Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
Deuteronomy 28:49-58
Details of the Sixth Sixfold Curse (Deuteronomy 28:49).
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 thing would come back on them if they failed in obedience to the covenant.
‘ Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies, a nation whose tongue you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, who will not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young,'
Literally the last part is, ‘a nation of fierce face who does not lift up the faces of the old ---.' Unlike Yahweh they are merciless, not compassionate.
These words could have been spoken to the people of Bashan, for that was what had happened to them when Israel arrived. Now it is to be the case of the biter bit. As they had seemed to come on Bashan from nowhere, from ‘the end of the earth', speaking in a strange tongue and appearing fierce and wild (deliberately so), so would Yahweh bring a similar situation on themselves. This would be a nation ‘from the ends of the earth' who would come from afar like the eagle flies (compare Hosea 8:1 of Assyria; Jeremiah 48:40; Jeremiah 49:22; Habakkuk 1:8, of Babylon; Daniel 7:4).
But this picture was not of Assyria, or of Babylon, both of which would be known to Moses, for while they were nations who came ‘from far', they were not ‘from the end of the earth'. 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.
“As the eagle flies.” Fiercely, swiftly, voraciously ever seeking its prey.
“A nation whose tongue you will not understand.” Compare Isaiah 5:26; Isaiah 28:11; Isaiah 33:19). The aim is to give an impression of mysteriousness and strangeness.
“Who will not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young,” Such invaders would show no mercy to either old or young. They would see them all as the enemy. They would treat all with the same disdain.
‘ And they will eat the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; who also will not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your cattle, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.'
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. Compare the picture in Judges 6:1, a vivid illustration of this.
‘ And they will besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trust, throughout all your land, and they will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh 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 behaviour.
‘ And you will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.'
And as a result of starvation, as the effects of the siege began to bite, they would even eat their own children, again what Yahweh their God had given them, (even in the midst of the curses they were constantly being made to recognise what gratitude they should show to Yahweh), because of the distress in which they would find themselves.
‘ The man who is gentle among you, and very caring, his eye will be evil towards his brother, and towards the wife of his bosom, and towards the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates.'
But the situation would be so desperate, that even the most gentlemanlike and the most loving would lose all restraint and become the very opposite. In eating their children they would keep it from their wives and other children because they did not want to have to share what they ate, because of the dire need, so dreadful would conditions be. Such behaviour during sieges was not unknown.
‘ The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicacy and tenderness, her eye will be evil towards the husband of her bosom, and towards her son, and towards her daughter, and towards her young one who comes out from between her feet, and towards her children whom she will bear, for she will eat them for want of all things, secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.'
And even the woman who was so ladylike and delicate that she would not want her feet to touch the ground but would clad them to protect them, not wanting any dust or dirt to defile them, or would arrange to travel in litters for the same purpose, would think nothing of eating her husband and all her children, including the baby that she had just given birth to, even without washing it, because of the desperate state that she was in because of the distress of the siege.
The picture is a dreadful and horrific one, deliberately so, for the purpose was that it might be remembered (compare Leviticus 26:29).
‘ If you will not observe to do all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH 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.
So ends the sixfold pattern of sixfold curses, thirty six curses in all, a further reminder that they were being applied to the six tribes on Mount Ebal who were ‘for the curse'. And yet he had not yet finished. One final series of curses had to be given in order to make them sevenfold, the ultimate in divine curses.