📜WEB · Deuteronomy 6:22
What does Deuteronomy 6:22 mean?
"and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;"
— Deuteronomy 6:22 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
to thrust out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken.
When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What do the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh our God has commanded you mean?”
then you shall tell your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand;
and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes;
and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers.
Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are today.
It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all this commandment before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.”
Explanation
Deuteronomy 6:22 says, in plain terms, that God performed dramatic and terrifying miracles against Egypt, against Pharaoh personally, and against his entire household, and that the generation of Israelites speaking these words witnessed these events themselves. This is not secondhand testimony being passed along as legend — it is presented as eyewitness memory of real historical events that shaped the identity of the nation.
The context is crucial to understanding the verse. Moses is addressing the Israelites on the plains of Moab, just before they enter the Promised Land, decades after the exodus from Egypt. This verse comes in the middle of a passage (Deuteronomy 6:20–25) where Moses anticipates a future scenario: a child will ask a parent, "What is the meaning of the statutes and ordinances that Yahweh our God commanded you?" The parent's answer is meant to be a recitation of Israel's history — slavery in Egypt, God's mighty deliverance through signs and wonders, and the giving of the law at Sinai. Verse 22 is part of that rehearsed answer, reminding the next generation why the commandments matter: they are rooted in what God actually did for his people.
Theologically, this verse ties together God's power, God's justice, and God's covenant faithfulness. The "signs and wonders" refer to the ten plagues and the events surrounding the exodus, which were not random displays of divine strength but targeted acts of judgment against Pharaoh and Egypt for their oppression of Israel. The phrase "great and awesome"
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