CHAPTER 28

(1451 B.C.)

THE BLESSINGS

¹And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto the Voice of the LORD your God, to observe and to do all His Commandments which I command you this day, that the LORD your God will set you on high above all nations of the Earth (the condition for all the Blessings which will be pronounced is obedience):

²And all these Blessings shall come on you, and overtake you, if you shall hearken unto the Voice of the LORD your God (the Blessings will be so abundant that they will literally chase down the people of God).

³Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field (the location doesnt matter, the Blessings will come).

⁴Blessed shall be the fruit of your body (the children), and the fruit of your ground (crops), a nd the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep (herds).

⁵Blessed shall be your basket and your store (the storehouses will be full).

⁶Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out (no time limit on the Blessings).

⁷The LORD shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be smitten before your face: they shall come out against you one way, and flee before you seven ways (because the Lord will fight for Israel).

⁸The LORD shall command the Blessing upon you in your storehouses, and in all that you set your hand unto; and He shall bless you in the land which the LORD your God gives you (when the Command from the Lord is given, nothing can stop that Command).

⁹The LORD shall establish you an holy people unto Himself, as He has sworn unto you, if you shall keep the Commandments of the LORD your God, and walk in His Ways (once again, the condition of obedience is put before the people).

¹⁰And all people of the Earth shall see that you are called by the Name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of you (the fame of Israel, and her Blessings given by the Lord, will be spread abroad, with all heathen nations afraid of attacking her, because of her God).

¹¹And the LORD shall make you plentiful in goods, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, in the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers to give you (everything will be bountiful).

¹²The LORD shall open unto you His good Treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto your land in His season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend unto many nations, and you shall not borrow (the treasure-house of Heaven would be open to Israel).

¹³And the LORD shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if that you hearken unto the Commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day, to observe and to do them (again, obedience is set before Israel):

¹⁴And you shall not go aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand, or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them (Israel was to faithfully obey the Law; as well, Believers under the New Covenant can claim the same Promises, in fact, much more easily than Israel of old, because of Christ and the Cross; as wonderful as this is which the Lord promises Israel, He now promises even more under the New Covenant, which Paul referred to as a Better Covenant [Heb. 8:6]).

DISOBEDIENCE

¹⁵But it shall come to pass, if you will not hearken unto the Voice of the LORD your God, to observe to do all His Commandments and His Statutes which I command you this day; that all these curses shall come upon you, and overtake you (the curse thus appears as the exact counterpart of the blessing, and because of disobedience):

¹⁶Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field (as the blessings were nationwide, the curse likewise shall be).

¹⁷Cursed shall be your basket and your store (the storehouses will be empty).

¹⁸Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your land, the increase of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep (the children will be sickly, and the herds will be few and thin).

¹⁹Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out (nothing that is done will stop the curse).

²⁰The LORD shall send upon you cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that you set your hand unto for to do, until you be destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the wickedness of your doings, whereby you have forsaken Me (Blessings for obedience, destruction for disobedience; it is the same presently).

²¹The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave unto you, until He has consumed you from off the land, where you go to possess it (sickness will be the lot of Israel).

²²The LORD shall smite you with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish (if the Lord be against us, who can be for us?).

²³And your Heaven that is over your head shall be brass (prayers will not be answered), and the Earth that is under you shall be iron (will not yield crops).

²⁴The LORD shall make the rain of your land powder and dust (there will be no rain): from heaven shall it come down upon you, until you be destroyed (the curses shall come from heaven, because of disobedience).

²⁵The LORD shall cause you to be smitten before your enemies: you shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the Earth (this happened totally in A.D. 70, when Titus, the Roman General, laid Jerusalem waste, with hundreds of thousands of Jews sold all over the world as slaves, and they remained scattered for nearly 2,000 years).

²⁶And your carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the Earth, and no man shall fray them away (utter defeat in battle).

²⁷The LORD will smite you with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof you can not be healed (the Lord controls diseases and sickness, as is obvious here).

²⁸The LORD shall smite you with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart (fear and insanity):

²⁹And you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save you (once again, if God be against us, who can be for us?).

³⁰You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build an house, and you shall not dwell therein: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not gather the grapes thereof (plans and labor will be in vain).

³¹Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat thereof: your ass shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given unto your enemies, and you shall have none to rescue them (without God, Israel will be helpless before her enemies).

³²Your sons and your daughters shall be given unto another people, and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long; and there shall be no might in your hand (Israel will be powerless).

³³The fruit of your land, and all your labours, shall a nation which you know not eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always (labor will be wasted):

³⁴So that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see (all that is seen is destruction).

³⁵The LORD shall smite you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot unto the top of your head (the Lord can heal, and the Lord can bring about disease).

³⁶The LORD shall bring you, and your king which you shall set over you, unto a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known; and there shall you serve others gods, wood and stone (and this is exactly what happened!).

³⁷And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations where the LORD shall lead you (this has been fulfilled to the letter, as well!).

³⁸You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather but little in; for the locust shall consume it (efforts will be wasted).

³⁹You shall plant vineyards, and dress them, but shall neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.

⁴⁰You shall have olive trees throughout all your coasts, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast his fruit (will not bring forth fruit).

⁴¹You shall beget sons and daughters, but you shall not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity (will be stolen as slaves by heathen tribes).

⁴²All your trees and fruit of your land shall the locust consume.

⁴³The stranger that is within you shall get up above you very high; and you shall come down very low (Gentiles in Israel will prosper, but Israelites wont).

⁴⁴He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

⁴⁵Moreover all these curses shall come upon you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, till you be destroyed; because you hearkened not unto the Voice of the LORD your God, to keep His Commandments and His Statutes which He commanded you (disobedience):

⁴⁶And they shall be upon you for a sign and for a wonder, and upon your seed for ever (this, though it may imply the final and utter rejection of Israel as a Nation, does not, however, preclude the hope of restoration; in fact, Israel will be restored, and fully [Rom. 11:25-27]).

⁴⁷Because you served not the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things (all of these curses would come upon them, because they would not serve God);

⁴⁸Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he have destroyed you (if Israel would not serve God, they would have to serve their enemies).

⁴⁹The LORD shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the Earth, as swift as the eagle flies; a nation whose tongue you shall not understand (and that happened, again and again);

⁵⁰A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young (and so are all nations which dont know God):

⁵¹And he shall eat the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your land, until you be destroyed: which also shall not leave you either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of your kine, or flocks of your sheep, until he have destroyed you (complete destruction).

⁵²And he shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fenced walls come down, wherein you trusted, throughout all your land: and he shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which the LORD your God has given you (these cities will be destroyed, which they were by the Babylonians).

⁵³And you shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, which the LORD your God has given you, in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith your enemies shall distress you (exactly as predicted here, Israel ultimately resorted to cannibalism [II Ki. 6:28-29; Jer. 19:9; Lam. 2:20; 4:10]):

⁵⁴So that the man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave (there will be no love in the family, but only hatred):

⁵⁵So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he has nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith your enemies shall distress you in all your gates (that Israel could be reduced to such is beyond comprehension, but they were; however, they couldnt say that they were not warned).

⁵⁶The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

⁵⁷And toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith your enemy shall distress you in your gates. (How could the greatest people on the face of the Earth, so favored by God, fall so low? The answer is simple. When we forsake God, and continue to do so despite continued warnings to return, God will ultimately forsake us. These terrible situations predicted here are the result of such disobedience.)

⁵⁸If you will not observe to do all the words of this Law that are written in this Book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD YOUR GOD (this speaks of the entirety of the Book of the Law);

⁵⁹Then the LORD will make your plagues wonderful, and the plagues of your seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.

⁶⁰Moreover He will bring upon you all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cleave unto you.

⁶¹Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the Book of this Law, them will the LORD bring upon you, until you be destroyed (we learn from this, as should be obvious, that God controls all sickness and disease; he may use Satan as His instrument to bring about such, but, still, it is the Lord Who is always in control).

⁶²And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because you would not obey the Voice of the LORD your God (once again, disobedience of the Word of the Lord is the cause).

⁶³And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go to possess it (the Lord rejoices in doing good for those who obey Him, and continues to rejoice over bringing evil on those who disobey Him; the idea is, the Lord rejoices in stamping out evil, even if such evil is found in His chosen People).

⁶⁴And the LORD shall scatter you among all people, from the one end of the Earth even unto the other; and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, even wood and stone (in other words, if they wouldnt serve God, then they would have to serve idols).

⁶⁵And among these nations shall you find no ease, neither shall the sole of your foot have rest: but the LORD shall give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind:

⁶⁶And your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of your life (a continued vexation of spirit):

⁶⁷In the morning you shall say, Would God it were evening! and at evening you shall say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of your heart wherewith you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see (the person of disobedience is plagued by fear constantly).

⁶⁸And the LORD shall bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spoke unto you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you (after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus, the Jews were in large numbers carried into Egypt, and there subjected to the most ignominious bondage, exactly as the Scripture foretold).