圣经注释书

本章是对前一章两词——福与祸——的详尽阐发。前文笼统宣告：顺命的必蒙福，悖逆的必受祸；然而泛论之言震撼力不足，故摩西在此进入细节，描述福与祸，并非描述其源头（源头隐而不显，故最为紧要却最易被忽视，神的恩宠乃一切福分之源，神的震怒乃一切祸患之源），而是描述其流向，即福与祸所带来的可感可见的果效，因为这些都是真实之事，并具有真实的果效。I. 他描述了他们若顺命所将临到的福分：关乎个人的、家庭的，特别是关乎整个国家的，因为他们在此尤被视作一个整体国民来对待，申 28:1-14。II. 他更为详尽地描述了他们若悖逆所将临到的祸患，即：1. 极度的灾祸与困苦，申 28:15-44。2. 终局的彻底覆灭与毁灭，申 28:45-68。本章与利 26:1-46 主旨相近，将生与死、善与恶摆在他们面前；而利未记那一章结尾关于他们悔改后复兴的应许，在此处亦更为详尽地重申于申 30:1-20。如此，律法的重申使他们在诫命之上又有诫命，而应许与警告的重述则使他们在规条之上又有规条。两处所载，不仅作为律法的印证——即条件性的事，更作为对将来结局的预言——即必然实现的事：以色列民一时将因顺命而享福祉，终必因悖逆而沦亡。故经上记着说（申 30:1），这一切事——福与祸——都必临到他们。

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.

申 28:1-68。

顺从所蒙的福。

1. 你若留意听从耶和华你神的话——本章详细列举了福与祸，并述及各种细微的细节，以致以色列人初进应许之地时，其全部命运——因顺从或违背而定的结局——都已陈明在他们眼前。

将本章与出埃及记 23:20-23 及利未记 26 章比较，便可以看出摩西在此如何重拾并扩充律法较早记载中已经提出的应许与警告。本章的语言升至最崇高的笔调，尤其在后半部分；而关于犹太民族后期分散与卑辱的预言，属于圣经中最显著的预言之列。它们清晰、准确、具体；其应验则是字面的、完全的、无可否认的。

祝福。“蒙福”一词的六次重复，引出祝福在人生各种关系中所将采取的具体形式。

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.