16 You will be cursed in the town and cursed in the field.
Then I will make this house like Shiloh, and will make this town a curse to all the nations of the earth.
And by him the hearts of fathers will be turned to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers; for fear that I may come and put the earth under a curse.
You are cursed with a curse; for you have kept back from me what is mine, even all this nation. Let your tenths come into the store-house so that there may be food in my house, and put me to the test by doing so, says the Lord of armies, and see if I do not make the windows of heaven open and send down such a blessing on you that there is no room for it. And on your account I will keep back the locusts from wasting the fruits of your land; and the fruit of your vine will not be dropped on the field before its time, says the Lord of armies And you will be named happy by all nations: for you will be a land of delight, says the Lord of armies.
If you will not give ear and take it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of armies, then I will send the curse on you and will put a curse on your blessing: truly, even now I have put a curse on it, because you do not take it to heart.
How, when anyone came to a store of twenty measures, there were only ten: when anyone went to the wine-store to get fifty vessels full, there were only twenty. And I sent burning and wasting and a rain of ice-drops on all the works of your hands; but still you were not turned to me, says the Lord.
You were looking for much, and it came to little; and when you got it into your house, I took it away with a breath. Why? says the Lord of armies. Because of my house which is a waste, while every man takes care of the house which is his. For this cause the heaven over you is kept from giving dew, and the earth from giving her fruit. And by my order no rain came on the land or on the mountains or the grain or the wine or the oil or the produce of the earth or on men or cattle or on any work of man's hands.
But in all your towns I have kept food from your teeth, and in all your places there has been need of bread: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste. So two or three towns went wandering to one town looking for water, and did not get enough: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. I have sent destruction on your fields by burning and disease: the increase of your gardens and your vine-gardens, your fig-trees and your olive-trees, has been food for worms: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.
Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.
Make sounds of grief like a virgin dressed in haircloth for the husband of her early years. The meal offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's servants, are sorrowing. The fields are wasted, the land has become dry; for the grain is wasted, the new wine is kept back, the oil is poor. The farmers are shamed, the workers in the vine-gardens give cries of grief, for the wheat and the barley; for the produce of the fields has come to destruction. The vine has become dry and the fig-tree is feeble; the pomegranate and the palm-tree and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are dry: because joy has gone from the sons of men. Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God. Let a time be fixed for going without food, have a holy meeting, let the old men, even all the people of the land, come together to the house of the Lord your God, crying out to the Lord. Sorrow for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Ruler of all it will come. Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from the house of our God? The grains have become small and dry under the spade; the store-houses are made waste, the grain-stores are broken down; for the grain is dry and dead. What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the herds of cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even the flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen.
What the worm did not make a meal of, has been taken by the locust; and what the locust did not take, has been food for the plant-worm; and what the plant-worm did not take, has been food for the field-fly.
Our skin is heated like an oven because of our burning heat from need of food.
How dark has the gold become! how changed the best gold! the stones of the holy place are dropping out at the top of every street. The valued sons of Zion, whose price was the best gold, are looked on as vessels of earth, the work of the hands of the potter! Even the beasts of the waste land have full breasts, they give milk to their young ones: the daughter of my people has become cruel like the ostriches in the waste land. The tongue of the child at the breast is fixed to the roof of his mouth for need of drink: the young children are crying out for bread, and no man gives it to them. Those who were used to feasting on delicate food are wasted in the streets: those who as children were dressed in purple are stretched out on the dust. For the punishment of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of Sodom, which was overturned suddenly without any hand falling on her. Her holy ones were cleaner than snow, they were whiter than milk, their bodies were redder than corals, their form was as the sapphire: Their face is blacker than night; in the streets no one has knowledge of them: their skin is hanging on their bones, they are dry, they have become like wood. Those who have been put to the sword are better off than those whose death is caused by need of food; for these come to death slowly, burned up like the fruit of the field. The hands of kind-hearted women have been boiling their children; they were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people. The Lord has given full effect to his passion, he has let loose his burning wrath; he has made a fire in Zion, causing the destruction of its bases. To the kings of the earth and to all the people of the world it did not seem possible that the attackers and the haters would go into the doors of Jerusalem. It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her.
My eyes are wasted with weeping, the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved, my inner parts are drained out on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because of the young children and babies at the breast who are falling without strength in the open squares of the town. They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast. What example am I to give you? what comparison am I to make for you, O daughter of Jerusalem? what am I to make equal to you, so that I may give you comfort, O virgin daughter of Zion? for your destruction is great like the sea: who is able to make you well? The visions which your prophets have seen for you are false and foolish; they have not made clear to you your sin so that your fate might be changed: but they have seen for you false words, driving you away. All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth? All your haters are opening their mouths wide against you; making hisses and whistling through their teeth, they say, We have made a meal of her: certainly this is the day we have been looking for; it has come, we have seen it. The Lord has done that which was his purpose; he has put into force the orders which he gave in the days which are past; pulling down without pity, he has made your hater glad over you, lifting up the horn of those who were against you. Let your cry go up to the Lord: O wall of the daughter of Zion, let your weeping be flowing down like a stream day and night; give yourself no rest, let not your eyes keep back the drops of sorrow. Up! give cries in the night, at the starting of the night-watches; let your heart be flowing out like water before the face of the Lord, lifting up your hands to him for the life of your young children who are falling down, feeble for need of food, at the top of every street. Look! O Lord, see to whom you have done this! Are the women to take as their food the fruit of their bodies, the children who are folded in their arms? are the priest and the prophet to be put to death in the holy place of the Lord? The young men and the old are stretched on the earth in the streets; my virgins and my young men have been put to the sword: you have sent death on them in the day of your wrath, causing death without pity. As in the day of a holy meeting you have made fears come round me on every side, and no one got away or was kept safe in the day of the Lord's wrath: those who were folded in my arms, whom I took care of, have been sent to their destruction by my hater.
See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!
And to Adam he said, Because you gave ear to the voice of your wife and took of the fruit of the tree which I said you were not to take, the earth is cursed on your account; in pain you will get your food from it all your life. Thorns and waste plants will come up, and the plants of the field will be your food;
If I go out into the open country, there are those put to death by the sword! and if I go into the town, there are those who are diseased from need of food! for the prophet and the priest go about in the land and have no knowledge.
Judah is weeping and its doors are dark with sorrow, and people are seated on the earth clothed in black; and the cry of Jerusalem has gone up. Their great men have sent their servants for water: they come to the holes and there is no water to be seen; they come back with nothing in their vessels; they are overcome with shame and fear, covering their heads. Those who do work on the land are in fear, for there has been no rain on the land, and the farmers are shamed, covering their heads. And the roe, giving birth in the field, lets her young one be uncared for, because there is no grass.
And I will make Jerusalem a mass of broken stones, the living-place of jackals; and I will make the towns of Judah a waste, with no man living there.
Your chiefs have made my holy place unclean, so I have made Jacob a curse, and Israel a thing of shame.
For this cause the earth is given up to the curse, and those in it are judged as sinners: for this cause those living on the earth are burned up, and the rest are small in number. The new wine is thin, the vine is feeble, and all the glad-hearted make sounds of grief. The pleasing sound of all instruments of music has come to an end, and the voices of those who are glad. There is no more drinking of wine with a song; strong drink will be bitter to those who take it. The town is waste and broken down: every house is shut up, so that no man may come in. There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; there is an end of all delight, the joy of the land is gone. In the town all is waste, and in the public place is destruction.
The curse of the Lord is on the house of the evil-doer, but his blessing is on the tent of the upright.
Then she said, By the life of the Lord your God, I have nothing but a little meal in my store, and a drop of oil in the bottle; and now I am getting two sticks together so that I may go in and make it ready for me and my son, so that we may have a meal before our death.
And Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, By the living Lord, the God of Israel, whose servant I am, there will be no dew or rain in these years, but only at my word.
And will not give to any of them the flesh of his children which will be his food because he has no other; in the cruel grip of your haters on all your towns.
A blessing will be on you in the town, and a blessing in the field. A blessing will be on the fruit of your body, and on the fruit of your land, on the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herd, and the young of your flock. A blessing will be on your basket and on your bread-basin. A blessing will be on your coming in and on your going out. By the power of the Lord, those who take arms against you will be overcome before you: they will come out against you one way, and will go in flight from you seven ways. The Lord will send his blessing on your store-houses and on everything to which you put your hand: his blessing will be on you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will keep you as a people holy to himself, as he has said to you in his oath, if you keep the orders of the Lord your God and go on walking in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord is on you, and they will go in fear of you. And the Lord will make you fertile in every good thing, in the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your fields, in the land which the Lord, by his oath to your fathers, said he would give you. Opening his store-house in heaven, the Lord will send rain on your land at the right time, blessing all the work of your hands: other nations will make use of your wealth, and you will have no need of theirs. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; and you will ever have the highest place, if you give ear to the orders of the Lord your God which I give you today, to keep and to do them; Not turning away from any of the orders which I give you today, to the right hand or to the left, or going after any other gods to give them worship.
And when the sweet smell came up to the Lord, he said in his heart, I will not again put a curse on the earth because of man, for the thoughts of man's heart are evil from his earliest days; never again will I send destruction on all living things as I have done. While the earth goes on, seed time and the getting in of the grain, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will not come to an end.
And he gave him the name of Noah, saying, Truly, he will give us rest from our trouble and the hard work of our hands, because of the earth which was cursed by God.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 28
Commentary on Deuteronomy 28 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
For the purpose of impressing upon the hearts of all the people in the most emphatic manner both the blessing which Israel was to proclaim upon Gerizim, and the curse which it was to proclaim upon Ebal, Moses now unfolds the blessing of fidelity to the law and the curse of transgression in a longer address, in which he once more resumes, sums up, and expands still further the promises and threats of the law in Exodus 23:20-33, and Lev 26.
Deuteronomy 28:1-6
The Blessing. - Deuteronomy 28:1. If Israel would hearken to the voice of the Lord its God, the Lord would make it the highest of all the nations of the earth. This thought, with which the discourse on the law in Deuteronomy 26:19 terminated, forms the theme, and in a certain sense the heading, of the following description of the blessing, through which the Lord, according to the more distinct declaration in Deuteronomy 28:2, would glorify His people above all the nations of the earth. The indispensable condition for obtaining this blessing, was obedience to the word of the Lord, or keeping His commandments. To impress this condition sine qua non thoroughly upon the people, Moses not only repeats it at the commencement (Deuteronomy 28:2), and in the middle (Deuteronomy 28:9), but also at the close (Deuteronomy 28:13, Deuteronomy 28:14), in both a positive and a negative form. In Deuteronomy 28:2, “the way in which Israel was to be exalted is pointed out” ( Schultz ); and thus the theme is more precisely indicated, and the elaboration of it is introduced. “All these blessings (those mentioned singly in what follows) will come upon thee and reach thee.” The blessings are represented as actual powers, which follow the footsteps of the nation, and overtake it. In Deuteronomy 28:3-6, the fulness of the blessing of God in all the relations of life is depicted in a sixfold repetition of the word “blessed.” Israel will be blessed in the town and in the field, the two spheres in which its life moves (Deuteronomy 28:3); blessed will be the fruit of the body, of the earth, and of the cattle, i.e., in all its productions (Deuteronomy 28:4; for each one, see Deuteronomy 7:13-14); blessed will be the basket (Deuteronomy 26:2) in which the fruits are kept, and the kneading - trough (Exodus 12:34) in which the daily bread is prepared (Deuteronomy 28:5); blessed will the nation be in all its undertakings (“coming in and going out;” vid., Numbers 27:17).
Deuteronomy 28:7-14
Deuteronomy 28:7-14 describe the influence and effect of the blessing upon all the circumstances and situations in which the nation might be placed: in Deuteronomy 28:7-10, with reference ( a ) to the attitude of Israel towards its enemies (Deuteronomy 28:7); ( b ) to its trade and handicraft (Deuteronomy 28:8); ( c ) to its attitude towards all the nations of the earth (Deuteronomy 28:9, Deuteronomy 28:10). The optative forms, יתּן and יצו (in Deuteronomy 28:7 and Deuteronomy 28:8), are worthy of notice. They show that Moses not only proclaimed the blessing to the people, but desired it for them, because he knew that Israel would not always or perfectly fulfil the condition upon which it was to be bestowed. “ May the Lord be pleased to give thine enemies...smitten before thee ,” i.e., give them up to thee as smitten ( לפני נתן , to give up before a person, to deliver up to him: cf. Deuteronomy 1:8), so that they shall come out against thee by one way, and flee from thee by seven ways, i.e., in wild dispersion (cf. Leviticus 26:7-8).
Deuteronomy 28:8
“ May the Lord command the blessing with thee (put it at thy disposal) in thy barns (granaries, store-rooms) and in all thy business ” (“to set the hand;” see Deuteronomy 12:7).
Deuteronomy 28:9-12
“ The Lord will exalt thee for a holy nation to Himself,...so that all the nations of the earth shall see that the name of Jehovah is named upon thee, and shall fear before thee .” The Lord had called Israel as a holy nation, when He concluded the covenant with it (Exodus 19:5-6). This promise, to which the words “as He hath sworn unto thee” point back, and which is called an oath, because it was founded upon the promises given to the patriarchs on oath (Genesis 22:16), and was given implicite in them, the Lord would fulfil to His people, and cause the holiness and glory of Israel to be so clearly manifested, that all nations should perceive or see “ that the name of the Lord is named upon Israel .” The name of the Lord is the revelation of His glorious nature. It is named upon Israel, when Israel is transformed into the glory of the divine nature (cf. Isaiah 63:19; Jeremiah 14:9). It was only in feeble commencements that this blessing was fulfilled upon Israel under the Old Testament; and it is not till the restoration of Israel, which is to take place in the future according to Romans 11:25., that its complete fulfilment will be attained. In Deuteronomy 28:11 and Deuteronomy 28:12, Moses returns to the earthly blessing, for the purpose of unfolding this still further. “ Superabundance will the Lord give thee for good (i.e., for happiness and prosperity; vid., Deuteronomy 30:9), in fruit of thy body ,” etc. (cf. Deuteronomy 28:4). He would open His good treasure-house, the heaven, to give rain to the land in its season (cf. Deuteronomy 11:14; Leviticus 26:4-5), and bless the work of the hands, i.e., the cultivation of the soil, so that Israel would be able to lend to many, according to the prospect already set before it in Deuteronomy 15:6.
Deuteronomy 28:13-14
By such blessings He would “ make Israel the head, and not the tail ,” - a figure taken from life (vid., Isaiah 9:13), the meaning of which is obvious, and is given literally in the next sentence, “ thou wilt be above only, and not beneath ,” i.e., thou wilt rise more and more, and increase in wealth, power, and dignity. With this the discourse returns to its commencement; and the promise of blessing closes with another emphatic repetition of the condition on which the fulfilment depended ( Deuteronomy 28:13 and Deuteronomy 28:14. On Deuteronomy 28:14, see Deuteronomy 5:29; Deuteronomy 11:28).
The Curse, in case Israel should not hearken to the voice of its God, to keep His commandments. After the announcement that all these (the following) curses would come upon the disobedient nation (Deuteronomy 28:15), the curse is proclaimed in all its extent, as covering all the relations of life, in a sixfold repetition of the word “cursed” (Deuteronomy 28:16-19, as above in Deuteronomy 28:3-6); and the fulfilment of this threat in plagues and diseases, drought and famine, war, devastation of the land, and captivity of the people, is so depicted, that the infliction of these punishments stands out to view in ever increasing extent and fearfulness. We are not to record this, however, as a gradual heightening of the judgments of God, in proportion to the increasing rebellion of Israel, as in Leviticus 26:14., although it is obvious that the punishments threatened did not fall upon the nation all at once.
Deuteronomy 28:16-19
Deuteronomy 28:16-19 correspond precisely to Deuteronomy 28:3-6, so as to set forth the curse as the counterpart of the blessing, except that the basket and kneading-trough are mentioned before the fruit of the body.
Deuteronomy 28:20-22
The first view, in which the bursting of the threatened curse upon the disobedient people is proclaimed in all its forms. First of all, quite generally in Deuteronomy 28:20. “ The Lord will send the curse against thee, consternation and threatening in every undertaking of thy hand which thou carriest out (see Deuteronomy 12:7), till thou be destroyed, till thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, because thou hast forsaken Me .” The three words, מארה , מהוּמה , and מגערת , are synonymous, and are connected together to strengthen the thought. מארה , curse or malediction; המּהוּמה , the consternation produced by the curse of God, namely, the confusion with which God smites His foes (see at Deuteronomy 7:23); המּגערה is the threatening word of the divine wrath. - Then Deuteronomy 28:21. in detail. “ The Lord will make the pestilence fasten upon (cleave to) thee, till He hath destroyed thee out of the land...to smite thee with giddiness and fever (cf. Leviticus 26:16), inflammation, burning, and sword, blasting of corn, and mildew (of the seed);” seven diseases therefore (seven as the stamp of the words of God), whilst pestilence in particular is mentioned first, as the most terrible enemy of life. דּלּקת , from דּלק to burn, and חרחר , from חרר to glow, signify inflammatory diseases, burning fevers; the distinction between these and קדּחת cannot be determined. Instead of חרב , the sword as the instrument of death, used to designate slaughter and death, the Vulgate , Arabic , and Samaritan have adopted the reading חרב , aestus , heat (Genesis 31:40), or drought, according to which there would be four evils mentioned by which human life is attacked, and three which are injurious to the corn. But as the lxx, Jon ., Syr ., and others read חרב , this alteration is very questionable, especially as the reading can be fully defended in this connection; and one objection to the alteration is, that drought is threatened for the first time in Deuteronomy 28:23, Deuteronomy 28:24. שׁדּפון , from שׁדף to singe or blacken, and ירקון , from ירק to be yellowish, refer to two diseases which attack the corn: the former to the withering or burning of the ears, caused by the east wind (Genesis 41:23); the other to the effect produced by a warm wind in Arabia, by which the green ears are turned yellow, so that they bear no grains of corn.
Deuteronomy 28:23-24
To this should be added terrible drought, without a drop of rain from heaven (cf. Leviticus 26:19). Instead of rain, dust and ashes should fall from heaven. נתן construed with a double accusative: to make the rain of the land into dust and ashes, to give it in the form of dust and ashes. When the heat is very great, the air in Palestine is often full of dust and sand, the wind assuming the form of a burning sirocco, so that the air resembles the glowing heat at the mouth of a furnace (Robinson, ii. 504).
Deuteronomy 28:25-26
Defeat in battle, the very opposite of the blessing promised in Deuteronomy 28:7. Israel should become לזעוה , “ a moving to and fro ,” i.e., so to speak, “a ball for all the kingdoms of the earth to play with” ( Schultz ). זעוה , here and at Ezekiel 23:46, is not a transposed and later form of זועה , which has a different meaning in Isaiah 28:19, but the original uncontracted form, which was afterwards condensed into זועה ; for this, and not זועה , is the way in which the Chethib should be read in Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 29:18; Jeremiah 34:17, and 2 Chronicles 29:8, where this threat is repeated (vid., Ewald , §53, b .). The corpses of those who were slain by the foe should serve as food for the birds of prey and wild beasts - the greatest ignominy that could fall upon the dead, and therefore frequently held out as a threat against the ungodly (Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 16:4; 1 Kings 14:11, etc.).
Deuteronomy 28:27-34
The second view depicts still further the visitation of God both by diseases of body and soul, and also by plunder and oppression on the part of their enemies. - In Deuteronomy 28:27 four incurable diseases of the body are threatened: the ulcer of Egypt (see at Exodus 9:9), i.e., the form of leprosy peculiar to Egypt, elephantiasis ( Aegypti peculiare malum: Plin . xxvi. c. 1, s. 5), which differed from lepra tuberosa , however, or tubercular leprosy (Deuteronomy 28:35; cf. Job 2:7), in degree only, and not in its essential characteristics (see Tobler, mediz. Topogr. v. Jerus. p. 51). עפלים , from עפל , a swelling, rising, signifies a tumour, and according to the Rabbins a disease of the anus: in men, tumor in posticis partibus; in women, durius quoddam οἴδημα in utero . It was with this disease that the Philistines were smitten (1 Samuel 5:1-12). גּרב (see Leviticus 21:20) and חרס , from חרס , to scrape or scratch, also a kind of itch, of which there are several forms in Syria and Egypt.
Deuteronomy 28:28-29
In addition to this, there would come idiocy, blindness, and confusion of mind, - three psychical maladies; for although עוּרון signifies primarily bodily blindness, the position of the word between idiocy and confusion of heart, i.e., of the understanding, points to mental blindness here.
Deuteronomy 28:29-34
Deuteronomy 28:29 leads to the same conclusion, where it is stated that Israel would grope in the bright noon-day, like a blind man in the dark, and not make his ways prosper, i.e., not hit upon the right road which led to the goal and to salvation, would have no good fortune or success in its undertakings (cf. Psalms 37:7). Being thus smitten in body and soul, it would be only ( אך as in Deuteronomy 16:15), i.e., utterly, oppressed and spoiled evermore. These words introduce the picture of the other calamity, viz., the plundering of the nation and the land by enemies (Deuteronomy 28:30-33). Wife, house, vineyard, ox, ass, and sheep would be taken away by the foe; sons and daughters would be carried away into captivity before the eyes of the people, who would see it and pine after the children, i.e., with sorrow and longing after them; “ and thy hand shall not be to thee towards God ,” i.e., all power and help will fail thee. (On this proverbial expression, see Genesis 31:29; and on חלּל , in Genesis 31:30, see at Deuteronomy 20:6.) - In Deuteronomy 28:33, Deuteronomy 28:34, this threat is summed up in the following manner: the fruit of the field and all their productions would be devoured by a strange nation, and Israel would be only oppressed and crushed to pieces all its days, and become mad on account of what its eyes would be compelled to see.
Deuteronomy 28:35-46
The third view. - With the words, “ the Lord will smite thee ,” Moses resumes in Deuteronomy 28:35 the threat of Deuteronomy 28:27, to set forth the calamities already threatened under a new aspect, namely, as signs of the rejection of Israel from covenant fellowship with the Lord.
Deuteronomy 28:35
The Lord would smite the people with grievous abscesses in the knees and thighs, that should be incurable, even from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. רע שׁחין ר is the so-called joint-leprosy, a form of the lepra tuberosa (vid., Pruner , p. 167). From the clause, however, “ from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head ,” it is evident that the threat is not to be restricted to this species of leprosy, since “the upper parts of the body often remain in a perfectly normal state in cases of leprosy in the joints; and after the diseased parts have fallen off, the patients recover their previous health to a certain degree” ( Pruner ). Moses mentions this as being a disease of such a nature, that it would render it utterly impossible for those who were afflicted with it either to stand or walk, and then heightens the threat by adding the words, “from the sole of the foot to the top of the head.” Leprosy excluded from fellowship with the Lord, and deprived the nation of the character of a nation of God.
Deuteronomy 28:36-37
The loss of their spiritual character would be followed by the dissolution of the covenant fellowship. This thought connects Deuteronomy 28:36 with Deuteronomy 28:35, and not the thought that Israel being afflicted with leprosy would be obliged to go into captivity, and in this state would become an object of abhorrence to the heathen ( Schultz ). The Lord would bring the nation and its king to a foreign nation that it did not know, and thrust them into bondage, so that it would be obliged to serve other gods - wood and stone (vid., Deuteronomy 4:28), - and would become an object of disgust, a proverb, and a byword to all nations whither God should drive it (vid., 1 Kings 9:7; Jeremiah 24:9).
Deuteronomy 28:38-39
Even in their own land the curse would fall upon every kind of labour and enterprise. Much seed would give little to reap, because the locust would devour the seed; the planting and dressing of the vineyard would furnish no wine to drink, because the worm would devour the vine. תּולעת is probably the ἴψ or ἴξ of the Greeks, the convolvulus of the Romans, our vine-weevil.
Deuteronomy 28:40
They would have many olive-trees in the land, but not anoint themselves with oil, because the olive-tree would be rooted out or plundered ( ישּׁל , Niphal of שׁלל , as in Deuteronomy 19:5, not the Kal of נשׁל , which cannot be shown to have the intransitive meaning elabi ).
Deuteronomy 28:41
Sons and daughters would they beget, but not keep, because they would have to go into captivity.
Deuteronomy 28:42
All the trees and fruits of the land would the buzzer take possession of. צלצל , from צלל to buzz , a rhetorical epithet applied to locusts , not the grasshopper, which does not injure the fruits of the tree or ground sufficiently for the term ירשׁ , “to take possession of,” to be applicable to it.
Deuteronomy 28:43
Israel would be utterly impoverished, and would sink lower and lower, whilst the stranger in the midst of it would, on the contrary, get above it very high; not indeed “because he had no possession, but was dependent upon resources of other kinds” ( Schultz ), but rather because he would be exempted with all his possessions from the curse of God, just as the Israelites had been exempted from the plagues which came upon the Egyptians (Exodus 9:6-7, Exodus 9:26).
Deuteronomy 28:44-46
The opposite of Deuteronomy 28:12 and Deuteronomy 28:13 would come to pass. - In Deuteronomy 28:46 the address returns to its commencement in Deuteronomy 28:15, with the terrible threat, “ These curses shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever ,” for the purpose of making a pause, if not of bringing the whole to a close. The curses were for a sign and wonder ( מופת , that which excites astonishment and terror), inasmuch as their magnitude and terrible character manifested most clearly the supernatural interposition of God (vid., Deuteronomy 29:23). “ For ever ” applies to the generation smitten by the curse, which would remain for ever rejected, though without involving the perpetual rejection of the whole nation, or the impossibility of the conversion and restoration of a remnant, or of a holy seed (Isaiah 10:22; Isaiah 6:13; Romans 9:27; Romans 11:5).
Deuteronomy 28:47-57
The fourth view. - Although in what precedes every side of the national life has been brought under the curse, yet love to his people, and the desire to preserve them from the curse, by holding up before them the dreadful severity of the wrath of God, impel the faithful servant of the Lord to go still further, and depict more minutely still the dreadful horrors consequent upon Israel being given up to the power of the heathen, and first of all in Deuteronomy 28:47-57 the horrible calamities which would burst upon Israel on the conquest of the land and its fortresses by its foes.
Deuteronomy 28:47-48
Because it had not served the Lord its God with joy and gladness of heart, “ for the abundance of all ,” i.e., for the abundance of all the blessings bestowed upon it by its God, it would serve its enemies in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and want of everything, and wear an iron yoke, i.e., be obliged to perform the hardest tributary service till it was destroyed ( השׁמיד for השׁמיד , as in Deuteronomy 7:24).
Deuteronomy 28:49-50
The Lord would bring against it from afar a barbarous, hardhearted nation, which knew not pity. “ From afar ” is still further strengthened by the addition of the words, “ from the end of the earth .” The greater the distance off, the more terrible does the foe appear. He flies thence like an eagle, which plunges with violence upon its prey, and carries it off with its claws; and Israel does not understand its language, so as to be able to soften its barbarity, or come to any terms. A people “ firm, hard of face, ” i.e., upon whom nothing makes an impression (vid., Isaiah 50:7), - a description of the audacity and shamelessness of its appearance (Daniel 8:23; cf. Proverbs 7:13; Proverbs 21:29), which spares neither old men nor boys. This description no doubt applies to the Chaldeans, who are described as flying eagles in Habakkuk 1:6., Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Ezekiel 17:3, Ezekiel 17:7, as in the verses before us; but it applies to other enemies of Israel beside these, namely to the great imperial powers generally, the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Romans, whom the Lord raised up as the executors of His curse upon His rebellious people. Isaiah therefore depicts the Assyrians in a similar manner, namely, as a people with an unintelligible language (Deuteronomy 5:26; Deuteronomy 28:11; Deuteronomy 33:19), and describes the cruelty of the Medes in Deuteronomy 13:17-18, with an unmistakeable allusion to Deuteronomy 28:50 of the present threat.
Deuteronomy 28:51-52
This foe would consume all the fruit of the cattle and the land, i.e., everything which the nation had acquired through agriculture and the breeding of stock, without leaving it anything, until it was utterly destroyed (see Deuteronomy 7:13), and would oppress, i.e., besiege it in all its gates (towns, vid., Deuteronomy 12:12), till the lofty and strong walls upon which they relied should fall ( ירד as in Deuteronomy 20:20).
Deuteronomy 28:53
It would so distress Israel, that in their distress and siege they would be driven to eat the fruit of their body, and the flesh of their own children (with regard to the fulfilment of this, see the remarks on Leviticus 26:29). - This horrible distress is depicted still more fully in Deuteronomy 28:54-57, where the words, “ in the siege and in the straitness ,” etc. (Deuteronomy 28:53), are repeated as a refrain , with their appalling sound, in Deuteronomy 28:55 and Deuteronomy 28:57.
Deuteronomy 28:54-55
The effeminate and luxurious man would look with ill-favour upon his brother, the wife of his bosom, and his remaining children, “to give” (so that he would not give) to one of them of the flesh of his children which he was consuming, because there was nothing left to him in the siege. “ His eye shall be evil ,” i.e., look with envy or ill-favour (cf. Deuteronomy 15:9). השׁאיר מבּלי , on account of there not being anything left for himself. כּל with בּלי signifies literally “ all not ,” i.e., nothing at all. השׁאיר , an infinitive, as in Deuteronomy 3:3 (see at Deuteronomy 28:48).
Deuteronomy 28:56-57
The delicate and luxurious woman, who had not attempted to put her feet to the ground (had always been carried therefore either upon a litter or an ass: cf. Judges 5:10, and Arvieux, Sitten der Beduinen Ar. p. 143), from tenderness and delicacy - her eye would look with envy upon the husband of her bosom and her children, and that ( vav expl .) because of (for) her after-birth, which cometh out from between her feet, and because of her children which she bears (sc., during the siege); “ for she will eat them secretly in the want of everything ,” that is to say, first of all attempt to appease her hunger with the after-birth, and then, when there was no more left, with her own children. To such an awful height would the famine rise!
Deuteronomy 28:58-68
The fifth and last view. - And yet these horrible calamities would not be the end of the distress. The full measure of the divine curse would be poured out upon Israel, when its disobedience had become hardened into disregard of the glorious and fearful name of the Lord its God. To point this out, Moses describes the resistance of the people in Deuteronomy 28:58; not, as in Deuteronomy 28:15 and Deuteronomy 28:45, as not hearkening to the voice of the Lord to keep all His commandments, which he (Moses) had commanded this day, or which Jehovah had commanded (Deuteronomy 28:45), but as “not observing to do all the words which are written in this book, to fear the glorified and fearful name,” (viz.) Jehovah its God. “ This book ” is not Deuteronomy, even if we should assume that Moses had not first of all delivered the discourses in this book to the people and then written them down, but had first of all written them down and then read them to the people (see at Deuteronomy 31:9), but the book of the law, i.e., the Pentateuch, so far as it was already written. This is evident from Deuteronomy 28:60, Deuteronomy 28:61, according to which the grievous diseases of Egypt were written in this book of the law, which points to the book of Exodus, where grievous diseases occur among the Egyptian plagues. In fact, Moses could not have thought of merely laying the people under the obligation to keep the laws of the book of Deuteronomy, since this book does not contain all the essential laws of the covenant, and was never intended to form an independent book of the law. The infinitive clause, “ to fear ,” etc., serves to explain the previous clause, “ to do ,” etc., whether we regard the two clauses as co-ordinate, or the second as subordinate to the first. Doing all the commandments of the law must show and prove itself in fearing the revealed name of the Lord. Where this fear is wanting, the outward observance of the commandments can only be a pharisaic work-righteousness, which is equivalent to a transgress of the law. But the object of this fear was not to be a God, according to human ideas of the nature and working of God; it was to be “ this glorified and fearful name ,” i.e., Jehovah the absolute God, as He glories Himself and shows Himself to be fearful in His doings upon earth. “ The name ,” as in Leviticus 24:11. נכבּד in a reflective sense, as in Exodus 14:4, Exodus 14:17-18; Leviticus 10:3.
Deuteronomy 28:59-60
If Israel should not do this, the Lord would make its strokes and the strokes of its seed wonderful, i.e., would visit the people and their descendants with extraordinary strokes, with great and lasting strokes, and with evil and lasting diseases (Deuteronomy 28:60), and would bring all the pestilences of Egypt upon it. השׁיב , to turn back, inasmuch as Israel was set free from them by the deliverance out of Egypt. מדוה is construed with the plural as a collective noun.
Deuteronomy 28:61
Also every disease and every stroke that was not written in this book of the law, - not only those that were written in the book of the law, but those also that did not stand therein. The diseases of Egypt that were written in the book of the law include the murrain of cattle, the boils and blains, and the death of the first-born (Exodus 9:1-10; Exodus 12:29); and the strokes ( מכּה ) the rest of the plagues, viz., the frogs, gnats, dog-flies, hail, locusts, and darkness (Ex 8-10). יעלּם , an uncommon and harder form of יעלם (Judges 16:3; cf. Ewald , §138, a .).
Deuteronomy 28:62
Israel would be almost annihilated thereby. “ Ye will be left in few people (a small number; cf. Deuteronomy 26:5), whereas ye were as numerous as the stars of heaven .”
Deuteronomy 28:63
Yea, the Lord would find His pleasure in the destruction and annihilation of Israel, as He had previously rejoiced in blessing and multiplying it. With this bold anthropomorphic expression Moses seeks to remove from the nation the last prop of false confidence in the mercy of God. Greatly as the sin of man troubles God, and little as the pleasure may be which He has in the death of the wicked, yet the holiness of His love demands the punishment and destruction of those who despise the riches of His goodness and long-suffering; so that He displays His glory in the judgment and destruction of the wicked no less than in blessing and prospering the righteous.
Deuteronomy 28:63-64
Those who had not succumbed to the plagues and strokes of God, would be torn from the land of their inheritance, and scattered among all nations to the end of the earth, and there be compelled to serve other gods, which are wood and stone, which have no life and no sensation, and therefore can hear no prayer, and cannot deliver out of any distress (cf. Deuteronomy 4:27.).
Deuteronomy 28:65-66
When banished thus among all nations, Israel would find no ease or rest, not even rest for the sole of its foot, i.e., no place where it could quietly set its foot, and remain and have peace in its heart. To this extreme distress of homeless banishment there would be added “ a trembling heart, failing of the eyes (the light of life), and despair of soul ” (vid., Leviticus 26:36.).
Deuteronomy 28:66
“ Thy life will be hung up before thee ,” i.e., will be like some valued object, hanging by a thin thread before thine eyes, which any moment might tear down ( Knobel ), that is to say, will be ever hanging in the greatest danger. “ Thou wilt not believe in thy life ,” i.e., thou wilt despair of its preservation (cf. Job. Deuteronomy 24:22).
(Note: “I have never seen a passage which describes more clearly the misery of a guilty conscience, in words and thoughts so fitting and appropriate. For this is just the way in which a man is affected, who knows that God is offended, i.e., who is harassed with the consciousness of sin”' ( Luther ).)
Deuteronomy 28:67
In the morning they would wish it were evening, and in the evening would wish it were morning, from perpetual dread of what each day or night would bring.
Deuteronomy 28:68
Last of all, Moses mentions the worst, namely, their being taken back to Egypt into ignominious slavery. “If the exodus was the birth of the nation of God as such, return would be its death” ( Schultz ). “ In ships: ” i.e., in a way which would cut off every possibility of escape. The clause, “ by the way whereof I spake unto thee, thou shalt see it no more again, ” is not a more precise explanation of the expression “in ships,” for it was not in ships that Israel came out of Egypt, but by land, through the desert; on the contrary, it simply serves to strengthen the announcement, “The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again,” namely, in the sense that God would cause them to take a road which they would never have been again if they had continued in faithful dependence upon the Lord. This was the way to Egypt, in reality such a return to this land as Israel ought never to have experienced, namely, a return to slavery. “ There shall ye be sold to your enemies as servants and maids, and there shall be no buyer ,” i.e., no one will buy you as slaves. This clause, which indicates the utmost contempt, is quite sufficient to overthrow the opinion of Ewald , Riehm , and others, already referred to at pp. 928, 929, namely, that this verse refers to Psammetichus, who procured some Israelitish infantry from Manasseh. Egypt is simply mentioned as a land where Israel had lived in ignominious bondage. “As a fulfilment of a certain kind, we might no doubt adduce the fact that Titus sent 17,000 adult Jews to Egypt to perform hard labour there, and had those who were under 17 years of age publicly sold (Josephus, de bell. Jud. vi. 9, 2), and also that under Hadrian Jews without number were sold at Rachel's grave ( Jerome, ad Jer 31). But the word of God is not so contracted, that it can be limited to one single fact. The curses were fulfilled in the time of the Romans in Egypt (vid., Philo in Flacc., and leg. ad Caium ), but they were also fulfilled in a horrible manner during the middle ages (vid., Depping, die Juden im Mittelalter ); and they are still in course of fulfilment, even though they are frequently less sensibly felt” ( Schultz ).