Deuteronomy 28: 1 – 68
How come I got the lousy lines?
28 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: 3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. 4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7 “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. 8 “The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. 9 “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. 11 And the LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. 12 The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. 14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them. 15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: 16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. 17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. 20 “The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. 21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. 22 The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 24 The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. 25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. 27 The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29 And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. 30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. 33 A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. 34 So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. 35 The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. 36 “The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone. 37 And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. 38 “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. 41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42 Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. 43 “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. 45 “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. 46 And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. 47 “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. 49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. 51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. 52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. 53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. 54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. 58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, 59 then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. 62 You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. 63 And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. 64 “Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone. 65And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. 68 “And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
From time to time in Philadelphia I have seen a variety of movie be shot in and around our city. In fact many of our famous ‘Rocky’ movies were done in the city and quite a few of our church members were part of the extras in the scenes. The last two were Rocky 5 and most recent was ‘Creed’.
To even be an actor you need to be picked so that saying something positive about you if you are one selected. Nearly every actor has a type which determines the roles they'll get cast in. This is based on looks, age, body composition, hairstyle, and more.
Personally I haven’t gone for an audition but I can almost say without a doubt that I would be picked as some type of criminal or bad guy. I have been told by people that ‘I look to serious’, ‘or smile will ya’, or ‘you look angry’, or ‘are you okay’. When you council people practically every day and then go see people in the hospital or hospice I can tell you if I walk around with a smile on my face then there would be something wrong with me.
I was thinking about today’s scripture. We are going to see how the tribes of Israel were divided into two groups. One group would stand on one mountain and shout out the blessings that God would give if the people were obedient. The other group would respond on another mountain and shout out the curses if they became disobedient.
The first thing that came into my mind was that just my luck I would be picked to be with the group that has to shout out the curses. In my mind I was thinking ‘how come I can’t shout out the good stuff?’
In truth we will find out that it does not matter what part is assigned because ultimately the facts apply to all the people and how they will behave not in relation to what role each one has on the mountain.
It should be noted that verse 1 is not an invitation to enter into covenant. The offer of the covenant had already been made by Yahweh out of His loving kindness, and had been accepted by Israel in Exodus 24, as confirmed in the last chapter, Deuteronomy 27. This is a promise and a warning subsequent to the covenant concerning the consequence of being faithful to their Lord God, or of rebelling against Him.
The consequence of the covenant is that if they respond to it and love Him and serve Him and are obedient to His commandments, Yahweh will bless them in a multitude of ways. That is what the tribes standing on Mount Gerizim represented. But if they turn away from Him and do not keep His commandment they will be horribly cursed. That is what the tribes standing on Mount Ebal represented. The length of the cursing considerably outweighs the blessing.
How does all this apply to us? We will not enter the land, we will enter the better land, the city whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11.10), for if we are His we have already entered under the Kingdom of God. The blessings therefore that come to us through obedience are related to walking in obedience to Him. Our Master and King Lord Jesus said, ‘If you love me you will obey My Commandments’. To us He promises spiritual blessing and spiritual prosperity. Not for us the desire for physical land and wealth, but a seeking first His kingship and His righteousness. Then all things will be added to us
2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:
They would enjoy The Lord’s Blessings as long as they listened to the voice of Yahweh their God. For these things was all a part of the covenant. The blessings are then declared in depth.
3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. 4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.
The blessings relate to the fruitfulness of the womb, the fruitfulness of the ground, and the fruitfulness of their flocks and herds, and the blessing indicates the underlying activity of Yahweh in all that they do. They will be blessed in city and countryside, in basket and kneading bowl, thus they will be blessed in their own abundant offspring (city) and in the abundant offspring of cattle (countryside), and in abundant fruits (basket) and grain (kneading-bowl). They will be blessed in all their going out and in, in other words they will be successful both in their ‘goings out and in’ in all aspects of their daily lives.
7 “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
Yahweh’s protecting hand will also be on them. Their enemies will be smitten before them, for He will fight alongside them. The enemy may march boldly up in full confidence, but in the end they will flee in many directions.. In the parallel all the people will see that they are called by the name of Yahweh and will be afraid.
8 “The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you.
The blessing will also include crops and fruits sufficient to store so that their barns will be full and overflowing. Indeed whatever they put their hand to will prosper, both in agriculture and business. For they will be blessed in every way in the land which Yahweh their God has given them. This blessing is not a reward. It is a fruit of their relationship with Him.
9 “The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. 10 Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you
As they continue to keep the covenant and walk in His ways He will establish them as a holy people for Himself, a people watched over, cared for, protected and loved because they are separated to Him. And the whole world will see that they bear His name, as someone might bear the name of a great king, and they will be afraid of them, that is, they will revere them and look up to them because of Whose they are. So will they be a testimony to the name of Yahweh.
11 And the LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you.
They will be blessed in the good land that He has given them, they will ‘have an excess of plenty’, because He swore to their fathers that He would so bless them, and they will produce abundantly, in their own offspring (the fruit of their body), in the offspring of their flocks and herds and in all their produce. Please notice that the reference to their fathers is a further reminder that all this comes to them not because of what they do, but for the fathers’ sakes. What they do is simply the fruit of it.
12 The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
Yahweh will open the treasure house of the heavens so that rain will fall abundantly in its season. It will rain just the right amount – not too much or not sparingly. Thus all the work of their hand will be blessed, so much so that they will become wealthy and lenders to the nations, and will not need to borrow. The picture is one of overwhelming prosperity and wellbeing.
13 And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them.
As long as they listen to Yahweh’s commandments, and observe them and do them, they will always be at the head among the nations, and never at the tail. None will be above them, for they will rather always be ranked above others. This is the natural position for those who walk with the One Who Is over all things.
14 So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.
All the blessings will depend on their not turning aside from any of His words as given by Moses, neither to the right hand nor to the left, and on their not going after other gods to serve them.
For us the same blessings are offered. Our enemies will not stand against us, our lives will be fruitful, and He will provide all that we need. But above all we will be His holy people through whom He can fulfill His purposes so that people will know that we are called by His name.
However, once they wander outside the sphere of the covenant only cursing can await them. They will have put themselves in the same place as that already taken by those whom they had cursed in chapter 27.. Those examples were but samples of a wider Law, a Law which they would now have broken. Thus they have by their ‘Amen’ they acknowledged that it will be right for Yahweh to curse them. And the cursing will be terrible. Great privileges renounced can only produce great judgments.
15 “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
For if they refuse to listen to the voice of Yahweh their God, and fail to obey His commandments and His statutes as commanded by Moses that day, then all the curses outlined will come on them and overtake them. They will not be able to avoid these curses. They will pile on, one on top of another. The curses are the opposite of the blessings.
16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. 17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. 19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
This is the tragedy of the Garden of Eden multiplied. Not only is the ground cursed but everything is cursed. They had been on the edge of Paradise and by their folly they have lost everything.
20 “The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
In everything that they now do they will be cursed, they will suffer discomfiture and confusion and they will experience constant rebuke in all that they seek to do and this will go on until they are destroyed, until they perish quickly, and all because of the evil of their doings as a result of which they have forsaken Yahweh.
Whereas the first curses where on their daily lives and mainly affected the fruitfulness of their crops and herds, resulting from famine conditions, these further curses range wider covering pestilence, disease, and sword.
21 The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess.
The first main curse sent by Yahweh will be ‘destroying pestilence’, a plague of epidemic proportions. Such plagues have from time to time smitten the world and decimated populations. It will ‘cleave to them’ so that they are unable to shrug it off until they are consumed off the land.
22 The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron.
This is then followed by a sevenfold description of disasters; inflammation, fiery heat, drought, scorching and mildew. The first four suggest unpleasant human diseases which cause high temperatures, not necessarily individual diseases but a spread of diseases which have these symptoms; the last three are disasters which affect plant life - Drought All these things would be their lot until finally they perished from the earth either through disease or starvation. The heavens would be hard and unyielding, with the sun shining remorselessly in the sky, and the earth would be caked like the hardest stuff known to man
24 The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
Under Yahweh’s hand, instead of raining water the heavens would rain powder and dust and this would continue until they were destroyed. This in huge contrast with the regular covenant promises of rain and this will destroy them for it will destroy their vegetation.
25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away.
Yahweh will also cause them to be smitten by their enemies. Central to the covenant had been His driving their enemies from before them. That will now be reversed. He will drive their enemies towards them. It will now not be their enemies who will be scattered ‘seven ways’ after marching confidently forward, but they themselves.
AThey will be ‘tossed to and from among the nations’ like something unwanted by anyone and their bodies will be thrown to the scavengers, and there they will be left to be torn apart, for there will be no one interested enough to scare them away and bury the body. Instead of having dominion over the beasts and the birds (Genesis 1.28), the beasts and birds will eat them up They will be totally alone and deserted, especially by Yahweh. He will not care what happens to their bodies. Being unburied was seen in those days as a fate worse than death.
27 The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. 29 And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you.
The boil of Egypt was an unpleasant disease which they had known from Egypt and which was infamous. If you ever had an itch then you can be afraid of what this can do to you. You cannot fall asleep and then other problems come forth.
Yahweh would smite them with clinical depression and schizophrenia producing insanity and with blindness, and with delusions. The traumas of life are resulting from Yahweh’s desertion, and the evil living resulting from their rebellion, would have their inevitable consequences.
The blindness and its effects are emphasized. But there is also a spiritual impact. They are also blind towards God. They have turned from the light and are thus now in darkness.
This is then followed by a set of curses that refer to what have been called ‘futility curses’ where the proper enjoyment of something is not experienced but is frustrated by circumstances.
30 “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 31 Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them.
The betrothing of a wife, the building of a house, and the planting of a vineyard were seen as the three main important things that came from God’s blessing and were to be the result of His promises and His covenant. Here they would be lost and would go to others because of their rebellion against Yahweh. The main measure of wealth was a man’s herds and flocks. Here all would be lost because they had broken the covenant. They have forsaken Yahweh, and so Yahweh has forsaken them.
The next listing of curses become more complicated and are now becoming more severe.
The first set of curses related to famine. The second set related to confusion, pestilence, disease and sword. The third set related to the frustration of all that has been labored for being lost without enjoyment of it, and included the loss of a wife. Now the loss goes deeper with the loss of their children for ever.
32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand.
Even their sons and daughters would be lost to them. Deportation was common practice as it provided slave labor. They would be handed over to strangers. And though they might long all through the long days, and day after day, to see them it would never be. They would be in no position to bring it about.
33 A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually.
Their produce and all that they had labored for, in order to give it to their loved ones, would instead come into the hands of a nation that they had not even known about, who would suddenly come upon them. These strangers would eat what they had sown, and they instead would be continually oppressed and crushed.
34 So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see.
The net result of seeing these things with their eyes, as all that they had built up during their lives for their children was lost to them and their children, and their children were lost to them as well, would bring them into depression and madness. What they saw would be too much for them to cope with. They would also experience disease and exile and watch as they left their homeland far behind.
35 The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.
They would experience many diseases of a kind that Yahweh had previously saved them from. Their knees and their legs would be smitten with sore boils which would never heal, making their life of drudgery a nightmare. Indeed their whole bodies would be affected from head to toe. This would probably be the result of the awful conditions under which they would have to live.
36 “The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods—wood and stone.
Moses understands that in the future they will have a king over them that will neglect Yahweh. As a result of this sin they would have to look elsewhere for leadership, He knew this people too well. Their king would come from among them and be like them. And he links their king with them going into their exile. They would have chosen to serve other gods of wood and stone, for that is one reason why they will have been cast out of the land, because of their idolatry.
37 And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you.
The people among whom they would find themselves would be astonished. They would be talked about and gossiped about as the foolish nation that turned away from Yahweh.
This is now followed by curses that reflect conditions in the land. The whole of their agriculture, on which they all depended, would fail and fall into total chaos. It was not only outside enemies that they had to face.
38 “You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it.
Though they would sow plentiful seed in great hopes, they would harvest little, for the locust would descend and eat it, and all their hopes would be dashed before their eyes as they watched helplessly while it was consumed.
39 You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.
Their vineyards which they had dressed so carefully would be attacked by worms. One morning they would come down and perceive the destruction of their vines, about which they could do nothing.
40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off.
Even though they might have many olive trees throughout the land, there would be a dearth of oil because they would not produce, but would prematurely cast their fruit because of olive disease.
41 You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity.
Even though they begot sons and daughters, the delight of their eyes, they would lose them. They would no longer be available to help the family on the land. They would be carried off as slaves to work for others.
42 Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.
Not only the grain would be eaten by locusts, but locusts would descend on the whole land and eat everything so that nothing would be left. The arrival of a swarm of locusts was one of the things most dreaded by farmers in the Ancient Near East.
43 “The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
On top of all this, the foreigners whom they had always seen as needy and requiring assistance, and whom they had always called on for extra labor when needed, would become more and more wealthy (they would not be affected by the curse), while they themselves would sink deeper and deeper into poverty. Instead of lending to foreigners they would be driven to borrow from them. The aliens would have become the head, Israel would be the tail.
45 “Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you.
All that has been described will come on them, and will pursue them, and will overtake them. Some will endure one, and some another, but all will have to endure until finally they are destroyed. And this is because they did not hear Yahweh’s voice and did not keep His commandments and statutes which He had commanded them.
46 And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever.
What would happen to Israel if they forgot God would be a sign and a wonder to the nations. Indeed we read it ourselves for that very reason, and we too wonder. God speaks to us through their experiences. They warn us of the severity of His judgments on those who are not faithful to Him. They had been intended to be a sign and a wonder to the glory of God because of their deliverance from Egypt. That should have been their message to the world, the glorious message of what Yahweh had done for them. But they would have forfeited that by their disobedience. Instead they will be a sign of His displeasure, and of what happens to those who having claimed to be His people refuse to obey Him.
47 “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you.
The cursing is now taken up again. The purpose of this lengthy treatment and constant repetition in different ways was in order that the point may not be easily forgotten.
The main point being made here is that they had had the opportunity of serving Yahweh in joyfulness and gladness of heart, abundantly provided for, and abundantly blessed. But they had refused. And now the opposite would come on them. Instead of the joyous service of Yahweh, they would be slaves of their enemies, they would hunger and thirst, they would be without proper clothing and made to walk naked in order to shame them and they would have an iron yoke around their neck. Their condition would be even worse than that from which they had been delivered when they had been in bondage in Egypt. And this would go on until at last they had been destroyed.
The curses now go deeper while repeating some of what has gone before. They had been engaged in much siege warfare in their defeat of Sihon and Og, and the capture of their great cities. They would remember the conditions when they had had to starve people out, and the treatment that they had dispensed. Now they learn that these things would come back on them if they failed in obedience to the covenant.
49 The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.
Unlike Yahweh their God the Israelites will find that invaders are merciless, not compassionate. Moses is speaking of unknown nations from distant countries from the end of the earth. The whole point of the curse is the mysteriousness of these invaders. But any attacking nation which was not local would seem to be talking in a strange language, and to be fierce and wild. It was part of the training of an army to appear fierce and wild.
51 And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you.
These armies would take possession of all that they had. Like a swarm of human locusts they would devour everything leaving them with nothing. For that was usually the reason for the invasion.
52 “They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you.
Their recent memory of their own activities in Gilead and Bashan would come back to mind as they heard these words. As they had besieged, so would they be besieged, until their walls came down, the walls in which they trusted instead of in Yahweh, and their gates would be attacked until they fell. And this in the land which Yahweh their God had given them, because they had despised the gift by their behavior.
53 You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you.
A result of starvation, as the effects of the siege began to bite would be cannibalism.
54 The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55 so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
The situation will turn into what some of the evolutionist promoted and that was that only the strongest survive. The men will kill off the women and children.
56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57 her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
The women left would be scavengers who would do anything to survive.
58 “If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD,
In the midst of the gloom, the way of escape is offered. If they live in accordance with the covenant and observe to do all the words of His instruction ‘written in this book’, and fear the glorious and fearful name of Yahweh their God, this will not happen to them. But if they do not then they can only expect the worst.
The final six curses will result in dreadful, decimation of their numbers, destruction and removal from the land, scattering among the peoples, total lack of rest and finally a return to bondage in Egypt.
59 then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed.
The level of disease that would come on them would be extremely high for they would be His judgments and he would have withdrawn His protection. He would bring on them ‘extraordinary plagues’, and on their children He would bring great plagues, long continuing plagues, and long continuing sore sicknesses. The purpose is to bring out the awful consequences of sin. Much of the disease in the world is due to sin, not as a direct judgment, but as the result of the way men live and act.
There were many diseases in Egypt of which they had been afraid, including among many others tuberculosis, trachoma causing blindness, encephalitis, and severe boils.
62 You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God.
Growing in numbers was a part of the covenant made with their fathers. It was a proof of Yahweh’s blessing but to desert the covenant would result in decimation. We have only to think of what is described in the curses to recognize how this would be so. Yet hidden within this threat is a promise. In destroying them there would be a small remnant remaining.
63 And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess.
The contrast is made between what Yahweh had done and longed to do for them, and what He would do because of their rebellion. He had rejoiced over them, it had been His good pleasure to do them good, He had multiplied them. But because of what they would have become He would rejoice in causing them to perish and destroying them.
There is a real sense in which God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. He would prefer that they turned from their wickedness and lived. But what was righteous in Him could only rejoice in the destruction of those who were the causes of sin when there was no hope of repentance. Thus some would perish, some would be destroyed, and some would be plucked from the land which Yahweh had given them to possess. For that possession had depended on obedience.
64 “Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone.
When they were plucked from the land they would be scattered among the nations from one end of earth to the other. The picture is of widespread distribution far exceeding that of Assyria and Babylon. It is general rather than specific. And there they would throw themselves into idolatry, serving many gods, so lost to all that they had once believed in would they be. They would become like the people whom they should have driven out.
This did indeed happen to many. And that was why many never came back. They were scattered by many things, captivity, fear, necessity, the sad state of the land, and they ended up among many nations in total apostasy. The picture is the reversal of all the hopes that they had as they listened to Moses.
65And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see.
If somehow they thought that the curses from a loving God wouldn’t turn out that bad that they should be assured of this. They would find no rest. There would be no ease, no rest for the sole of their feet, no rest for their hearts and minds. Their hearts would tremble, their eyes would fail because of their distress, their souls would be lost in a lack of any hope. Day and night they would be afraid, and they would fear for their lives. In the morning they would long for the evening, and in the evening they would long for the morning, so terrible would their lives be, because of what their hearts feared, and because of what their eyes saw. They would have lost the covenant rest which God had promised them.
68 “And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again.’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
So, like they whined in the Wilderness they would get their request. They would ‘return to Egypt’. Here was the ultimate curse. They would be back to the place from which they had been delivered from slavery and they would not even be wanted as slaves. They will attempt to return to Egypt and sell themselves as slaves but no one will buy them.
