15 20<\/strong>. For the terminology see notes on Deu 28:1-7<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n 20a<\/strong> forms with 25 a clear antithesis to Deu 28:7<\/em><\/span>, but is more elaborate than the latter. For cursing<\/em> cp. Mal 2:2<\/span>; Mal 3:9<\/span>; for discomfiture<\/em> see on Deu 7:23<\/span>; rebuke<\/em> is found only here. On for to do<\/em> (lit. which thou shalt do<\/em>) see Deu 14:29<\/span>; until thou be destroyed<\/em>, cp. Deu 28:24<\/em><\/span> ; Deu 28:45<\/em><\/span><\/em> ; Deu 28:51<\/em><\/span><\/em> ; Deu 28:61<\/em><\/span><\/em>, Deu 7:23<\/span>.<\/p>\n 20b<\/strong> (from and until thou perish<\/em>) is taken by some as an expansion. On perish quickly<\/em> see Deu 4:16<\/span>, Deu 11:17<\/span>; for evil of thy doings<\/em> cp. Hos 9:15<\/span>, Isa 1:16<\/span>, Jer 4:4<\/span> + Jer 4:17<\/span> times. Forsaken me<\/em>, yet Moses is the speaker, cp. Deu 7:4<\/span>.<\/p>\n 15 46. The Curses<\/p>\n The opening Deu 28:15-20<\/em><\/span>, correspond to the blessings in Deu 28:1-7<\/em><\/span>, except that there are no antitheses to Deu 28:1<\/em><\/span> b<\/em> and Deu 28:2<\/em><\/span> b<\/em>, and that the curse on basket and kneading-bowl precedes that on fruit of thy body<\/em>, etc. Then the Discourse leaves the limits it had observed in the remainder of the blessings, Deu 28:8-14<\/em><\/span>, and while here and there it gives the exact contrast of these blessings (cp. Deu 28:23<\/span> f. with Deu 28:12<\/span> a<\/em>, Deu 28:25<\/span> with Deu 28:7<\/span> b<\/em>, Deu 28:37<\/span> and Deu 28:46<\/span> with Deu 28:10<\/span>, Deu 28:43<\/span> f. with Deu 28:12<\/span> b<\/em>, Deu 28:13<\/span> a<\/em>), the rest is a detailed antithesis to the summary blessing in 11; and diseases, calamities to man and beast, failures of seed and harvest, losses of children and property, and even exile, are set forth in detail.<\/p>\n The opinion that Deu 28:26-37<\/em><\/span> and Deu 28:41<\/span> are later additions is plausible, not because they contain predictions of exile but because they elaborate the rest; and this rest, Deu 28:21-25<\/span> (or 26), Deu 28:38-40<\/span> and Deu 28:42-46<\/span>, more nearly corresponds to Deu 28:8-14<\/em><\/span>. In view of the repeating style of D it is impossible to say whether some even of those vv<\/em>. are original or expansions; there are no sufficient grounds for the detailed analysis by Steuernagel.<\/p>\n The curses correspond in form and number Deu 28:15-19<\/span> to the blessings Deu 28:3-6<\/span>, and the special modes in which these threats should be executed are described in five groups of denunciations Deut. 28:20-68<\/span>.<\/P> Deu 28:20-26<\/B><\/span><\/P> First series of judgments. The curse of God should rest on all they did, and should issue in manifold forms of disease, in famine, and in defeat in war.<\/P> Deu 28:20<\/B><\/span><\/P> Vexation – <\/B>Rather, confusion: the word in the original is used Deu 7:23<\/span>; 1Sa 14:20<\/span> for the panic and disorder with which the curse of God smites His foes.<\/P> Deu 28:22<\/B><\/span><\/P> Blasting denotes (compare Gen 41:23<\/span>) the result of the scorching east wind; mildew that of an untimely blight falling on the green ear, withering it and marring its produce.<\/P> Deu 28:24<\/B><\/span><\/P> When the heat is very great the atmosphere in Palestine is often filled with dust and sand; the wind is a burning sirocco, and the air comparable to the glowing heat at the mouth of a furnace.<\/P> Deu 28:25<\/B><\/span><\/P> Shalt be removed – <\/B>See the margin. The threat differs from that in Lev 26:33<\/span>, which refers to a dispersion of the people among the pagan. Here it is meant that they should be tossed to and fro at the will of others, driven from one country to another without any certain settlement.<\/P> Deu 28:27-37<\/B><\/span><\/P> Second series of judgments on the body, mind, and outward circumstances of the sinners.<\/P> Deu 28:27<\/B><\/span><\/P> The botch (rather boil; see Exo 9:9<\/span>), the emerods or tumors 1Sa 5:6<\/U><\/span>, 1Sa 5:9<\/span>, the scab and itch represent the various forms of the loathsome skin diseases which are common in Syria and Egypt.<\/P> Deu 28:28<\/B><\/span><\/P> Mental maladies shah be added to those sore bodily plagues, and should Deu 28:29-34<\/span> reduce the sufferers to powerlessness before their enemies and oppressors.<\/P> Blindness – <\/B>Most probably mental blindness; compare Lam 4:14<\/span>; Zep 1:17<\/U><\/span>; 2Co 3:14<\/span> ff.<\/P> Deu 28:30-33<\/B><\/span><\/P> See the marginal references for the fulfillment of these judgments.<\/P> Deu 28:38-48<\/B><\/span><\/P> Third series of judgments, affecting every kind of labor and enterprise until it had accomplished the total ruin of the nation, and its subjection to its enemies.<\/P> Deu 28:39<\/B><\/span><\/P> Worms – <\/B>i. e. the vine-weevil. Naturalists prescribed elaborate precautions against its ravages.<\/P> Deu 28:40<\/B><\/span><\/P> Cast … – <\/B>Some prefer shall be spoiled or plundered.<\/P> Deu 28:43<\/B><\/span>, <\/B>Deu 28:44<\/B><\/span><\/P> Contrast Deu 28:12<\/span> and Deu 28:13<\/span>.<\/P> Deu 28:46<\/B><\/span><\/P> Forever – <\/B>Yet the remnant Rom 9:27<\/span>; Rom 11:5<\/span> would by faith and obedience become a holy seed.<\/P> Deu 28:49-58<\/B><\/span><\/P> Fourth series of judgments, descriptive of the calamities and horrors which should ensue when Israel should be subjugated by its foreign foes.<\/P> Deu 28:49<\/B><\/span><\/P> The description (compare the marginal references) applies undoubtedly to the Chaldeans, and in a degree to other nations also whom God raised up as ministers of vengeance upon apostate Israel (e. g. the Medes). But it only needs to read this part of the denunciation, and to compare it with the narrative of Josephus, to see that its full and exact accomplishment took place in the wars of Vespasian and Titus against the Jews, as indeed the Jews themselves generally admit.<\/P> The eagle – <\/B>The Roman ensign; compare Mat 24:28<\/span>; and consult throughout this passage the marginal references.<\/P> Deu 28:54<\/B><\/span><\/P> Evil – <\/B>i. e. grudging; compare Deu 15:9<\/span>.<\/P> Deu 28:57<\/B><\/span><\/P> Young one – <\/B>The afterbirth (see the margin). The Hebrew text in fact suggests an extremity of horror which the King James Version fails to exhibit. Compare 2Ki 6:29<\/span>.<\/P> Deu 28:58-68<\/B><\/span><\/P> Fifth series of judgments. The uprooting of Israel from the promised land, and its dispersion among other nations. Examine the marginal references.<\/P> Deu 28:58<\/B><\/span><\/P> In this book – <\/B>i. e. in the book of the Law, or the Pentateuch in so far as it contains commands of God to Israel. Deuteronomy is included, but not exclusively intended. So Deu 28:61<\/span>; compare Deu 27:3<\/span> and note, Deu 31:9<\/span>.<\/P> Deu 28:66<\/B><\/span><\/P> Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee – <\/B>i. e. shall be hanging as it were on a thread, and that before thine own eyes. The fathers regard this passage as suggesting in a secondary or mystical sense Christ hanging on the cross, as the life of the Jews who would not believe in Him.<\/P> Deu 28:68<\/B><\/span><\/P> This is the climax. As the Exodus from Egypt was as it were the birth of the nation into its covenant relationship with God, so the return to the house of bondage is in like manner the death of it. The mode of conveyance, in ships, is added to heighten the contrast. They crossed the sea from Egypt with a high hand. the waves being parted before them. They should go back again cooped up in slaveships.<\/P> There ye shall be sold – <\/B>Rather, there shall ye offer yourselves, or be offered for sale. This denunciation was literally fulfilled on more than one occasion: most signally when many thousand Jews were sold into slavery and sent into Egypt by Titus; but also under Hadrian, when numbers were sold at Rachels grave Gen 35:19<\/span>.<\/P> No man shall buy you – <\/B>i. e. no one shall venture even to employ you as slaves, regarding you as accursed of God, and to be shunned in everything.<\/P><\/p>\n Deu 28:15-19<\/span><\/p>\n If thou wilt not hearken.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Blessing and cursing-an Ash Wednesday sermon<\/strong><\/p>\n Does the Commination Service curse men? Are these good people (who are certainly right in their horror of cursing) right in the accusations which they bring against it? I cannot but think that they mistake when they say that the Commination Service curses men. For to curse a man is to pray that God may vent His anger on the man by punishing him. But I find no such prayer and wish in any word of the Commination Service. Its form is not Cursed be he that doeth such and such things, but Cursed is he that doeth them. Does this seem to you a small difference? A fine-drawn question of words? Is it, then, a small difference whether I say to my fellow man, I hope and pray that you may be stricken with disease, or whether I say, You are stricken with disease, whether you know it or not? I warn you of it, and I warn you to go to the physician! For so great, and no less, is the difference.<\/p>\n The prophecy<\/strong><\/p>\n 1<\/strong>. <\/em><\/strong>Look, first, at the intensity of the sufferings which it denounces upon the Jewish race. The prophet seems to labour under the weight of the theme, and strives to give it adequate expression, as though it were beyond his power. There is scarcely anything that could go to heighten human anguish bodily and mental that is not thrown into the frightful conglomeration, to make up such an assemblage of miseries as was hardly ever elsewhere known or imagined. Dantes pictures are terrific, but they are dispersed and distributed into portions, and every man has his own torment, from which other sufferers are exempt. But Moses concentrates his, and pours them all in one terrible mixture on the same devoted head. War, pestilence, and famine in their extremest terrors combine to swell the bitter grief, until they rise to those intolerable anguishes in which the bonds of society are dissolved, human sympathies are quenched, natural affection obliterated, and society transformed into a herd of ravening wolves, preying on one another without conscience and without pity. And this horrid state of things is to be without respite, affording no moment of relief; so that men are driven to madness, and rave with the frantic incoherence of despair. And now, if we turn to the page of history, we find the correspondence exact to a wonderful degree. No more revolting picture of human misery, and of the demoralisation and unhumanising effect of extreme distress is anywhere to be found in the annals of the world than that which is exhibited in the last days of Jerusalem as the accounts of it have come down to us. What in the prophecy might have seemed antecedently impossible, the faithful record of history has shown to be possible, because actual.<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>Look next at their dispersion, almost as wonderful as their miseries. This, too, Moses explicitly foretells (Deu 28:64-65<\/span>). Alone of peoples that inhabit the earth, foreigners everywhere, having no country that they call their own, and dwelling in all countries as a distinct element in their society, nay, always a society that adheres to general society only by a kind of parasitical life, sucking strength from its substance without assimilating to its character, it is a sort of mistletoe that drapes the branches of trees, and lives upon their sap, but sends no roots into the earth to draw from the soil a life of its own.<\/p>\n 3. <\/strong>And now, finally, look at his preservation. I mean his preservation as a Jew. His physiognomy everywhere tells the tale of his lineage. And yet never was a people so unfavourably situated for the preservation of its identity. They did not go out in colonies to any considerable extent. Units they have been, floating like waifs and strays upon the great ocean of human society. Yet wherever he strays, there is the Jew, unabsorbed, unamalgamated, unmistakably a Jew. National bounds hedge in nations, and with some admixtures preserve substantially national marks and qualities. But this is a nation that has no such protection, without a country, without a home. Yet it remains a nation; and there is not another nation in all the limits of civilisation today that can boast so pure a blood, so unmixed and genuine a pedigree.<\/p>\n 1. <\/strong>A lesson of danger. If the Israelites were punished beyond other men, it was because they had been favoured beyond other men. Privilege and responsibility are correspondent and parallel. The sins of Christians are far worse than the like sins of heathens, more criminal, more dangerous (Rom 11:20-21<\/span>).<\/p>\n 2. <\/strong>A lesson of duty. None can look upon the ancient people of God in their fallen condition, it might seem, without sensibility and compassion. God has made their fall an occasion of benefit to the Gentile world. We have obtained mercy through their unbelief. The fall broke through the wall that threatened to confine Christianity within the narrow precincts of Jewish pride and prejudice, and gave it to have free course and be glorified. Surely, however, it becomes us not to look coldly or scornfully on the disfranchised heir. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The dispersion of the Jews<\/strong><\/p>\n Davison, in his Discourses on Prophecy, <\/em>uses the following beautiful illustration when speaking of modern Jews. Present in all countries, with a home in none; intermixed, and yet separated; and neither amalgamated nor lost, but, like those mountain streams which are said to pass through lakes of another kind of water, and keep a native quality to repel commixture; they hold communication without union, and may be traced as rivers without banks, in the midst of the alien element which surrounds them.<\/p>\n So as thou shalt not be able to escape them, as thou shalt vainly hope and endeavour to do. <\/P> <\/p>\n 15-20. But . . . if thou wilt nothearken unto the voice of the Lord<\/B>Curses that were to followthem in the event of disobedience are now enumerated, and they arealmost exact counterparts of the blessings which were described inthe preceding context as the reward of a faithful adherence to thecovenant.<\/P><\/p>\n But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God<\/strong>,…. As directed, exhorted, and encouraged to, De 28:1<\/span>, c.<\/p>\n to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, which I command thee this day<\/strong> both moral and ceremonial:<\/p>\n that all these curses shall come upon thee<\/strong>; from the hand of God, certainly, suddenly, and unawares:<\/p>\n and overtake thee<\/strong>; pursuing after thee, will come up to thee, and seize upon thee, though they may seem to move slowly; see Zec 5:3<\/span>; namely, the curses which follow. Manasseh Ben Israel f divides them into two parts, the first from hence to De 28:45<\/span>; which respects the destruction of the first temple, and the things that went before or related to that; and the second from thence to the end of the chapter, which he thinks refers to the destruction of the second temple, and their present case and circumstances; and it must be owned that for the most part the distinction may seem to hold good; what is prophesied of that should befall the Jews for their disobedience being more remarkably and distinctly fulfilled in the one than in the other; yet there are things in the whole which respect both, or that were fulfilled, some under one dispensation, and some under another, and some that were fulfilled in both; but chiefly and more manifestly at and since their dispersion by the Romans.<\/p>\n f De Termino Vitae, l. 3. sect. 3. p. 126.<\/p>\n 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<\/span>), 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<\/span>, as above in Deu 28:3-6<\/span>); 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<\/span>., although it is obvious that the punishments threatened did not fall upon the nation all at once.<\/p>\n Deu 28:16-19<\/span><\/p>\n <\/strong> Deu 28:16-19<\/span> correspond precisely to Deu 28:3-6<\/span>, 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.<\/p>\n Deu 28:20-22<\/span><\/p>\n <\/strong> The first<\/em> 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<\/span>. “ The Lord will send the curse against thee, consternation and threatening in every undertaking of thy hand which thou carriest out<\/em> (see Deu 12:7<\/span>), till thou be destroyed, till thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, because thou hast forsaken Me<\/em>.” The three words, , , and , are synonymous, and are connected together to strengthen the thought. , curse or malediction; , the consternation produced by the curse of God, namely, the confusion with which God smites His foes (see at Deu 7:23<\/span>); is the threatening word of the divine wrath. – Then Deu 28:21<\/span>. in detail. “ The Lord will make the pestilence fasten upon<\/em> (cleave to) thee, till He hath destroyed thee out of the land…to smite thee with giddiness and fever<\/em> (cf. Lev 26:16<\/span>), inflammation, burning, and sword, blasting of corn, and mildew <\/em> (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. , from to burn, and , from to glow, signify inflammatory diseases, burning fevers; the distinction between these and cannot be determined. Instead of , the sword as the instrument of death, used to designate slaughter and death, the Vulgate<\/em>, Arabic<\/em>, and Samaritan<\/em> have adopted the reading , aestus <\/em>, heat (Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
I. <\/strong>We know that the words of the text came true. We know that the Jews did <\/em>perish out of their native land, as the author of this book foretold, in consequence of doing that against which Moses warned them. We know also that they did not perish by any miraculous intervention of providence, but simply as any other nation would have perished–by profligacy, internal weakness, civil war, and, at last, by foreign conquest. We know that their destruction was the natural consequence of their own folly. Why are we to suppose that the prophet meant anything but that? He foretells the result. Why are we to suppose that he did not foresee the means by which that result would happen? For even in this life the door of mercy may be shut, and we may cry in vain for mercy when it is the time for justice. This is not merely a doctrine: it is a fact; a common, patent fact. Men do wrong, and escape, again and again, the just punishment of their deeds; but how often there are cases in which a man does not escape; when he is filled with the fruit of his own devices, and left to the misery which he has earned; when the covetous and dishonest man ruins himself past all recovery; when the profligate is left in a shameful old age, with worn-out body and defiled mind, to rot into an unhonoured grave; when the hypocrite who has tampered with his conscience is left without any conscience at all. They have chosen the curse, and the curse is come upon them to the uttermost. So it is. Is the Commination Service uncharitable, is the preacher uncharitable, when they tell men so?<\/p>\n
II. <\/strong>Truly terrible and heart-searching for the wrong-doer is the message–God does not curse thee: thou hast cursed thyself. God will not go out of His way to punish thee; thou hast gone out of His way, and thereby thou art punishing thyself. Just as, by abusing the body, thou bringest a curse upon it; so by abusing thy soul. God does not break His laws to punish drunkenness or gluttony. The laws of nature, the beneficent laws of life, nutrition, growth, and health, they punish thee; and kill by the very same means by which they make alive. And so with thy soul, thy character, thy humanity.<\/p>\n
III. <\/strong>Let us believe that Gods good laws and Gods good order are in themselves and of themselves the curse and punishment of every sin of ours; and that Ash Wednesday, returning year after year, whether we be glad or sorry, good or evil, bears witness to that most awful and yet most blessed fact. (C. Kingsley, M. A.<\/em>)<\/p>\n<\/p>\nFuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible <\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible<\/b><\/i><\/h4>\n