Deuteronomy 28:20-24

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 28:20-24

488.

Jehovah was going to interfere and interrupt the daily life of the people of Israel. Does He have less interest in His people today?

489.

List the influences of God as to: (1) work, (2) sickness, (3) weather, (4) politics.

AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 28:20-24

20 The Lord shall send you curses, confusion, and rebuke in every enterprise to which you set your hand, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me [Moses and God as one].
21 The Lord will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from off the land, which you go to possess.
22 The Lord will smite you with consumption, with fever, and inflammation, fiery heat, sword and drought, blasting, and mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish.
23 The heavens over your head shall be brass, and the earth under you shall be iron.
24 The Lord shall make the rain of your land powered soil and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed.

COMMENT 28:20-24

Now, and increasingly as we proceed in this chapter, the curses take on the form of a concrete prophecy. And although in several cases we can see many instances of fulfillment, in others we can be more concrete and specific.

The Amplified O.T. renders Deuteronomy 28:20 well: The Lord shall send you curses, confusion, and rebuke in every enterprise to which you set your hand, until you are destroyed, perishing quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me [Moses and God as one].

UNTIL THOU BE DESTROYED (Deuteronomy 28:20. Cf. Deuteronomy 28:48)destroy is the English rendering of a number of different Hebrew wordsin the Old Testament, in this book, and in this chapter! Normally, utter destruction is not meant unless that is the translation(as the Heb. word charam is rendered in Deuteronomy 2:34, Deuteronomy 3:6 [twice], etc.) The Hebrew word used here (shamad) is, indeed, also sometimes rendered utterly destroy, but the idea is not the annihilation or total extinction of the Hebrew peoples from the face of the earth. This truth is well illustrated in Deuteronomy 4:25-31, where utterly destroy is used synonomously with scatter you among the peoples. With reference to Israel, (as is seen below) the term simply has reference to a nation cursed of Godunproductive, unhappy, and ruled by a foreign power. So in Deuteronomy 28:33 we are told they shall be only oppressed and crushed awayNot quite rooted out as the Canaanites and Amalakites were, and of which no traces now remain.

PESTILENCE (Deuteronomy 28:21)Heb. deber, bobopest, plague (Baumgartner).

FIERY HEAT (Deuteronomy 28:22)Is this a reference to the weather conditions of the land, or an individual's state of fever? Gesenius defines the Heb. word (charchur) inflammation, burning, fever. The LXX has erethismos, irritation.

THE SWORD (Deuteronomy 28:22)this is the normal rendering of the Heb. chereb. However, some manuscripts, because of a different pointing of the Hebrew consonants, have choreb, drought, waste. This reading is found in the Samaritan text, and is rendered similarly in the Vulgate, Arabic, and most of the modern versions.

HEAVEN. SHALL BE BRASS. EARTH THAT IS UNDER THEE SHALL BE IRON (Deuteronomy 28:23)i.e., the heavens would not bring forth rain (Contrast Deuteronomy 28:12) and the earth would be sterile and unproductive. (Remember too that dry ground tends to harden and does not respond readily to cultivation.) See Leviticus 26:19-20.

JEHOVAH WILL MAKE. DUST (Deuteronomy 28:24)Contrast again with Deuteronomy 28:12. As the rain was formerly given in response to their righteousness, so God also can be the source of powder and dust (or sand)which of course may also move through the sky carried by the winds. The allusion is probably to those clouds of dust and sand which often fill the air in Palestine, when the heat is intense and there has been no rain for a vehement sirocco, and the air is filled with sand and dust, and is like the glowing heat at the mouth of a furnace.[46]

[46] The quote is from Pulpit Commentary. But see also the vivid description of this wind and dust in Thomson's Land and the Book, pp. 295, 536, 537

25 Jehovah will cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them, and shalt flee seven ways before thee: and thou shalt be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 And thy dead body shall be food unto all birds of the heavens, and unto the beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away. 27 Jehovah will smite thee with the boil of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed. 28 Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; 29 and thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and robbed alway, and there shall be none to save thee. 30 Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein; thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not use the fruit thereof. 31 Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thine ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to save thee. 32 Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people; and thine eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nought in the power of thy hand. 33 The fruit of thy ground, and all thy labors, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway; 34 so that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see, 35 Jehovah will smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, whereof thou canst not be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the crown of thy head.