Deuteronomy 29:18-28

29:18 Beware that the heart of no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you turns away from the Lord our God today to pursue and serve the gods of those nations; beware that there is among you no root producing poisonous and bitter fruit. ¹  29:19 When such a person ²  hears the words of this oath he secretly ³  blesses himself ⁴  and says, “I will have peace though I continue to walk with a stubborn spirit.” ⁵  This will destroy ⁶  the watered ground with the parched. ⁷  29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁸  will rage ⁹  against that man; all the curses ¹⁰  written in this scroll will fall upon him ¹¹  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ¹²  29:21 The Lord will single him out ¹³  for judgment ¹⁴  from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law. 29:22 The generation to come – your descendants who will rise up after you, as well as the foreigner who will come from distant places – will see ¹⁵  the afflictions of that land and the illnesses that the Lord has brought on it. 29:23 The whole land will be covered with brimstone, salt, and burning debris; it will not be planted nor will it sprout or produce grass. It will resemble the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord destroyed in his intense anger. ¹⁶  29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger ¹⁷  all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. ¹⁸  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ¹⁹  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

Deuteronomy 29:1

Narrative Interlude

29:1 (28:69) ²⁰  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ²¹ 

Deuteronomy 12:25

12:25 You must not eat it so that it may go well with you and your children after you; you will be doing what is right in the Lord’s sight. ²² 

John 3:19-21

3:19 Now this is the basis for judging: ²³  that the light has come into the world and people ²⁴  loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. 3:20 For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. 3:21 But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God. ²⁵ 

¹ tn Heb “yielding fruit poisonous and wormwood.” The Hebrew noun לַעֲנָה (la’anah) literally means “wormwood” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB), but is used figuratively for anything extremely bitter, thus here “fruit poisonous and bitter.”

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the subject of the warning in v. 18) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “in his heart.”

⁴ tn Or “invokes a blessing on himself.” A formalized word of blessing is in view, the content of which appears later in the verse.

⁵ tn Heb “heart.”

⁶ tn Heb “thus destroying.” For stylistic reasons the translation begins a new sentence here.

⁷ tn Heb “the watered with the parched.” The word “ground” is implied. The exact meaning of the phrase is uncertain although it appears to be figurative. This appears to be a proverbial observation employing a figure of speech (a merism) suggesting totality. That is, the Israelite who violates the letter and even spirit of the covenant will harm not only himself but everything he touches – “the watered and the parched.” Cf. CEV “you will cause the rest of Israel to be punished along with you.”

⁸ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

⁹ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

¹¹ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

¹² tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

¹³ tn Heb “set him apart.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “for evil”; NAB “for doom”; NASB “for adversity”; NIV “for disaster”; NRSV “for calamity.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “will say and see.” One expects a quotation to appear, but it seems to be omitted. To avoid confusion in the translation, the verb “will say” is omitted.

¹⁶ tn Heb “the anger and the wrath.” This construction is a hendiadys intended to intensify the emotion.

¹⁷ tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “the entire curse.”

²⁰ sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

²¹ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

²² tc Heb “in the eyes of the Lord.” The LXX adds “your God” to create the common formula, “the Lord your God.” The MT is preferred precisely because it does not include the stereotyped formula; thus it more likely preserves the original text.

²³ tn Or “this is the reason for God judging,” or “this is how judgment works.”

²⁴ tn Grk “and men,” but in a generic sense, referring to people of both genders (as “everyone” in v. 20 makes clear).

²⁵ sn John 3:16-21 provides an introduction to the (so-called) “realized” eschatology of the Fourth Gospel: Judgment has come; eternal life may be possessed now, in the present life, as well as in the future. The terminology “realized eschatology” was originally coined by E. Haenchen and used by J. Jeremias in discussion with C. H. Dodd, but is now characteristically used to describe Dodd’s own formulation. See L. Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament, 1:54, note 10, and R. E. Brown (John [AB], 1:cxvii-cxviii) for further discussion. Especially important to note is the element of choice portrayed in John’s Gospel. If there is a twofold reaction to Jesus in John’s Gospel, it should be emphasized that that reaction is very much dependent on a person’s choice, a choice that is influenced by his way of life, whether his deeds are wicked or are done in God (John 3:20-21). For John there is virtually no trace of determinism at the surface. Only when one looks beneath the surface does one find statements like “no one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).