Deuteronomy 29:9-19

9 Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.

10 "All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel,

11 your little ones and your wives--also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water--

12 that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and into His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today,

13 that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

14 "I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone,

15 but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today

16 (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by,

17 and you saw their abominations and their idols which were among them--wood and stone and silver and gold);

18 so that there may not 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 these nations, and that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood;

19 and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, 'I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart'--as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

Deuteronomy 29:9-19 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]. Or stubbornness