In the previous chapter, Moses proclaimed the terms and conditions of God’s covenant with Israel and all of Israel agreed by saying ‘amen’, Deuteronomy 27:14-26. In this chapter, Moses now sets about encouraging Israel to keep the covenant, and once again it’s all about obedience, Deuteronomy 11:22-23 / Deuteronomy 11:26-32.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘A comparison of this chapter with Exodus 23:20-23, and Leviticus 26:1-36, will show how Moses here resumes and amplifies the promises and threats already set forth in the earlier records of the Law.’
The Lord says that He will bless Israel and glorify them among the nations around them if they obey the covenant, Deuteronomy 28:1-2 / Leviticus 26:3-13 / Deuteronomy 26:18-19. If Israel over God then they will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country, Deuteronomy 28:3. God will bless Israel with a physical substance such as fruitful land, cattle, and the womb of women, Deuteronomy 28:4.
Their basket and their kneading trough will be blessed, and they will be blessed when they come in and blessed when they go out, Deuteronomy 28:5-6.
Barnes, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The ‘basket’ or bag was a customary means in the East for carrying about whatever might be needed for personal uses, Deuteronomy 26:2 / John 13:29. The ‘store’ is rather the kneading-trough, Exodus 8:3 / Exodus 12:34.’
God will grant that the enemies who rise up against them will be defeated and they will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, Deuteronomy 28:7.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘This is a promise of security from foreign invasion, or total discomfiture of the invaders, should they enter the land.’
God will send a blessing on their barns and on everything they put their hand to Deuteronomy 28:8. God will bless them in the land He is giving them, Deuteronomy 28:8. If Israel obey God then they will be established as God’s holy people among the nations, Deuteronomy 28:9 / Genesis 22:16 / Hebrews 6:13-14.
God also said He would defeat all their enemies and their enemies would be afraid of them, Deuteronomy 28:10 / Exodus 23:20-23. God will grant them abundant prosperity, in the fruit of their womb, the young of their livestock and the crops of their ground, in the land God swore to their ancestors to give them, Deuteronomy 28:11.
God will open the heavens, the storehouse of His bounty, to send rain on their land in season and to bless all the work of their hands, Deuteronomy 28:12. Israel will lend to many nations but will borrow from none, Deuteronomy 28:12. God will make them the head, not the tail, Deuteronomy 28:13.
If Israel pay attention to the commands of God that He gives them and carefully follow them, they will always be at the top, never at the bottom, Deuteronomy 28:13. For God to bless Israel they mustn’t turn aside from any of the commands He gives them, they mustn’t turn to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them, Deuteronomy 28:14.
After describing the blessings which He would give Israel if they obeyed Him, the Lord now says there will be consequences, that is, curses, for disobedience to His covenant, Leviticus 26:14-46. We must keep in mind that God was speaking nationally to a nation of people. Though individuals would enjoy the specifics of a national blessing in a nation that is obedient to the moral laws of God, they, as a nation, would also suffer the specifics of national disobedience, Hosea 9:15-16.
He warns them that all these blessings will be taken away from them if they are disobedient and they will be cursed, Deuteronomy 28:15. Notice that these curses are the opposite of the blessings. They will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country, Deuteronomy 28:16 / Deuteronomy 28:3, and their basket and their kneading trough will be cursed, Deuteronomy 28:17 / Deuteronomy 28:5.
The fruit of their womb will be cursed, and the crops of their land, and the calves of their herds and the lambs of their flocks, Deuteronomy 28:18 / Deuteronomy 28:4. They will be cursed when they come in and cursed when they go out, Deuteronomy 28:19 / Deuteronomy 28:6.
If Israel disobey God, then God will send on them curses, confusion and rebuke in everything they put their hand to, until they are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil they have done in forsaking Him, Deuteronomy 28:20 / Deuteronomy 7:23 / 1 Samuel 14:20.
Notice the effect of the curses, they are going to affect both the physical and material areas of life of both men and women and the animals. God will plague them with diseases until He has destroyed them from the land they are entering to possess, Deuteronomy 28:21.
God will strike them with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague them until they perish, Deuteronomy 28:21. The sky over their head will be bronze, the ground beneath them iron, Deuteronomy 28:23.
Clarke, in his commentary, says the following.
‘The atmosphere should not be replenished with aqueous vapours, in consequence of which they should have neither the early nor the latter rain; hence the earth, the ground, must be wholly intractable, and, through its hardness, incapable of cultivation. God shows them by this that he is Lord of nature and that drought and sterility are not casualties but proceed from the immediate appointment of the Lord.’
God will turn the rain of their country into dust and powder and it will come down from the skies until they are destroyed, Deuteronomy 28:24. God will cause them to be defeated before their enemies and Israel will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, Deuteronomy 28:25 / Deuteronomy 28:7. The punishment is totally devastating for Israel and they would be an example of horror to all the nations around them, Deuteronomy 28:25. Their carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away, Deuteronomy 28:26.
The more we read, the worse things get for Israel if they disobey God. He will afflict Israel with the boils of Egypt, Exodus 9:9, and with tumours, 1 Samuel 5:6 / 1 Samuel 5:9, festering sores, and the itch, from which you cannot be cured, Deuteronomy 28:27. The body of man would be physically affected with boils and the infections that come with plagues. They would suffer from madness, blindness and confusion, Deuteronomy 28:28 / Lamentations 4:14 / Zephaniah 1:17 / 2 Corinthians 3:14.
At midday they will grope about like a blind person in the dark and they will be unsuccessful in everything they do. The invading nations would oppress them and eat their crops and they would have no one to rescue them, Deuteronomy 28:29 / Deuteronomy 28:33. If they were disobedient, then they would experience the pain of seeing one’s wife being rapped, Deuteronomy 28:30 / Lamentations 3:1.
Israel will build a house, but they will not live in it, they will plant a vineyard, but they will not even begin to enjoy its fruit, Deuteronomy 28:31. Their ox will be slaughtered before their eyes, but they will eat none of it and their donkeys will be forcibly taken from them and will not be returned and their sheep will be given to their enemies, and there will be no one will rescue them, Deuteronomy 28:33 / Deuteronomy 28:29.
Their children being taken into slavery by a ruthless nation and they will wear out their eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand, Deuteronomy 28:34. A people that Israel don’t know will eat what their land and labour produce, and they will have nothing but cruel oppression all their days, Deuteronomy 28:35.
When Israel see all this happening, it would drive them mad, Deuteronomy 28:34. God will afflict their knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of their feet to the top of their head, Deuteronomy 28:35.
The final punishment would be that they would be taken into another land where another king would be set over them, Deuteronomy 28:36. There they would be forced to serve the idol gods of their captors, Deuteronomy 28:36 / Amos 9:8. Israel will become a thing of horror a byword, an object of riddle among the nations they were supposed to drive out, Deuteronomy 28:37. In other words, they will be an example to the nations around them of how God punishes people for disobedience.
The curses continue, they would suffer plague and famine, which would bring Israel to its financial knees. Israel will become a devastated nation living in a land ravaged by plague and famine. They will sow much seed in the field but they will harvest little, because locusts will devour it, Deuteronomy 28:38. They would experience all of their labour failures because of a lack of rain, worms, and insects, Deuteronomy 28:39.
Israel will have olive trees throughout their country but they will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off Deuteronomy 28:40. They will become a nation stricken with poverty, the opposite of the land of milk and honey into which they were about to venture when these words were spoken.
They will have sons and daughters but they will not keep them, because they will go into captivity, Deuteronomy 28:41. Swarms of locusts will take over all their trees and the crops of their land, Deuteronomy 28:42.
The foreigners who reside among them will rise above them higher and higher, but they will sink lower and lower, Deuteronomy 28:43. They will lend to Israel, but Israel will not lend to them and they will be the head, but Israel will be the tail, Deuteronomy 28:44 / Deuteronomy 28:13.
Israel must learn to trust God and His promises but they must also learn that these promises and curses are real and God will have no hesitation in bringing these curses upon them if they are disobedient to Him, Deuteronomy 28:45. They must love Him and demonstrate that love for Him by being obedient to Him, Deuteronomy 6:4 / Deuteronomy 10:12-13 / Deuteronomy 10:20 / Deuteronomy 11:1 / Deuteronomy 11:13-14 / Deuteronomy 11:22 / Deuteronomy 26:16.
The curses will be a sign and a wonder to them and their descendants forever, Deuteronomy 28:46 / Romans 9:27 / Romans 11:5. The reason for these curses would be that in the future, Israel would give up on God, and so, God would give up on them and hand them over to their enemies.
Because they didn’t serve God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, Israel will serve the enemies God sends against them and He will put an iron yoke on their neck until He has destroyed them, Deuteronomy 28:47-48.
If Israel disobey God, then God will bring a nation against them from far away, from the ends of the earth, like an eagle swooping down, Matthew 24:28, a nation whose language they will not understand, Deuteronomy 28:49.
The nation God sends will be a fierce-looking nation without respect for the old or pity for the young, Deuteronomy 28:50. They will devour the young of Israel’s livestock and the crops of their land until they are destroyed, Deuteronomy 28:51. They will leave Israel no grain, new wine or olive oil, nor any calves of their herds or lambs of their flocks until they are ruined, Deuteronomy 28:51.
The nation that God sends will lay siege to all the cities throughout their land until the high fortified walls in which Israel trust fall down, Deuteronomy 28:52 / 2 Kings 25:1-2. They will besiege all the cities throughout the land God is giving them, Deuteronomy 28:52.
Because God is omniscient, He knows the beginning from the end, Isaiah 46:9-10. Israel were delivered out of the bondage of Egypt, but they would again be brought into the bondage of the Assyrian and Babylonian kingdoms, which at this time were only small kingdoms. The things written here came to pass at a time when Israel forgot God and forsook His commandments, Jeremiah 5:23-25.
When these invading forces eventually approach poverty-stricken Israel, the Israelites would resort to the most base behavioural actions of life in order to survive, Deuteronomy 28:53-57 / 2 Kings 6:28.
Israel, that is, the people of God in Judah, was besieged by Babylon, and they ate the flesh of their children in a cannibalistic manner, Deuteronomy 28:53 / 2 Kings 6:24-30 / Jeremiah 19:9 / Lamentations 4:10, and went into Babylonian captivity for seventy years, Jeremiah 25:11, for their ungodliness.
Even the most gentle and sensitive man among Israel will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating Deuteronomy 28:54-55. It will be all he has left because of the suffering Israel’s enemy will inflict on them during the siege of all their cities, Deuteronomy 28:55.
The most gentle and sensitive woman among Israel, so sensitive and gentle that she would not venture to touch the ground with the sole of her foot, will begrudge the husband she loves and her own son or daughter the afterbirth from her womb and the children she bears, Deuteronomy 28:56-57. For in her dire need she intends to eat them secretly because of the suffering Israel’s enemy will inflict on them during the siege of their cities, Deuteronomy 28:57 / 2 Kings 6:29 / Leviticus 26:29 / Leviticus 26:29.
Moses states the conditions of escaping the dreadful curses by saying that Israel, is to ‘revere this glorious and fearful name, the LORD your God,’ Deuteronomy 28:58 / Deuteronomy 5:29 / Deuteronomy 6:2.
Harrison, in his commentary, points out the following names of God within the book.
‘The Living God’, Deuteronomy 5:26, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers’, Deuteronomy 6:3, ‘The God of gods, and Lord of lords’, Deuteronomy 10:17, ‘The Rock, a God of faithfulness’, Deuteronomy 32:4, ‘The Most High’, Deuteronomy 32:8, and ‘The Eternal God’, Deuteronomy 33:17.’
The curses were a prophecy of what God knew would eventually happen in the history of Israel. However, because He knew such would happen doesn’t mean that He predestined these events. Israel could make a choice concerning their future, they could choose to obey and continue to enjoy the blessings of the covenant. However, if they chose to disobey Him, they were condemned to suffer the consequences of disobedience.
Note again that the nature of the curses is the complete opposite of the nature of the blessings. They escaped the plagues of Egypt through obedience, but they would suffer plagues because of disobedience, Deuteronomy 28:59-60. God will also bring on Israel every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until they are destroyed Deuteronomy 28:61.
Because of obedience, they multiplied in Egypt, Exodus 1:12, but their disobedience would result in the destruction of their population to a remnant, Deuteronomy 28:62-63 / Romans 9:27 / Romans 11:5. Obedience brought the blessing of the Promised Land, but disobedience would send them as captives into a foreign land, Deuteronomy 28:63.
Obedience brought them together as a nation, but disobedience would scatter them throughout the nations, Deuteronomy 28:64. Israel will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither they nor their ancestors have known, Deuteronomy 28:64.
Among those nations Israel will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of their foot and there God will give them an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart, Deuteronomy 28:65. Israel will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of their life Deuteronomy 28:66.
In the morning they will say, if only it were evening! and in the evening, if only it were morning! because of the terror that will fill their hearts and the sights that their eyes will see, Deuteronomy 28:67.
Finally, God will send Israel back in ships to Egypt on a journey He said they should never make again and the nations would even reject them as slaves, Deuteronomy 28:68.