The Secret Things
16 (for you know how we lived in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the middle of the nations through which you passed; 17 and you have seen their abominations and their idols of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them); 18 lest there should be among you man, woman, family, or tribe whose heart turns away today from Yahweh our God, to go to serve the gods of those nations; lest there should be among you a root that produces bitter poison; 19 and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry. 20 Yahweh will not pardon him, but then Yahweh’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky. 21 Yahweh will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law. 22 The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick, 23 that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath. 24 Even all the nations will say, “Why has Yahweh done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?” 25 Then men will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt, 26 and went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they didn’t know and that he had not given to them. 27 Therefore Yahweh’s anger burned against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book. 28 Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.” 29 The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
The danger is a man who hears the curses and privately decides they do not apply to him, and the chapter ends by drawing a line around what may be known.
The warning is aimed at something small and hidden: a root that produces bitter poison Deuteronomy 29:18.
It starts as one person — man, woman, family, or tribe — whose heart turns away, and the order of that list is the diagnosis. What begins in an individual becomes a household and then a tribe, and the figure of a root says that it is underground before it is anything else. The New Testament borrows the phrase for the same purpose, warning that a root of bitterness springing up defiles many Hebrews 12:15.
What that person actually thinks is quoted, and it is the most psychologically exact sentence in the book.
He hears the curses read aloud, and he bless himself in his heart, saying, 'I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart' Deuteronomy 29:19.
He does not disbelieve the warning. He has just heard it, agreed that it is true, and privately concluded that it does not apply to him. That is not skepticism; it is a blessing pronounced on oneself in the middle of a curse ceremony, and the immunity is entirely self-issued.
The response to that is severe, and it is the one case in the chapter where pardon is refused Deuteronomy 29:20.
The rest of the chapter looks forward to a ruined country and to the conversation strangers will have about it. Travelers see land that is sulfur, salt, and burning, growing nothing Deuteronomy 29:23, and ask the obvious question: why has Yahweh done this to this land? Deuteronomy 29:24.
The answer is supplied in advance — they abandoned the covenant — which is exactly the exchange the dedication of the temple also scripts for passers-by 2 Chronicles 7:21–22. The judgment is designed to be legible.
And then the last verse, which stands slightly apart from everything around it and is the most useful sentence in the chapter.
The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
A line is drawn. There is a great deal God has not explained — why the heart to know was not given, when the ruin will come, how the two hold together — and that side of the line is his business. What has been disclosed is the possession of ordinary people and of their children.
And the purpose clause at the end settles what revelation is for. Not speculation about the hidden side, but that we may do.
settled What this mark means