R.C. Sproul

In a country, you'll be cursed.

In the sea, you'll be cursed.

You know, your children will be cursed.

Your sheep will be cursed.

Your dogs will be cursed.

Your cat will be cursed.

Your baker will be cursed.

Curse everywhere, right?

Now, to understand that, we have to understand what it means to be blessed.

blessedness has to do to the Jewish mind with respect to proximity and remoteness of the presence of God.

The closer you get to the immediate presence of God, the greater the blessedness.

The further removed you are from the face of God, the less the blessedness.

Because when the people of Israel would encamp in the wilderness, they were to pitch their tents according to a structure that God gave them of the arrangements of the tribe.

And, you know, Reuben would be in one place, and Simeon would be somewhere else, and Issachar would be somewhere else, and, you know, the rest of those tribes.

The tribes would camp in a circle.

What was at the center?

The tabernacle.

Because God pitched his tent...

in the middle, right in the midst of the people, saying, here I am.

So again, the concept of blessedness is understood in terms of the nearness, the proximity, the presence of God.