Deuteronomy 32:34 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Ver. 34. Is not this laid up in store with me— We have here a remarkable instance of that change of persons of which we spoke in the note on ver. 5. From the 29th to the 33rd verse, Moses speaks in his own person: here again the Lord is introduced as speaking; and this and the next verse contain the second reason of the final punishment of the Jews, a reason taken from the decrees of God, as the first was taken from their extreme depravity, figuratively expressed in the 32nd and 33rd verses. "This," says God, (by which we are to understand, as the learned Cocceius has well observed, not what precedes but what follows,) "This my vengeance, the time destined for the overthrow of a republic whose citizens are so depraved; this time, is it not laid up in store with me? Let not, therefore, these obstinate Jews think that my justice will suffer them to pass unpunished, and that, because the sentence against their iniquities is deferred, therefore it never will be executed." The phrase, sealed up among my treasures, is an allusion to deeds which are signed and sealed, though not immediately executed, but kept safely and secretly in a cabinet. See Job 14:17 and the meaning is, that the time of God's future vengeance, though fixed and determined in his own mind, is yet preserved with him as a profound secret known only to himself.