Deuteronomy 10 · a question people ask
Moses tells Israel to circumcise their hearts. Later the LORD says he will do it. Which is it?
Here Moses commands, "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked" (10:16). Near the end of the book, for the day when Israel returns to the LORD (30:1-2) he promises, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live" (30:6). Christians read the two in two main ways, each resting on verses. All agree that both stand in the same book, and that what the LORD asks for is love "with all your heart and with all your soul" (10:12; 30:6).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A call that shows the need
Those who hold this view read 10:16 as a real command that Israel had not been given the heart to keep: "the LORD has not given you a heart to know" (29:4), and "you have been rebellious against the LORD" (31:27). On this reading the LORD promises to do himself what he commanded (30:6), as he later promises through Ezekiel: "I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you" (Ezekiel 36:26).
Deuteronomy 29:4 · Deuteronomy 31:27 · Deuteronomy 30:6 · Ezekiel 36:26
A call within reach
Those who hold this view read 10:16 as something Israel could and should do. Moses says of the commandment, "For this commandment which I command you today is not too hard for you or too distant" (30:11), and Jeremiah calls the people in the same words: "Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart" (Jeremiah 4:4). On this reading 30:6 is the LORD's promise to those who "return to the LORD your God and obey his voice" (30:2), given with their turning, not in place of it.
Deuteronomy 30:11 · Jeremiah 4:4 · Deuteronomy 30:2 · Deuteronomy 30:6
The verses
“Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked.”
“It shall happen, when all these things have come on you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you shall call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God and obey his voice according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul,”
“The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, and the heart of your offspring, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”
“Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,”