“When you father children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, and you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the LORD your God, so as to provoke him to anger,
25. When thou shalt beget children, and children’s children. Although at the outset he only adverts to idolatry, yet, inasmuch as he thence takes occasion to inveigh generally against the transgressors of the Law, and denounces punishment against them, I have thought it advisable to introduce this passage amongst the Sanctions (of the Law.) He had already strictly forbidden them to turn aside to idols...
This most lively and excellent discourse is so entire, and the particulars of it are so often repeated, that we must take it altogether in the exposition of it, and endeavour to digest it into proper heads, for we cannot divide it into paragraphs. I.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 4:1-40
When thou shall beget children, and children's children,.... Children and grandchildren, and several ages and generations have passed: and shalt have remained long in the land; many years and even ages, or have grown old (h) in it: now they were in their infancy, and as such they were about to enter into it; during the times of the judges, they were in their childhood...