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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 shall cause thee to be smitten fore thine enemies,.... And by them, as they sometimes were by the Philistines and others, before their utter destruction, when they sinned against the Lord; and by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans: thou shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; march out against them in a body, promising themselves victory, but be utterly routed; so that they shall flee every way they can for their safety; see Deu 28:7, and shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth; this shows that Manasseh's case Kg2 21:1, observed Deu 28:15; will not strictly and entirely hold good, nor is there any necessity to adhere closely to it; it is enough that the things threatened and prophesied of were at one time or another fulfilled in these people; for neither the ten tribes, when taken captive by Shalmaneser, were carried into all the kingdoms of the earth, only to some particular places mentioned in Kg2 17:6; nor the two tribes by Nebuchadnezzar, who were carried by him to Babylon, and returned from thence again at the end of seventy years; but this was exactly fulfilled at their last destruction by the Romans, when they were sent by them into various countries, and have been ever since scattered about in each of the nations of the world. And yet it must be owned that Strabo (g), who wrote before the last destruction of them, affirms, that it was not easy to find any place in the world which had not received them, and was not occupied by them. (g) Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 14. c. 7. sect. 2.

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.

a consumption--a wasting disorder; but the modern tuberculosis is almost unknown in Asia. fever . . . inflammation . . . extreme burning--Fever is rendered "burning ague" (Lev 26:16), and the others mentioned along with it evidently point to those febrile affections which are of malignant character and great frequency in the East. the sword--rather, "dryness"--the effect on the human body of such violent disorders. blasting, and with mildew--two atmospheric influences fatal to grain.