Deuteronomy 29:22

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—

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 the Lord will be unwilling to pardon them, for the Lord's anger and passion will smoke against them. All the curses written in this book will descend on them, and the Lord will blot out their names from under heaven.
21 The Lord will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.
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?"
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.