Deuteronomy 29

1 The Lord commanded Moses to make an agreement with the Israelites in Moab in addition to the agreement he had made with them at Mount Sinai. These are the words of that agreement.

2 Moses called all the Israelites together and said to them: You have seen everything the Lord did before your own eyes to the king of Egypt and to the king's leaders and to the whole country.

3 With your own eyes you saw the great troubles, signs, and miracles.

4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands; you don't really understand what you see with your eyes or hear with your ears.

5 I led you through the desert for forty years, and during that time neither your clothes nor sandals wore out.

6 You ate no bread and drank no wine or beer. This was so you would understand that I am the Lord your God.

7 When you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight us, but we defeated them.

8 We captured their land and gave it to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh to be their own.

9 You must carefully obey everything in this agreement so that you will succeed in everything you do.

10 Today you are all standing here before the Lord your God -- your leaders and important men, your older leaders, officers, and all the other men of Israel,

11 your wives and children and the foreigners who live among you, who chop your wood and carry your water.

12 You are all here to enter into an agreement and a promise with the Lord your God, an agreement the Lord your God is making with you today.

13 This will make you today his own people. He will be your God, as he told you and as he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

14 But I am not just making this agreement and its promises with you

15 who are standing here before the Lord your God today, but also with those who are not here today.

16 You know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries when we came here.

17 You saw their hateful idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold.

18 Make sure no man, woman, family group, or tribe among you leaves the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. They would be to you like a plant that grows bitter, poisonous fruit.

19 These are the kind of people who hear these curses but bless themselves, thinking, "We will be safe even though we continue doing what we want to do." Those people may destroy all of your land, both wet and dry.

20 The Lord will not forgive them. His anger will be like a burning fire against those people, and all the curses written in this book will come on them. The Lord will destroy any memory of them on the earth.

21 He will separate them from all the tribes of Israel for punishment. All the curses of the Agreement that are written in this Book of the Teachings will happen to them.

22 Your children who will come after you, as well as foreigners from faraway lands, will see the disasters that come to this land and the diseases the Lord will send on it. They will say,

23 "The land is nothing but burning cinders and salt. Nothing is planted, nothing grows, and nothing blooms. It is like Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed because he was very angry."

24 All the other nations will ask, "Why has the Lord done this to the land? Why is he so angry?"

25 And the answer will be, "It is because the people broke the Agreement of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt.

26 They went and served other gods and bowed down to gods they did not even know. The Lord did not allow that,

27 so he became very angry at the land and brought all the curses on it that are written in this book.

28 Since the Lord became angry and furious with them, he took them out of their land and put them in another land where they are today."

29 There are some things the Lord our God has kept secret, but there are some things he has let us know. These things belong to us and our children forever so that we will do everything in these teachings.

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Deuteronomy 29 Commentary

Chapter 29

Moses calls Israel's mercies to remembrance. (1-9) The Divine wrath on those who flatter themselves in their wickedness. (10-21) The ruin of the Jewish nation. (22-28) Secret things belong unto God. (29)

Verses 1-9 Both former mercies, and fresh mercies, should be thought on by us as motives to obedience. The hearing ear, and seeing eye, and the understanding heart, are the gift of God. All that have them, have them from him. God gives not only food and raiment, but wealth and large possessions, to many to whom he does not give grace. Many enjoy the gifts, who have not hearts to perceive the Giver, nor the true design and use of the gifts. We are bound, in gratitude and interest, as well as in duty and faithfulness, to keep the words of the covenant.

Verses 10-21 The national covenant made with Israel, not only typified the covenant of grace made with true believers, but also represented the outward dispensation of the gospel. Those who have been enabled to consent to the Lord's new covenant of mercy and grace in Jesus Christ, and to give up themselves to be his people, should embrace every opportunity of renewing their open profession of relation to him, and their obligation to him, as the God of salvation, walking according thereto. The sinner is described as one whose heart turns away from his God; there the mischief begins, in the evil heart of unbelief, which inclines men to depart from the living God to dead idols. Even to this sin men are now tempted, when drawn aside by their own lusts and fancies. Such men are roots that bear gall and wormwood. They are weeds which, if let alone, overspread the whole field. Satan may for a time disguise this bitter morsel, so that thou shalt not have the natural taste of it, but at the last day, if not before, the true taste shall be discerned. Notice the sinner's security in sin. Though he hears the words of the curse, yet even then he thinks himself safe from the wrath of God. There is scarcely a threatening in all the book of God more dreadful than this. Oh that presumptuous sinners would read it, and tremble! for it is a real declaration of the wrath of God, against ungodliness and unrighteousness of man.

Verses 22-28 Idolatry would be the ruin of their nation. It is no new thing for God to bring desolating judgments on a people near to him in profession. He never does this without good reason. It concerns us to seek for the reason, that we may give glory to God, and take warning to ourselves. Thus the law of Moses leaves sinners under the curse, and rooted out of the Lord's land; but the grace of Christ toward penitent, believing sinners, plants them again in their land; and they shall no more be pulled up, being kept by the power of God.

Verse 29 Moses ends his prophecy of the Jews' rejection, just as St. Paul ends his discourse on the same subject, when it began to be fulfilled, ( Romans 11:33 ) . We are forbidden curiously to inquire into the secret counsels of God, and to determine concerning them. But we are directed and encouraged, diligently to seek into that which God has made known. He has kept back nothing that is profitable for us, but only that of which it is good for us to be ignorant. The end of all Divine revelation is, not to furnish curious subjects of speculation and discourse, but that we may do all the words of this law, and be blessed in our deed. This, the Bible plainly reveals; further than this, man cannot profitably go. By this light he may live and die comfortably, and be happy for ever.

Taken from Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible (Concise)

Chapter Summary

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.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible