Deuteronomy 29:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 1. These are the words of the covenant— Houbigant connects this verse with the last chapter, and begins the present chapter with the 2nd verse: for it is plain, says he, that Moses enters upon another subject in these words, and Moses called unto all Israel, &c. Michaelis is of the same opinion. By the words, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb, is meant, that the curses in the 28th chapter are not explicative of those in the preceding chapter, but different from them, and of another kind. The former maledictions are denounced against those who should violate the law of the Decalogue given in Horeb; nor did they threaten punishments to be inflicted only in this present life: on the contrary, the latter maledictions denounce present and public punishments; because God had so bound himself by covenant with the Israelites, as to promise the defence of their republic, so long as they should worship the true God, and manifest by that worship the existence of the true religion in their land: then only to be destroyed and blotted out, when that salt of their country should lose its savour.