Devarim (Deuteronomy): Ki Tavo > Ch 29

Moses recalls Exodus from Egypt

• And Moses called all of Israel and said to them, "You have seen all that the Lord did before your very eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, to all his servants, and to all his land; the great trials which your very eyes beheld and those great signs and wonders. Yet until this day, the Lord has not given you a heart to know, eyes to see and ears to hear. I led you through the desert for forty years [during which time] your garments did not wear out from upon you, nor did your shoes wear out from upon your feet. You neither ate bread, nor drank new wine or old wine, in order that you would know that I am the Lord, your G-d. And then you arrived at this place. And Sihon, the king of Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, came out towards us in battle, and we smote them. And we took their land, and we gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh. And you shall observe the words of this covenant and fulfill them, in order that you will succeed in all that you do.

Those who secretly plan to sin will be cursed and obliterated from the heavens

• You are all standing this day before the Lord, your G-d the leaders of your tribes, your elders and your officers, every man of Israel, your young children, your women, and your convert who is within your camp both your woodcutters and your water drawers, that you may enter the covenant of the Lord, your G-d, and His oath, which the Lord, your G-d, is making with you this day, in order to establish you this day as His people, and that He will be your G-d, as He spoke to you, and as He swore to your forefathers to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. But not only with you am I making this covenant and this oath, but with those standing here with us today before the Lord, our G-d, and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day. For you know how we dwelled in the land of Egypt, and how we passed among the nations through which you passed. And you saw their abominations and their repugnant idols [of] wood and stone, silver and gold which were with them. Perhaps there is among you a man, woman, family, or tribe, whose heart strays this day from the Lord, our G-d, to go and worship the deities of those nations. Perhaps there is among you a root that produces hemlock and wormwood. And it will be, when he [such a person] hears the words of this oath, that he will bless himself in his heart, saying, "I will have peace, even if I follow my heart's desires," in order to add the [punishment for the] unintentional sins [of this man] to that of [his] intentional sins. The Lord will not be willing to forgive him; rather, then, the Lord's fury and His zeal will fume against that man, and the entire curse written in this book will rest upon him, and the Lord will obliterate his name from beneath the heavens. And the Lord will separate him for evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, written in this Torah scroll.

A future generation of your descendants will be astonished by how destitute the land is after G-d’s fury

• And a later generation, your descendants, who will rise after you, along with the foreigner who comes from a distant land, will say, upon seeing the plagues of that land and the diseases with which the Lord struck it: Sulfur and salt have burned up its entire land! It cannot be sown, nor can it grow [anything], not [even] any grass will sprout upon it. It is like the overturning of Sodom, Gemorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the Lord overturned in His fury and in His rage. And all the nations will say, Why did the Lord do so to this land? What [is the reason] for this great rage of fury? Then they will say, It is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, G-d of their fathers, [the covenant] which He made with them when He took them out of the land of Egypt, For they went and served other deities, prostrating themselves to them deities which they had not known, and which He had not apportioned to them. And the Lord's fury raged against that land, bringing upon it the entire curse written in this book. And the Lord uprooted them from upon their land, with fury, anger and great wrath, and He cast them to another land, as it is this day.

The hidden things belong to the Lord, our G-d, but the revealed things apply to us and to our children forever: that we must fulfill all the words of this Torah.

Research & Analysis

• A future generation of your descendants will be astonished by how destitute the land is after G-d’s fury What did Jews immigrating to Israel in the early 20th century find there? They found barren land with rocky deserts and dangerous swamps. But G-d has given Jews the wisdom & perseverance to turn it into paradise. With invention of drip-irrigation by Simcha Blass, the desert has bloomed. And with a lot of dedication, the land previously occupied by swamps became the city of Tel-Aviv.