God had established his covenant with a single people and brought that one people into the Promised Land. The term scatter
catches the notion of the Lord not only undoing their settlement in the Promised Land but also breaking the unity of this people. The action of the farmer taking seed from his bag and scattering it over his acreage provides a graphic picture of the two aspects caught in the word. By means of the exile, God’s people have been strewn far and wide among the surrounding nations. We understand that such scattering also breaks a people’s unity and threatens their sense of identity.
8 Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples,