Deuteronomy 29:14-29 - Frederick Brotherton Meyer's Commentary

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the Penalty of Serving False Gods

Deuteronomy 29:14-29

Deuteronomy 29:15 clearly refers to the future generations, who were included in this solemn act. The word “gall,” Deuteronomy 29:18, indicates the poisonous character of idolatry. The application of this passage to any man who falls short of the grace of God shows that the tendency to idolatry has its root in the apostasy of the heart, Hebrews 12:15.

We cannot say that religion is a matter of indifference; or, if we say it, we are destined to a terrible awakening. A man may say, “I shall have peace,” etc., Deuteronomy 29:19, but there is no peace short of the peace of God, Isaiah 48:22; Romans 5:1-2.

With respect to Deuteronomy 29:24, the infidel Volney wrote of the present condition of Palestine: “Why is not the ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? God has doubtless pronounced a secret malediction against this land.” This is one of His “secret things!” Compare Deuteronomy 29:29 with Romans 11:33.

Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 29:14

Deuteronomy 29:14-29

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:

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,b 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 gallc 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 imaginationd 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:

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.