Komentarz do Powtórzonego Prawa 31:18

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני מהם, not as they thought that I was no longer in their midst; wherever they are My presence is with them, as our sages said in Megillah 29 “wherever the Jewish people have been exiled G’d’s presence accompanies them. However, it does not manifest itself by saving them from their oppressor.”

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא, "But I will surely hide My face on that day, etc." The difficulty in this verse is that G'd is portrayed as hiding His face after the Israelites have already confessed their sins, and have acknowledged that their troubles were due to G'd having turned His back on them. If all our verse wanted to do was to provide us with the reason why what happened so far had occurred, there is no need for this. We already know that G'd turned His face away as a result of the Israelites flirting with local deities! Moreover, why did Moses repeat the mention of G'd hiding His face, i.e. הסתר אסתיר? Another thing which is puzzling is why Moses used such a long-winded expression as על כל הרעה, followed by כי פנה אל אלוהים אחרים.

ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני, “but I will increasingly hide My presence, etc.” G’d will hide His face once more, as He had done in verse 17. This is remarkable, as we would have thought that now that the people had attributed their misfortunes to G’d withdrawing from them, G’d should respond by showering them with His loving kindness seeing that they had at least acknowledged the impotence of any other deities. The Torah explains why this is not the next scenario by writing: