Limitless Word

Deuteronomy 29:20

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.
Deuteronomy 29:20 · World English Bible
Parallel translations
  • KJV The LORD will not spare him, but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven.
  • BSB The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
  • NKJV “The Lord would not spare him; for then the anger of the Lord and His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the Lord would blot out his name from under heaven.
  • NASB The Lord will not be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the Lord and His wrath will burn against that person, and every curse that is written in this book will lie upon him, and the Lord will wipe out his name from under heaven.
  • NLT The Lord will never pardon such people. Instead his anger and jealousy will burn against them. All the curses written in this book will come down on them, and the Lord will erase their names from under heaven.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Quick answer

God will not pardon such presumptuous apostasy, but will bring the covenant curses upon him. Willful, hardened rebellion meets God's settled judgment.

Overview

For the one who presumes on mercy while clinging to sin, the Lord 'will not pardon him,' and all the written curses fall upon him. The language of God's jealousy and anger 'smoking' against him conveys the intensity of divine justice against deliberate covenant treachery. It soberly warns that grace despised becomes judgment, magnifying the mercy that, in Christ, blots out sin rather than the sinner's name.

Cross-references & the web

Cross-references · 36

  • Ps 74:1A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
  • Deut 9:14Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”
  • Ps 79:5How long, Yahweh? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?
  • Ezek 14:7–8“‘“For everyone of the house of Israel, or of the strangers who live in Israel, who separates himself from me, and takes his idols into his heart, and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and comes to the prophet to inquire for himself of me; I Yahweh will answer him by myself.
  • Ezek 23:25I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury; they will take away your nose and your ears; and your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and your residue will be devoured by the fire.
  • Nah 1:2Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.
  • Exod 34:14for you shall worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
  • Exod 20:5you shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them, for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation of those who hate me,
  • Ps 18:8Smoke went out of his nostrils. Consuming fire came out of his mouth. Coals were kindled by it.
  • Ezek 8:3He stretched out the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and the sky, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the gate of the inner court that looks toward the north; where there was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.
  • Ezek 8:18Therefore will I also deal in wrath. My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. Though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them.”
  • Ezek 24:14I, Yahweh, have spoken it: it shall happen, and I will do it: I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to your ways, and according to your doings, shall they judge you, says the Lord Yahweh.
  • Ezek 8:5Then he said to me, “Son of man, lift up your eyes now the way toward the north.” So I lifted up my eyes the way toward the north, and saw, northward of the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.
  • Ezek 9:10As for me also, my eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity, but I will bring their way on their head.”
  • Ezek 5:11Therefore as I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won’t spare, and I will have no pity.
  • Ezek 7:9My eye won’t spare, neither will I have pity. I will bring on you according to your ways. Your abominations will be among you; and you will know that I, Yahweh, strike.
  • Ezek 7:4My eye will not spare you, neither will I have pity; but I will bring your ways on you, and your abominations will be among you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.’
  • Ezek 36:5therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Surely in the fire of my jealousy I have spoken against the residue of the nations, and against all Edom, that have appointed my land to themselves for a possession with the joy of all their heart, with despite of soul, to cast it out for a prey.
  • Zeph 1:18Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.
  • Heb 12:29for our God is a consuming fire.
  • 1 Cor 10:22Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
  • Ps 69:28Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous.
  • Ps 78:50He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
  • Ps 78:58For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
  • Rom 11:21for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.
  • Rom 8:32He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?
  • 2 Pet 2:4–5For if God didn’t spare angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
  • Rev 3:5He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
  • Exod 32:32–33Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin — and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”
  • Jer 13:14I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says Yahweh: “I will not pity, nor spare, nor have compassion, that I should not destroy them.”’”
  • Deut 28:15–68But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you, and overtake you.
  • Deut 25:19Therefore it shall be, when Yahweh your God has given you rest from all your enemies all around, in the land which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance to possess it, that you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under the sky. You shall not forget.
  • Deut 27:15–26‘Cursed is the man who makes an engraved or molten image, an abomination to Yahweh, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in secret.’ All the people shall answer and say, ‘Amen.’
  • Song 8:6Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of Yahweh.
  • Prov 6:34For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance.
  • Isa 27:11When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

Themes, concepts, people & topics

Topics (7)

Resources, by level

Commentaries & study tools

  • VideoBibleProject — Deuteronomy videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.

  • VideoWatch teaching on Deuteronomy 29:20YouTube · Lay · Free

    Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.

  • CommentaryEnduring Word — verse-by-verseDavid Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical

    Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.

  • CommentaryClassic commentaries for this verseBibleHub (20+ works) · Pastoral · Free

    Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.

  • CommentaryMatthew Henry on DeuteronomyMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical

    The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).

  • ReferenceInterlinear, lexicon & Strong'sBlue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free

    Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.

Christ at the center

Moses promised a Prophet like himself to whom Israel must listen (18:15); Jesus is that Prophet, the one who keeps the covenant we broke and becomes the curse for us by hanging on a tree (Gal 3:13).

How Deuteronomy 29:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Original language

Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.