Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 28:34

So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

34. Cp. Deu 28:28; mad, rather driven mad.

35 breaks the connection between Deu 28:34 ; Deu 28:36, and is more in place after 27, q.v. on boil. Here sore boil on knees and legs points to the ‘joint-leprosy,’ a species of elephantiasis; cp. Job 2:7 f., Deu 7:3-6, Deu 17:7, Deu 19:17; Deu 19:20, Deu 30:17.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

So that thou shalt be mad, for the sight of thine eyes that thou shall see. On account of the shocking things seen by them, their dreadful calamities, oppressions, and persecutions, such as before related; not only violent diseases on their bodies, which were grievous to behold, as well as their pains were intolerable, and made them mad; but to be deprived of a betrothed wife, a newly built house, and a newly planted vineyard; to have an ox slain, and an ass taken away by their enemies, and their sheep given to them before their eyes; to have their sons and daughters taken from them, and brought up in another religion, and to be stripped of their substance; these have made them stark mad, insomuch that they have sometimes destroyed themselves and their families. In Germany, in their rage and madness, they burnt a city and themselves in it; and, in the same country, being summoned by an edict to change their religion, or to be burnt, they agreed to meet together in a certain house, and destroy one another; and first parents killed their children, and husbands their wives, and then killed themselves; leaving only one person to be their doorkeeper, who finished the tragedy by destroying himself, as their own historian relates m. Other stories of the like kind are reported of them, and some such facts as done in our own nation n.

m Ib. (Shebet Judah, sive Hist. Jud.) sect. 34, 36. p. 214, 215, 216, 217. n See Bishop Patrick in loc. and Dr. Newton (Bishop of Bristol) on Prophecies, vol. 1. Dissert. 7. sect. 14. p. 195, 196.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Ver. 34. So that thou shalt be mad, for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see Into what madness, fury, and desperation, have they been pushed by the cruel usage, extortions, and oppressions which they have undergone! We will adduce only two familiar instances, one from ancient, and one from modern history. After the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, some of the Jews took refuge in the castle of Masada; where being closely besieged by the Romans, they, at the persuasion of Eleazar their leader, first murdered their wives and children; then ten men were chosen by lot to slay the rest; this being done, one of the ten was chosen in like manner to kill the other nine; which having executed, he set fire to the place, and then stabbed himself. There were nine hundred and sixty who perished in this miserable manner, and only two women and five boys escaped, by hiding themselves in the aqueducts under ground. See Josephus, de Bell. Jud. lib. 6: cap. 8, 9. Edit. Hudson. In the reign of Richard I. when the people were in arms to make a general massacre of them, fifteen hundred of them seized on the city of York to defend themselves; but being besieged, they offered to capitulate, and ransom their lives with money. The offer being refused, one of them cried in despair, that it was better to die courageously for the law, than to fall into the hands of the Christians. Every one immediately took his knife, and stabbed his wife and children; after which, retiring into the king’s palace, they set it on fire, and thus consumed themselves, with the building and furniture. This fact is related by Basnage, in his history of the Jews, book 7: chap. 10: sect. 20 who cites Matthew Paris and Polydore Virgil. Bishop Newton.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Deu 28:34 So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

Ver. 34. So that thou shalt be mad, &c. ] As Bajazet was in his iron cage; as Pope Boniface VIII was the time when shut up in St. Angelo by Sara Columnus, his mortal enemy, renting himself with his teeth, and devouring his own fingers. a Philip, the Spanish king, is said to have borne patiently the defeat given to his invincible armada in the year 1588, but ten years after he died of a very loathsome and incurable disease, a sore botch that seized upon him from the sole of his foot unto the top of his head; as is to be seen set down by Carol. Scribanius, “Instit. Princip.,” cap. 20. b

a Turk. Hist., 116.

b Camd., Elis.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)