More importantly the statement that so many love to quote, "for it is written, Cursed is every one who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them", is not just one passage-verse, rather, Paul has combined two verses, and this no doubt has meaning. He has essentially quoted Deut 27:26 but has combined it with words found later in Deut 29:21.
Deut 27:26 says nothing about what is written or the book of the Law: these words are found in Deut 29:21, a companion passage statement. The major implication here is that there is a process going on: those under the curse are those who consider their justification to be by way of their own doing of the Pharisaic, outward, physical-minded "works of the law". But they are not necessarily under the curse forever, rather, if and when their hearts are turned back to the Most High, and their hearts are then circumcised by the Most High, then they will do the true and good works of the Torah just as is taught in Deuteronomy 30, which has already been expounded herein.
Now we have a more complete picture of the landscape for this
ongoing process, (of which I spoke in the above comments), simply by reading, hearing, and understanding the surrounding context for the two Torah verses which Paul combines in Gal 3:10.
These are the two statements Paul has combined:
Deuteronomy 27:26 KJV
26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Deuteronomy 29:21 KJV
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are
written in this book of the law:
And because of what is said in the second verse,
all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the Torah, it is clear enough that what is said at the beginning of the same section, Deut 29:1, pertains to the whole book of Deuteronomy. In other words Deut 29:1 is not a different covenant that begins with that statement, but is rather a synopsis of the whole book up to that point, which then continues throughout, after that statement, to the end of the book of Deuteronomy. At the point of context, in Deut 29:1, everything before that has then been written down following the sermon, which is why Deut 29:21 says
written in this book of the Torah while Deut 27:26 says nothing about anything being written. And by his choice of the two verses which he has combined, Paul has pinpointed a location in the narrative where a change of perspective and change of heart is to occur in the
ongoing process concerning the walk of every believer.
Deuteronomy
1 These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2 And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;
3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
4
Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive,
and eyes to see,
and ears to hear,
unto this day.
5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.
6 Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.
7 And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8 And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9
Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.
10
Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,
11 Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12 That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
13
That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself,
and that he may be unto thee a God,
as he hath said unto thee,
and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers,
to Abraham,
to Isaac,
and to Jacob.
14
Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15
But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God,
and also with him that is not here with us this day:
16 ( For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17 And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them: )
18 Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood;
19
And it come to pass,
when he heareth the words of this curse,
that he bless himself in his heart,
saying,
I shall have peace,
though I walk in the imagination of mine heart,
to add drunkenness to thirst:
20 The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man,
and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel,
according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it;
23 And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
24 Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?
25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt:
26 For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:
27 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28 And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.
29
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those
things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever,
that we may do all the words of this law.
And then what is said in the very next breath?
Deuteronomy 30:1-8 KJV
1 And it shall come to pass,
when all these things are come upon thee,
the blessing and the curse,
which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee,
2
And shalt return unto the LORD thy God,
and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;
3 That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.
4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
6
And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed,
to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,
and with all thy soul,
that thou mayest live.
7 And the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.
8
And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the LORD,
and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.
This is a different kind of "doing" because the heart has been circumcised. It is not a dissolution of the Torah but a different understanding of the very same commandments given from the start. They are the same commandments of which Mosheh says,
which I command you this day, (Deut 30:8). And moreover the entire book of Deuteronomy is essentially one great sermon: it is for the most part all preached in the hearing of the people in a single day,
this day, (in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first
day of the month, Deut 1:3), which phrase,
this day, is repeated over and over again going through the book.
Deuteronomy 30:4 LXX Brenton Translation
4 If thy dispersion be
from one end of heaven to the other,
thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and thence will the Lord thy God take thee.
Matthew 24:31 KJV
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other.
No wonder Paul quotes and expounds from Deuteronomy 30 in Romans 10.
The natural mind chooses death, (
#63), until the heart is circumcised and the old man nature is cut away.