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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, De 28:1-14. II. He more largely describes the curses which would come upon them if they were disobedient; such as would be, 1. Their extreme vexation, De 28:15-44. 2. Their utter ruin and destruction at last, De 28:45-68. This chapter is much to the same purport with Le 26:1-46, 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, De 30:1-20 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 (De 30:1) that all those things would come upon them, both the blessing and the curse.

The blessings which God pronounces on the obedient, Deuteronomy 28:1-6. Particular privileges which the faithful shall receive, Deuteronomy 28:7-13. The curses pronounced against the ungodly and idolatrous, Deuteronomy 28:14-19. A detailed account of the miseries which should be inflicted on them, should they neglect the commandments of the Lord, Deuteronomy 28:20. They shall be smitten with the pestilence, Deuteronomy 28:21; with consumption, fever, etc., Deuteronomy 28:22; drought and barrenness, Deuteronomy 28:23, Deuteronomy 28:24; they shall be defeated by their enemies, Deuteronomy 28:25, Deuteronomy 28:26; they shall be afflicted with the botch of Egypt, Deuteronomy 28:27; with madness and blindness, Deuteronomy 28:28, Deuteronomy 28:29; they shall be disappointed in all their projects, Deuteronomy 28:30; deprived of all their possessions, and afflicted in all their members, Deuteronomy 28:31-35; they and their king shall go into captivity, Deuteronomy 28:36, and become a by-word among the nations, Deuteronomy 28:37. Their land shall be unfruitful, and they shall be the lowest of all people, Deuteronomy 28:38-44. All these curses shall come on them should they be disobedient, Deuteronomy 28:45-48. Character of the people by whom they should be subdued, Deuteronomy 28:49, Deuteronomy 28:50. Particulars of their dreadful sufferings, Deuteronomy 28:51-57. A recapitulation of their wretchedness, Deuteronomy 28:58-63. The prediction that they shall be scattered among all the nations of the earth, Deuteronomy 28:64-68.

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, Deuteronomy 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, Deuteronomy 28:15.

XXVIII.

SANCTIONS OF THE LAW IN DEUTERONOMY. THE BLESSING AND THE CURSE.

Almost every specific portion of the Law in Scripture has a passage of this kind at the end. The code in Exodus 21-23 ends with a declaration of rewards and punishments (Exodus 23:20-33). The laws of holiness, ceremonial and moral, in Leviticus, are closed by chapter 26. This book of Deuteronomy, more profound and more spiritual in its teaching, and more earnest in its exhortation than all the rest of the Law, closes with this denunciation—the most tremendous in all Scripture—of the consequences of disobedience in detail. The Sermon on the Mount, the law of the New Testament, closes with a passage that astonished the hearers by its authority (Matthew 7:21-27). The exhortations of our Lord’s ministry, both public and private, have a similar close: for Israel in Matthew 23, for the disciples in Matthew 25. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, the last appeal to the Jewish nation in God’s word, has a similar passage in Hebrews 12, before the final exhortations and salutations. Finally, the Apocalypse itself puts the same kind of close to all Scripture in Revelation 22:10-19.

We may divide this chapter into four parts.

First, the blessings of obedience to the nation as God’s people, Deuteronomy 28:1-14.

Secondly, the curses of disobedience, Deuteronomy 28:15-48.

Thirdly, the prophecy of the conquest of Israel by a strange nation, and the miseries of the siege of the capital, Deuteronomy 28:49-57.

Fourthly, the continued and protracted misery of the rejected nation, Deuteronomy 28:58-68.

The remarkably prophetic character of this chapter is beyond question. Even were Deuteronomy the work (as some recent critics allege) of some later prophet, it is past all dispute that this chapter is older than the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and the last dispersion. Eighteen centuries of misery and oppression, with but short intervals, have branded the truth of this Scripture on the mind of Israel. From this argument there is no escape. No thoughtful Jew denies that the present condition of the nation is the fulfilment of this curse. It must be observed, however, as a most significant fact, that this chapter does not form the close of the Pentateuch. Another covenant is made with Israel after this. And Moses departed with words of blessing on his lips. (See on Deuteronomy 29:1.)

Every one who takes note of the proportions of this chapter according to the fourfold division indicated above, will at once see that, verbally, the curse is larger than the blessing. Why is this? Possibly, because the rebellions and disasters of Israel while under the Sinaitic covenant were to cover a larger number of years than their prosperity. But reason. The curses of God’s broken law in this world, however extended and varied in their operation, are describable and finite. But His love is indescribable and infinite, and were all the blessings of His love to be described in detail, the whole Bible would not have sufficed for the first fourteen verses of this chapter of Deuteronomy.

Ch. 28 Enforcement of Blessings and Curses

With no title this discourse is clearly a continuation of ch. 26, but whether through Deuteronomy 27:9 f. or not is uncertain.

The contents are the blessings and curses which shall follow respectively on Israel’s observance and neglect of the Law; already announced in Deuteronomy 11:26-28, Deuteronomy 27:12 f. Parallel conclusions are found to the Codes of E and H; Exodus 23:20-33, Leviticus 26:3-45.

Driver justly remarks that ch. 28 shows ‘no appreciable literary dependence’ on the former of these; and ‘though the thought in Leviticus 24 is in several instances parallel to that in Deuteronomy 28, and here and there one of the two chapters even appears to contain a verbal reminiscence of the other (cp. Deuteronomy 28:22-23; Deuteronomy 28:53; Deuteronomy 28:65 b with Leviticus 26:16; Leviticus 26:19; Leviticus 26:29; Leviticus 26:16 respectively), the treatment in the two cases is different, and the phraseology, in so far as it is characteristic, is almost entirely distinct, Leviticus 26 representing affinities with Ezekiel, Deuteronomy 28 with Jeremiah; in fact the two chapters represent two independent elaborations of the same theme.’

It is not easy to account for the structure of ch. 28. The Blessings in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 find their antitheses within the first section on the Curses, Deuteronomy 27:15-26, but these are elaborated to a far greater degree than the Blessings, and are further developed in two additional sections, Deuteronomy 28:47-57 and Deuteronomy 28:58-68, cleanly separate in form from what precedes them and from each other. For the grounds of this analysis and for signs within some of the sections of smaller expansions see the notes below.

Most striking is the way in which the Discourse after predicting Israel’s ultimate exile swings back to describe calamities to the people while still on their own land. The captivity in Deuteronomy 28:32 is only partial, and Israel itself is still at home lamenting it. But after the exile of the nation and the king is foretold in Deuteronomy 28:36 f, Deuteronomy 28:38 ff. return to the aggravation of the evil conditions inflicted on the people in its own land till it be destroyed (among them once more, Deuteronomy 28:41 as in Deuteronomy 28:32, the captivity of its sons and daughters). Deuteronomy 28:47-57 are a gruesome description of the siege of Israel’s cities by a foreign invader; but Deuteronomy 28:58-62 repeat the curses of plague, already threatened, which shall continue till thou be destroyed. Then with a change to the Pl. address comes another prediction of banishment (Deuteronomy 28:63) and, with a return to the Sg., a poignant description of sufferings in exile (Deuteronomy 28:64-67), rising at last to the climax (the most terrible thing D could threaten) of a return to Egypt, the house of bondmen, where however Israelites shall now not be worth purchase as slaves (Deuteronomy 28:68).

That there are some Later intrusions or displacements can hardly be denied; e.g. Deuteronomy 28:35 and Deuteronomy 28:41. That the curses are far more elaborated than the blessings, and that, if within Deuteronomy 28:15-46, Deuteronomy 28:26-26 be removed, the parallel with the blessings in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 becomes much closer, might be reasonably held as proofs of later expansions which also include Deuteronomy 28:48-68. But this must remain more or less uncertain in view of the discursive style of D which so often returns on itself, as well as in view of the predominance of threat over promise in pre-exilic prophecy.

The curses which affect the land and the people while in possession of it can hardly be so late as the Exile. But also, in the opinion of the present writer, there is not in the threats of invasion, nor even in those of exile, anything that conflicts with a pre-exilic date. These threats have all sufficient foundation in previous experiences of Israel. And it may be fairly argued that had Deuteronomy 28:58-68 been written after the Exile it could hardly have contained the threat of the flight of the people by ships to Egypt to sell themselves there. Nor is there in the Discourse any such promise of restoration to the exiled people, being penitent, as is found in Deuteronomy 4:20-40 and is taken there as a proof of an exilic date. In D’s own absolute manner the exile of Israel is regarded as final. The whole Discourse therefore may well be pre-exilic.

The style throughout is that of D, though as we should expect from the subject, there are terms and phrases not used elsewhere by D nor indeed in the O.T.

Finally, it is clear from 2 Kings 22:13 and Jeremiah 11:3 that some such terrible curses were appended to the Book of the Law discovered in the Temple in 621; which as we have seen was at least the Code of D.

Therefore certainly in part, and possibly in whole, this Discourse belongs to D. Cp. Kuenen, Hex. § 7, 21 (2), ‘not to any appreciable extent interpolated.’ On the other side Staerk and Steuernagel find the ch. a compilation from many sources, some of them late; and so to a smaller extent Bertholet.

The designations of Israel’s God are interesting: 27 times Jehovah only and almost always when some action (mostly of judgement) is attributed to Him; 13 times the deuteron. Jehovah thy God and this almost always in connection with the people’s duty to His Law and Service or with His gift of the land to them. The distinction is on the whole logical.

De 28:1-68.

THE BLESSINGS FOR OBEDIENCE.

1. 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 comparison of this chapter with Exodus 23:20-23 and Leviticus 26 will show how Moses here resumes and amplifies the promises and threats already set forth in the earlier records of the Law. The language rises in this chapter to the sublimest strains, especially in the latter part of it; and the prophecies respecting the dispersion and degradation of the Jewish nation in its later days are among the most remarkable in scripture. They are plain, precise, and circumstantial; and the fulfillment of them has been literal, complete, and undeniable.

The Blessing. The six repetitions of the word "blessed" introduce the particular forms which the blessing would take in the various relations of life.

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God,.... In his law, and by his prophets:

to observe and to do all his commandments, which I command thee this day; for without observing them to do them, hearing them would be to little purpose, and they were all of them to be observed and done, the lesser and weightier matters of the law as they were commanded by Moses in the name of the Lord, and as they would be taught, explained, and enforced by the prophets:

that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: as they were in the times of David and Solomon; See Gill on Deuteronomy 26:19.