Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 32:23
I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — God speaks through Moses in the Song of Moses, addressing Israel’s future covenant rebellion. The declaration follows a warning of divine fire burning to Sheol and precedes a list of famine, pestilence, and wild beasts.
The words — The Hebrew אַסְפֶּה ('aspeh) literally means "I will gather" or "heap," and חִצִּי (chittai) means "my arrows." The text first states the accumulation of calamities before framing them as targeted divine weapons.
The thread — This pattern of gathered disaster and directed arrows appears in Psalms 7:12, Ezekiel 5:16, and Isaiah 24:17, where judgment is consistently portrayed as intentional rather than accidental.
Why it lands — The passage requires the reader to acknowledge that calamity is a deliberate divine response, not random misfortune. It demands sober accountability for covenant failure before any appeal for mercy.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
Cross-references
- Psalms 7:12 If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow.
- Ezekiel 5:16 When I shower you with the deadly arrows of famine and destruction that I will send to destroy you, I will intensify the famine against you and cut off your supply of food.
- Isaiah 24:17 Terror and pit and snare await you, O dweller of the earth.
- Leviticus 26:24 then I will act with hostility toward you, and I will strike you sevenfold for your sins.
- Deuteronomy 28:15 If, however, you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
- Isaiah 26:15 You have enlarged the nation, O LORD; You have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for Yourself; You have extended all the borders of the land.
- Lamentations 3:13 He pierced my kidneys with His arrows.
- Ezekiel 14:21 For this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘How much worse will it be when I send against Jerusalem My four dire judgments—sword, famine, wild beasts, and plague—in order to cut off from it both man and beast?
- Leviticus 26:18 And if after all this you will not obey Me, I will proceed to punish you sevenfold for your sins.
- Deuteronomy 29:21 and single him out from all the tribes of Israel for disaster, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this Book of the Law.