John Gill

On Deuteronomy 28:45

Moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee,.... Before related, as well as what follow:

and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee till thou be destroyed; which though they would endeavour to flee from and escape, should not be able, since they would follow them so closely and swiftly, and overtake them, and seize upon them; see Deuteronomy 28:15,

because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee; to which disobedience all the curses are to be imputed that go before or follow after.

Keil & Delitzsch

On Deuteronomy 28:15-68

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 (Deu 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" (Deu 28:16-19, as above in Deu 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 Lev 26:14., although it is obvious that the punishments threatened did not fall upon the nation all at once.

Deu 28:16-19

Deu 28:16-19 correspond precisely to Deu 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.

Deu 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 Deu 28:20. "The Lord will send the curse against thee, consternation and threatening in every undertaking of thy hand which thou carriest out (see Deu 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 Deu 7:23); המּגערה is the threatening word of the divine wrath. - Then Deu 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. Lev 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 (Gen 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 Deu 28:23, Deu 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 (Gen 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.

Deu 28:23-24

To this should be added terrible drought, without a drop of rain from heaven (cf. Lev 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).

Deu 28:25-26

Defeat in battle, the very opposite of the blessing promised in Deu 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 Eze 23:46, is not a transposed and later form of זועה, which has a different meaning in Isa 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 Jer 15:4; Jer 24:9; Jer 29:18; Jer 34:17, and Ch2 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 (Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4; Kg1 14:11, etc.).

Deu 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 Deu 28:27 four incurable diseases of the body are threatened: the ulcer of Egypt (see at Exo 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 (Deu 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 (Sa1 5:1-12). גּרב (see Lev 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.

Deu 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.

Deu 28:29-34

Deu 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. Psa 37:7). Being thus smitten in body and soul, it would be only (אך as in Deu 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 (Deu 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 Gen 31:29; and on חלּל, in Gen 31:30, see at Deu 20:6.) - In Deu 28:33, Deu 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.

Deu 28:35-46

The third view. - With the words, "the Lord will smite thee," Moses resumes in Deu 28:35 the threat of Deu 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.

Deu 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.

Deu 28:36-37

The loss of their spiritual character would be followed by the dissolution of the covenant fellowship. This thought connects Deu 28:36 with Deu 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., Deu 4:28), - and would become an object of disgust, a proverb, and a byword to all nations whither God should drive it (vid., Kg1 9:7; Jer 24:9).

Deu 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.

Deu 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 Deu 19:5, not the Kal of נשׁל, which cannot be shown to have the intransitive meaning elabi).

Deu 28:41

Sons and daughters would they beget, but not keep, because they would have to go into captivity.

Deu 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.

Deu 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 (Exo 9:6-7, Exo 9:26).

Deu 28:44-46

The opposite of Deu 28:12 and Deu 28:13 would come to pass. - In Deu 28:46 the address returns to its commencement in Deu 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., Deu 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 (Isa 10:22; Isa 6:13; Rom 9:27; Rom 11:5).

Deu 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 Deu 28:47-57 the horrible calamities which would burst upon Israel on the conquest of the land and its fortresses by its foes.

Deu 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 Deu 7:24).

Deu 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., Isa 50:7), - a description of the audacity and shamelessness of its appearance (Dan 8:23; cf. Pro 7:13; Pro 21:29), which spares neither old men nor boys. This description no doubt applies to the Chaldeans, who are described as flying eagles in Hab 1:6., Jer 48:40; Jer 49:22; Eze 17:3, Eze 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 (Deu 5:26; Deu 28:11; Deu 33:19), and describes the cruelty of the Medes in Deu 13:17-18, with an unmistakeable allusion to Deu 28:50 of the present threat.

Deu 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 Deu 7:13), and would oppress, i.e., besiege it in all its gates (towns, vid., Deu 12:12), till the lofty and strong walls upon which they relied should fall (ירד as in Deu 20:20).

Deu 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 Lev 26:29). - This horrible distress is depicted still more fully in Deu 28:54-57, where the words, "in the siege and in the straitness," etc. (Deu 28:53), are repeated as a refrain, with their appalling sound, in Deu 28:55 and Deu 28:57.

Deu 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. Deu 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 Deu 3:3 (see at Deu 28:48).

Deu 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. Jdg 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!

Deu 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 Deu 28:58; not, as in Deu 28:15 and Deu 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 (Deu 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 Deu 31:9), but the book of the law, i.e., the Pentateuch, so far as it was already written. This is evident from Deu 28:60, Deu 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 Lev 24:11. נכבּד in a reflective sense, as in Exo 14:4, Exo 14:17-18; Lev 10:3.

Deu 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 (Deu 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.

Deu 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 (Exo 9:1-10; Exo 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 (Jdg 16:3; cf. Ewald, 138, a.).

Deu 28:62

Israel would be almost annihilated thereby. "Ye will be left in few people (a small number; cf. Deu 26:5), whereas ye were as numerous as the stars of heaven."

Deu 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.

Deu 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. Deu 4:27.).

Deu 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., Lev 26:36.).

Deu 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. Deu 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).)

Deu 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.

Deu 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).

Matthew Henry

On Deuteronomy 28:45-68

One would have thought that enough had been said to possess them with a dread of that wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But to show how deep the treasures of that wrath are, and that still there is more and worse behind, Moses, when one would have thought that he had concluded this dismal subject, begins again, and adds to this roll of curses many similar words: as Jeremiah did to his, Jer 36:32. It should seem that in the former part of this commination Moses foretells their captivity in Babylon, and the calamities which introduced and attended that, by which, even after their return, they were brought to that low and poor condition which is described, Deu 28:44. That their enemies should be the head, and they the tail: but here, in this latter part, he foretels their last destruction by the Romans and their dispersion thereupon. And the present deplorable state of the Jewish nation, and of all that have incorporated themselves with them, by embracing their religion, does so fully and exactly answer to the prediction in these verses that it serves for an incontestable proof of the truth of prophecy, and consequently of the divine authority of the scripture. And, this last destruction being here represented as more dreadful than the former, it shows that their sin, in rejecting Christ and his gospel, was more heinous and more provoking to God than idolatry itself, and left them more under the power of Satan; for their captivity in Babylon cured them effectually of their idolatry in seventy years' time; but under this last destruction now for above 1600 years they continue incurably averse to the Lord Jesus. Observe,

I. What is here said in general of the wrath of God, which should light and lie upon them for their sins.

1. That, if they would not be ruled by the commands of God, they should certainly be ruined by his curse, v. 45, 46. Because thou didst not keep his commandments (especially that of hearing and obeying the great prophet), these curses shall come upon thee, as upon a people appointed to destruction, the generation of God's wrath: and they shall be for a sign and for a wonder. It is amazing to think that a people so long the favourites of Heaven should be so perfectly abandoned and cast off, that a people so closely incorporated should be so universally dispersed, and yet that a people so scattered in all nations should preserve themselves distinct and not mix with any, but like Cain be fugitives and vagabonds, and yet marked to be known.

2. That, if they would not serve God with cheerfulness, they should be compelled to serve their enemies (v. 47, 48), that they might know the difference (Ch2 12:8), which, some think, is the meaning of Eze 20:24, Eze 20:25, Because they despised my statutes, I gave them statutes that were not good. Observe here, (1.) It is justly expected from those to whom God gives an abundance of the good things of this life that they should serve him. What does he maintain us for out that we may do his work, and be some way serviceable to his honour? (2.) The more God gives us the more cheerfully we should serve him; our abundance should be oil to the wheels of our obedience. God is a Master that will be served with gladness, and delights to hear us sing at our work. (3.) If, when we receive the gifts of God's bounty, we either do not serve him at all or serve him with reluctance, it is a righteous thing with him to make us know the hardships of want and servitude. Those deserve to have cause given them to complain who complain without a cause. Tristis es et felix - Happy, and yet not easy! Blush at thy own folly and ingratitude.

3. That, if they would not give glory to God by a reverential obedience, he would get him honour upon them by wonderful plagues, Deu 28:58, Deu 28:59. Note, (1.) God justly expects from us that we should fear his fearful name; and, which is strange, that name which is here proposed as the object of our fear is, THE LORD THY GOD, which is very fitly here put in our Bibles in capital letters; for nothing can sound more truly august. As nothing is more comfortable, so nothing more awful, than this, that he with whom we have to do is Jehovah, a being infinitely perfect and blessed, and the author of all being; and that he is our God, our rightful Lord and owner, from whom we are to receive laws and to whom we are to give account: this is great, and greatly to be feared. (2.) We may justly expect from God that, if we do not fear his fearful name, we shall feel his fearful plagues; for one way or other God will be feared. All God's plagues are dreadful, but some are wonderful, carrying in them extraordinary signatures of divine power and justice, so that a man, upon the first view of them, may say, Verily, there is a God that judgeth in the earth.

II. How the destruction threatened is described. Moses is here upon the same melancholy subject that our Saviour is discoursing of to his disciples in his farewell sermon (Mt. 24), namely, The destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. Observe,

1. Five things are here foretold as steps to their ruin: -

(1.) That they should be invaded by a foreign enemy (Deu 28:49, Deu 28:50): A nation from far, namely, the Romans, as swift as the eagle hastening to the prey. Our Saviour makes use of this similitude, in foretelling this destruction, that where the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together, Mat 24:28. And bishop Patrick observes (to make the accomplishment the more remarkable) that the ensign of the Roman armies was an eagle. This nation is said to be of a fierce countenance, an indication of a fierce nature, stern and severe, that would not pity the weakness and infirmity either of little children or of old people.

(2.) That the country should be laid waste, and all the fruits of it eaten up by this army of foreigners, which is the natural consequence of an invasion, especially when it is made, as that by the Romans was, for the chastisement of rebels: He shall eat the fruits of thy cattle and land (Deu 28:51), so that the inhabitants should be starved, while the invaders were fed to the full.

(3.) That their cities should be besieged, and that such would be the obstinacy of the besieged, and such the vigour of the besiegers, that they would be reduced to the last extremity, and at length fall into the hands of the enemy, Deu 28:52. No place, though ever so well fortified, no, not Jerusalem itself, though it held out long, would escape. Two of the common consequences of a long siege are here foretold: - [1.] A miserable famine, which would prevail to such a degree that, for want of food, they should kill and eat their own children, Deu 28:53. Men should do so, notwithstanding their hardiness, and ability to bear hunger; and, though obliged by the law of nature to provide for their own families, yet should refuse to give to the wife and children that were starving any of the child that was barbarously butchered, Deu 28:54, Deu 28:55. Nay, women, ladies of quality, notwithstanding their natural niceness about their food, and their natural affection to their children, yet, for want of food, should so far forget all humanity as to kill and eat them, Deu 28:56, Deu 28:57. Let us observe, by the way, how hard this fate must needs be to the tender and delicate women, and learn not to indulge ourselves in tenderness and delicacy, because we know not what we may be reduced to before we die; the more nice we are, the harder it will be to us to bear want, and the more danger we shall be in or sacrificing reason, and religion, and natural affection itself, to the clamours and cravings of an unmortified and ungoverned appetite. This threatening was fulfilled in the letter of it, more than once, to the perpetual reproach of the Jewish nation: never was the like done either by Greek or barbarian, but in the siege of Samaria, a woman boiled her own son, Kg2 6:28, Kg2 6:29. And it is spoken of as commonly done among them in the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, Lam 4:10. And, in the last siege by the Romans, Josephus tells us of a noble woman that killed and ate her own child, through the extremity of the famine, and when she had eaten one half secretly (Deu 28:57), that she might have it to herself, the mob, smelling meat, got into the house, to whom she showed the other half, which she had kept till another time, inviting them to share with her. What is too barbarous for those to do that are abandoned of God! [2.] Sickness is another common effect of a strait and long siege, and that is here threatened: Sore sickness, and of long continuance, Deu 28:59. These should attend the Jews wherever they went afterwards, the diseases of Egypt, leprosies, botches, and foul ulcers, Deu 28:60. Nay, as if the particular miseries here threatened were not enough, he concludes with an et cetera, Deu 28:61. The Lord will bring upon thee every sickness, and every plague, though it be not written in the book of this law. Those that fall under the curse of God will find that the one half was not told them of the weight and terror of that curse.

(4.) That multitudes of them should perish, so that they should become few in number, Deu 28:62. It was a nation that God had wonderfully increased, so that they were as the stars of heaven for multitude; but, for their sin, they were diminished and brought low, Psa 107:38, Psa 107:39. It is computed that in the destruction of the Jewish nation by the Romans, as appears by the account Josephus gives of it, above two millions fell by the sword at several places, besides what perished by famine and pestilence; so that the whole country was laid waste and turned into a wilderness. That is a terrible word (Deu 28:63), As the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, so he will rejoice over you to destroy you. Behold here the goodness and severity of God: mercy here shines brightly in the pleasure God takes in doing good - he rejoices in it; yet justice here appears no less illustrious in the pleasure he takes in destroying the impenitent; not as it is the making of his creatures miserable, but as it is the asserting of his own honour and the securing of the ends of his government. See what a malignant mischievous thing sin is, which (as I may say) makes it necessary for the God of infinite goodness to rejoice in the destruction of his own creatures, even those that had been favourites.

(5.) That the remnant should be scattered throughout the nations This completes their woe: The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, Deu 28:64. This is remarkably fulfilled in their present dispersion, for there are Jews to be fond almost in all countries that are possessed either by Christians or Mahometans, and in such numbers that it has been said, If they could unite in one common interest, they would be a very formidable body, and able to deal with the most powerful states and princes; but they abide under the power of this curse, and are so scattered that they are not able to incorporate. It is here foretold that in this dispersion, [1.] They should have no religion, or none to any purpose, should have no temple, nor altar, nor priesthood, for they should serve other gods. Some think this has been fulfilled in the force put upon the Jews in popish countries to worship the images that are used in the Romish church, to their great vexation. [2.] They should have no rest, no rest of body: The sole of thy foot shall not have rest (Deu 28:65), but be continually upon the remove, either in hope of gain or fear of persecution; all wandering Jews: no rest of the mind (which is much worse), but a trembling heart (Deu 28:65); no assurance of life (Deu 28:66); weary both of light and darkness, which are, in their turns, both welcome to a quiet mind, but to them both day and night would be a terror, Deu 28:67. Such was once the condition of Job (Job 7:4), but to them this should be constant and perpetual; that blindness and darkness which the apostle speaks of as having happened to Israel, and that guilt which bowed down their back always (Rom 11:8-10), must needs occasion a constant restlessness and amazement. Those are a torment to themselves, and to all about them, that fear day and night and are always uneasy. Let good people strive against it, and not give way to that fear which has torment; and let wicked people not be secure in their wickedness, for their hearts cannot endure, nor can their hands be strong, when the terrors of God set themselves in array against them. Those that say in the morning, O that it were evening, and in the evening, O that it were morning, show, First, A constant fret and vexation, chiding the hours for lingering and complaining of the length of every minute. Let time be precious to us when we are in prosperity, and then it will not be so tedious to us when we are in afflictions as otherwise it would. Secondly, A constant fright and terror, afraid in the morning of the arrow that flieth by day, and therefore wishing the day over; but what will this do for them? When evening comes, the trembling heart is no less apprehensive of the terror by night, Ps. 91. 5, 6. Happy they whose minds, being stayed on God, are quiet from the fear of evil! Observe here, The terror arises not only from the sight of the eyes, but from the fear of the heart, not only from real dangers, but from imaginary ones; the causes of fear, when they come to be enquired into, often prove to be only the creatures of the fancy.

2. In the close, God threatens to leave them as he found them, in a house of bondage (Deu 28:68): The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again, that is into such a miserable state as they were in when they were slaves to the Egyptians, and ruled by them with rigour. God had brought them out of Egypt, and had said, They shall see it no more again (Deu 17:16); but now they should be reduced to the same state of slavery that they had been in there. To be sold to strangers would be bad enough, but much worse to be sold to their enemies. Even slaves may be valued as such, but a Jew should have so ill a name for all that is base that when he was exposed to sale no man would buy him, which would make his master that had him to sell the more severe with him. Thirty Jews (they say) have been sold for one small piece of money, as they sold our Saviour for thirty pieces.

3. Upon the whole matter, (1.) The accomplishment of these predictions upon the Jewish nation shows that Moses spoke by the Spirit of God, who certainly foresees the ruin of sinners, and gives them warning of it, that they may prevent it by a true and timely repentance, or else be left inexcusable. (2.) Let us all hence learn to stand in awe and not to sin. I have heard of a wicked man, who, upon reading the threatenings of this chapter, was so enraged that he tore the leaf out of the Bible, as Jehoiakim cut Jeremiah's roll; but to what purpose is it to deface a copy, while the original remains upon record in the divine counsels, by which it is unalterably determined that the wages of sin is death, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear?

Tyndale Study Notes

On Deuteronomy 28:44-45

28:44 the head . . . the tail: Rather than Israel’s leading the nations, the reverse would be true when God punishes his people (see 28:13).

Tyndale Open Study Notes · CC BY-SA 4.0