What is the meaning of the word 'curse' in Nehemiah 10:29?
Nehemiah 10:29
ESV - 29 Join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's Law that was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our Lord and his rules and his statutes.
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Asked March 02 2014
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Susan Douglas
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Faith Cross
What this word "curse" in Nehemiah 10:29 refers to is that when the people were getting ready to leave Babylon and to return to Jerusalem at the end of their captivity, they were admitting that the reason God had sent them to Babylon was because they had not obeyed God's Law. The Law, as set out in Deutoronomy, included blessings for following it, and also cursings for not obeying it fully. You can't have one without the other. They had just finally come to the end of their 70 years in Babylon because of the Transgression of the Law. Now, they were vowing to keep the entire Law. Basically they were saying "We will keep the law or die by the law!" Galatians chapters 3-6 are good chapters to explain how we have been freed from the Law unto Grace by the Cross of Christ. Galatians 3:10-14 says, "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." The Law was set down through Moses 430 years after God made covenant with Abraham to send a Messiah through his descendants. The Law was given as an Intermediary system until the product of faith should arrive; which is Christ Gal 3:23-24 says, "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith."
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