Deuteronomy 28

Moses here resumes and amplifies the threats already set forth in the earlier records of the Law. The blessings are declared in fourteen verses; the curses require nearly four times as many. Thus here again the curse is the more conspicuous feature in the Law. The language rises in this chapter to the sublimest strains, especially in the latter part of it; and the prophecies respecting the dispersion and degradation of the Jewish nation in its later days are among the most remarkable in Scripture. They are plain, precise, and circumstantial; and the fulfilment of them has been literal, complete, and undeniable. Espin.

15,20. God seeks not occasion against us, nor is he apt to quarrel with us. That which is here mentioned as bringing the curse is (1) despising God; refusing to hearken to his voice (verse 15), which speaks the highest contempt imaginable, as if what he said were not worth the heeding or we were not under any obligation to him. (2) Disobeying him; not doing his commandments or not observing to do them. None fall under his curse but those that rebel against his command. (3) Deserting him. “It is because of the wickedness of thy doings, not only whereby thou hast slighted me, but whereby thou hast forsaken me” (verse 20). God never casts us off till we first cast him off. It intimates that their idolatry, by which they forsook the true God for false gods, would be their destroying sin, more than any other. H.—These threatenings are against evil-doers, and while as terrible as they are just they have no taint of bitterness. They are never vindictive. They proceed from a heart of infinite pity—the heart of “the Almighty Father.” Dr. J. P. Thompson.

16-19. As the blessing was set forth in six announcements (verses 3-6), the curse is proclaimed in form and number corresponding. The curse thus appears as the exact counterpart of the blessing. The different forms in which the threatened curse should break forth are then detailed (verses 20-68). W. L. A.

The equity of these curses. (1) Disobedience under such circumstances of privilege was eminently base and blameworthy. Disloyalty had no excuse. To refuse to hearken was sheer obstinacy which could plead no extenuation. (2) It was perjury. They had sworn to be loyal subjects. They had acknowledged the just terms of the covenant, and had entered Canaan on the terms of pledged obedience. (3) It was rebellion against their accepted King. If such flagrant rebellion escaped with impunity, God would be dishonored in the eyes of the universe. (4) The curses were their own choice. They knew clearly what the fruits of disobedience were. They had seen the fruits in others’ fate—in the Egyptians, in their brethren, in the Canaanites. If they should choose other gods they should be led into captivity, and there they should “serve other gods, wood and stone.” (5) The curses were the natural evolution of their crimes. Sin is the seed of which penalty is the fruit. If they forsook God, God would forsake them. What could be more equitable? Men say, “Depart from me;

I desire not the knowledge of thy ways.” God says, “Depart from me; I never knew you.” D. D.

25,26. Utter defeat in battle (the opposite of the blessing promised, verse 7) and dispersion among the nations are threatened, with the utmost indignity to those who were slain, in their bodies being left unburied to be devoured by birds of prey and wild beasts (cf. 1 Kings 14:11). Shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth; literally, shalt be a tossing to and fro to all the kingdoms, etc.; “a ball for all the kingdoms to play with.”

28,29. Besides bodily ailments, mental diseases should come upon them—insanity, incapacity, confusion of mind, so that even at mid-day they should grope as a blind man gropes—i.e., under the most favorable circumstances they should be unable to find the right path, to hit on the right and safe course. It is of mental blindness that the word is here used. W. L. A.—They should be infatuated in all their counsels, so as not to discern their own interest, nor bring anything to pass for the public good. The Lord shall suite thee with madness and blindness. Note, God’s judgments can reach the minds of men, to fill them with darkness and horror, as well as their bodies and estates; and those are the sorest of all judgments which make men a terror to themselves, and their own destroyers. H.

30-34. The spoliation of them should be utter. All most dear and precious to them should be the prey of their enemies. Wife, house, vineyard, herd, and flock should be ruthlessly taken from them; sons and daughters should be carried into captivity, and their eyes should look for them in vain, with constant and wasting longing. W. L. A.

32-48. Lev. 26:23-39. These passages are remarkably descriptive of the captivities of the ten tribes carried away by the Assyrians, and transplanted into the remotest parts of the empire, and of the two remaining tribes of Judah and Benjamin, by the Babylonians. Their true meaning is determined by the Prophet Jeremiah in the following summary: “Lo, I bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the Lord: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say. Their quiver is an open sepulchre, they are all mighty men. And they shall eat up thine harvest.” The remoteness of the Babylonians is noticed (Is. 5:26), and the antiquity of “the land of Nimrod” (Mic. 5:6). The Syriac language was not understood by the Jews

(2 Kings 18 : 26), and their arms were chiefly bows and arrows (Jer. 6 : 23). Hales.

33. Thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway.** They should not be quite rooted out and destroyed, as the Amalekites and Canaanites were, of whom no footsteps now remain; but be scattered and tossed about through other nations, remaining still as a testimony to the truth of God’s revealed religion; and there only oppressed, crushed, and enslaved. Pyle.

36. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king.** This was fulfilled literally, when Jehoiachin was carried captive to Babylon (2 Kings 24 : 15), and afterward Zedekiah (25 : 7; Jer. 39 : 7; 52 : 11). Bp. Patrick.—It is a circumstance which must strike every unprejudiced person, that this prophetic threat was delivered at a time when the Jews had not a king, nor were yet constituted as a nation. Bryant.

37. The Hebrew people have survived their metropolis, their kingdom, and their code; and a terrible interval of more than fifteen centuries of merciless persecutions, of heroic struggles, of blasting calumnies, of martyrdoms, and of expulsions, constitute the modern history of the Hebrews. Exiles even in their birthplace; struck out of the number of nations, yet still a nation; the chosen of God, and the persecuted of man; looked on as sacred, and held as contemptible. Stigmatized or proscribed, their very name has entailed on them a proverbial odium, and they are still enduring the anathema of their immortal legislator; “Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all the peoples whither the Lord shall lead thee away.” D’Israeli.

41. Thou shalt beget sons.** The calamity here threatened was threatened also in many places of the prophets, and fulfilled in several invasions of their neighbors: for the Syrians, no doubt, carried captive more than one “little maid,” like her who waited on Naaman’s wife (2 Kings 5 : 2), and in other inroads upon them, till the captivity of the whole land; we may be confident that this was a frequent calamity (2 Kings 14 : 26; 15 : 37). Bp. Patrick.

49,50. The description here given of the enemy to whom Israel was to be subjected, applies more or less closely to all the nations whom God raised up from time to time, to invade Israel and chastise the people for their rebellion—the Chaldeans (cf. Jer. 48 : 40; 49 : 22; Ezek. 17 : 5-7; Hab. 1 : 6), the Assyrians (cf. Is. 5 : 26; 38 : 11), the Medes (Is. 13 : 17, 18); but there are features in the description which apapply especially to the Romans; and the horrors delineated in the latter part of the section (verses 52-57) carry one’s thoughts immediately to the terrible scenes which transpired during the wars of Vespasian and Titus with the Jews as narrated by Josephus. W. L. A.

The minute and circumstantial prophecy contained from the forty-ninth to the sixty-eighth verse was exactly fulfilled in all its branches by the Roman captivity, and is still fulfilling at this very day. Its accomplishment indeed is for “a sign” of their rebellion against God, and for “a wonder” of their preservation amid all those dreadful calamities which they have suffered for so many hundred years. Hales.—If we consider what providential reasons may be assigned for the present condition of the Jews, we shall find that their numbers, dispersion, and adherence to their religion have furnished every age and every nation of the world with the strongest arguments for the Christian faith; not only as these very particulars are foretold of them, but as they themselves are the depositories of these and all the other prophecies, which tend to their own confusion. Their number furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Old Testament. Their dispersion spreads these witnesses through all parts of the world. The adherence to their religion makes their testimony unquestionable. Addison.

49,50. 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 (Matt. 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. H.—The Romans are here described with the most characteristic precision, above eight hundred years before their existence as a nation. First, by their country; “far” to the westward of Palestine; from “the end of the earth,” or shores of the Atlantic Ocean; and it is remarkable that the armies of Titus and Adrian were principally composed of Gauls, Britons, and Spaniards. (Vespasian and Adrian, the two great conquerors and destroyers of the Jews, both came from commanding here in Britain. Bp. Newton.) (2) By the rapidity of their marches, “swift as the eagle flibeth;” and their ensigns too were eagles, expressive thereof. (3) By their language, Latin, which was not understood by the Jews, though Greek was, from the time of Alexander’s conquests in Asia. (4) By their “fierce countenance,” for which the Romans were distinguished from the early periods of their republic. And (5) By their ferocity, or merciless disposition in war.

Of fierce countenance. How singularly applicable this characteristic was of the Romans, may appear from the following instance out of many. In a war which broke out between the Romans and Samnites (year of Rome 412), the latter attributed their defeat after a long and obstinate engagement to the fierce looks of the Romans. They said that “the eyes of the Romans seemed to be on fire, their countenances were wild, and their looks furious; and that this excited more terror in them than anything else.”

51. Josephus, whose “Jewish war” is the best commentary on this prophecy, relates the devastation of the country by the Romans, that “in their rage they ceased not day nor night from ravaging the lands, plundering the goods, slaying all that were of military age, and taking the weaker captives.” He relates the sieges of the principal towns taken by the Romans, Jotapata, Gadara, Joppa, Tiberias, Tariches, and Gadala; at which last town in particular, after a long and obstinate defence, “above five thousand persons precipitated themselves from the walls into a deep valley beneath; and the Romans spared not even the infants, but slung them in numbers from the citadel.” Hales. —When Vespasian entered Gadara, Josephus says, that “he slew all, man by man, the Romans showing mercy to no age.” Such had been the Chaldeans, as the sacred history relates expressly (2 Ch. 36:17).

52. And he shall besiege thee. The Romans demolished several fortified places before they besieged and destroyed Jerusalem. And the Jews may very well be said to have “trusted in their high and fenced walls,” for they seldom ventured a battle in the open field. Jerusalem was a very strong place, and wonderfully fortified both by nature and by art, according to the description of Tacitus, as well as of Josephus. Bp. Newton.

For a minute recital of the fulfilment of these remarkable predictions, read pages 647-650 of New Testament, Vol. I. B.

57. Lev. 26:29. This prediction was fulfilled about six hundred years after, when Samaria was besieged by the King of Syria (2 Kings 6:28, 29). It was fulfilled again about nine hundred years after in the siege of Jerusalem before the Babylonish captivity (Jer. 4:10: Bar. 2:1). Again it was fulfilled about fifteen hundred years after in the last siege of Jerusalem by Titus. At so many different times and distant periods hath this prophecy been fulfilled: and one would have thought that such distress and horror had almost transcended imagination, and much less that any person could certainly have foreseen and foretold it. Bp. Newton.

58-68. Even these fearful calamities would not be the consummation of their punishment. If they should be obstinate in their rebellion; if they would not observe to do all that the Law delivered by Moses enjoined on them; if they ceased to reverence and obey Jehovah, their God—then should come upon them the curse in full measure, and long-continued chastisement should show how grievous had been their sin.

58. This book. Not the Book of Deuteronomy, which was not then written, but the Book of the Law, the Torah, delivered by Moses to Israel from God; and of which he had been, in his addresses to the people, recapitulating some of the principal points (cf. verses 60, 61). W. L. A.

If the fulfilment of these predictions teaches anything, it is that God will not shrink from the punishment of sin. We shudder as we read the details of these curses—“plagues wonderful, . . . great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance” (verse 59), and ask ourselves, Can God really tolerate the sight of, not to say inflict, such incredible sufferings? Yet we find that not one of these curses failed of its accomplishment. So solemn a fact bids the sinner pause and ponder his chance of escaping in the great “day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Orr.

62. And ye shall be left few in number. Josephus reckons that eleven hundred thousand souls perished during the siege of Jerusalem by the sword, pestilence, or famine, beside ninety-seven thousand whom they took captives. The greater part of these were of the same nation, but not of the same country. For they had assembled from all parts to celebrate the feast of the passover, and were suddenly surrounded by the Romans; and the whole of this vast multitude, composing the whole nation, shut up as it were in an enclosure by destiny. In the ensuing rebellion, excited by the impostor Barchocab, signifying “son of the star,” or Christ, so denominated in Balaam’s prophecies, Julius Severus, the general of Adrian, according to Dio, destroyed five hundred and eighty thousand Jews in the public combats, beside an innumerable multitude which perished by famine, misery, and fire: so that very few of them escaped this war; in which were plundered and burned fifty fortified castles and nine hundred and eighty-five towns, flourishing and populous; and so general was the massacre of the inhabitants, that all Judea was in some measure left desolate, and converted into a desert. Hales.

63. That is a terrible word, 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 bright in the pleasure God takes in doing good, 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 honor and the securing of the ends of his government. See what a malignant mischievous thing sin is, which makes it necessary for the God of infinite goodness to rejoice in the destruction of his own creatures, even those that had been favorites. H.

Ye shall be plucked from off the land. They were so when the ten tribes were carried captive into Assyria; and when the two other tribes were carried captive to Babylon. They were so again when “the Romans took away their place and nation.” Afterward, when the Emperor Adrian had subdued the rebellious Jews, he published an edict forbidding them upon pain of death to set foot in Jerusalem or even to approach the country round about it. From that time to this their country hath been in the possession of foreign masters, few of the Jews dwelling in it and those only of a low servile condition. In the twelfth century Jerusalem was almost entirely abandoned by the Jews, not above two hundred living there who were for the most part dyers of wool. The rest of the holy land was still more depopulated. Sandys says, “It is for the most part now inhabited by Moors and Arabians; those possessing the valleys, and these the mountains. Turks there be few: but many Greeks with other Christians of all sects and nations, such as impute to the place an adherent holiness. Here be also some Jews: yet inherit they no part of the land, but in their own country do live as aliens.” Bp. Newton.

64. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people. This gives the last stroke to the picture. I will scatter you among the nations (Lev. 26:33). While their land lies waste and their cities in ruins, they themselves are dispersed among the nations and the sword unsheathed against them. More than once has this description been realized in the history of this people. They were carried away into captivity in part by Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 15:29), by Shalmaneser (2 Kings 18:29), and by Nebuchadnezzar on three several occasions. Returning after seventy years of captivity they remained in their own country with various fortune until the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, which terminated in the raising of the walls and the burning of the temple. For eighteen centuries from that event they have been without a country, and are at this day scattered among the nations. The prophetic picture, melancholy though it is, has been fully borne out by the reality. M.—Nehemiah confesseth that these words were fulfilled in the Babylonish captivity (1:8, 9), but they have more amply been fulfilled since the great dispersion of the Jews by the Romans. What people indeed have been scattered so far and wide as they? and where is the nation which is a stranger to them or to which they are strangers? They swarm in many parts of the East, are spread through most of the countries of Europe and Africa, and there are several families of them in the West Indies. They circulate through all parts where trade and money circulate; and are, as I may say, the brokers of the world. Bp. Newton.

65-67. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease. Since their expulsion from their native territory, the Jews have wandered over every portion of the globe, without national possessions, an acknowledged constitution, or independent laws. Though generally submissive to the laws and strangers to political intrigue, they have frequently been exposed to persecution and plunder, even with the connivance of governments, which in all other instances have guarded as sacred the property of individuals. Though abundantly possessed of riches, which usually command the respect of mankind and ennoble even ignorance and folly, they have been generally treated with contempt by the powerful, and sometimes even followed with insult by the populace. They have been driven from city to city, from country to country. Richards.

67. Would God it were ever! For each of us, if we do fail of the grace of God, there is reserved a misery of which indeed the words of the text are no more than a feeble picture. There is a state in which they who are condemned to it shall forever say in the morning, Would God it were even! and at even,

Would God it were morning! for the fear of their heart wherewith they shall fear, and the sight of their eyes which they shall see. Arnold.

68. Bring thee into Egypt.** Of the captives taken at the siege of Jerusalem, above seventeen years of age, some were sent to Egypt in chains to work in the mines, the greater part were distributed through the provinces to be destroyed in the theatres by the sword and by wild beasts: the rest under seventeen were sold for slaves; and that for a trifling sum, on account of the numbers to be sold and the scarcity of buyers. So that at length the prophecy of Moses was fulfilled, “and no man shall buy.” Hales.—It is related both by Aristeas and Josephus, that in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus there were vast numbers of Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and that the king himself bought above one hundred thousand of them from their masters and set them free. Egypt, indeed, was the great slave-mart of ancient times; and several of the conquerors and oppressors of the Jews sent at least a portion of their captives thither to be sold. Titus had ninety thousand captives after Jerusalem was taken. Those above seventeen years of age were sent to different parts of the Roman Empire to labor on the public works, besides great numbers who perished in compulsory combats with wild beasts. Those under seventeen were doomed to be sold for slaves; but in such deep contempt and detestation was the nation held, that few were willing to buy them; and the Jews who remained at large were too few and poor to be able to redeem their brethren. The market was also glutted with their numbers, so that they were sold at a mere nominal price—sometimes thirty for a small piece of money. Those who remained unpurchased were sent into confinement, where they perished by hundreds and by thousands together, from neglect and hunger. Egypt received a large proportion of these slaves, who were probably sent thither in ships, as the Romans had a fleet in the Mediterranean, and this was a much easier and safer way of transporting them than by land across the desert. The same things precisely took place on the final desolation of Israel by Hadrian, who may be said to have consummated their doom by decreeing, with the concurrence of the Roman Senate, that no Jew should ever, on pain of death, enter the land of his fathers. Kit.

The dispersion of the Jews into all countries from the rising to the setting sun, and “the very long continuance of their plagues” or sufferings in this captivity, intimated in the reperepetition (verse 59), and now subsisting upward of seventeen hundred years, during which they have still been preserved a distinct people, though everywhere despised and persecuted, exhibits a standing miracle and fulfilment of prophecy the most extraordinary and convincing. Dr. Hales.