Deuteronomy 2 Devotional

The Lord of Every Border

“Indeed, the LORD your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The LORD your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.”Deuteronomy 2:7 (BSB)

Deuteronomy 2 covers thirty-eight years in a few lines. The generation that refused to enter the land dies in the wilderness, just as the LORD had sworn (2:14-15). Then God gives surprising orders. They must not provoke Edom, Moab, or Ammon, or take even a footprint of their land, because God has given those lands to them (2:5, 9, 19). The asides about older peoples driven out make the same point: every border on the map is in his hands (2:21-22).

The chapter ends with war. Sihon refuses to let Israel pass, the LORD makes his heart stubborn, and Israel devotes his cities to destruction, children included (2:30-34). The text does not soften this. It shows a God who rules over nations in judgment as surely as he provides for his own. And he does provide: through forty years in the wilderness, Israel lacked nothing (2:7). The same God who sets limits on what his people may take also supplies what they need, so his limits can be received as part of his care.

To think about: What limit in your life could you receive as part of God's care rather than as something he is keeping from you?