Tag: Only God can give us Joy in our Work - Deuteronomy 16-19

Deuteronomy 16:15

For seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

Tag:  Only God can add Joy to our Work

The nation of Israel had several “feasts” they were commanded to observe.  The above verse is taken from the instructions about the Feast of Booths.   Note one commentator’s words:

Otherwise known as the Feast of Booths, this feast came as the climax of Israel’s agricultural year after all the grain and grape harvest was completed (v. 13; cf. also Exod. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:33–43; and Num. 29:12–38). It was a time of great celebration and joy and possibly took its name from the temporary shelters built by the harvesters in the fields at that time of year. Leviticus 23:42–43, however, links the practice to the temporary dwellings that Israel had to make do with after the exodus, thus once again illustrating the characteristic Israelite habit of relating the festivals of the agricultural year to the events of their redemptive history. As with the integration of Passover and Unleavened Bread, the motivation linked with the Feasts of Weeks and Tabernacles combines the past (the exodus, v. 12) and the future (the promised land, v. 15). (UBC OT). 

The key in the above verse is that the source of their blessing over their work is God giving them joy and goodwill.   In Genesis, after the sin of Adam, the following curse was placed upon man:

Genesis 3:17-19

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife

and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you,

‘You shall not eat of it,’

cursed is the ground because of you;

in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;

and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread,

till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken;

for you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.”

When we work, as a result of the fall, we are to work by the sweat of our face.  Work, because of Adam’s sin, is supposed to be work.   Only God can add joy to our work.  Note what Solomon will say later:

Proverbs 10:22

The blessing of the Lord makes rich,

and he adds no sorrow with it.

Our work is only blessed by God.   If we receive blessings and joy and good will, it is because God has chosen to do so.  That is the point of the Feast of Booths.  We are to celebrate the blessings God gives us in our work.