Okay, we're going to look at Deuteronomy chapter 28 this evening, and I thought we would just look at the blessings of verses 1 to 14, and then I thought we should look at the whole chapter, since we're not going to have Bible study next Wednesday night, and it is a unit, it does go together. Just to give you a bit of an overview, blessings are indicated in verses 1 to 14, and cursings from verses 15 to 68. So quite a much larger section dealing with curses. From what I understand in the commentaries, this is not uncommon in ancient Near Eastern treaties, covenants, the cursings far outweigh the blessings.
Remember that in chapter 27 it was looking ahead to this ratification ceremony when they actually entered into Canaan. I don't personally think that 28 goes with that. I think 28 sort of resumes Moses' exhortation there on the plains of Moab where he does develop, where he amplifies what is involved in the blessings and the cursings. So that ratification ceremony that is in the future in Canaan in chapter 27, probably is just chapter 27.
Chapter 28, again, just resumes the exhortation, the flow of thought that Moses has as he continues his discourse and as he starts to bring it to a conclusion. So it is a long chapter. We're not going to look at every detail in the chapter. I think that I hope that after just reading the chapter, you'll have a fresh appreciation for the new covenant.
So I was working through Deuteronomy 28 this afternoon, especially those curses. I was quite happy. that we live in light of Hebrews 7.22, Jesus is the surety of a better covenant, and in light of Hebrews 8.6, and the remainder of chapter 8, 7-13, where it develops or applies those new covenant blessings. And so I'll just start reading here in verse 1 of chapter 28. Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth.
And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand. and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you. If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways, then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand.
You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today and are careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after the gods to serve them.
But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks.
Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke. and all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew.
They shall pursue you until you perish. and your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust. From the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.
You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch from which you cannot be healed. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart, and you shall grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in darkness.
You shall not prosper in your ways, you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes.
Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it. Your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you and shall not be restored to you. Your sheep shall be given to your enemies and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long. and there shall be no strength in your hand.
A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. The Lord will bring you and the king whom you sat over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, and you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you.
You shall carry much seed out to the field, but gather little in, for the locusts shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil. for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.
Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.
Moreover, all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder and on your descendants forever because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart for the abundance of everything. Therefore, you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you in hunger and thirst and nakedness and in need of everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.
The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. and they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks until they have destroyed you. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you.
You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind. so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, her placenta which comes out from between her feet, and her children whom she bears. For she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege, and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates.
If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues, great and prolonged plagues, and serious and prolonged sicknesses. Moreover, he will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. Also, every sickness and every plague which is not written in this book of the law will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, or as you were, as the stars of heaven in multitude. because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.
And it shall be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing. And you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other. And there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, wood and stone, And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place.
But there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. you shall fear day and night and have no assurance of life. In the morning you shall say, oh, that it were evening, and at evening you shall say, oh, that it were morning, because of the fear which terrifies your heart and because of the sight which your eyes see. And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, you shall never see it again.
And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. Amen.
Introduction
very sober passage of Scripture, a terrifying passage of Scripture. Obviously, we're in the sanctions portion of this covenant document, the covenantal structure. There was a preamble in chapter 1, a historical prologue, chapters 1 to 4, stipulations, which is the largest section of this book. chapters 4 to 26, and now sanctions take up 27.1 to 30.20. Within the covenant, the law is given, the stipulations are made, and if you obey those stipulations, there will be blessing.
If you disobey, there will be cursing. And the curses are spelled out in very serious detail. Remember that Moses is exhorting this generation that as they go into the Promised Land, they are to be careful to obey the Lord God Most High. If they obey, they will reap benefit.
If they obey, they will enjoy the blessing of the land. If, however, they violate the covenant, the Promised Land will indeed become a terrifying house of horrors for them to endure. As well, as we look through these particular curses, you will see that exile is hinted at in most of them and it's fully developed and it's fully explained in verses 49 to 57. There is a statement concerning the exile that is to come.
There's actually successive exiles in Israel's history. probably the one that's in view here deals with the Babylonian one, but because of this, because back on the plains of Moab, Moses is giving what the history of Israel is going to look like, naturalistic interpreters, those who deny the supernatural origin of the scripture, argue for a later date for the Book of Deuteronomy. They say that there's no way that Moses could have spoken these things on the plains of Moab because he was so accurate in terms of predictive prophecy. And because these interpreters exclude predictive prophecy and supernaturalism, they say that the Book of Deuteronomy was written much later. But obviously, God used Moses to tell the people what was going to become of them should they disobey in the land that the Lord God gave them.
Now, by way of introduction, just reading those curses, they're hardcore. I don't think any of us would say, wow, that sounds like a walk in the park. Remember, however, that when they get into the land, as soon as they get into the land, they begin to disobey. It took a long time before God would avenge his covenant in terms of the sorts of things that were indicated in this particular chapter.
As well, living in the New Covenant era, we have the promise of hell as well. Now certainly they did also in the Old Covenant, but hell in many ways makes what we find here in Deuteronomy 28 look like a walk in the park. So as bad as what we find in Deuteronomy 28 might strike us or might seem to be for us, we ought to remember that we preach the eternal wrath of God in the lake of fire. So whatever our understanding of these great curses is, or how we understand these great curses from God, we ought to have that earnestness and that prayerfulness for people with whom we come into contact with, because they're going to suffer something far greater than what we even see indicated here in Deuteronomy chapter 28.
But it is a very intense passage, a very heavy passage.
Covenantal Blessings
Let's look first of all at the covenantal blessings. The covenantal blessings verses 1 to 14.
The Condition of Blessing
Notice the command is reiterated in verses 1 and 2. Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today." So you see that emphasis again, and again, and again, and again, and again, on obedience to the Covenant Lord. The Lord enters into this with them, they are his people, they are his subjects, they are to maintain fidelity and loyalty with reference to their place in the land. This is a conditional covenant, at least this aspect of it.
Happy life in the land of promise is conditional upon their obedience to the law. We see that in verse 1, that reality, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord. Notice in verse 9, the Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God. And then again, in verse 13, and the Lord will make you the head and not the tail.
You shall be above only and not be beneath if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today and are careful to observe them. That's the condition of blessed life in the promised land. It is obedience to the covenant Lord. If we do what He says, then all of these blessings will come upon us.
Again,
Covenant of Grace and New Covenant Head
we can't help but think about that blessed reality with whom is the covenant of grace made. The covenant of grace is made with Christ and in Him all the elect as His seeds. We ought to praise God that in the new covenant Our covenant head swears loyalty to all of the obligations given to him, and he fulfills it perfectly. Remember that obedience, according to God's Word, is to be personal, entire, exact, and perpetual.
And so, on the plains of Moab, as Moses is reading these things out, or as Moses is rehearsing these things, Moses knows good and well, as he's going to articulate in chapter 30, that they're not going to do this. And anybody with any semblance of reality, anybody that understood anything about the Decalogue in their own heart would have to realize that there is no way that I'm going to engage in personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience. So the very law itself, or these curses involved, would bring a heaviness upon this congregation, no doubt. But with reference to the corporate people of God, with reference to this covenant community, we do see their life in the land.
When the nation did well, they did experience blessing. When the nation as a whole was seeking to be obedient to the Lord, they did reap benefit. We can look at the reign of David and Solomon. we can look at some other kings in the line of Judah where there was a righteous man at the helm and the nation as a whole did benefit to some degree or other. So then there is this command reiterated, this promise in verse 2, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
If you look over at the curses there, the same sort of language is used in verse 45. In much of what we see in the curses, it's an absolute reversal of what we see in the blessings. Notice, if you compare verse 2, all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Notice at verse 45, moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you until you are destroyed because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God.
So everything indicated in the blessings has its reverse in the cursings, and then it's amplified as well. So the command is reiterated, and then the
Blessings in City, Land, and Nations
blessings are indicated in verses 3 to 13. There's a statement, verses 3 to 6, and then some amplification in verses 7 to 13. There would be blessing In the city and country, there would be blessing with fertility. Perhaps there was a polemic here against Baal.
Baal was the god, the storm god, that would bring fertility. It would be Baal who would reign upon the Canaanites. Not really, I'm not suggesting there really was a Baal, but Canaanites thought it was Baal that reigned upon their crops and brought provision. The Lord God Almighty is saying it's Yahweh that brings fertility, it is Yahweh that brings rain, it isn't Baal.
So there'd be blessing in the city and country, there'd be blessing with fertility with reference to children, ground, herds, cattle, and flocks. There would be blessing with food. Verse 5, blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Each and every day you will have food, those things that you need for daily sustenance.
And then verse 6, blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. The blessing of God upon the daily rhythms of life. When you go out, when you come in. When you go to work, when you come home.
When you go out to the fields, when you go back to your family. There is that blessing to be found in the daily rhythms of life. And remember, one of the promises throughout the book of Deuteronomy in chapter 3, chapter 12, and I think again in chapter 25, is that they would have rest in the land. When we get to the latter part of the curses, that is what is prohibited.
Verse 65, And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place. But there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you. There's that turmoil, there's that frustration, there's that panic.
You all know when life is going well and the rhythms of life are being blessed of God, and you don't have lots of turmoil, and lots of stress, and lots of trial, and lots of difficulty. You call that a happy time in the land. Well, the absence of that is just the opposite. That is a curse.
And so God, again, is showing us the blessings, and it finds its... a curse and the reversal of those particular things. And then there is this amplification in verses 7 to 13, and there's what's called a chiastic form, an A-B-C, C-B-A sort of a pattern here. There's a couple of patterns in the curses as well. It's hard to find one sort of overall pattern, at least for, you know, Dummy like me, I'm sure somebody could do it.
But in this particular instance, notice foreign relations, they'll be blessed, verse 7. Domestic affairs, blessed, verse 8. Their relation to ship to Yahweh, blessed, verse 9. Their relationship to Yahweh, verse 10.
Their domestic affairs, verses 11 and 12. Their foreign relations, verses 12 and 13. So basically, the entirety of their lives, in terms of foreign relations and in terms of domestic affairs, will be blessed. And that hinges upon this relationship with Yahweh, verses 9 and 10.
The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. is central in terms of their reception of this blessing, is the blessing of God Himself. When you walk with the Lord, when you're close to the Lord, when you walk in His ways, then all the people shall see that and they shall be afraid of you. There will be that effect upon the nations surrounding Israel.
Just like what we saw in Deuteronomy chapter 4. When they obey, the surrounding nations are to look upon Israel and to see that this is a great nation with great laws and a great God. Meredith Klein says, Israel, if faithful to the covenant oath, would come out on top in every military and commercial encounter with other nations. And that is what is elaborated here. in verses 7 to 13, the sorts of things that we would like to have if we were a nation in covenant with God and we were walking with the Lord.
The Lord will command the blessing, or excuse me, verse 7, the Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. What happens when we get to the curses? The enemies win. Verse 8, the Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand.
What happens when we get to the curses? You're not going to have food. You're going to grow stuff and the locusts are going to eat it. You're going to grow things and you're not going to get the benefit as a result of that.
Verses 9 and 10, they have that closeness, that relationship with Yahweh. Well, according to verses 20 and 21, this is the foundational sin upon which the curses flow. Notice in verse 20, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me, Because you have forsaken me, these curses of the law will come upon you. Remember that pattern we've seen before in the book of Romans in chapter 1.
What precedes all of the particular vices? Because they know God, but they don't honor Him as God, nor were their hearts thankful. So theology precedes ethics. When we banish God from our thoughts, minds, and hearts, then all those wicked acts follow.
Well, the same sort of idea is here. Because you forsake me, because you have thrown me out of your community, therefore you break my law, and as a result of that, you will reap the curses associated with this covenant. Notice in verse 11, of His gift in terms of the land. We see those two elements of the Abrahamic blessing involved.
We see land, we see seed. When they're in the land, if they're faithful to the Lord, they will have a great seed. There will be fertility. Verse 12, the Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hand.
It's a blessing from God, the rain that falls to water the crops. It is a curse when there's drought. It is a curse when the ground is like iron. It is a curse when there is dust storms.
Those things do not promote fertility upon the land of Canaan. Verse 12, B, you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not beneath.
What's he speaking of here? He is saying there will be a preeminence. This small nation of Israel will be preeminent among the nations of the earth. They will land.
They will be the head. They will be the ones that are above. they are the ones that will ultimately mediate the blessing of God upon the nation surrounding Israel. So you see there's lots of benefits and lots of good things if you obey. So then
Exhortation Against Idolatry
verse 14 ends with an exhortation, so you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day to the right or the left to go after other gods to serve them. So If we reject the covenant Lord, if we disobey His covenant word, then we will indeed reap the curses. So what is prohibited is idolatry, what is prohibited is disobedience to His law. So that's the blessings.
Interestingly as well, I neglected to mention this by way of introduction, you see blessings and cursings in Leviticus 26, and then you see blessings and cursings in Exodus 23 verses 20 to 33. Now, in the Exodus passage, you know what? The majority is blessing. The most indicated thing in Exodus 23, 20 to 33, is blessing.
Why do you think curses predominate as you get into Leviticus and Deuteronomy? They've already started, right, right. Experience, right? The school of hard knocks.
The reality. They leave Sinai, or they no sooner leave Sinai than they're already engaged in sin. Remember, after the ratification of the covenant in Exodus 24, we get to Exodus 32, and they're dancing around a golden calf. and ascribing to it the power of the Exodus. So the wilderness was a lesson.
The wilderness was a time to instruct the people of Israel that curses are predominating in your future because you're not obedient to the living God. And so that's what then we find in verses 15 to 68. There is a contrast. Notice in verse 1, it's the exact opposite...
I'm sorry,
Covenantal Cursings
verse 15 is the exact opposite of verse 1. If you put them side by side, you will see the similarities. But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you." And again, this is a conditional covenant. If you disobey, then you will reap the benefits, or you will reap the curses involved in this particular arrangement.
Notice the condition in verse 15, notice as well in verse 20. This because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me. Notice in verse 45, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. Verse 47, because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart.
And then again in verse 62, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. So blessings for obedience, cursings for disobedience, that is what is presented here in Moab. The curses are stated again in verses 16 to 19, the exact opposite or contrast, there is a little bit of a shift I think in the third or fourth, in terms of order, but it's the same exact thing. Notice in verse 16, Cursed shall you be in the city.
Verse 17, Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Verse 18, Cursed shall be the fruit of your body. Verse 19, Cursed shall you be when you go in, or come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. So that's the same sort of an arrangement that we find in the blessings.
Now, the amplification from 20 to 68 is a lot more detailed. Again, I think one of the purposes here on Moab is to encourage the people to pay close attention. It is to encourage the people to make sure they understand, to understand the obligations, to understand the law, to understand the threat of these curses. It is a great motivator, hopefully, for them to go and obey the Lord God Almighty.
We ought to fear the Lord. We ought to be... I mean, obviously the love of God, the kindness of God, the mercy of God, those are all wonderful enticements and incitements to us to obey and to honor Him. But, as well, those curses or those warnings are given to us so that we will take heed and we will fear.
You see similar things in the book of Hebrews. You see in Hebrews 6, a warning against apostasy. You see in Hebrews 10, a warning against apostasy. Warnings in the scripture are helpful to us to take heed to the reality that our God is a consuming fire, and we need to understand that.
And so in this amplification, I think there's five sections. Verses 20 to 26, verses 27 to 37, verses 38 to 48, verses 49 to 57, and verses 58 to 68. And again, we're not going to explain every jot and tittle, it's pretty obvious, right? As you read through these things, I hope there is a bit of fear, I hope there is a bit of wow, I hope there is a bit of appreciation, a great bit of appreciation for what we have in terms of the New Covenant.
But let's just kind of move through these.
First Section: Swift Judgment
Notice in verses 20 to 26. Verse 20, the Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke. Now, when we trace through these curses, you'll see a lot of historical means that are employed. You see locusts.
You see invading armies. You see a lack of rain. But ultimately, it is Yahweh who sends these things. It is God the Lord who will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke. and all that you set your hand to do until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly.
And then again, here's the fundamental reason. Because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me, the Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess." Meredith Klein again says this, it was the right and duty of the forsaken Lord himself, the one to whom and by whom Israel swore the covenant oath, to avenge the oath. Remember, when they stood on Ebal and said, Cursed be, or they said, Amen, They were invoking upon them that malediction. They were saying, if we disobey, we swear by the Lord himself that he brings his wrath and curse upon us.
That's why it is very important that we understand these sorts of things. I think there is at least a bit of sideline observation with Jesus calling upon us to count the cost of discipleship, to look at what's involved in these sorts of things. Imagine standing at Ebal. That was a call to count the cost of discipleship with your very life.
I mean, it's very, very severe, very strong. He goes on to say, whatever the human or earthly origin of the several curses, the Lord was their ultimate author. And then in that section, in verses 20 to 26, swift judgment is highlighted. There is epidemic in verses 21 and 22.
The Lord will make the plague cling to you. Verse 22, the Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. Verses 23 and 24 highlight drought.
There's going to be drought. God will withhold rain. The heavens which are over your head shall be bronze. The earth which is under you shall be iron.
It won't be this rich, fertile land that you can grow lots of good things in. Rather, it will be like iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust. From the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
Crops can't grow from dust storms. Crops need rain from on high. There will be war, verses 25 and 26. Remember in the blessings, you will defeat your enemies.
Here in the curses, your enemies will defeat you. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them." Just the opposite of verse 7. Remember verse 7, the Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face.
They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. But if you disobey, that is going to be your portion and your lot. You shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. There is the intimation there of exile.
Again, you see it hinted at over and over and over again and then it's amplified and explained in full detail in verses 49 to 57. Exile would be the curse of God upon the people of God for their violation of the law of God. It happened a couple of times in their history. Syria invaded, Assyria invaded, Babylon invaded, and then ultimately the people of Israel as a people, as a body politic, again fell in A.D. 70 when the Romans sacked Jerusalem.
So what God specified here in Deuteronomy 28 most assuredly came to pass in their history. So verse 26 as well, your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. This could indicate one of two things. Remember in Genesis 15, that ratification ceremony where the animals are split? down the side and the two parties walk through those pieces saying essentially that if I break covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me.
That's probably what is being referred to, that this idea. But then as well in Ezekiel 39 and in Revelation 19, there seems to be this birds of the air feasting upon the dead bodies of the covenant breakers against God. It's sort of an eschatological feast. not the marriage supper of the Lamb, but the curse of God upon those who violate His laws. So there could be, you know, this sort of going both ways here.
Then
Second Section: Disease, Madness, Hopelessness
notice in verses 27 to 37, what you have is incurable disease, madness, hopelessness, frustration, hopelessness, madness, incurable disease. Again, that chiastic structure. We have an A, B, C, D, and then a C, B, A. Incurable disease, verses 27 and 35.
Madness, verses 28 and 34. Hopelessness. Notice in verse 29. You shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness.
You shall not prosper in your ways, you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you." That's hopelessness. I mean, if you underwent judgment for a time with the thought that some deliverer was going to come, then perhaps you could motor through. But God says when you violate the covenant, when these curses come upon you, it is a hopeless situation. There will be this frustration in marriage, frustration in labor, verses 30 to 32.
Craigie recognized, and I think rightly, verse 30, you shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her. You shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Remember earlier in Deuteronomy, those were the three exemptions that would keep a man from going to war.
But in the midst of these curses, you can't stay at home. The Lord is not fighting for Israel. There is no respite. Every soldier must go out to ultimately be defeated by the enemies.
And then exile is hinted at again in verse 32. and your daughters shall be given to another people. Your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long, and there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. It's a hopeless situation.
So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. The Lord will bring you and the king whom you sat over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. So you see the idea there.
Again, similar to what we find in Romans 1. What happens when men exclude God from their thoughts? God gives them over. It's as if the Lord God Almighty says, if you want to be idolaters, then I will give you over to idolatry.
And that is what is specified here in verse 36. You're going to go into other nations and there you shall serve other gods. You shall be a thing of horror. You shall be a proverb and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you." You see, they were supposed to shine as a light in a crooked and perverse generation.
They were to mediate the blessing of the Lord upon the nations around them. The peoples, according to Deuteronomy 4, were to look at this nation and marvel at how great they were. But what's happened in this reversal, God is giving them over and they have become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord their God is sending them. That's the second set.
Third Section: Plague and Reversal
The third, verses 38 to 48, Plague, reversal of blessing, and notice again the reason. We've got plague, verses 38 to 42. Dissimilar to what they had in Exodus chapter 12, when God sent the plague upon Egypt. What did he do?
He spared His people. Well, here it's going to be a reversal. Now they will be the recipients of plague. They will be the ones that see the locusts destroy everything.
They will beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be theirs, for they shall go into captivity. Verse 43 and 44 completely reverses what we saw in verses 12 and 13. The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him.
He shall be the head and you shall be the tail. Remember in the blessing phase, if they obeyed the Lord, they would lend to many nations. They would be the head. They would be above.
They would be the ones preeminent. in this curse everything has been reversed and they are reaping the curse of God Almighty. Verses 45 to 48 again gives the reason, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And then notice in verse 47, because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart for the abundance of everything. What's the implication there?
You ought to be thankful for the benefits that God gives you. You don't go into the promised land and start eating and drinking and benefiting and not bow in thankfulness to the living God who gave you these things to enjoy. There ought to be a gladness of heart. When the Lord gives us things, we ought to serve Him with joy, we ought to have gladness of heart.
Because we don't do that, notice what happens in verse 48. The Lex Talionis implies, if you don't serve the Lord, then you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything, and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. So you see, all of this intimation, all of this explanation about what happens ultimately if you disobey. And then
Fourth Section: Exile Developed
verses 49 to 57 develop this theme of exile. Develops this theme of exile. Notice the covenant Lord is the avenger according to verse 49. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar.
How does 2 Chronicles end? How does Daniel begin? It is the Lord who brings Babylon to Israel. You know, it's interesting in Jeremiah, the prophet, God refers to Nebuchadnezzar as my servant.
He refers to Cyrus, the king of Persia and the prophet Isaiah as my Christ. He calls him my Messiah, my anointed one, Cyrus. So you see, the Lord God is sovereign. He uses enemy nations to bring judgment to bear upon Israel.
Notice in verse 49, the Lord will bring a nation against you from afar. from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young." We see that in Assyria, but we see it in Babylon as well. In fact, when you look at 2 Chronicles 36, 17, you will see Babylon described in that particular manner. But it's not so much, well it is so much, the external enemy that's a threat to Israel, isn't it? That's what he's saying here.
Verse 51. They shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They shall not leave your grain or new wine or oil. or the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks until they have destroyed you. They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trust come down throughout all your land.
And they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you." That's the external enemy in this time of siege. There's also an internal enemy in this time of siege. Notice who that is. The remaining verses.
Sensitive men and tender women. What are they going to do? They're going to cannibalize their children. It's terrible, isn't it?
They're going, that's not metaphor. This isn't some sort of language for some other sort of a reality. This is cannibalism. 2 Kings chapter 6, when Syria comes, the people cannibalize their children. The Book of Lamentations, chapter 2, verse 20, chapter 4, verse 10.
The prophet lamenting over the siege of Jerusalem by Babylon intimates and indicates that the tender women boiled their babies and ate them. That's what the siege would bring to these particular people. Again, Meredith Klein says, but the inhumanity of the enemy warrior pales beside the bestiality of even the tenderest Israelite mother turned cannibalistic in the horror of the siege. Notice how the sensitive man is described there in verses 54 and 55.
He won't share. He won't share that baby that he's eating with the wife of his buzza. The same thing is true with this tender woman. What is God doing through Moses?
He is telling them that there are severe ramifications for breaking my law. When you break my law and the siege comes upon you, it is going to be the case that you turn on the children. You're going to eat your babies. Josephus records, I didn't have time to check him, but I'm pretty confident that in the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, the same sort of thing took place.
Cannibalism. Cannibalism. And it wasn't just people eating their children. Soldiers would rip open the stomachs of dead people and take out whatever food was in their stomachs to eat.
I mean, that's the horror of war. That's what he's indicating here. This is the curse for breaking the covenant of God Most High. And then
Fifth Section: Summary and Final Reversal
the latter segment, verses 50 to 68, basically summarizes, basically rehearses, basically conveys these same sorts of things. The reason is repeated, verses 58 and 59. If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues and serious and prolonged sicknesses. There would be plague and illness.
There would be a reversal of the Abrahamic promise. Notice what we find there. in verses 62 and 63. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. And it shall be that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you.
I don't think the rejoice over you here is other than a rhetorical intent. In other words, I think as God rejoices to plant you in the land, with the same sort of gusto and the same sort of earnestness, he curses you. I don't think he does it with a smile on his face. The prophet Ezekiel, God says he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
He doesn't have this big, fat smile on his face as he does this. I think it indicates the degree to which or the earnestness or the zeal with which he blesses is the zeal with which he curses. And that ought to terrify us in and of itself. But this is a reversal of the Abrahamic blessing.
They will be few in number, and they will be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. The land which the Lord your God is giving you, which was key to the Abrahamic promise, seed and land, gone. Blessing, gone. All these things, gone, because you have violated the covenant.
Harman says, all the promises to Abraham will in effect be reversed, the large nation reduced to a remnant, the promised land occupied by others. And instead of being a blessing to all the nations, Israel is to become the object of scorn and ridicule. Verse 64 indicates again this idea of exile, dispersion going all over the earth, The absence of rest we've already indicated in verses 65 to 67. And then in another interesting reversal, we almost have a reversal of the exodus.
Notice in verse 68, the Lord will take you back to Egypt. God brought them out of Egypt. What happens in covenant breaking? God's going to put you back in Egypt, and you're going to be so nasty.
You're going to be so horrible, you won't even be able to sell yourself into slavery. The Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, you shall never see it again. And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. So break the covenant, Israel, and this is what you have to look forward to.
So there is blessing for obedience, there is cursing for disobedience, and
Application: Christ Bears the Curse
hopefully all of you will say, praise God for the new covenant. Praise God for the book of Hebrews. Praise God for Matthew 26. Praise God for John 19 30.
Praise God that our head, our mediator, our Lord, our surety came and obeyed perfectly that covenant of works placed upon him. He executed everything with that sort of obedience, that personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience that was necessary to please His Father. He does that on behalf of His people. He dies as a sacrifice at Calvary.
He becomes a curse, according to Galatians chapter 3. in order that the blessing of Abraham or the promise of Abraham may come upon us Gentiles. If Deuteronomy 28 doesn't make you praise God for the Lord Jesus Christ, may I suggest you go home and read it again. because this is a terrifying chapter. Harmon says it is a frightening picture of a life of utter distress leading even to a loss of sanity. Madness is what would be the result. frustration, confusion, no rest, every sort of bad thing, destruction, hopelessness, any miserable thing you could imagine is associated with breaking this law of God.
Chapter 29, they'll renew the covenant in Moab. Chapter 30 will essentially say you're going to break this, bad things are going to come upon you, but chapter 30 already points to the new covenant and redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. Went quick tonight, 68 verses. We'll close in prayer, and then if anyone has any comments or questions.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for your Word, and God, we confess this is a terrifying chapter of Holy Scripture. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God. How we thank you for our Lord Jesus, how we thank you that He is the surety of a better covenant, How we praise You, God, that You have blessed us richly and that You have given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Him. We know as well, God, that believers, there were believers in this old covenant system.
They were saved by the same grace, through the same faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. How we thank You for His work on behalf of the entirety of the Church, how we thank you for his redemption, and how we thank you that you have blessed us richly in giving us this wonderful Lord. We just ask now that you would go with us. Again, we pray for your people.
We pray for Mr. Van Schaik, that all would go well in this surgery, and that he would heal well and recover well. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.