1And it shall come to pass, if you take heed to obey the voice of Jehovah your God, to take heed to do all His commandments which I am commanding you today, that Jehovah your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of Jehovah your God: 3Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. 4Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock, the offspring of your cattle and the increase of your flocks. 5Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7Jehovah shall cause your enemies who rise against you to be stricken before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8Jehovah shall command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you put your hand, and He will bless you in the land which Jehovah your God is giving to you. 9Jehovah will establish you as a holy people unto Himself, as He has sworn unto you, if you keep the commandments of Jehovah your God and have walked in His ways. 10And all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of Jehovah, and they shall be afraid of you. 11And Jehovah will make you exceed in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb, in the fruit of your livestock, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land of which Jehovah has sworn to your fathers to give to you. 12Jehovah will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13And Jehovah will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of Jehovah your God, which I am commanding you today, and take heed to do them. 14And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I am commanding you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them. 15But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of Jehovah your God, to take heed to do all His commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you: 16Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. 17Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18Cursed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, the offspring of your cattle and the increase of your flocks. 19Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. 20Jehovah will send upon you cursing, turmoil, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21Jehovah will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from off the land which you are going in to possess. 22Jehovah will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with burning fever, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23And your heavens over your head shall be bronze, and the earth under you shall be iron. 24Jehovah will make the rain of your land into dust and powder; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed. 25Jehovah will cause you to be stricken before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall be an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. 27Jehovah will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28Jehovah will strike you with madness and blindness and bewilderment of heart. 29And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered all your days, and no one shall deliver you. 30You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not begin to eat. 31Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. 32Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no might in your hand. 33A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and your produce, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34Thus you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35Jehovah will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36Jehovah will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods; wood and stone. 37And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all the nations where Jehovah shall drive you. 38You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. 39You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. 41You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42Locusts shall dispossess all your trees and the produce of your land. 43The sojourners among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. 45Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of Jehovah your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He has commanded you. 46And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and upon your seed perpetually. 47Because you did not serve Jehovah your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things, 48therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom Jehovah will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron upon your neck until He has destroyed you. 49Jehovah will bring a nation against you from afar, from the ends of the earth, as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50a nation of fierce countenance, which does not regard the face of the old nor show favor to the young. 51And they shall eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the offspring of your cattle or the increase of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. 52They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which Jehovah your God has given to you. 53You shall eat the fruit of your own womb, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom Jehovah your God has given to you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemies shall distress you. 54The eye of the man who is tender and very delicate shall quiver with hostility toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55so that he will not give to any of them the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. 56The eye of the tender and dainty woman among you, who would not have ventured to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and tenderness, will quiver with hostility toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son and her daughter, 57and toward her afterbirth which comes forth from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she shall eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. 58If you do not take heed to do all the Words of this Law that are written in this book, to fear this glorious and awesome name, JEHOVAH GOD, 59then Jehovah will bring upon you and your seed extraordinary plagues; great and long lasting plagues; and evil long lasting sicknesses. 60Moreover He will bring back upon you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cleave to you. 61Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will Jehovah bring upon you to destroy you. 62You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of Jehovah your God. 63And it shall be, that just as Jehovah has rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so Jehovah will rejoice over you to destroy you and annihilate you; and you shall be torn away from off the land which you are going in to possess. 64And Jehovah will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known; wood and stone. 65And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there Jehovah shall give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and fainting soul. 66Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. 67In the morning you shall say, Oh, that it were evening! And at evening you shall say, Oh, that it were morning! because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. 68And Jehovah will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I had said to you, You shall never see it again. And there you shall have been sold to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 THE BLESSINGS FOR OBEDIENCE. (Deu. 28:1-68)
if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God--In this chapter the blessings and curses are enumerated at length, and in various minute details, so that on the first entrance of the Israelites into the land of promise, their whole destiny was laid before them, as it was to result from their obedience or the contrary.
2 all these blessings shall come on thee--Their national obedience was to be rewarded by extraordinary and universal prosperity.
7 flee before thee seven ways--that is, in various directions, as always happens in a rout.
10 called by the name of the Lord--That they are really and actually His people (
Deut 14:1;
Deut 26:18).
11 the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods--Beside the natural capabilities of Canaan, its extraordinary fruitfulness was traceable to the special blessing of Heaven.
12 The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure--The seasonable supply of the early and latter rain was one of the principal means by which their land was so uncommonly fruitful.
thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow--that is, thou shalt be in such affluent circumstances, as to be capable, out of thy superfluous wealth, to give aid to thy poorer neighbors.
13 the head, and not the tail--an Oriental form of expression, indicating the possession of independent power and great dignity and acknowledged excellence (
Isa 9:14;
Isa 19:15).
15 But . . . if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord--Curses that were to follow them in the event of disobedience are now enumerated, and they are almost exact counterparts of the blessings which were described in the preceding context as the reward of a faithful adherence to the covenant.
21 pestilence--some fatal epidemic. There is no reason, however, to think that the plague, which is the great modern scourge of the East, is referred to.
22 a consumption--a wasting disorder; but the modern tuberculosis is almost unknown in Asia.
fever . . . inflammation . . . extreme burning--Fever is rendered "burning ague" (
Lev 26:16), and the others mentioned along with it evidently point to those febrile affections which are of malignant character and great frequency in the East.
the sword--rather, "dryness"--the effect on the human body of such violent disorders.
blasting, and with mildew--two atmospheric influences fatal to grain.
23 heaven . . . brass . . . earth . . . iron--strong Oriental figures used to describe the effects of long-continued drought. This want of regular and seasonable rain is allowed by the most intelligent observers to be one great cause of the present sterility of Palestine.
24 the rain of thy land powder and dust--an allusion probably to the dreadful effects of tornadoes in the East, which, raising the sands in immense twisted pillars, drive them along with the fury of a tempest. These shifting sands are most destructive to cultivated lands; and in consequence of their encroachments, many once fertile regions of the East are now barren deserts.
27 the botch of Egypt--a troublesome eruption, marked by red pimples, to which, at the rising of the Nile, the Egyptians are subject.
emerods--fistulć or piles.
scab--scurvy.
itch--the disease commonly known by that name; but it is far more malignant in the East than is ever witnessed in our part of the world.
28 madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart--They would be bewildered and paralyzed with terror at the extent of their calamities.
29 thou shalt grope at noonday--a general description of the painful uncertainty in which they would live. During the Middle Ages the Jews were driven from society into hiding-places which they were afraid to leave, not knowing from what quarter they might be assailed and their children dragged into captivity, from which no friend could rescue, and no money ransom them.
35 the Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs--This is an exact description of elephantiasis, a horrible disease, something like leprosy, which attacks particularly the lower extremities.
36 The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king, &c.--This shows how widespread would be the national calamity; and at the same time how hopeless, when he who should have been their defender shared the captive fate of his subjects.
there shalt thou serve other gods, wood and stone--The Hebrew exiles, with some honorable exceptions, were seduced or compelled into idolatry in the Assyrian and Babylonish captivities (
Jer 44:17-
Jer 44:19). Thus, the sin to which they had too often betrayed a perverse fondness, a deep-rooted propensity, became their punishment and their misery.
37 And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee, &c.--The annals of almost every nation, for eighteen hundred years, afford abundant proofs that this has been, as it still is, the case--the very name of Jew being a universally recognized term for extreme degradation and wretchedness.
49 The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far--the invasion of the Romans--"they came from far." The soldiers of the invading army were taken from France, Spain, and Britain--then considered "the end of the earth." Julius Severus, the commander, afterwards Vespasian and Hadrian, left Britain for the scene of contest. Moreover, the ensign on the standards of the Roman army was "an eagle"; and the dialects spoken by the soldiers of the different nations that composed that army were altogether unintelligible to the Jews.
50 A nation of fierce countenance--a just description of the Romans, who were not only bold and unyielding, but ruthless and implacable.
51 he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, &c.--According to the Jewish historian, every district of the country through which they passed was strewn with the wrecks of their devastation.
52 he shall besiege thee . . . until thy high and fenced walls come down--All the fortified places to which the people betook themselves for safety were burnt or demolished, and the walls of Jerusalem itself razed to the ground.
53 And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body--(See
2Kgs 6:29;
Lam 4:10). Such were the dreadful extremities to which the inhabitants during the siege were reduced that many women sustained a wretched existence by eating the flesh of their own children. Parental affection was extinguished, and the nearest relatives were jealously, avoided, lest they should discover and demand a share of the revolting viands.
62 ye shall be left few in number--There has been, ever since the destruction of Jerusalem, only an inconsiderable remnant of Jews existing in that land--aliens in the land of their fathers; and of all classes of the inhabitants they are the most degraded and miserable beings, dependent for their support on contributions from other lands.
63 ye shall be plucked from off the land--Hadrian issued a proclamation, forbidding any Jews to reside in Judea, or even to approach its confines.
64 the Lord shall scatter thee among all people--There is, perhaps, not a country in the world where Jews are not to be found. Who that looks on this condition of the Hebrews is not filled with awe, when he considers the fulfilment of this prophecy?
68 The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships--The accomplishment of this prediction took place under Titus, when, according to JOSEPHUS, multitudes of Jews were transported in ships to the land of the Nile, and sold as slaves. "Here, then, are instances of prophecies delivered above three thousand years ago; and yet, as we see, being fulfilled in the world at this very time; and what stronger proofs can we desire of the divine legation of Moses? How these instances may affect others I know not; but for myself, I must acknowledge, they not only convince but amaze and astonish me beyond expression; they are truly, as Moses foretold (
Deut 28:45-
Deut 28:46) they would be, 'a sign and a wonder for ever'" [BISHOP NEWTON].
