10:14-22 “Circumcise your heart, and stiffen your neck no longer. For Yahweh your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the fearsome God”

When Yahweh appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He swore to them in covenant that their seed would be a great nation in which all the families of the earth would be blessed (Gen 12:1-3. This priestly kingdom (Ex 19:4-6) would demonstrate the power and character of God to the whole world through its own prosperity and righteousness (Deut 4:5-8). However, the heart of man is still corrupt (Gen 8:21; Deut 5:29); when a man begins to enjoy the good things of this world in more ways than others, he begins to ascribe greatness to himself and forgets how this happened in the first place. 

The Lord knows this, and stated earlier that He did not choose Israel because they were strong and numerous and qualified to accomplish His great purpose. They were small and weak, and they have been disciplined these forty years to know that they are to live by the word and will of Yahweh, not merely by material things (Deut 8:1-6).

Moses now warns them not to see their righteousness as the cause of the successful campaign. These nations are truly wicked, and Yahweh has been planning to execute judgment in these lands for hundreds of years (Gen 15:16). Israel’s leader and intercessor knows the sin of the people deeply, and retells their great display of unbelief at Sinai (Ex 32-34).

To close today’s reading, Moses exhorts the people to “circumcise their heart”, referencing the consummation of the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 17. As their great father dedicated his household to Yahweh and His purpose, so now the descendants of Abraham must dedicate all of themselves to being the people of the only true God.