Deuteronomy 29:24

24 then all the nations will ask, 'Why did ADONAI do this to this land? What is the meaning of such frenzied, furious anger?'

Deuteronomy 29:24 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 29:24

Even all nations shall say
For the destruction of this land, and the people of it, would be, as it has been, so very great and awful, and so very remarkable and surprising, that the fame of it would be heard among all the nations of the world, as it has been; who, upon hearing the sad report of it, would ask the following questions:

wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land?
so distinguished from all others for the fruitfulness and pleasantness of it; the people, the inhabitants of which, he chose, above all others, to be a special and peculiar people; and where he had a temple built for him, and where he had his residence, and worship used to be given unto him:

what [meaneth] the heat of this great anger?
what is the reason of his stirring up his fierce wrath, and causing it to burn in so furious a manner? surely it must be something very horrible and provoking indeed!

Deuteronomy 29:24 In-Context

22 "When the next generation, your children who will grow up after you, and the foreigner who arrives from a distant land, see the plagues of that land and the diseases with which ADONAI has made it sick,
23 and that the whole land has become burning sulfur and salt, that it isn't being sown or bearing crops or even producing grass - like the overthrow of S'dom, 'Amora, Admah and Tzvoyim, which ADONAI overthrew in his furious anger -
24 then all the nations will ask, 'Why did ADONAI do this to this land? What is the meaning of such frenzied, furious anger?'
25 People will answer, 'It's because they abandoned the covenant of ADONAI, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
26 They went and served other gods, prostrating themselves before them, gods they had not known and which he had not assigned them.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.