เฉลยธรรมบัญญัติ 28:39 วิจารณ์

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.

All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume. Which is a creature that not only consumes grass, and herbs, and the corn of the field, but all green trees; see Exo 10:15. This sort here has its name from the shade they make, hiding the light of the sun, and darkening the face of the earth at no on day; or from the noise they make with their wings in flying; see Joe 2:5. . Deuteronomy 28:43 deu 28:43 deu 28:43 deu 28:43The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high,.... In wealth and riches, in power and authority, in honour and dignity. This Manasseh Ben Israel (r) interprets of the Samaritans, whom the king of Assyria drove out of Samaria, and the neighbouring places; but the design of the expression is to show how mean and abject they should be in another country; that even one who had been a stranger or proselyte of the gate, when in their own country, should now be vastly above them: and thou shall come down, very low; into a very mean condition, to be in great subjection, a vassal and a slave; see Psa 106:41; and much more when reduced by the Romans, and sent to the mines in Egypt. (r) De Termino Vitae, l. 3. sect. 3. p. 128.

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.