1 The blessings for obedience. 15 The curses for disobedience.
Deu 28:1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.
This is an invitation to very serious consideration (see Ex. 23:22). After giving the instructions for the ceremony of cursing and blessing, for use on a future occasion, Moses returns in this chapter to repeat with some amplification the rewards and promises for obedience and disobedience.
Moses was now approaching the close of his life. He was again constrained to place more fully before his people the alternatives of obedience and disobedience. Moses knew that the course he was placing before Israel was educative and disciplinary.
The law was the foundation of their education as a people (Gal. 3:17, 24), By his opening words, “If you fully obey,” he notified them that their eternal destiny was in their own hands. God’s hands are yet tied by man’s choice; He has no alternative but to reward a man in harmony with his conduct (Matt. 6:33).
High above. See on ch. 26:19.
Deu 28:2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
Blessings. Like the showers upon the land, rich blessings would fall upon the obedient.
Deu 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
In the city. This verse constitutes a summary statement of all that follows. The activities enumerated in the following verses cover the whole of Israel’s life, private and national.
Deu 28:4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
A promise of no untimely births or miscarriages, and of success in rearing healthy children (see Deut. 28:11).
Your land. That is, of all cultivated crops, and therefore a promise of adequate and seasonable rains and the kind of weather necessary to ensure abundant crops (see Deut. 7:13; 30:9; also Ex. 23:26).
Deu 28:5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
Basket. Jewish commentators refer this to the vessels in which bread and fruit were kept. It refers to the daily food supplies of the children of Israel, the promise being that they would not lack their daily needs.
This promise assures Israel there will be no lack, but always something in store for use.
Deu 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
The expressions of v. 6 apply to all the activities of life (see Deut. 31:2; 2 Sam. 3:25; Ps. 121:8; Isa. 37:28).
Deu 28:7 The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
As their enemies advanced upon them in tight formation, rank upon rank of fighting men, as was the custom, they would be scattered as if they were an unorganized mob (see Judges 7:21, 22 on the Midianites, and 2 Kings 7:7 on the Syrians).
Deu 28:8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
Barns. This verse is comprehensive of all activities connected with earning a living.
Deu 28:9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him.
Holy. This does not refer to holiness as an abstract idea, but to Israel as being set apart to be God’s people and so acknowledged before all nations (see on ch. 26:18, 19).
If you keep the commandments. Compare Deut. 7:12; Ex. 19:5. The blessings of God are conditional, dependent upon Israel’s obedience to His just requirements. Moses held up before them their eternal destiny, as Christ later did (Matt. 6:33).
Deu 28:10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you.
The name of the Lord. Meaning that Israel would be recognized as God’s property (see on chs. 14:2; 26:18). Thus, God’s name is applied to the city of Jerusalem (Jer. 25:29).
All men would know Him in relation to His people (Isa. 61:9).
Deu 28:11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.
Abundant. Plenteous. All material blessings are included. Literally, “make you to have a surplus” (see Deut. 30:9; 2 Kings 4:43, 44).
Deu 28:12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.
Lend to many. Compare ch. 15:6. The ability to lend implies abundance.
Deu 28:13 The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.
The head. A promise of future leadership (see Isa. 9:14; 19:15). The contrast is stated in Deut. 28:43, 44.
Deu 28:14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
Curses for Disobedience
Deu 28:15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
Deu 28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Cursed. Compare this with v. 3. The blessings for obedience would exceed human imagination. But the penalties for disobedience would be equally impressive.
Deu 28:20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
Sudden ruin. Compare the expressions of Ps. 39:11, “consume away like a moth,” and Zeph. 1:18, “a speedy riddance of all them.”
Deu 28:21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
Deu 28:22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish.
Strike you. It is generally conceded that the first four mentioned pertain to human beings, and the last three to crops.
Deu 28:23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.
The “heavens,” ordinarily thought of as a source of moisture, would, under the curse of God, provide no more water than could be expected from bronze (see Lev. 26:19; Jer. 14:1–10).
Iron. Without moisture, the earth would be baked so hard that the primitive tools of the time could not cultivate it. The people would perish for lack of food.
Deu 28:24 The LORD will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.
Dust and powder. The great desert on the eastern frontier of Palestine was a ready arsenal for these weapons of God. From the desert blew the fearful dust storm known as the sirocco.
Deu 28:25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth.
They would march against their enemies as a compact, well-organized army, fully equipped, but they would be defeated and flee like an unorganized, leaderless mob.
Horror. If the Hebrews remained disobedient, they were to become a fearful example of poverty, disease, and suffering to all non-Jews (see 2 Chron. 29:8; Isa. 28:19).
Deu 28:26 Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away.
Your carcasses. A threat repeated in Jer. 7:33 (see Jer. 15:3; 16:4; 19:7; 34:20). The Jews were particularly sensitive with respect to their dead lying unburied. Such exposure was regarded as the utmost in punishment (see Jer. 22:19; 36:30; cf. Ps. 79:2, 3).
Frighten them away. The beasts and birds of prey that would devour their dead bodies.
Deu 28:27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.
Skin diseases of various kinds have always been common in the Orient.
Deu 28:28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.
Blindness. Though physical blindness is common enough in the East, it is generally conceded that here the true application is to a lack of good sense in government policies, resulting in ruin to the nation (see Zech. 12:4; cf. Isa. 13:8; 29:9-12, 18; Jer. 4:9; 25:16, 18; Zeph. 1:17).
Deu 28:29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
That is, from foreign enemies. Compare the failure of Egypt to deliver them (Jer. 37:7; 46:17).
Deu 28:30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
The “husband” would lose his wife even before the marriage could be consummated. This was accounted as a most grievous curse, as contrarily marriage was esteemed a great blessing.
Deu 28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.
Domestic animals would be helpless to do anything in their own defense (see Isa. 1:7).
Deu 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.
Deu 28:33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.
Deu 28:34 The sights you see will drive you mad.
That is, driven to despair, realizing the futility of attempting to do anything to relieve the situation.
Deu 28:35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
Deu 28:36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.
It would be almost beyond comprehension that a nation once so favored by God, should fall so low as Israel fell.
Deu 28:37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.
Deu 28:38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.
A byword
When the heathen wished to express contempt for a person, they would do so by calling him a Jew.
Harvest little. A word picture of famine. For a fulfillment of this preceding the captivity in Babylon see Jer. 14:1–6.
Deu 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.
Worms. Presumably pests that would devour their grapevines.
Deu 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your country but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off.
Deu 28:41 You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity.
Deu 28:42 Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land.
The locusts would completely take over the land and leave it a wilderness.
Deu 28:43 The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. There is nothing more galling to a nation than to have foreigners in the country prospering at the expense of a poverty-stricken native population.
Deu 28:44 They will lend to you, but you will not lend to them. They will be the head, but you will be the tail.
The tail. The very antithesis of God’s purpose in establishing His covenant with His people (vs. 12, 13).
Deu 28:45 All these curses will come on you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.
Did not obey. The curses of God were to follow progressively one upon another until Israel was brought to utter ruin. The reason for all this was their disregard of the terms of the covenant they had voluntarily entered with God.
They had taken solemn oath before Him to be loyal to His expressed will. Their utter repudiation of God and His covenant brought about a complete reversal of the purpose of God for them.
In proportion to the possible exaltation of Israel before all nations, so would their degradation be.
Deu 28:46 They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever.
The Jews were to be looked upon as peculiarly under God’s displeasure, as bearing the marks of His punitive hand. This was to continue forever—as their prosperity would have, had they been faithful.
Deu 28:47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity,
Deu 28:48 therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the LORD sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
Iron yoke. Compare Jer. 28:12–14 for a fulfillment of this prophecy. Destroyed. Literally, “exterminated,” “annihilated” (see Eze. 14:9; Amos 2:9; 9:8; Micah 5:14; Haggai 2:22).
Deu 28:49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, a nation whose language you will not understand,
A nation. Commentators have applied this prophecy to various nations—usually to Assyria (Isa. 10:5) and Babylon (Jer. 5:15). Others insist upon the Romans, pointing to the eagle of the Roman standards. Jewish commentators speak of the attack of the Roman forces led by Vespasian and Titus, who captured Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
Like an eagle swooping down. Compare a similar figure in Job 9:26; 39:27–29; Matt. 24:28. The swift swoop of the eagle down from the sky to its prey is noted in Hosea 8:1, and is likened to the attacks of the ancient Assyrian armies and of the forces of the Chaldeans (Jer. 48:40; 49:22; Hab. 1:8).
Not understand. See Jer. 5:15. The same expression is used by the prophet Isaiah in speaking of the Assyrians (Isa. 28:11; 33:19).
Many Christian, and the majority of Jewish commentators see these words fulfilled in the Roman armies. The Assyrian and Chaldean peoples spoke languages closely related to the language of the Hebrews.
The Latin tongue was entirely strange to the Jews, in that it was different from theirs, and in that they had had no contact with the Romans.
Deu 28:50 a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young. Literally, “of inflexible countenance,” from the verb root “to be strong,” “to be mighty,” “to be formidable.” The same word is used in Dan. 8:23 of the Roman power.
This word is translated “fierce” (Gen. 49:7), “strong” (Num. 13:28), “mighty” (Ps. 59:3), “roughly” (Prov. 18:23), “greedy” (Isa. 56:11).
Without respect. Compare the Chaldeans (2 Chron. 36:17; Lam. 5:6–12) and the Medes (Isa. 13:18).
Deu 28:51 They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined.
Are destroyed. T
The fulfillment of the various curses upon a disobedient people teaches us that God does not forever refrain from inflicting the judgment that sin demands.
It is no comfort to remember that one’s deplorable condition is the result of his own willful ways.
Deu 28:52 They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land the LORD your God is giving you.
Lay siege. A word picture of the flight of the people to their walled towns and cities, with the countryside, where the food of the nation is produced, deserted.
Walls fall down. Even their last strongholds were to be reduced, leaving them without refuge. Starvation, due to the fields lying waste, would contribute to the fall of the fenced cities (see Jer. 5:17).
Deu 28:53 Because of the suffering that your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you.
For a similar dreadful curse see Lev. 26:29; Jer. 19:9; Eze. 5:10. This was fulfilled in the siege of Samaria by the Syrians (2 Kings 6:26–29), in the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar (Lam. 2:20; 4:10), and again at the siege of Jerusalem by Titus.
Deu 28:54 Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children,
This may refer to a man watching and begrudging every morsel he may see in the possession of other members of his house, and to evil designs against his own kin.
Deu 28:55 and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all he has left because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of all your cities.
A description of the most terrible famine conditions imaginable. The gnawing pain of want can sweep away all traces of delicacy and culture.
Deu 28:56 The most gentle and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot—will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter
A description of women who have been taught and been brought up to observe and practice all the graces of conduct associated with gentle breeding and culture.
Deu 28:57 the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege of your cities.
Her young one. Literally, “her afterbirth.” The mother would be so distracted with hunger that she would eat the afterbirth, and then the child she gave birth to (see on v. 53).
Deu 28:58 If you do not carefully follow all the words of this law, which are written in this book, and do not revere this glorious and awesome name—the LORD your God—
This book.
This probably refers not only to the book of Deuteronomy but also to the torah (see chs. 17:19; 27:3, 8; 29:29; 31:12; 32:46).
Awesome name. The name is often used of the person and the person’s character and reputation (see Jer. 14:7, 21; Eze. 20:9, 14; Ps. 25:11; 31:3; Isa. 48:9; 66:5).
Deu 28:59 the LORD will send fearful plagues on you and your descendants, harsh and prolonged disasters, and severe and lingering illnesses.
Fearful plagues.
It was in their severity and duration that the plagues were exceptional (see Isa. 29:14).
Deu 28:60 He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you.
Deu 28:61 The LORD will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.
Deu 28:62 You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the LORD your God.
Deu 28:63 Just as it pleased the LORD to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you. You will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.
Destroy you. Compare the opposite emotion expressed of God in Hosea 11:8; also Jer. 32:41.
Deu 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.
Deu 28:65 Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart.
Eyes weary with longing Failing of eyes.
Due to weariness resulting from looking for deliverance that failed to come (see Job 11:20; 17:5; Ps. 119:123).
Anxious mind. Literally, “pining away of soul.”
Deu 28:66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life.
Deu 28:67 Deu 28:67 In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.
The word translated “terror” involves dread, awe, and trembling. Job had such an experience as depicted here (see Job 7:2–4; cf. Prov. 28:1).
Deu 28:68 The LORD will send you back in ships to Egypt on a journey I said you should never make again. There you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.
No more fearful punishment could have been inflicted than a forced return to the land of slavery from which God had delivered them.