Deuteronomy 29:22

22 "And the next generation, [that is], your children who will rise [up] after you, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land, when they will see the plagues of that land and its diseases that Yahweh has inflicted upon it, will say,

Deuteronomy 29:22 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 29:22

So that the generation to come of your children that shall
rise up after you
Not the next generation, but in future times, in ages to come, at a great distance, even after the destruction of Judea by the Romans; to which ( Deuteronomy 29:23 ) seems to refer:

and the stranger that shall come from a far land;
on trade and business, or for the sake of travelling, his road either lying through it, or his curiosity leading him to see it:

shall say, when they see the plagues of the land;
cities and towns in ruins, fields lie uncultivated, and the whole land depopulated, and all become a barren wilderness, which was once a fruitful country, a land flowing with milk and honey:

and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it;
upon the inhabitants of it, as the pestilence and other diseases, which shall have swept the land of them; see ( Deuteronomy 28:22 Deuteronomy 28:27 Deuteronomy 28:35 ) . This case supposes a general departure from the worship of God to the service of idols; otherwise single individuals are punished in their own persons, as in the ( Deuteronomy 29:21 ) .

Deuteronomy 29:22 In-Context

20 Yahweh will not be willing to forgive him, for [by then] the anger of Yahweh will smoke, and his passion against that man and all the curses written in this scroll will descend on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under heaven.

21 And Yahweh will single him out for calamity out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in the scroll of this law.

22 "And the next generation, [that is], your children who will rise [up] after you, and the foreigner who will come from a distant land, when they will see the plagues of that land and its diseases that Yahweh has inflicted upon it, will say,

23 'All its land is brimstone and salt left by fire, {none of its land will be sown}, and it will not make plants sprout out and it will not grow any vegetation; [it is] as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Adman and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overturned in his anger and in his wrath.'

24 And all the nations will say, '{Why} has Yahweh done {such a thing} to this land? What [caused] the fierceness of this great anger?'

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew "and"