Deuteronomy 29:17-27

17 and ye have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which they have among them.

18 Peradventure there shall be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those Gentiles; peradventure there shall be among you a root that bears poison and wormwood;

19 and it shall be, when that one hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst.

20 The LORD will not forgive him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.

21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law.

22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it,

23 and that the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burning, that it is not sown, nor shall it produce anything, nor shall any grass grow therein, like in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and in his wrath;

24 even all Gentiles shall say, Why has the LORD done thus unto this land? What means the heat of this great anger?

25 Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt;

26 for they went and served other gods and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not and who had not given anything unto them.

27 Therefore, the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book.

Deuteronomy 29:17-27 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.