Deuteronomy 28:2
Overtake thee — Those blessings which others greedily follow after, and never overtake, shall follow after thee, and shall be thrown into thy lap by special kindness.... [ Continue Reading ]
Overtake thee — Those blessings which others greedily follow after, and never overtake, shall follow after thee, and shall be thrown into thy lap by special kindness.... [ Continue Reading ]
In the city, and in the field — Whether they were husbandmen or tradesmen, whether in the town or country, they should be preserved from the dangers of both, and have the comforts of both. How constantly must we depend upon God, both for the continuance and comfort of life! We need him at every turn... [ Continue Reading ]
Store — Store — house, it shall always be well replenished and the provision thou hast there shall be preserved for thy use and service.... [ Continue Reading ]
Comest in — That is, in all thy affairs and administrations.... [ Continue Reading ]
Establish thee — Shall confirm his covenant with thee, by which he separated thee to himself as an holy and peculiar people.... [ Continue Reading ]
Of the Lord — That you are in truth his people and children: A most excellent and glorious people, under the peculiar care and countenance of the great God.... [ Continue Reading ]
The same things which were said before are repeated, to shew that God would repeat and multiply his blessings upon them.... [ Continue Reading ]
His treasure — The heaven or the air, which is God's storehouse, where he treasures up rain or wind for man's use.... [ Continue Reading ]
The head — The chief of all people in power, or at least in dignity and privileges; so that even they that are not under thine authority shall reverence thy greatness and excellency. So it was in David's and Solomon's time, and so it should have been much oftner and much more, if they had performed... [ Continue Reading ]
Overtake thee — So that thou shalt not be able to escape them, as thou shalt vainly hope and endeavour to do. There is no running from God, but by running to him; no flying from his justice, but by flying to his mercy.... [ Continue Reading ]
Vexation — This seems chiefly to concern the mind, arising from the disappointment of hopes and the presages of its approaching miseries. Rebuke — Namely, from God, not so much in words as by his actions, by cross providences, by sharp and sore afflictions.... [ Continue Reading ]
Brass — Like brass, hard and dry, and shut up from giving rain. Iron — Hard and chapt and barren.... [ Continue Reading ]
Dust — Either thy rain shall be as unprofitable to thy ground and seed as if it were only so much dust. Or instead of rain shall come nothing but dust from heaven, which being raised and carried up by the wind in great abundance, returns, and falls upon the earth as it were in clouds or showers.... [ Continue Reading ]
The botch of Egypt — Such boils and blains as the Egyptians were plagued with, spreading from head to foot: The emerodes — Or piles.... [ Continue Reading ]
Blindness — Of mind, so that they shall not know what to do: Astonishment — They shall be filled with wonder and horror because of the strangeness and soreness of their calamities.... [ Continue Reading ]
Grope at noon day — In the most clear and evident matters thou shalt grossly mistake. Thy ways — Thy counsels and enterprizes shall be frustrated and turn to thy destruction.... [ Continue Reading ]
Unto another people — By those who have conquered them, and taken them captives, who shall give or sell them to other persons. Fail — Or, be consumed, partly with grief and plentiful tears; and partly with earnest desire, and vain and long expectation of their return. No might — No power to rescue,... [ Continue Reading ]
Which thou knowest not — Which shall come from a far country, which thou didst not at all expect or fear, and therefore will be the more dreadful when they come; a nation whose language thou understandest not, and therefore canst not plead with them for mercy, nor expect any favour from them.... [ Continue Reading ]
Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes — Quite put out of the possession of their own souls; quite bereaved of all comfort and hope, and abandoned to utter despair. They that walk by sight, and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when all about them looks frightful; and their... [ Continue Reading ]
Thy king — The calamity shall be both universal, which even thy king shall not be able to avoid, much less the subjects, who have far less advantage and opportunity for escape; and irrecoverable, because he who should protect or rescue them is lost with them, Lamentations 4:10. Wood and stone — So w... [ Continue Reading ]
Within thee — Within thy gates; who formerly honoured and served thee, and were some of them glad of the crumbs which fell from thy table.... [ Continue Reading ]
Moreover all these curses — It seems Moses has been hitherto foretelling their captivity in Babylon, by which even after their return, they were brought to the low condition mentioned, Deuteronomy 28:44. But in the following he foretells their last destruction by the Romans. And the present deplorab... [ Continue Reading ]
They — These curses now mentioned. A wonder — Signal and wonderful to all that hear of them. 'Tis amazing, a people so incorporated, should be so universally disperst! And that a people scattered in all nations, should not mix with any, but like Cain, be fugitives and vagabonds, and yet so marked as... [ Continue Reading ]
Evil — Unkind, envious, covetous to monopolize these dainty bits to themselves, and grudging that their dearest relations should have any part of them.... [ Continue Reading ]
Evil — Unmerciful: she will desire or design their destruction for her food.... [ Continue Reading ]
Her young one — Heb. after — birth: that which was loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together with it she shall eat the child which was wrapt up in it, and may be included in this expression. Which she shall bear — Or, which she shall have born, that is, her more grown children.... [ Continue Reading ]
To destroy you — His just indignation against you will be so great, that it will be a pleasure to him to take vengeance on you. For though he doth not delight in the death of a sinner in itself, yet he doth delight in glorifying his justice upon incorrigible sinners, seeing the exercise of all his a... [ Continue Reading ]
Neither shall thy foot have rest — Ye shall have no settlement in the land whither you are banished, but there you shall be tossed about from place to place, and sold from person to person, or Cain — like, wander about.... [ Continue Reading ]
Thy life shall hang in doubt — Either because thou art in the hands of thy enemies that have power, and want no will, to destroy thee: or because of the terrors of thy own mind, and the guilt of thy conscience making thee to fear, even where no fear is.... [ Continue Reading ]
Into Egypt — Which was literally fulfilled under Titus, when multitudes of them were carried thither in ships, and sold for slaves. And this expression seems to mind them of that time when they went over the sea without ships, God miraculously drying up the sea before them, which now they would have... [ Continue Reading ]