Deuteronomy 32:22

22 A fire burns in me— it will blaze to the depths of the grave; it will destroy the land and its crops; it will blacken the base of the mountains.

Deuteronomy 32:22 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 32:22

For a fire is kindled in mine anger
Here begins the account of temporal and corporeal judgments inflicted on the Jews for their disbelief and rejection of the Messiah, their contempt of his Gospel, and ill treatment of his followers; and this here respects the destruction of the land of Judea in general, and the burning of the city and temple of Jerusalem in particular, as the effect of the wrath and anger of God like fire kindled against them:

and shall burn unto the lowest hell;
which denotes an entire destruction, like that of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone from heaven; which issued in a sulphurous lake, and which sulphureous matter sunk to the bottom of the Dead Sea; and to that destruction is this of the land of Judea compared, ( Deuteronomy 29:23 ) ;

and shall consume the earth with her increase:
the land of Judea, with the cities and towns in it, and buildings on it, and the fruits of the earth; which were either gathered into their barns and storehouses, or were growing in their fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards; all were destroyed and consumed at or before the destruction of Jerusalem, or quickly after it:

and set on fire the foundations of the mountains;
the city of Jerusalem, as Jarchi himself interprets it, whose foundations were by the mountains, according to ( Psalms 125:2 ) ; and the temple of Jerusalem particularly was built on Mount Moriah, and that as well as the city was utterly consumed by fire: and it is remarkable that when Julian the apostate attempted to rebuild it, as is related even by an Heathen historian F1, that flames of fire burst out from the foundations, and burnt the workmen; so that he was obliged to desist from his rash undertaking.


FOOTNOTES:

F1 Ammian. Marcellin. l. 23. in initio.

Deuteronomy 32:22 In-Context

20 He said: I will hide my face from them— I will see what becomes of them— because they are a confused generation; they are children lacking loyalty.
21 They provoked me with "no-gods," aggravated me with their pieces of junk. So I am going to provoke them with "No-People," aggravate them with a nation of fools.
22 A fire burns in me— it will blaze to the depths of the grave; it will destroy the land and its crops; it will blacken the base of the mountains.
23 I'll throw on them disaster after disaster; I'll destroy them with my arrows:
24 devastating hunger, consuming plague, bitter sickness. I'll send animal fangs after them, venom from dust crawlers too.

Footnotes 1

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