Deuteronomy 29:21-29

21 and Jehovah will separate him for mischief out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law.

22 And the generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and its sicknesses wherewith Jehovah hath visited it,

23 [that] the whole ground thereof is brimstone and salt, [and] burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, and no grass groweth in it, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger and in his fury:

24 even all nations shall say, Why has Jehovah done thus to this land? whence the heat of this great anger?

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

26 and they went and served other gods, and bowed down to them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not assigned to them.

27 And the anger of Jehovah was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book;

28 and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in fury, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as [it appears] this day.

29 The hidden things belong to Jehovah our God; but the revealed ones are ours and our children's for ever, to do all the words of this law.

Deuteronomy 29:21-29 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]. Lit. 'made it sick.'