Context No. 2988 of 4322 · Deuteronomy
Context · Reflection
Deuteronomy 27:21-26: in context
21‘Cursed is he who lies with any kind of animal.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 22‘Cursed is he who lies with his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 23‘Cursed is he who lies with his mother-in-law.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 24‘Cursed is he who secretly kills his neighbor.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 25‘Cursed is he who takes a bribe to kill an innocent person.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ 26‘Cursed is he who doesn’t uphold the words of this law by doing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen.’”
The Levites continue calling out curses, and the people answer Amen to each: cursed is the one who commits these hidden sins, who strikes down a neighbor in secret, who takes a bribe to kill the innocent. And then the list climaxes in a sweeping one: cursed is everyone who does not uphold the words of this law by doing them.
That final curse is the one that catches all of us. The earlier curses named particular hidden sins, but this one closes over the whole law: cursed is anyone who fails to keep all of it. And no one keeps the whole law perfectly. Paul quotes exactly this verse to show that the law, meant to bless, leaves everyone under a curse we cannot escape by our own obedience, and then he declares the good news: Christ became a curse for us, redeeming us from it. The curse that hangs over every law-breaker fell, in the end, on him.
Do I see that I could never uphold the whole law and escape its curse on my own, and that Christ bore that curse in my place?
Sources
- Deuteronomy 27:26: "Cursed is he who doesn't uphold the words of this law by doing them."
- Galatians 3:10: "As many as are of the works of the law are under a curse."
- Galatians 3:13: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us."