11:26 Take note – I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 1
33:1 This is the blessing Moses the man of God pronounced upon the Israelites before his death.
1 sn A blessing and a curse. Every extant treaty text of the late Bronze Age attests to a section known as the “blessings and curses,” the former for covenant loyalty and the latter for covenant breach. Blessings were promised rewards for obedience; curses were threatened judgments for disobedience. In the Book of Deuteronomy these are fully developed in 27:1–28:68. Here Moses adumbrates the whole by way of anticipation.