Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 32:16-22 
Context32:16 They made him jealous with other gods, 1
they enraged him with abhorrent idols. 2
32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods they had not known;
to new gods who had recently come along,
gods your ancestors 3 had not known about.
32:18 You have forgotten 4 the Rock who fathered you,
and put out of mind the God who gave you birth.
32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them
because his sons and daughters enraged him.
32:20 He said, “I will reject them, 5
I will see what will happen to them;
for they are a perverse generation,
children 6 who show no loyalty.
32:21 They have made me jealous 7 with false gods, 8
enraging me with their worthless gods; 9
so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, 10
with a nation slow to learn 11 I will enrage them.
32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,
and it burns to lowest Sheol; 12
it consumes the earth and its produce,
and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
1 tc Heb “with strange (things).” The Vulgate actually supplies diis (“gods”).
2 tn Heb “abhorrent (things)” (cf. NRSV). A number of English versions understand this as referring to “idols” (NAB, NIV, NCV, CEV), while NLT supplies “acts.”
3 tn Heb “your fathers.”
4 tc The Hebrew text is corrupt here; the translation follows the suggestion offered in HALOT 1477 s.v. שׁיה. Cf. NASB, NLT “You neglected”; NIV “You deserted”; NRSV “You were unmindful of.”
5 tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”
6 tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”
7 sn They have made me jealous. The “jealousy” of God is not a spirit of pettiness prompted by his insecurity, but righteous indignation caused by the disloyalty of his people to his covenant grace (see note on the word “God” in Deut 4:24). The jealousy of Israel, however (see next line), will be envy because of God’s lavish attention to another nation. This is an ironic wordplay. See H. Peels, NIDOTTE 3:938-39.
8 tn Heb “what is not a god,” or a “nondeity.”
9 tn Heb “their empty (things).” The Hebrew term used here to refer pejoratively to the false gods is הֶבֶל (hevel, “futile” or “futility”), used frequently in Ecclesiastes (e.g., Eccl 1:1, “Futile! Futile!” laments the Teacher, “Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!”).
10 tn Heb “what is not a people,” or a “nonpeople.” The “nonpeople” (לֹא־עָם, lo’-’am) referred to here are Gentiles who someday would become God’s people in the fullest sense (cf. Hos 1:9; 2:23).
11 tn Heb “a foolish nation” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “a nation that has no understanding”; NLT “I will provoke their fury by blessing the foolish Gentiles.”
12 tn Or “to the lowest depths of the earth”; cf. NAB “to the depths of the nether world”; NIV “to the realm of death below”; NLT “to the depths of the grave.”
sn Sheol refers here not to hell and hell-fire – a much later concept – but to the innermost parts of the earth, as low down as one could get. The parallel with “the foundations of the mountains” makes this clear (cf. Pss 9:17; 16:10; 139:8; Isa 14:9, 15; Amos 9:2).
