Chapter Twenty-Eight

Blessing for those who keep the law; curse for those who break it.

Deuteronomy 28:9. The Lord [your God] will establish you as a holy people to himself, as he swore to you [and to your fathers], if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways; Cf. Gen 22:16-18; Exod 19:5-6.

Deuteronomy 28:10. and all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord [your God] is called over you, and they will be afraid of you. Cf. Deut 4:5-8.

Deuteronomy 28:21. The Lord will make pestilence cling to you until he has wiped you off the land you are entering to possess. Deuteronomy 28:22. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with drought, with scorching wind, and with blight, and they will pursue you until you perish. Cf. Lev 26:14-18.

Deuteronomy 28:23. And the sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you will be iron; Deuteronomy 28:24. instead of rain the Lord will make dust and powder fall on your land from the sky, falling down on you [until you are destroyed and] until you are wiped out. Cf. Lev 26:19-20.

Deuteronomy 28:25. The Lord will deliver you to be struck down before your enemies; you will march out against them by one road but flee from them by seven roads, and you will be scattered among all the kingdoms of the earth. Cf. Lev 26:17.

Deuteronomy 28:27. The Lord will strike you with the Egyptian sores, with hemorrhoids, with scab, and with itch, from which you will not be able to be healed; On leprosy, see Lev 13. Hemorrhoids is one of the skin diseases.

Deuteronomy 28:36. The Lord will bring you and the king you set over yourself to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will serve other gods, of wood and stone; Deuteronomy 28:37. and you will become an object of horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the nations to which the Lord [your God] will drive you. The reference is to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.

Deuteronomy 28:46. they will be a sign and a wonder over you and over your offspring forever. Deuteronomy 28:47. Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart in the abundance of everything, Deuteronomy 28:48. you will serve your enemy whom the Lord [your God] will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and in total want; he will put an iron yoke on your neck, until he has destroyed you. Deuteronomy 28:49. The Lord will bring against you a nation from far away, from the end of the earth: like an eagle the nation will swoop down, a nation whose language you do not understand, Deuteronomy 28:50. a fierce nation that will show no respect to the old and no mercy to the young; Cf. Lev 26:25. The reference is to the successive foreign dominations and hegemonies in Palestine: Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Syria, Egypt, Rome.

Deuteronomy 28:53. And you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters whom the Lord your God has given you, during the siege and the distress with which your enemy will distress you. Cf. Lev 26:29.

Deuteronomy 28:54. The man among you who is tender and very delicate will look with hostility at his own brother, at the wife of his embrace, and at the rest of his children who remain to him, Deuteronomy 28:55. and will give none of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating, because nothing remains to him, during the siege and the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your towns. Deuteronomy 28:56. [The woman] who lived among you in comfort and luxury, who never set her foot on the ground because of her luxury and delicacy, will look with hostility at the husband of her embrace, at her son, and at her daughter, Deuteronomy 28:57. and will not share with them the afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and the children she bears; for she will eat them secretly, in her lack of everything, during the siege and the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your towns. The terrible scenes of famine that took place during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, described in detail by the Jewish historian Josephus, confirm the dreadful prophecy of Moses.

Deuteronomy 28:64. And the Lord [your God] will scatter you among all the peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will serve other gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, wood and stone. Cf. Lev 26:33.

Deuteronomy 28:65. But among those nations you will find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot, and the Lord will give you there a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a languishing soul; Deuteronomy 28:66. your life will hang before you, and you will be in dread night and day, and you will have no assurance of your life; Deuteronomy 28:67. in the dread of your heart that will grip you and from what you will see with your eyes, in the morning you will say: “Oh, if only evening would come!” and in the evening you will say: “Oh, if only morning would come! Cf. Lev 26:36-39. From the dispersion of the Jews by the Romans to the present day, the history of the Jewish people has been a continuous confirmation of the prophecy set forth in Deut 28:37.

Deuteronomy 28:68. And the Lord will bring you back to Egypt in ships by the road of which I said to you: “you will see it no more”; and there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, and there will be no one to buy you. After the destruction of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, a considerable number of Jews had to flee to Egypt and seek protection there from the dangers to which they might be exposed in a ravaged land abandoned by the conqueror (4Цар 25.26). At the final destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, thousands of Jewish captives were sent to Egypt and other countries to be sold into slavery (Josephus). During the reign of Emperor Hadrian in the Roman Empire, such a multitude of Jewish captives was gathered that they were sold at the cheapest price. About 12,000 captives perished from hunger (Bible Allioli, 1868, vol. 1:727; Vlastov, Sacred Chronology).