18
respond positively to the revelation of God. However, why would the people respond
positively to this call for obedience if they knew they would only end up in exile
anyway? Why not just resign themselves to this fate? The promise of restoration
undergirds the call for obedience that follows. The people are to seek to obey the law in
faith that God will fulfill his promises for them in the future in spite of their sin.
There are two predominant motifs from the context of Deut. 30:12-14 that Paul
may have had in mind as he quotes this passage in Rom. 10:6-8. The first we can glean
directly from the verses he quotes. God did not leave his people wondering what he
required of them, but had graciously revealed his law so that it was clear and accessible
to them. It may be worth noting that the proverbial questions in Deut. 30:12-14 are not
expressions of human working, and are not used to address an attempt by Israel to exert
effort to discover the law. These questions are expressions of throwing up one's hands
for not understanding divine ways, and are opposed by Moses to affirm that God has not
left his people in uncertainty but has clearly revealed his law to them. In other words, the
use of the proverbial questions has to do with the nearness and clarity of God's revelation,
and not with human effort. The second motif we can glean from the immediate context
of Deut. 30:12-14. It is appropriate to think that Paul may have had this context in mind,
following the widely accepted observation of C.H. Dodd that the NT writers "often
quoted a single phrase or sentence not merely for its own sake, but as a pointer to a whole
context."
The people of Israel would inevitably fail in their attempts to obey the law
because of sin, and would face the covenant curses (e.g., 28:58-68). In spite of human
22
Dodd, "The Old Testament in the New" in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? ed. G.K.
Beale (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 176. See further C.H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The
Substructure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1952).