Deuteronomy 32:19-20
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Context32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them
because his sons and daughters enraged him.
32:20 He said, “I will reject them, 1
I will see what will happen to them;
for they are a perverse generation,
children 2 who show no loyalty.
Deuteronomy 32:22
Context32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,
and it burns to lowest Sheol; 3
it consumes the earth and its produce,
and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
1 tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”
2 tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”
3 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).