Deuteronomy 28:24 Komentář

This chapter is a very large exposition of two words in the foregoing chapter, the blessing and the curse. Those were pronounced blessed in general that were obedient, and those cursed that were disobedient; but, because generals are not so affecting, Moses here descends to particulars, and describes the blessing and the curse, not in their fountains (these are out of sight, and therefore the most considerable, yet least considered, the favour of God the spring of all the blessings, and the wrath of God the spring of all the curses), but in their streams, the sensible effects of the blessing and the curse, for they are real things and have real effects. I. He describes the blessings that should come upon them if they were obedient; personal, family, and especially national, for in that capacity especially they are here treated with (Deu 28:1-14). II. He more largely describes the curses which would come upon them if they were disobedient; such as would be, I. Their extreme vexation (v. 15-44). 2. Their utter ruin and destruction at last (v. 45-68). This chapter is much to the same purport with Lev. 26, setting before them life and death, good and evil; and the promise, in the close of that chapter, of their restoration, upon their repentance, is here likewise more largely repeated, ch. 30. Thus, as they had precept upon precept in the repetition of the law, so they had line upon line in the repetition of the promises and threatenings. And these are both there and here delivered, not only as sanctions of the law, what should be conditionally, but as predictions of the event, what would be certainly, that for a while the people of Israel would be happy in their obedience, but that at length they would be undone by their disobedience; and therefore it is said (Deu 30:1) that all those things would come upon them, both the blessing and the curse.

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 28 In this chapter Moses enlarges on the blessings and the curses which belong, the one to the doers, the other to the transgressors of the law; the blessings, Deu 28:1; the curses, some of which concern individual persons, others the whole nation and body of people, and that both under the former and present dispensations, and which had their fulfilment in their former captivities, and more especially in their present dispersion, Deu 28:15.

The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt,.... Which some understand of the leprosy, Of that sort of it called "elephantiasis", frequent among the Egyptians; See Gill on Lev 13:2. Thevenot (i) relates, that when the time of the increase of the Nile expires, the Egyptians are attended with sharp prickings in their skin like needles. So Vansleb says (k),"the waters of the Nile cause an itch in the skin, which troubles such as drink of them when the river increases. This itch is very small, and appears first about the arms, next upon the stomach, and spreads all about the body, which causes a grievous pain; and not only the river water, but that out of the cisterns drank of, brings it, and it lasts about six weeks.''Though some take this botch to be the botch and blain which the Egyptians were plagued with for refusing to let Israel go, Exo 9:9, and with the emerods; or haemorrhoids, the piles, a disease of the fundament, attended sometimes with ulcers there; see Sa1 5:9, and with the scab and with the itch: the one moist, the other dry, and both very distressing: whereof thou canst not be healed; by any art of men; which shows these to be uncommon ones, and from the immediate hand of God. (i) Apud Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 426, 427. (k) Relation of a Voyage to Egypt, p. 35, 36.

THE BLESSINGS FOR OBEDIENCE. (Deu. 28:1-68) if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God--In this chapter the blessings and curses are enumerated at length, and in various minute details, so that on the first entrance of the Israelites into the land of promise, their whole destiny was laid before them, as it was to result from their obedience or the contrary.

the rain of thy land powder and dust--an allusion probably to the dreadful effects of tornadoes in the East, which, raising the sands in immense twisted pillars, drive them along with the fury of a tempest. These shifting sands are most destructive to cultivated lands; and in consequence of their encroachments, many once fertile regions of the East are now barren deserts.