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Deuteronomy 29

KJV · Chapter 29/34

1These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.

2And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land;

3The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles:

4Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.

5And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.

6Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink: that ye might know that I am the Lord your God.

7And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them:

8And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh.

9Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

10Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel,

11Your little ones, your wives, and thy stranger that is in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water:

12That thou shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into his oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day:

13That he may establish thee to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

14Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath;

15But 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;

17And ye have seen their abominations, and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them:)

18Lest 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 gall and wormwood;

19And 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 imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst:

20The 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.

21And 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:

22So 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;

23And 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:

24Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger?

25Then 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:

26For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them:

27And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book:

28And 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.

29The 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.

📖 Chapter study

Summary

Moses summons the entire people — men, women, children, and foreigners — to solemnly reaffirm the covenant with God, warning against the false security of thinking one can secretly disobey without consequence, and prophetically describes the future desolation of the land should the covenant be broken.

Explanation

This chapter emphasizes that the covenant with God was not a contract meant only for leaders or a religious elite, but included every person present, from the one who cut the wood to the one who drew the water — a remarkably democratic inclusion by ancient standards, crossing lines of social class. The specific warning against anyone who might secretly think, 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my own heart,' anticipates a timeless spiritual danger: the illusion that private, hidden decisions carry no real consequences before God. The startling image of the land turned into something like Sodom and Gomorrah, prompting foreign nations to ask why the Lord did this to that land, shows how Israel's own experience of discipline would ironically serve as a public lesson on the seriousness of a broken covenant — even through failure, a spiritual message would be communicated to the nations.

Fun facts

  • The closing line, 'the secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong unto us' (v. 29), is frequently quoted in theological discussions about the limits of human knowledge before the mysteries of God, humbly acknowledging that not everything about the divine plan is accessible to human understanding.
  • The comparison of Israel's future desolation to the destruction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim (v. 23) — cities first mentioned in Genesis 14 and destroyed in Genesis 19 — shows how events from the beginning of the Pentateuch continued to serve as a benchmark of divine judgment throughout the rest of the biblical narrative.

Verse-by-verse explanation

  1. Deuteronomy 29:1Marks a second formal covenant, made in Moab, complementing — not replacing — the original covenant made at Horeb.
  2. Deuteronomy 29:2Moses summons the whole people, reminding them of what they saw with their own eyes: what God did against Pharaoh and all of Egypt.
  3. Deuteronomy 29:3Reinforces that this generation saw concrete proof — signs and great wonders — not secondhand stories.
  4. Deuteronomy 29:4Moses admits that even after seeing all the miracles of Egypt and the wilderness, the people still had not been given “an heart to perceive”: a rare admission, within the text itself, that witnessing a miracle does not guarantee understanding or automatic faithfulness.
  5. Deuteronomy 29:5Returns to God’s constant care in the wilderness: neither clothes nor sandals wore out in forty years.
  6. Deuteronomy 29:6The reason for the manna, and for going without ordinary wine, was to teach direct dependence on God, not on what the land normally produces.
  7. Deuteronomy 29:7Recalls the recent victories over Sihon and Og, still-fresh proof of God’s power before crossing the Jordan.
  8. Deuteronomy 29:8Recalls that the land of these two kings had already been distributed to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
  9. Deuteronomy 29:9Closes the historical introduction with a practical appeal: keeping this covenant is the key to prospering in everything.
  10. Deuteronomy 29:10Details who was gathered for this covenant renewal: leaders, elders, officers, and every man of Israel.
  11. Deuteronomy 29:11Expands the list to include children, women, and even the foreigner living in the camp, down to the humblest workers.
  12. Deuteronomy 29:12The purpose of the gathering is to formalize everyone’s entry into this covenant and into the oath made by God.
  13. Deuteronomy 29:13Repeats the covenant’s central formula: God confirms the people as His own, fulfilling what He swore to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
  14. Deuteronomy 29:14Makes clear that this covenant does not apply only to those physically present at that moment.
  15. Deuteronomy 29:15Extends the covenant to future generations as well, not yet even born — a commitment that reaches across time.
  16. Deuteronomy 29:16Recalls the experience of passing through various foreign nations during the journey, each with its own customs.
  17. Deuteronomy 29:17Specifies what they saw among these peoples: idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold — the concrete idolatry they were to avoid.
  18. Deuteronomy 29:18The central fear is that someone — a family or an entire tribe — might quietly turn aside to serve those same foreign gods.
  19. Deuteronomy 29:19Describes the danger of a false security: someone thinking they can follow their own desires and still have peace — a dangerous self-deception.
  20. Deuteronomy 29:20God’s response to that self-deception would be harsh: a refusal to forgive and the full weight of every curse already written.
  21. Deuteronomy 29:21That person would be set apart as a warning example among all the tribes, bearing the weight of the covenant’s curses.
  22. Deuteronomy 29:22Anticipates a future scene: later generations and foreigners looking on from outside at the plagues and disasters that struck the land.
  23. Deuteronomy 29:23The image of the land devastated by “brimstone, and salt,” like Sodom and Gomorrah, draws on an already-familiar example of destruction to describe what would happen to Israel’s land if the people broke the covenant. The scorched landscape becomes visible proof of judgment for anyone passing through afterward.
  24. Deuteronomy 29:24Imagines the natural question from these onlookers: why would God do something so severe to His own land?
  25. Deuteronomy 29:25The anticipated answer is direct: the people abandoned the covenant made with the God who brought them out of Egypt.
  26. Deuteronomy 29:26Details the specific abandonment: serving and worshiping strange gods that God had never authorized or assigned to them.
  27. Deuteronomy 29:27That is why God’s anger would burn, bringing upon the land every curse already written in the law.
  28. Deuteronomy 29:28Describes the final outcome: expulsion from the land in fierce anger, cast into another place, as visible testimony to this day.
  29. Deuteronomy 29:29The phrase about “the secret things” acknowledges that not everything has an explanation available to the people: what was revealed, the law, is what they are responsible for living out and teaching their children, without trying to solve every mystery on their own.

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