Moses exhorts them to obedience by the memory of the works they had seen, 1-9. All are presented before the Lord to enter into his covenant, 10-17. The great wrath on him who flatters himself in his wickedness, 18-28. Secret things belong to God, 29.
1 These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.
2 And Moses called to all Israel, and said to them, "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land, 3 The great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles, 4 Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive, eyes to see, and ears to hear to this day. 5 And I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not become old upon you, and your shoe has not become old upon your foot. 6 You have not eaten bread, neither have you drank wine or strong drink, so that you might know that he is the LORD your God. 7 And when you came to this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon and Og the king of Bashan came out against us to battle, and we smote them. 8 And we took their land and gave it for an inheritance to the Reubenites, to the Gadites, and to the half-tribe of Manasseh. 9 Therefore, keep the words of this covenant and do them, so that you may prosper in all that you do.
10 "All of you stand this day before the LORD your God—your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, 11 Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger who is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood to the drawer of your water— 12 So that you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God and into his oath, which the LORD your God makes with you this day, 13 So that he may establish you today for a people to himself, and that he may be to you a God, as he has said to you and as he has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
14 "Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, 15 But with him who stands here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with him who is not here with us this day 16 (For you know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the nations which you passed by. 17 And you have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which were among them), 18 Lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns 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 bears gall and wormwood, 19 And it should come to pass, when he hears the words of this curse, that he should bless himself in his heart, saying, 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my heart,' to sweep away the moist with the dry. 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 to 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 who arise after you and the stranger who comes from a distant land shall say—when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the LORD has laid upon it, 23 And that its whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow in it like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and in his wrath— 24 Then all the nations shall say, 'Why has the LORD done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?' 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 from the land of Egypt. 26 For they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods which they did not know and which he had not given to 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, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.'
29 "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, so that we may do all the words of this law."
Matthew Henry Commentary - Deuteronomy, Chapter 29[➚]
[v.4] - Quoted in Romans 8:11.
[v.29] - Reference, Job 11:6-7, 28:28; Psalm 25:14, 78:1-8; Proverbs 3:32, 25:2; Daniel 2:19-23; Amos 3:7; Matthew 13:11, 29, 35; Mark 4:11; Luke 8:10; John 15:15; Romans 16:25-26; 2nd Timothy 3:16.