Deuteronomy 29:24

24 and all the nations shall say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land? what this great fierceness of 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 And another generation shall say—even your sons who shall rise up after you, and the stranger who shall come from a land afar off, and shall see the plagues of that land and their diseases, which the Lord has sent upon it,

23 brimstone and burning salt, (the whole land shall not be sown, neither shall any green thing spring, nor rise upon it, as Sodom and Gomorrha were overthrown, Adama and Seboim, which the Lord overthrew in his wrath and anger:)—

24 and all the nations shall say, Why has the Lord done thus to this land? what this great fierceness of anger?

25 And shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, the things which he appointed to their fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt:

26 and they went and served other gods, which they knew not, neither did he assign to them.