Deuteronomy 29:22

FINAL SUMMARY OF THE CURSE FOR BREAKING THE COVENANT

"And the generation to come, your children that shall rise up after you, and the foreigner that shall come from a far land, and shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sickness wherewith Jehovah hath made it sick; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which Jehovah overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: even all the nations shall say, Wherefore hath Jehovah done this unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that he had not given unto them: therefore the anger of Jehovah was kindled against their land, to bring upon it all the curse that is written in this book; and Jehovah rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day. The secret things belong unto Jehovah our God; but the things that are revealed belong unto us and to our children, that we may do all the words of this law."

God's mention here of cursing "the land" was utilized by the Jewish scholars to deny that the curses here would actually fall "upon the people."

The curse of utter rain came only upon the land, and not upon the people, so that the Lord could root them out of their land in anger ... and cast them into another land; but Israel survived and continued to exist as a people.[25]

God, long ago, had already cursed the ground for Adam's sake, and there is no reference to anything like that here. The metaphor of the destroyed land is here a reference to the destroyed people. The land of Palestine never had any kind of disease. It was never burned up. It was never wiped off the face of the earth as were Sodom and Gomorrah. The type of sophistry used by the Rabbis to get Israel out of the curse in this passage is exactly like that which denied Jesus as the Messiah! Despite all this, however, the land of Palestine today is so far from being a "land flowing with milk and honey," as to provide incontrovertible evidence that the land did indeed also suffer an epic disaster, comparable to that which befell Sodom and Gomorrah. "It was a former paradise, but God turned it, like the cities of the plain, into a barren waste."[26] Cook also noted this, saying:

"Those towns of the vale of Siddim, of which were Admah and Zeboim, were fertile and well watered (Genesis 13:10), until devastated by the wrath of God (Genesis 19:24-25); and the ruin of Israel would follow that pattern. The desolate state of Palestine today, and the traces of former fertility and prosperity are attested by every traveler."[27]

Notice in the example given by the Lord, to which the destruction of Palestine would be compared, that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were not spared by the fact that the destruction fell on the land.

Deuteronomy 29:29 is one of the great verses of the whole book. To us, it seems to be wonderful just as it is. Harrison thought it should be translated: "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, as well as the revealed things; for us and for our children, it is requisite to carry out always all the words of this law."[28] We do not think that would be an improvement! Dummelow, it seems to us, comes very near the true meaning: "We do not know the entire nature and extent of divine judgments; it is enough for us and for our children to have heard the commandments of God, and to do them."[29]

The "hidden things" here mentioned must surely include the question of human suffering as raised by Blair, "Does God reward nations for full obedience and punish them for disobedience?"[30] As far as human observation goes, such a question must remain unanswered in any complete sense; and, it would appear that our lack of complete information in such an area is surely among the "hidden things" that belong to God.

To all people who have received a knowledge of God's will for themselves in this generation, that is the ultimate wisdom. Let people live up to all the light they have and leave the problems to God. That is the course of wisdom and of salvation.

Moses took every precaution to make certain that all Israel understood that the ruin and destruction of their whole nation, as well as its removal from the Promised Land, would result from deliberate disobedience and rebellion against the Lord. The tone and attitude of Moses here seem to indicate that he positively knew already that Israel would not remain true to the covenant.