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To A Thousand Generations

             Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. (Deuteronomy 7:9)

The first thing that comes to mind as I read this verse is that Scripture can and does include figurative language. The thousand generations is not some magical limit. When the 1001st generation comes along, God can and does remain faithful and keep His covenant. The reality is that within those thousand generations, there is likely to be another generation, perhaps the 848th, that also loves God and keeps His commandments. If the thousand-generation bit was literal, that would require that God keep His covenant to the 1849th generation. God’s certainly capable of keeping track of such things, but that would make His behavior contingent upon the behavior of those who love Him and keep His commandments. That would mean that those who love Him would be His gods, in control of the situation.

Instead, the point is simply that God keeps His covenant of love for so long it’s effectively immeasurable and far longer than we deserve.  This is further complicated by the question of what God considers loving. He tends to use what we consider evil for our long-term benefit.

The other idea that comes to mind is that when God is The Light, we case a much longer and broader reflection or refraction than we might think. We tend to consider that something like starting a family or saving a life might influence a few people besides ourselves, but most of our decisions and our actions are for us alone or shed light on or illuminate those immediately connected with us or some event. But consider that from Jacob to Moses was about 400 years and 5 generations. There is debate about how many Israelites left Egypt, with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 2.4 million. We sometimes talk about “generational curses.” How about the idea of generational blessings? Either way, what we do ripples out in the present and the future like a rock dropped into a lake. And what God does travels much farther. 

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