Unlike the Abrahamic Covenant, this promise is conditional - Israel can choose to accept the terms or it can go its own way. They have a choice to make:
"See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil."God desires to bless them abundantly, and shower them in life and prosperity:
"If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you today, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it."This blessing is contingent upon the obedience and loyalty of Israel though:
"But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess."This condition is not because God is a control freak, but because He has a grand plan to execute through them. It's really quite the modest request - if I'm going to be your almighty God, you need to acknowledge that I am in fact God. You can't claim to follow me while also worshiping man-made idols. What an [ostensibly] easy yoke to bear!
"Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them."In a more general sense, this fork in the road between life and death is similar to the one that faces all of us - God offers us eternal life and infinite joy, and all we have to do is accept it and love Him.
Therefore choose life.
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I like your summation.
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