Another View Suggested.
By John Nevins Andrews
UNDER the head of “Scripture Notes” in the Review for March 10, is the following text and comment: Deut. xxix, 28. And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day. As it is this day.] Probably the clause was added by Ezra, or some scribe, who had witnessed the desolation of the Babylonish captivity.—Scott. The difficulty which Scott discovered in this text is that the children of Israel are represented as rooted out and cast forth from their own land “as it is this day,” when at the time that Moses spoke and wrote the words of this chapter they had not even entered it. I think that the careful reading of the previous verses relieves this text of all difficulty without supposing this clause, “as it is this day,” to be added by some other sacred writer. Was it true that when Moses spoke these words Israel was rooted out of the land of promise? It was not. Does the language affirm this to be the case? It does not. If the reader will turn back to verses 22–25 he will see that these words are represented as being spoken by the nations who look on and witness their punishment at the time that God should cast them out of their land because of their sins in his sight. Moses does not use these words as his own, but as the words of those who were to be eyewitnesses of the calamities of Israel at the time when they should come to pass.