Part II: Hierarchy/Representation (1:6-4:49)
The LORD our God spake unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount: Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the plain, in the hills, and in the vale, and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates. Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them (Deut. 1:6-8).
The theocentric focus of this command is stewardship-ownership. Stewardship is the representative control over an asset on someone else's behalf. It implies hierarchical authority: owner > steward > asset. This transfer of ownership of the Promised Land was legally grounded in God's oath to Abraham, which He had renewed with Isaac and Jacob. The third generation had refused to obey this command. This led to the wilderness wanderings. Moses began his exposition of God's dealings with the exodus generation with a discussion of the dominion assignment given to the nation at Horeb. The historical context of this assignment had been a miracle, followed by a rebellion, followed by another miracle. This was clearly a land law. It governed the conquest of Canaan.The first miracle was the manna (Ex. 16). The nation would receive free food six days a week. This did not satisfy them. They also wanted water. The manner of their complaint constituted their rebellion. This was followed by the second miracle.
And all the congregation of the children of Israel journeyed from the wilderness of Sin, after their journeys, according to the commandment of the LORD, and pitched in Rephidim: and there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them, Why chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the LORD? And the people thirsted there for water; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst? And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying, What shall I do unto this people? they be almost ready to stone me. And the LORD said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thine hand, and go. Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us, or not? (Ex. 17:1-7).
Moses then told the story of his establishment of the civil hierarchy, with himself as the supreme judge over Israel (Deut. 1:12-17). This incident is presented in Exodus 18. In between was the battle against Amalek, where Moses sent Joshua into battle while he himself stood on a nearby hill. Moses raised his hand above his head, and Israel prevailed. But when his arms grew weary, he let them down, and Amalek prevailed. Aaron and Hur then held Moses' hands high, and Israel prevailed (Ex. 17:8-13). In that battle, Israel was victorious. This was the third miracle.
Israel's Refusal to Fight For a younger generation that knew these stories, Moses' words suggested what lay ahead: warfare. Joshua would be leading the nation into battle, his reward from God because of his courageous recommendation a generation earlier. Their parents had been told by God at the time of that earlier battle with Amalek that it was time to conquer Canaan. Their parents had not accepted this assignment. The three miracles -- manna, water out of a rock, and military victory through Moses' raised hands -- had not persuaded them that Moses' leadership could be relied on, that he had a unique position as God's spokesman. They did not believe Moses because they did not believe God.
Moses then reminded them of God's repetition of the command to conquer the land. This took place at another mountain, the mountain of the Amorites (Deut. 1:19). "And I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God doth give unto us. Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged" (vv. 20-21). Moses was speaking to the generation of the conquest; the fighting men were all dead (v. 16). Nevertheless, he spoke of his having spoken to "you." He reminded them of their parents' decision not to accept the words of Joshua and Caleb (vv. 22-25). He applied their rebellion to their children because it was a covenantally representative act. "Notwithstanding ye would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God: And ye murmured in your tents, and said, Because the LORD hated us, he hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us" (vv. 26-27). Their parents had refused to listen to Moses. "Then I said unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them. The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes; And in the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the LORD thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place. Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God, Who went in the way before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night, to shew you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by day" (vv. 29-33).
It was at this point that God had disinherited the exodus generation: "And the LORD heard the voice of your words, and was wroth, and sware, saying, Surely there shall not one of these men of this evil generation see that good land, which I sware to give unto your fathers" (vv. 34-35). Had the sins of the fathers condemned the sons? Moses would later reveal this law: "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin" (Deut. 24:16). Yet the sons had wandered with their fathers for up to 40 years. Their inheritance had been delayed. The effects of their fathers' sin had been borne in part by the sons. There is covenantal representation in history. There is hierarchy. Their parents had been in authority. They had made a bad decision that affected their children. The children had participated in the sins of their fathers in the same way that they had participated in the sin of Adam. Covenantal continuity in history is based on covenantal representation. Sons inherit from fathers; they also participate in the sins of their fathers, which can be seen in the size and timing of the inheritance.
Moses reminded them of the two exceptions to the curse: Caleb (v. 36) and Joshua. "But Joshua the son of Nun, which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither: encourage him: for he shall cause Israel to inherit it" (v. 38). For four decades, Moses had encouraged Joshua. Now the time had arrived; Joshua's time had come. It would be his assignment to cause Israel to inherit the Promised Land. The children of the exodus generation would gain what their parents had forfeited. The day of inheritance was imminent.
Their parents had rebelled by attacking the Amorites. As predicted, Israel lost that battle (vv. 41-44). From that point until the recent victories over Arad, Sihon, Og, and Moab-Midian, Israel was not allowed to fight. Israel was not entitled to the lands of Edom and Moab (Deut. 2:5, 9). They had to buy whatever they wanted: "Ye shall buy meat of them for money, that ye may eat; and ye shall also buy water of them for money, that ye may drink" (v. 6). They had forfeited their inheritance; so, God refused to allow them to engage in military conquest. If they would not fight to inherit Canaan, they would not be allowed to fight to inherit other nations' inheritances.
Compound Growth The conquest of Canaan was a unique event. The land had been assigned to Israel in Abraham's day. But there was a time limit on the fulfillment of this promise: four generations. "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15:16). God had commanded the third generation of Israelites to conquer Canaan. He commanded them to do what He had prophesied to Abraham would not take place: conquest by the third generation. How was this possible? I have dealt with this question in my commentary on Numbers. I wrote:
The third generation was called upon by God to conquer the Canaanites immediately after the exodus. "And I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the LORD our God doth give unto us. Behold, the LORD thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be discouraged" (Deut. 1:20-21). Yet the fourth generation was the promised heir (Gen. 15:16). How could God require the third generation to conquer Canaan?
This military conquest could have been achieved by the third generation's transfer of title to the inheritance to the fourth generation immediately following the exodus. This could have been achieved judicially by a transfer of military authority to the fourth generation, which was represented by Joshua and Caleb. These two men spoke for the fourth generation and its interests: immediate invasion. The other ten spies spoke for the third generation. Had the third generation's representatives accepted the testimony of Joshua and Caleb, and had they been willing to transfer military leadership to Joshua and Caleb, Israel would have entered Canaan as the conqueror a generation early.
The judicial issue, and therefore the prophetic issue, was representation. Which generation's representatives would represent all of Israel in the imposition of corporate sanctions? The answer of the third generation: "Ours." This decision, publicly manifested by the congregation's attempt to stone Joshua and Caleb (Num. 14:10), sealed their doom. They would all die in the wilderness (Num. 14:33).(1)
The exodus generation's sin in rejecting God's command had condemned them to wandering. The Amorites, i.e., the residents of Canaan and the immediate surrounding areas -- Arad, Sihon, and Og -- were given extra time by God to work out the implications of their respective faiths. They were allowed to develop their rule in certain city-states. They had an important purpose in covenant history. They became negative examples for Israel: how not to worship and live. This leads me to a conclusion: sin compounds over time. It gets worse. It feeds on itself, building to a crescendo. The Amorites were filling up their cup of iniquity. In this sense, there is a kind of positive de-sanctification that parallels positive sanctification. Evil grows to the point where God will tolerate it no longer. Then He cuts it short.
They were building up an economic inheritance for the fourth generation of Israelites. "And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full. . ." (Deut. 6:10-11). Nevertheless, Canaan's spiritual inheritance was an abomination. Israel would inherit the former but was forbidden to claim the latter.
How could this be? If Canaan's spiritual inheritance was abominable, why not also the economic results of that inheritance? If the spiritual roots were perverse, why not also the fruits? How could an evil tree produce good fruit? "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Luke 6:43). This is the question of common grace.(2)
Common Grace and Inheritance
Because man is made in the image of God, he cannot avoid certain common beliefs and evaluations. "Drop dead!" is a universally recognized negative phrase, just as "O, king, live forever" was a common term of respect in many ancient kingdoms, even though obviously impossible to fulfill in history.(3) Certain features of life are almost universally accepted as being desirable. Wealth is one of them, though not necessarily great wealth, which most men and societies acknowledge brings with it unpleasant consequences. Good health is another. Nowhere is there anyone who would deny the truth of North's universally preferable trade-off: "It is better to be rich and healthy than it is to be poor and sick." (Of course, this must be qualified by the economist's ceteris paribus: other things remaining equal.)
God makes health a universal goal for mankind. Sickness is universally regarded as a curse. There is no church ritual for anointing someone with oil in order to make him sick. There are common features of life that everyone acknowledges as preferable. People seek to attain these preferred conditions of life. Men possess commonly agreed-upon goals: wealth in general, health in general. This is an aspect of common grace. It makes economic cooperation possible among men of all religious and philosophical views. Common grace is why the efforts of Canaanites in building up their farms and vineyards produced an inheritance for Israel.
The question is: How? How did morally corrupt people achieve these positive economic results? The answer is common grace. Men agree on the desirability of certain results. This does not validate their logic or other culturally derived methods of coming to conclusions. It does not validate their worship of idols in seeking God's favor. But it does mean that there must be a common acceptance of certain principles of action in order for individuals to prosper.
One of these principles is thrift. Men through hard experience are taught to "save something for a rainy day." They are told: "waste not, want not." They learn that "a penny saved is a penny earned."(4) They learn not to eat their seed corn. Another principle is hard work. Men labor to subdue the earth in order that the earth might bring forth its fruits. The earth blooms because men work hard over time to convert the ground into something desirable.
Covenantal Limits to Growth
The life spans of men are shorter in the post-Flood world than they were before. Moses wrote: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away" (Ps. 90:10). There are limits to the growth of capital under the authority of any individual. For the compounding process in the broadest sense to continue, he must find associates who share his vision and skills, so that he may make them heirs by leaving his capital to them.
By shortening men's life spans, God made the inheritance-disinheritance factor predominant in the building of His kingdom. If men lived as long as Methuselah, there would have been only one-tenth of the number of generations. The compounding process of evil would not have been undermined nearly so effectively as it has been by the multiplying of generations. The godly inheritance compounds through the generations through the church. It cannot compound long term through either the family or the State. The family inheritance is too easily dissipated through bad marriages, broken covenants, or unmotivated heirs, while the State is not creative. No institution matches the church for long-term compounding: succession. By shortening men's lives, God has subsidized the church's advantage until such time as Christians are in a majority.
The Bible's system of covenant sanctions is clear: covenant-keepers inherit; covenant-breakers do not. Covenant-breakers are eventually disinherited by covenant-keepers. "A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just" (Prov. 13:22). This transfer of inheritance was by war in the case of the Canaanites. But after this, Israel was to extend its process of progressive inheritance through disinheritance by economic means. One of the means of extending their dominion was extending credit. "For the LORD thy God blesseth thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee" (Deut. 15:6). Their possession of wealth would multiply at the expense of covenant-breakers.
And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee. The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. And the LORD shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if that thou hearken unto the commandments of the LORD thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them: And thou shalt not go aside from any of the words which I command thee this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them (Deut. 28:11-14).
Nevertheless, covenant-breakers were not to be forced to borrow. Then how was it that their progressive disinheritance by Israel would be accomplished voluntarily? Why would they go into debt to Israel? For the same reason and in the same way that Esau was willing to sell his inheritance to Jacob (Gen. 25:30-33). Esau was more present-oriented than Jacob was. He valued present gratification more highly than Jacob did. Jacob was willing to give red pottage to Esau in exchange for Esau's future birthright. A voluntary exchange became possible because the two men had different time perspectives. Jacob was upper class; Esau was lower class.(5)
So, there are limits to growth for the covenant-breaker. The ultimate limit is eschatological: the final judgment. God will bring to a close the conflict between covenant-keepers and covenant-breakers. But prior to this eschatologically representative event, God disinherits those who hate Him. He allows covenant-breaking societies to compound their sin and their wealth for a few generations, but He allows covenant-keepers to multiply their righteousness and wealth for many generations. "Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments" (Ex. 20:5-6). This does not mean thousands of people; it means thousands of generations. The literalism of "thousands of generations" would mean at least 80,000 years (40 x 2 x 1000). I believe this language is symbolic; it means until the end of time.(6) A lengthy passage later in Moses' monologue makes this time perspective clearer. First comes God's covenant promise. Next comes God's fulfillment of the promise by giving victory to His people. This should produce in them ever-greater covenantal obedience, which in turn will produce ever-greater blessings. This is the compounding process, and it is tied to corporate obedience. The compounding process is covenantal.
But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;(7) And repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Thou shalt therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command thee this day, to do them. Wherefore it shall come to pass, if ye hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the LORD thy God shall keep unto thee the covenant and the mercy which he sware unto thy fathers: And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee. Thou shalt be blessed above all people: there shall not be male or female barren among you, or among your cattle. And the LORD will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. If thou shalt say in thine heart, These nations are more than I; how can I dispossess them? Thou shalt not be afraid of them: but shalt well remember what the LORD thy God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt (Deut. 7:8-18).
The covenant-breaking society can experience long-term growth. But the long-term growth of a covenant-breaking society is vastly shorter than the long-term growth open to a covenant-keeping society. The compounding process in any field produces accelerating growth. When you re-invest the earnings, and these investments also participate in the compounding process, the numbers get astronomical very fast. The higher the rate of growth, the faster the things being compounded reach high numbers.
What God was telling Israel was that covenantal obedience produces growth. Growth produces victory. No matter how low the rate of growth, if the compounding process can go on long enough, it will engulf the world. It will reach environmental limits of growth. This is God's way of pointing to the end of time. There are environmental limits to growth. The world is not infinite. There is just so much "stuff" to inherit. There is also a temporal limit to growth: the final judgment. The existence of compound growth for covenant-keepers points to the final victory in time of God's kingdom. It also points to the disinheritance of Satan's kingdom in history.
Cutting Off Growth
The key to the compounding is continual reinvestment. It does not matter how low the rate of growth is; if this growth continues through time long enough, it will eventually swallow up everything in the environment that feeds it. This is the message of Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare achieves a rapid conquest over space, but he does not sustain it. The tortoise can achieve only a slow conquest of space, but he never quits moving forward. The tortoise eventually overtakes the sleeping hare. "Slowly but surely" is a familiar folk phrase that illustrates this principle of comparative growth. So is "steady as you go."
God cuts off the growth of covenant-breaking societies. They grow only until their iniquity becomes full. Then they either fall or are converted to faith in God. Their growth ceases if they continue to reject God. They experience setbacks. Meanwhile, the compounding process goes on for covenant-keeping societies. Even if it is cut off temporarily, it returns.
The church is the heir of this covenantal promise. It survives all setbacks. Its growth may slow down for a time. Covenant-breaking organizations and even whole societies may outrun the church for a time. But the church is never stopped. It is like the tortoise in the fable.
Biblical principles of limited civil government, free trade, thrift, and freedom of contract produce compound economic growth. As the West has applied these principles, it has grown rich.(8) All other social orders have fallen behind the West in this regard. The lure of wealth is universal. The West's principles of economics are now being adopted by societies in Asia. The economic results of this adoption have been spectacular since the end of World War II. But these principles of economic development have been secularized by their expositors. These principles have been explained as contract-based, not covenant-based. No sovereign, personal God is said to sustain the growth process. In fact, economists have been more ready than any other academic group to dismiss God as irrelevant to theory. They were the first academic profession to secularize their discussions: in the late seventeenth century.(9)
The growth of economic output has led to the growth of population. All over the non-industrial world, populations are growing as never before in man's history. In the wealthy West, however, reproduction rates are falling. Were it not for immigration, these rates would be much lower. So, we see the covenantal realm of Satan expanding. The West has generally abandoned Christianity, and the Third World has yet to adopt it. The growth in the number of covenant-breakers is dwarfing the growth of covenant-keepers. This has put the church on the defensive.
If widespread revival does not come before the end of time, and if compound economic growth nevertheless continues, then the covenantal social theory implied by the Book of Deuteronomy can be said to have been annulled at some time prior to the twentieth century, presumably by the New Covenant. If Mosaic social theory is no longer in effect, then there can be no social theory that is explicitly based on the Bible. If there is no predictability between corporate covenant-breaking and God's corporate negative sanctions, then biblical social theory is not possible. This would place Christians at the mercy of covenant-breaking social philosophers. The wisdom of covenant-breaking man would triumph: one or another of the competing, irreconcilable systems of social cause and effect. Christians would be asked to baptize the reigning social theories of their nation. No doubt they would do so; they have done so ever since the days of the early church, when Christian apologists adopted Greek categories of philosophy in the name of Christ.(10) But this would not solve the problem of discovering what God has spoken authoritatively in New Covenant history.
Conclusion When God's people refuse to seek His wisdom and obey His word, they forfeit many opportunities. This was true in the wilderness era. It is equally true in the modern world. When God's law is not honored by God's people, they always find themselves progressively enslaved by covenant-keepers: psychologically, philosophically, culturally, economically, and politically. God prophesied this, too (Deut. 28:15-20). This corporate cursing cuts off the growth process. If corporate blessing were never restored, covenant-breakers would be given equal footing with God's people. But this cutting off of God's people is always temporary (Deut. 4:25-31).
Even though one generation may forfeit great opportunities, a subsequent generation can make up for lost time. Succession covers a multitude of losses. The goal, then, is to train up the next generation, provide it with capital, and keep the compounding process alive. As the capital base of money, talent, wisdom, and experience continues to grow, the society can live off the "interest." That is, subsequent generations are not required to save as religiously. As time goes on, the investment begins to sustain more and more projects. Dominion is extended because of the covenant community's access to a huge capital base. It can afford to make some mistakes. It need not guard its wealth so closely. But it must not live exclusively on accumulated capital. Each generation must leave its legacy to the next. Each generation should leave God's covenant society a little richer. Biblical society is value-added society.
The exodus generation had refused to honor the compounding process. They had forfeited its opportunity to inherit through Joshua's leadership. They had held on tightly to power and authority by refusing to surrender the inheritance to the fourth generation after the spies' return from the Promised Land. The third generation could have inherited through the military leadership of Joshua, but they refused. Thus, they broke the compounding process. They wandered in the wilderness until all of them died except Joshua and Caleb. Then the compounding process could begin again, and with an enlarged capital base: the wealth of Canaan.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Sanctions and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Numbers (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996), p. 139.
2. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).
3. I Kings 1:31; Nehemiah 2:3; Daniel 2:4; 3:9; 5:10; 6:6, 21.
4. Assuming a rate of zero income taxation. In high income tax brackets, a penny saved is 1.4 pennies earned.
5. Gary North, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), ch. 18.
6. Here is one reason why I believe this. Our memories are limited. We cannot recall more than a tiny fraction of our own lives. In studying the records of history, we can discover and then summarize only a few representative fragments. We remember far less than we read. So, if mankind survives for tens of millennia, men in the future will find it impossible to master the covenantal past, even when they live long lives (Isa. 65:17-20). The longer the race survives, the less we can understand of man's history. We become overwhelmed by its complexity and diversity.
7. Here, only a thousand generations are mentioned, not thousands. The language of thousands of generations is symbolic.
8. Nathan Rosenberg and L. E. Birdzell, Jr., How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
9. William Letwin, The Origins of Scientific Economics (Cambridge, Massachusetts: M.I.T. Press, 1963), ch. 6.
10. Cornelius Van Til, A Christian Theory of Knowledge (Nutley, New Jersey: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1969), Part IV: "The Church Fathers."
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