Deuteronomy 29:22-29

22 The next generation, your children who rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who comes from a distant country, will see the devastation of that land and the afflictions with which the Lord has afflicted it—

23 all its soil burned out by sulfur and salt, nothing planted, nothing sprouting, unable to support any vegetation, like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his fierce anger—

24 they and indeed all the nations will wonder, "Why has the Lord done thus to this land? What caused this great display of anger?"

25 They will conclude, "It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

26 They turned and served other gods, worshiping them, gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them;

27 so the anger of the Lord was kindled against that land, bringing on it every curse written in this book.

28 The Lord uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as is now the case."

29 The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:22-29 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 29

This chapter begins with an intimation of another covenant the Lord was about to make with the people of Israel, De 29:1; and, to prepare their minds to an attention to it, various things which the Lord had done for them are recited, De 29:2-9; the persons are particularly mentioned with whom the covenant would now be made, the substance of which is, that they should be his people, and he their God, De 29:10-15; and since they had seen the idols in Egypt and other countries, with which they might have been ensnared, they are cautioned against idolatry and idolaters, as being most provoking to the Lord, De 29:16-21; which would bring destruction not only on particular persons, but upon their whole land, to the amazement of posterity; who, inquiring the reason of it, will be told, it was because they forsook the covenant of God, and particularly were guilty of idolatry, which, whether privately or openly committed, would be always punished, De 29:22-29.