I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 26. And earth, or all their rational inhabitants. Saint Jerome and S. Bas. in Isai. i. 2. Moses conjures the Israelites, by all that is most sacred, to continue faithful. He speaks with the greatest earnestness, as he does again, Calmet. 32:1. Calmet.—He makes use of a sort of oath, by the creatures, in which God shines forth. Menochius.—Destroy you. He will take from you that delightful country, though he will save a remnant of you out of the captivity at Babylon, and in the latter days, verse 31. The Jews, in the promised land, were almost always prone to idolatry; till God severely chastised them by the hands of the Babylonians. Since that time, few of them have willingly yielded to the worship of idols, though some have fallen by compulsion, as we read, Daniel 3. 1 Maccabees 1:53, and 2:16. Jeremias (5:19) foretold that this would be the case. As you have forsaken me and served a strange god in your own land, so shall you serve strangers in a land that is not your own. Bible.