What does it mean that you are the head and not the tail in Deuteronomy 28:13?

With regard to this twenty-eighth of Deuteronomy, if the reader only seizes the fact of its entire distinctness from its predecessor, he will be able to read it with spiritual intelligence and real profit. There is no need whatever for elaborate exposition. It divides itself naturally and obviously into two parts. In the first, we have a full and most blessed statement of the results of obedience. (See verses 1-15.) In the second, we have a deeply solemn and affecting statement of the awful consequences of disobedience. (See verses 16-68.) And we cannot but be struck with the fact that the section continuing the curses is more than three times the length of the one containing the blessings. That consists of fifteen verses; this of fifty-three. The whole chapter furnishes an impressive commentary on the government of God, and a most forcible illustration of the fact that "our God is a consuming fire." All the nations of the earth may learn from Israel's marvellous history, that God must punish disobedience, and that, too, first of all, in His own. And if He has not spared His own people, what shall be the end of those who know Him not? "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." It is the very height of extravagant folly for any one to attempt to evade the full force of such passages, or to explain them away. It cannot be done. Let any one read the chapter before us and compare it with the actual history of Israel, and he will see that as sure as there is a God on the throne of the majesty in the heavens, so surely will He punish evildoers, both here and hereafter. It cannot be otherwise. The government that could or would allow evil to go unjudged, uncondemned, unpunished, would not be a perfect government, would not be the government of God. It is vain to found arguments upon one-sided views of the goodness, kindness and mercy of God. Blessed be His Name, He is kind and good and merciful and gracious, long-suffering and full of compassion. But He is holy and just, righteous and true; and "he has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world [the habitable earth, oikoumenen] in righteousness, by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance [given proof, pistin] to all, in that he has raised him from the dead." (Acts 17.)

However, we must draw this section to a close; but, ere doing so, we feel it to be our duty to call the reader's attention to a very interesting point in connection with verse 13 of our chapter. "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 to the commandments of the Lord thy God, which I command thee this day, to observe and to do them." This, no doubt, refers to Israel as a nation. They are destined to be the head of all the nations of the earth. Such is the sure and settled purpose and counsel of God respecting them. Low as they are now sunk, scattered and lost amongst the nations, suffering the terrible consequences of their persistent disobedience, sleeping, as we read in Daniel 12, in the dust of the earth; yet they shall, as a nation, arise and shine in far brighter glory than that of Solomon.

All this is blessedly true, and established, beyond all question, in manifold passages in Moses, the Psalms, the prophets and the New Testament. But, in looking through the history of Israel, we find some very striking instances of individuals who were permitted and enabled, through infinite grace, to make their own of the precious promise contained in verse 13, and that too in very dark and depressing periods of the national history, when Israel, as a nation, was the tail and not the head. We shall just give the reader an instance or two, not only to illustrate our point, but also to set before him a principle of immense practical importance and universal application.

Let us turn, for a moment, to that charming little book of Esther — a book so little understood or appreciated — a book which, we may truly say, fills a niche and teaches a lesson which no other book does. It belongs to a period when, most assuredly, Israel was not the head, but the tail; but, notwithstanding, it presents to our view the very edifying and encouraging picture of an individual son of Abraham so carrying himself as to reach the very highest position, and gaining a splendid victory over Israel's bitterest foe.

In such a case Israel would be the head of the nations, and not the tail (v.13). Sadly, through rebellion against God Israel became the tail for centuries, not even having possession of their land, and they are still far from the place of being head of the nations. But when they are turned back to receive the Lord Jesus, their true Messiah, there will be such a change that they will again be the head of all nations for the entire thousand years of millennial blessing.

Locusts would consume the trees and all the produce of the land (v.42). Israel has often suffered from such infestations. This is a direct infliction of God which ought to have driven Israel back to Him in repentance. Aliens would get the ascendancy over Israel. They would have to borrow from aliens instead of the opposite way around (v.44), thus the foreigner would be the head and Israel the tail, a reversal of what would be true if Israel were obedient (vs.12-13).

The divinely appointed place of Israel is described thus: "Jehovah shall make thee the head, and not the tail, and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath, if thou hearken to the commandments of Jehovah thy God" (Deut: 28:13). When the descendants of Noah, with their diverse languages, scattered abroad, and seized upon lands here and there as it pleased them, the invisible hand of God guided them to where He would require them when Israel came upon the scene. No one understood this divine working at the time. God may have spoken of it to Abraham and to others; hence the words of Moses when he placed the international position before Israel's tribes shortly before they entered the land of Canaan: "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the most High divided (or, assigned) to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel" (Deut: 32:7-8). Men may at any time lay violent hands upon territories that they desire, but only by divine permission can they obtain them. The all wise Creator sees some way in which the wrath of man will serve His purpose. There is thus an over-ruling hand which controls the movements of nations, little as men perceive it. This was true in the earliest days, and it is true still.

That we may the more clearly discern the difference between the calling of the church and that of Israel, let us look a little further at what Scripture reveals as to the latter. It is only that we may better see the contrast between them. In Deut. 28 we have the blessings promised to Israel in case of their obedience. They have entirely failed in obedience, as we know, and have thus forfeited all those blessings. But, as we have seen so largely in Scripture, they are to be brought back. Grace will reinstate them in all their forfeited blessings; and they will be maintained in the enjoyment of these blessings by the righteous rule of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what are these blessings? "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth." You see it is one nation in contrast with, and exalted above, all other nations. "And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. … The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy store-houses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto: and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." What have we here but a fulness of earthly blessings, by which this one nation was to be distinguished from, and set above all others? The effect which was to have followed is stated also. "And all people of the earth shall see that thou art called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of thee." Abundant and continual prosperity in earthly, temporal things was what all nations could understand; and this they were to have seen in Israel, had Israel been obedient: and by this they were to have seen that Israel was called by the Lord's name. "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." How manifestly, then, was Israel's calling a calling to pre-eminence and glory and power, and plenty and prosperity and blessedness on the earth. And though through disobedience they have entirely forfeited these their promised blessings; and though when they are restored, as they surely will be, it will be entirely of grace; this will not have changed their calling, and the character of their blessing. They will inherit spiritual blessings, it is true — forgiveness — regeneration — the saving knowledge of Christ — but they will enjoy these spiritual blessings not in heavenly but in earthly places. And the fulness of earthly blessing will still be the distinctive mark of their calling. All the prophecies of their restoration, and subsequent happiness and prosperity, prove this. One only I will quote in addition to those already cited in former lectures. "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed., and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God." (Amos 9:13-15.) How beautiful are these words. And yet how evidently do they promise to restore Israel's temporal blessings in earthly places. These will be enjoyed by them, it is true, as God's people; they will have become such then in reality, in truth. They will have been born again; for there is no entrance into the kingdom, even as to its earthly department, but by being born again.

In approaching the study of this remarkable section of our book, the reader must bear in mind that it is by no means, to be confounded with chapter 27. Some expositors, in seeking to account for the absence of the blessings in the latter, have sought for them here. But it is a grand mistake — a mistake absolutely fatal to the proper understanding of either chapter. The obvious fact is, the two chapters are wholly distinct, in basis, scope and practical application. Chapter 27 is — to put it as pointedly and briefly as possible — moral and personal. Chapter 28 is dispensational and national. That deals with the great root principle of man's moral condition, as a sinner utterly ruined and wholly incapable of meeting God on the ground of law; this, on the other hand, takes up the question of Israel as a nation, under the government of God. In short, a careful comparison of the two chapters will enable the reader to see their entire distinctness. For instance, what connection can we trace between the six blessings of our chapter and the twelve curses of chapter 27? None whatever. It is not possible to establish the slightest relationship. But a child can see the moral link between the blessings and curses of chapter 28.

Let us quote a passage or two in proof. "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently to the voice of the Lord thy God" — the grand old Deuteronomic motto, the key note of the book — "to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God" — the only safeguard, the true secret of happiness, security, victory and strength — Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out."

Is it not perfectly plain to the reader that these are not the blessings pronounced by the six tribes on mount Gerazim? What is here presented to us is Israel's national dignity, prosperity, and glory founded upon their diligent attention to all the commandments set before them in this book. It was the eternal purpose of God that Israel should be pre-eminent on the earth, high above all the nations. This purpose shall, assuredly, be made good, although Israel, in the past, have shamefully failed to render that perfect obedience which was to form the basis of their national pre-eminence and glory.

And yet this is the end marked out by Divine love, for Israel can never be the head of the nations (see Deut. 28:13) unless that goal is reached by the hard road of repentance, and Israel shall recognize as her Sovereign and Lord, One whom they crucified. The glory and beneficence of Christ's rule shall stretch out to the ends of the earth. The nations will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and war shall no more be learned (see Isa. 2:4). "The Sun of Righteousness [shall] arise with healing in His wings," (Mal. 4:2) and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (Hab. 2: 14). Lord hasten that blissful day!

As to the place the nation, with Jerusalem and Zion, will have in the kingdom, only a few passages out of so many that there are can be referred to. Deuteronomy 15:6 will not fail of its accomplishment in the supremacy of Israel among the nations, though long deferred through their failure on the ground of responsibility. Then "the Lord shall make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath." "He shall subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet" (Ps. 47:3. See also Isa. 60:12-14). But this will be brought about by the resources of God's sovereign grace, connected with the establishment of royalty in God's king in Zion, when under law and even priesthood they had utterly broken down. See Psalm 78 for the record of their failure, and the place that Judah and Mount Zion and David have at the close as the new ground of the blessing of the people, also Psalm 132:13 et seq. This is ever the significance of Zion in Scripture. God sets His king there (Ps. 2). The salvation of Israel is looked for to come out of it (Ps. 14); and Isaiah 66 celebrates the accomplishment of it. In the psalms that follow the introduction of the king in Psalm 45 (as, for instance, (Ps. 48:2), Zion is the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great king (see also vers. 8, 11-12). Again, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shined (Ps. 50:2). "In that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. … The Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously" (Isa. 24:21, etc.). "There shall the mountain of the Lord's house be established, and out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:2-3; Micah 4:1-3; Zeph. 3:14-20).

One more link we may look at, Isaiah 18:3. "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, see ye, and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye!" In this short chapter the restoration of Israel back to their land is so clearly stated that little need be said about it. Israel has long been "a people scattered and peeled (ravaged) and meted out (continued waiting)." The rivers set forth ordered states of government as seen in the nations. The nations of ordered government have spoiled the land of Israel and will yet spoil it. That is why we have judgments four times on the rivers in the book of Revelation. But Jehovah their God will judge these rivers and the lands to which they belong; Israel will be delivered and restored; the new moon will arise and she will take her place as the head and not the tail of the nations. This will be the time of the feast of Tabernacles of which the feast of trumpets is the beginning.

Certainly, He will subdue the peoples of the earth, but more explicitly He will subdue them under Israel (v. 3). The nations have treated her as "the tail" but she will be the head in that day, a complete reversal of her place in the world. Besides this, it is the Lord who will choose their inheritance for them (v. 44). Other nations today are making every effort to displace Israel from the little space of land she has been claiming, but she will have obtained more in the coming day. For the Lord calls them "the excellence of Jacob whom He loves." However undeserving Jacob has been, God's counsels of pure grace stand inviolate: no nation will ever displace them when God gives them their inheritance.