Deuteronomy 29:16-29

16 For you yourselves know how we lived in the land of Egypt and how we passed through the nations on the way here.

17 You saw the abominations and idols among them made of wood and stone, of silver and gold.

18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Make sure there is no root among you that bears such poisonous and bitter fruit, ^[a]

19 because when such a person hears the words of this oath, ^[b] he invokes a blessing on himself, saying, ‘I will have peace, even though I walk in the stubbornness of my own heart.’ This will bring disaster on the watered land as well as the dry.

20 The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven

21 and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.

22 Then the generation to come—your sons who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant land—will see the plagues of the land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it.

23 All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown and unproductive, with no plant growing on it, just like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His fierce anger.

24 So all the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land? Why this great outburst of anger?’

25 And the people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, 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, and they worshiped gods they had not known—gods that the LORD had not given to them.

27 Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against this land, and He brought upon it every curse written in this book.

28 The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’

29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:16-29 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.

Footnotes

• [a] See Hebrews 12:15
• [b] Or curse