiencing one frustrating setback after another in their lives.
Note in verse 17 it says…
“Haven’t these calamities come upon us because our God isn’t here with us?”
The Hebrews will realize the direct connection between the Lord removing Himself from their midst and all the terrible things happening to them.
However, they still won’t completely understand why the Lord removed His PANIM from them.
And then, the Lord will tell them directly…
“But I will be hiding my face from them because of all the evil they will have done in turning to other gods“.
There you have it.
Israel has turned to other gods.
However, it was never God’s intention to destroy His people.
Quite the contrary, He wants to educate and discipline them.
Because of His deep love for His people, the Lord wants Israel to learn and understand exactly what they have done that was so bad and how to fix the situation.
Therefore, He commands Moses to compose a song and begin teaching it to Israel right away.
And when I say “teach”, I’m referring to memorizing what will later become known as the Song of Moses.
The people are to inscribe the words of the Song of Moses on their hearts (aka minds) well before the apostasy they will commit occurs.
In a couple of days from now (and for the next several weeks afterwards), we’re going to be diving deep into this incredible Song of Moses.
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