Celebration and Commitment: The legislative section of the book (chs. 12–25), which flowed out of a worshipping, grateful response to the acts and gifts of God (1–11), now flows into renewed worship that sanetifies the claim to have obeyed God’s requirements (26:14b). The three sections of this chapter provide a very beautifully balanced expression of the logic and dynamic of the covenant. First (vv. 1–11), there is celebration of the vertical blessing of God that each Israelite has experienced. Second (vv. 12–15), there is commitment to the horizontal obligations through which Israelites are to express their covenant loyalty to God and each other, and which will lead to fresh blessing in a dynamic cycle of blessing → obedience → blessing. Third (vv. 16–19), there is a summary statement of…