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Deuteronomy 29

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The Covenant in Moab 1–9

1
These are the words of the covenant, which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. ​
2
And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; ​
3
The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:
4
Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. ​
5
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot. ​
6
Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the LORD your God. ​
7
And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:
8
And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.
9
Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do. ​

All Israel Enters the Covenant 10–15

10
Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, ​
11
Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:
12
That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee this day:
13
That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. ​
14
Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;
15
But with him that standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him that is not here with us this day: ​

Warning Against Apostasy and Secret Sin 16–21

16
(For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by;
17
And ye 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 turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood; ​
19
And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst: ​
20
The LORD will not spare 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:

Desolation of the Land and the Secret Things of God 22–29

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 hath laid upon it; ​
23
And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: ​
24
Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? what meaneth 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 whom he had not given unto them:
27
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:
28
And the LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day. ​
29
The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. ​

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

Study Notes for Deuteronomy 29

Verse 1

beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb — The Moab covenant stands ‘beside’ the Horeb covenant, in addition to it. Moses had already said, ‘The LORD our God made a covenant with us in Horeb’ (Deut 5:2). Here the LORD commands, Moses makes the covenant, and ‘all the words’ of it follow in the chapter.

Verse 2

Ye have seen — Moses opens with what the people saw, and the verb raah, to see, runs through vv.2–4: ‘Ye have seen all that the LORD did’, ‘the great temptations which thine eyes have seen’, ‘eyes to see’. The same appeal to sight opened the covenant at Sinai: ‘Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians’ (Ex 19:4).

Verse 4

an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear — Seeing the signs had not given understanding, and the missing gift is placed in the heart (lev). Paul uses the verse of Israel in his day, ‘eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day’ (Rom 11:8). The remedy is promised in Ezek 36:26, ‘A new heart also will I give you’.

Verse 5

your clothes are not waxen old — The LORD now speaks in the first person: ‘I have led you forty years in the wilderness’. Balah, to wear out, is the verb of Deut 8:4, ‘Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years’. The generation addressed had worn the same garments through the whole journey.

Verse 6

Ye have not eaten bread — Bread and wine belong to a settled land, and in the wilderness Israel ‘did eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited’ (Ex 16:35). The purpose is stated in the verse: ‘that ye might know that I am the LORD your God’, the knowledge promised at the first giving of the quail and bread (Ex 16:12).

Verse 9

that ye may prosper — Sakal is to act with insight, and so to succeed. The same verb is in the charge that David gave Solomon, ‘that thou mayest prosper in all that thou doest’ (1 Kgs 2:3), and in the LORD’s charge to Joshua, ‘that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest’ (Josh 1:7). The condition each time is keeping the law.

Verse 10

Ye stand this day all of you — Natsab is to take one’s station. The list runs from ‘captains of your tribes’ (literally the heads), the elders and the officers down to ‘thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water’ (v.11). No rank in the camp is left outside the covenant.

Verse 13

for a people unto himself… a God — These two clauses are the covenant promise itself. The LORD gave it to Abraham, ‘to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee’ (Gen 17:7), and in Egypt, ‘I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God’ (Ex 6:7). Moses adds the oath to ‘Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob’.

Verse 15

him that is not here with us this day — The covenant binds those who are absent, who in v.22 are ‘the generation to come of your children’. Of Horeb Moses said it was made ‘with us… alive this day’ (Deut 5:3); this covenant reaches the unborn too. Peter says of the promise of the new covenant that it is ‘unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off’ (Acts 2:39).

Verse 17

their abominations, and their idols — Shiqquts is a detestable thing, and gillul, the word for ‘idols’, occurs nowhere else in Deuteronomy. The first materials named, ‘wood and stone’, are those of ‘gods, the work of men’s hands’ (Deut 4:28). Israel had seen such images in Egypt and among the nations on the way (v.16).

Verse 18

a root that beareth gall and wormwood — The warning names ‘man, or woman, or family, or tribe’ whose heart turns to the gods of the nations, and it calls that one a root. Rosh (gall) and laanah (wormwood) are bitter, and the LORD uses them as judgment: ‘I will feed them… with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink’ (Jer 9:15). See Heb 12:15.

Verse 19

bless himself in his heart — The man hears ‘the words of this curse’ and tells himself ‘I shall have peace’. The Hebrew alah is ‘oath’ in vv.12 and 14 and ‘curse’ in vv.19–21, so to hear the oath is to hear its curse. Jeremiah describes the same assurance: ‘No evil shall come upon you’ to ‘every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart’ (Jer 23:17).

Verse 20

shall smoke against that man — Ashan, to smoke, is the verb of Ps 74:1, ‘why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?’ Here it is anger and jealousy together. ‘Blot out his name from under heaven’ echoes the words to Moses in Deut 9:14, now said of the single man who dismisses the curse.

Verse 22

the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses — Two groups of onlookers are named in this verse: the children’s generation and ‘the stranger that shall come from a far land’. They see the land after the curses have fallen. Jeremiah describes the same sight for Jerusalem: ‘every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof’ (Jer 19:8).

Verse 23

like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim — Machpekah, overthrow, is the event of Gen 19:24–25, when the LORD ‘rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire’ and ‘overthrew those cities, and all the plain’. Hosea names two of the four: ‘how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim?’ (Hos 11:8).

Verse 24

Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this land? — The question returns in nearly the same words in Solomon’s day, ‘Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house?’ (1 Kgs 9:8), and of Jerusalem in Jer 22:8. Each time the answer follows, as in vv.25–27: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the LORD’.

Verse 28

rooted them out of their land — Natash, to pluck up. The LORD says the same by Ahijah, ‘he shall root up Israel out of this good land’ (1 Kgs 14:15), and in 2 Chr 7:20, ‘Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land’. The northern tribes were ‘carried away out of their own land to Assyria unto this day’ (2 Kgs 17:23).

Verse 29

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God — After the account of judgment, Moses sets the line between what God has kept to himself and what he has uncovered (galah) for ‘us and… our children for ever’, so that they may ‘do all the words of this law’. See Dan 2:22, ‘He revealeth the deep and secret things’, and Rom 11:33.