Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Moses continues to urge the Hebrews to God's law, partly by benefits and promises, partly by threats and terrors, and this from verse 18 to the end of the chapter.
Vulgate Text: Deuteronomy 29:1-29
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 at Horeb. 2. And Moses called all Israel and said to them: You have seen all that the Lord did before you in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, 3. the great trials which your eyes saw, those great signs and wonders, 4. and the Lord did not give you a heart to understand, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until this present day. 5. He led you forty years through the desert; your garments were not worn out, nor were the sandals on your feet consumed with age. 6. You did not eat bread, nor drink wine or strong drink; so that you might know that I am the Lord your God. 7. And you came to this place: and Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out against us to battle. And we struck them. 8. And we took their land and gave it to Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, to possess. 9. Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and fulfill them, that you may understand all that you do. 10. You all stand today before the Lord your God — your leaders, and your tribes, and your elders, and your officers, all the people of Israel, 11. your children, your wives, and the stranger who dwells with you in the camp, except the hewers of wood and those who carry water: 12. that you may enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, and into the oath which the Lord your God strikes with you today: 13. that He may raise you up as His people, and that He may be your God, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 14. Nor do I make this covenant and confirm these oaths with you alone, 15. but with all who are present and absent. 16. For you know how we dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we passed through the midst of the nations, through which, as you passed, 17. you saw their abominations and filth, that is, their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, which they worshiped. 18. Lest perhaps there be among you a man or woman, a family or tribe, whose heart has turned away today from the Lord our God: to go and serve the gods of those nations, and there be among you a root producing gall and bitterness. 19. And when he hears the words of this oath, he blesses himself in his heart, saying: "Peace shall be with me, and I will walk in the stubbornness of my heart," and the drunken destroy the thirsty; 20. and the Lord will not forgive him; but then His anger and zeal will smoke most intensely against that man, and all the curses written in this book shall rest upon him; and the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven, 21. and consume him to his destruction from all the tribes of Israel, according to the curses contained in this book of the law and the covenant. 22. And the following generation shall say, and the children who shall be born thereafter, and the strangers who come from afar, seeing the plagues of that land and the diseases with which the Lord has afflicted it, 23. burning it with sulfur and the heat of salt, so that it can no longer be sown, nor any green thing sprout, after the example of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and fury. 24. And all nations shall say: "Why has the Lord done this to this land? What is this immense anger of His fury?" 25. And they shall answer: "Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, which He made with their fathers, when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; 26. and they served foreign gods and worshiped them, whom they did not know and to whom they had not been assigned: 27. therefore the fury of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses written in this book: 28. and He cast them out of their land in anger and fury and great indignation, and threw them into a foreign land, as is proven today." 29. The hidden things belong to the Lord our God: the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Verse 1: The Covenant in Moab
"THESE ARE THE WORDS OF THE COVENANT." — God entered into a covenant at Sinai with the Hebrews, Exodus 19:4, giving them the Decalogue and other laws: but here, after 38 years, He renews that covenant with their descendants in the plains of Moab, on this condition, that they keep His laws.
Verses 2-3: You Have Seen the Great Trials
2. "AND MOSES CALLED ALL ISRAEL." — Perhaps therefore the Israelites had already gone home, with Moses' speech interrupted: for this address had been long enough up to now; hence here they were summoned again, as it were to renew the covenant with God. So Abulensis. Alternatively, it can be explained more simply: "he called," that is, he addressed all Israel.
2 and 3. "YOU HAVE SEEN, etc., THE GREAT TRIALS" — namely, the great plagues inflicted on the Egyptians, by which God tested, impelled, and compelled the spirits of the Egyptians to let you go.
Verse 4: The Lord Did Not Give You Understanding
4. "AND THE LORD DID NOT GIVE YOU AN UNDERSTANDING HEART, AND EYES TO SEE, AND EARS THAT CAN HEAR." — In Hebrew: "ears for hearing," so that you might hear the wonders of God: not as though the Hebrews did not have eyes, or had not seen the wonders and benefits bestowed on them by God, or had not heard them; but that seeing and hearing them, they were as though they did not see and did not hear, because they did not value them, nor from them did they rise to the love, obedience, and praise of God the Creator and Bestower. God therefore did not give them hearing ears, heart, and seeing eyes, because they themselves closed them to God's illumination and grace, just as one who closes a window cannot be illuminated by the sun, as if to say: You were always ungrateful for God's great benefits toward you, and although you saw them with your body, you did not see or value them in your heart and mind. Whence Rabanus: "The fact," he says, "that he says God did not give them eyes or ears, he would in no way have said this by way of reproach and rebuke, unless he wished it to be understood as pertaining to their fault." So also Theodoret.
Verse 5: Your Garments Were Not Worn Out
5. "YOUR GARMENTS WERE NOT WORN OUT." — Here Abulensis asks: Where did so many thousands of small children, who were born in the desert, get their garments? Some respond that the Hebrews bought them from neighboring peoples. But those peoples were mostly hostile.
I say therefore, first, that the Hebrews at their departure plundered Egypt and brought out various garments from there, as is clear from Exodus 12:35, which they afterward took apart and cut down, and fitted to the bodies of the small children. Second, the garments of those who died in the desert fell to those who were born and grew up after them. Third, the Hebrews, both men and women, were not idle in the desert for 40 years, but worked wool and flax, and from these made cloth and garments for themselves.
From this passage Tertullian, in his book On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chapter 58, proves it thus: "These," he says, "were figures of us, so that we may believe the Lord is more powerful than every law of bodies, and is surely all the more the preserver of the flesh, whose garments and sandals He also protected."
Verse 6: You Did Not Eat Bread
6. "YOU DID NOT EAT BREAD." — Because instead of bread they ate manna: however, they could eat and buy meat, eggs, fish, etc., from neighboring peoples, as is said in Deuteronomy 2:6; yet they seem hardly to have bought and eaten these, because in the manna they had every flavor. So Abulensis.
Verse 10: You All Stand Today
10. "YOU ALL STAND TODAY." — It was necessary that all gather for the reception of the law and covenant, because what concerns all must be approved by all, and in this manner Roman laws were established: namely, with the whole people assembling, the magistrate asked in a loud voice whether such a law pleased them; and on the response of the whole people depended whether it was approved or rejected. So Abulensis.
Verse 12: Entering the Covenant
12. "THAT YOU MAY ENTER INTO THE COVENANT OF THE LORD YOUR GOD" (that is, that you may enter into a solemn covenant before and with your God, and bind yourself) "BY OATH" — that is, by the execration of the curses described in this and the preceding chapter; for this is what the Hebrew ala and the Greek ara signify.
Verse 18: A Root Producing Gall and Bitterness
18. "LEST PERHAPS, etc., THERE BE AMONG YOU A ROOT PRODUCING GALL AND BITTERNESS" — or poison and wormwood, as more recent translators render it; the Chaldean translates: "lest there be among you one thinking of sins and pride." Sin therefore, and turning away from God, is here called gall, bitterness, wormwood, poison: first, because it mortally wounds the soul; second, because it separates the soul from God through the remorse of conscience, and pierces it; third, because it renders the soul hateful and odious to God: for sin is the sole object of God's anger, indignation, and vengeance. A similar expression is in Acts 8:23; for Peter says to Simon Magus: "I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity."
Verse 19: The Drunken Consume the Thirsty
19. "AND WHEN HE HEARS THE WORDS OF THE OATH" (that is, of the curse and execration, despising and mocking it), "HE BLESSES HIMSELF IN HIS HEART" — he flatters himself, promising himself impunity and peace, that is, prosperity, even if he violates these laws of Mine; this is clear from what follows.
"AND THE DRUNKEN CONSUME THE THIRSTY." — The Hebrew is: "so that the drunken be added to the thirsty," namely in punishment as well as in guilt. Whence the Septuagint clearly translates: "so that the sinner may destroy the innocent along with himself." It seems that at that time there was a proverb: "The drunk leads the thirsty," that is, the impious and wicked person leads the simple and eager one — and seduces him to his own wicked pleasures, errors, and idolatries.
Hence symbolically, the drunken part consumes the thirsty, when the lower part, enticed and intoxicated by pleasures, draws the whole mind to itself (which is "thirsty," because in itself it is devoid of bodily pleasure) and absorbs it: and then man becomes a slave of his body: for the body and the appetite dominate the reason and subject it to themselves.
Verse 20: His Fury Shall Smoke
20. "HIS FURY SHALL SMOKE" — that is, God shall be most gravely angry and shall take vengeance.
"AND MAY THEY SETTLE" — so that these curses may cling to the sinner firmly and immovably, as one sitting clings to their seat.
Verse 23: Burning with Sulfur and Salt
23. "BURNING WITH SULFUR AND THE HEAT OF SALT" — namely your land. For salt sprinkled on the earth dries it out, burns it, devours it, and makes it barren; hence Abimelech scattered salt on the field of Shechem, when he wished to make it entirely barren, Judges 9:45.
"AFTER THE EXAMPLE OF THE OVERTHROW OF SODOM" — as if to say: Like the overthrow of Sodom, just as God overthrew Sodom, as is clear from the Hebrew.
Verse 26: They Served Foreign Gods
26. "AND THEY SERVED FOREIGN GODS, etc., TO WHOM THEY HAD NOT BEEN ASSIGNED" (in Hebrew: "whom he did not divide to them," meaning who were not divided and assigned to them — as if to say: The Hebrews were not given to foreign gods for guardianship and service, but to the true God, and they were His inheritance from of old: therefore sacrilegiously they themselves stole themselves from Him and subjected themselves to foreign gods), "AS IS PROVEN TODAY" — namely when these things which are here foretold have been done in later times; for Moses speaks of the future: for these are the words of the nations who marvel at the desolation of the Jews.
Verse 29: The Hidden Things Belong to the Lord
29. "THE HIDDEN THINGS BELONG TO THE LORD OUR GOD; THE THINGS THAT ARE REVEALED BELONG TO US AND TO OUR CHILDREN." — The Chaldean, Aben-Ezra, and the Rabbis explain it thus, as if to say: "What is hidden is before the Lord," that is, it belongs to the Lord to punish hidden sins; "but what is manifest, to us," that is, it is fitting for us to punish them. But it is better to refer this to God's law, or rather to God's curses and scourges which are here threatened against transgressors, as if to say: These future scourges, foreseen and decreed by God, are hidden and are among the hidden judgments of God, which nevertheless He has revealed to us, so that by fear of them we may keep His law. So Cajetan. For Abulensis's explanation — that God's scourges are manifest to us because they have already been sent upon us — does not agree with what follows, for it says: "Forever, that we may do all the words of this law."