Deuteronomy 29:11-21

11 your little ones, your wives, and your sojourner who is in the midst of your camps, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water;

12 that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day;

13 that he may establish you this day to himself for a people, and that he may be to you a God, as he spoke to you, and as he swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Ya`akov.

14 Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath,

15 but with him who stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him who is not here with us this day

16 (for you know how we lived in the land of Mitzrayim, and how we came through the midst of the nations through which you passed;

17 and you have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them);

18 lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away this day from the LORD our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that bears gall and wormwood;

19 and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have shalom, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry.

20 The LORD will not pardon him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky.

21 The LORD will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Yisra'el, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.

Deuteronomy 29:11-21 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.