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.
Parallel Translations
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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.
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I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
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I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over the Jordan to possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly be destroyed.
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Contradictions (1)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (19)
Passages linked to Deuteronomy 4:26 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Deuteronomy 32:1 Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
- Micah 6:2 Hear, you mountains, Yahweh’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the earth; for Yahweh has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel.
- Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!
- Deuteronomy 30:18-19 I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,
- Isaiah 1:2 Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.
- Jeremiah 2:12 “Be astonished, you heavens, at this and be horribly afraid. Be very desolate,” says Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 36:4 therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: The Lord Yahweh says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which have become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;
- Leviticus 18:28 that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
- Joshua 23:16 when you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them. Then Yahweh’s anger will be kindled against you, and you will perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.”
- Jeremiah 44:22 Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.
- Leviticus 26:31-35 I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation. I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies that dwell in it will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn’t have in your Sabbaths when you lived on it.
- Deuteronomy 29:28 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.”
- Deuteronomy 31:28 Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
- Isaiah 6:11 Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,
- Jeremiah 6:19 Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.
- Luke 21:24 They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
- Isaiah 24:1-3 Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants. It will be as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the creditor, so with the debtor; as with the taker of interest, so with the giver of interest. The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.
- Ezekiel 33:28 I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.
- Micah 1:2 Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (10 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Though men would absolve you, yet the insensible creatures…
Though men would absolve you, yet the insensible creatures shall be witnesses of your disobedience.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Heaven and earth; either,
Heaven and earth; either,
1. Figuratively, i.e. God, and angels, and men. Or rather,
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2. Properly; it being usual in Scripture to call in the senseless creatures as witnesses in such cases, as Deu 32:1; Isa 1:2; Jer 2:12.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain I call heaven and earth to witness against you…
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day,.... Should they be guilty of such a sin, since they were so strongly and publicly cautioned against it; and even the heaven and the earth were called upon as witnesses of the law being set before them, which so expressly forbids it, Deu 30:19.
that ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land whereunto you go over Jordan to possess it; though they were now about to go over Jordan and inherit the land of Canaan, yet they would not enjoy it long, but be taken and carried captive out of it; as the ten tribes were by Shalmaneser king of Assyria, and the two tribes by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and both for their idolatry and other crimes.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 26. I call heaven and earth to witness…
Verse 26. I call heaven and earth to witness against you] A most solemn method of adjuration, in use among all nations in the world. So Virgil, AEn., lib. xii., ver. 176, c.
Tum pius AEneas stricto sic ense precatur:
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Esto nunc Sol testis et haec mihi terra vocanti -
Fontesque fluviosque voco, quaeque aetheris alti
Relllgio, et quae caeruleo sunt numina ponto, &c.
"Then the great Trojan prince unsheathed his sword,
And thus, with lifted hands, the gods adored:
Thou land for which I wage this war, and thou
Great source of day, be witness to my vow! -
Almighty king of heaven and queen of air,
Propitious now and reconciled by prayer, -
Ye springs, ye floods, ye various powers who lie
Beneath the deep, or tread the golden sky, -
HEAR and ATTEST!" PITT.
God and man being called upon to bear testimony to the truth of what was spoken, that if there was any flaw or insincerity, it might be detected and if any crime, it might not go unpunished. Such appeals to God, for such purposes, show at once both the origin and use of oaths. See Clarke on De 6:13.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain And earth, or all their rational inhabitants. (St. Jerome…
And earth, or all their rational inhabitants. (St. Jerome and St. Basil in Isa. 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, chap. xxxii. 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, ver. 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 iii., and 1 Machabees i. 53., and ii. 16. Jeremias (v. 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. (Haydock)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain I call heaven and earth to witness against you--This…
I call heaven and earth to witness against you--This solemn form of adjuration has been common in special circumstances among all people. It is used here figuratively, or as in other parts of Scripture where inanimate objects are called up as witnesses (Deu 32:1; Isa 1:2).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 26. I call heaven and earth to witness —…
26. I call heaven and earth to witness — Heaven and earth are personified in this solemn form of adjuration, as in Isa_1:2, “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth.” Comp. also Deu_32:1, of this book.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 26. I call heaven and earth to witness against…
26. I call heaven and earth to witness against you] So Deu_30:19; Deu_31:28. Berth. points out that the older style is earth and heaven. In controversy between God and Israel nature is introduced as the executioner of His judgements, or as suffering these with man; or as illustrating the steady laws or principles on which God acts in the moral sphere; or as here (cp. Mic_6:1 ff.) as witnessing against man. Enduring, the heavens and earth, especially the mountains, have seen all the relations between God and man, and when His evils come will be able to testify that God had warned the people. But differently in Deu_32:1, q.v.
ye shall soon utterly perish from off the land] Perish that is as a nation, Deu_7:4, Deu_11:17, Deu_28:20 and the deuteronomic Jos_23:16. Soon, Deu_7:4; Deu_7:22, Deu_9:3; Deu_9:12; Deu_9:16, Deu_28:20.
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whereunto ye go over Jordan to possess it] characteristic of the Pl. passages. See Introd. and on Deu_4:5; Deu_4:14 and Deu_6:1.
ye shall not prolong your days] Again, as a nation. In the Hex. only here and Deu_4:40, Deu_5:33, Deu_11:9, Deu_17:20, Deu_22:7, Deu_30:18, Deu_32:47; and passive, Deu_5:16, Deu_6:2, Deu_25:15. Cp. E, Jos_24:31.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain I call heaven and earth to witness. Moses speaks…
I call heaven and earth to witness. Moses speaks in the name of the Lord of all, and so calls to witness the whole created universe to attest his words; the heavens and earth are witnesses for God, and when evil comes on those who transgress his Law, they declare his righteousness, (Psa_50:4, Psa_50:6) in that what has befallen the sinner is only what was announced beforehand as the penalty of transgression. Soon; hastily (rhem), without delay. (cf. Deu_7:4, 22 "at once," Authorized Vers.; 9:3 "quickly", 12, 16) Prolong days; usually equal to have a long life; (cf. Deu_5:16 Deu_6:2 Deu_11:9 Deu_17:20, etc.) here it means "continue long to occupy." Only as they continued faithful to Jehovah could they continue as a people to possess the land; severed from him, they lost their title to occupy Canaan, and ceased to be his special people; as a nation they would be destroyed by being scattered among other nations.
Lev_26:33, etc., and Deu_28:64, it is evident that the author had in view "all the dispersions which would come upon the rebellious nation in future times, even down to the dispersion under the Romans, which continues still; so that Moses contemplated the punishment in its fullest extent" (Keil).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 4:26 Heaven and earth would be witnesses against Israel…
4:26 Heaven and earth would be witnesses against Israel if the people were disloyal to the Lord. In a covenant partnership, the parties to the agreement were held accountable to the oaths of loyalty and commitment they made to each other in the presence of witnesses (Isa 1:2-7; Mic 6:1-8). In Deuteronomy, the natural creation plays that role of witness (see Deut also 30:19).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.