23:15; Dan. 67(BD)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 (BE)because of the sight which your eyes see. Their children will multiply and be healthy. (:56-57) Monstrous Cannibalism by Even the Most Refined Woman, The refined and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and refinement, shall be hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter, 57 and toward her afterbirth which issues from between her legs and toward her children whom she bears; for she shall eat them secretly for lack of anything else, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy shall oppress you in your towns.. (z) Jacchiades in Dan. B. Jennie Ebeling --Department of Archaeology and Art History, University of Evansville, Copyright 2000-2023 The Bible and Interpretation| All Rights Reserved |The University of Arizona | Developed bySBS Tech Skip Next. The nation that was as numerous as the stars in the sky (v. 62) would end up with a comparative handful of people. 66Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. Transliteration. A. Like an eagle swooping down on his prey, he will attack his targets suddenly and without warning. Although Yahweh is directly involved in Israels demise, the Israelites will be destroyed because they have been unfaithful to him (vv. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven,(U) and you will become a thing of horror(V) to all the kingdoms on earth. Deuteronomy 28 cannot be understood apart from the Northwest Semitic tradition of the futility curse. Translations. Curses upon city and field: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country ( Deuteronomy 28:16 ). 31Your 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. 25(I)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 [d]troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Word Order. This is important for understanding the book of Deuteronomy, showing that Deuteronomy 28 cannot be understood according to Mesopotamian conceptions alone, despite the previous scholarly ferment in that direction. 39You will plant vineyards and cultivate them but you will not drink the wine(AV) or gather the grapes, because worms will eat(AW) them. View Options English. 39You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the (AB)wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. Start for FREE. Both the biblical and inscriptional texts seem to demonstrate a large body of rites and rituals that would have come along with the formalization of a treaty or covenant. ANEM, 8; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. 20The Lord will send on you (C)cursing, (D)confusion, and (E)rebuke in 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. (AC) You will build a house, but you will not live in it. 61Also 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. 47(AE)Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart, (AF)for the abundance of everything, 48therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the Lord will send against you, in (AG)hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He (AH)will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. (5) The enemy will be heartless, showing no respect for the aged or mercy toward the young. 7:13; Mal. Between the Covenant Code and Esarhaddons Succession Treaty,Journal of Ancient Judaism3: 123-140. Join us. . This may well account for the problem of Akkadian literacy in Judah. The lists of curses in other ancient Near Eastern treaty texts typically were longer than the lists of blessings. The exemptions were possible because God would grant His people victory in battle. The law code of the book of Deuteronomy is capped with a series of curses that threaten harm upon any individual that should fail to keep the Deuteronomic laws. Parents will look on helplessly and spend the rest of their lives crying their eyes out for them. (AN) 37You will become a thing of horror,(AO) a byword(AP) and an object of ridicule(AQ) among all the peoples where the Lord will drive you.(AR). NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. (AD) You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit. ^Deuteronomy 28 - This chapter proves that we are the true Jews _ Curses Verses 15 - 68 is talking about the cursing that will come to the nation of Israel. Both Deut. Also every sickness and every plague which, not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring on you until you are destroyed.. 51And 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. WebRather, Deuteronomy 28 mediates between the traditions of the East and West, featuring characteristic examples of the Northwest Semitic futility curse type, as well as curses WebThese gentle blessings are followed by the tocheichah, a long list of curses (Deuteronomy 28:15-68), whose number (traditionally the rabbis count ninety-eight of them! The service this time would not be marked by joy (im ) and gladness (b b l b b, lit., with goodness of heart) but with their very opposite, destitution and deprivation. 40You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. Their refusal to trust in their covenantal Lord led to their rebellion and idolatry and, eventually, to their experience of covenantal curse. . Used by permission. 17Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 4748). (8 The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. (Y) 27The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt(Z) and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven for multitude, because you did not obey the LORD your God.. Copyright 2019 by Zondervan. your donkey shall be torn away from you. WebThe most important lists of covenant blessings and curses are found in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. Peter Craigie: It is more likely that there was a body of common conceptions in the Near East associated with curses, whether in treaties, law codes, or other types of texts. Here Deuteronomy develops the idea world of the parallel curse in the Esarhaddon Treaties so unfaithful wives and houses in which the owner cannot reside but couches these motifs in the characteristic syntactic form of the futility curse, significantly expanding upon the Akkadian original by adding further clauses that develop traditional Northwest Semitic motifs concerning frustrated vineyards and livestock (see Smoak 2008). 2:9 (x2); 4:10 (x2); 5:6; 8:7; 9:12, 16; Amos 4:8; 5:11 (x2); 8:12; Micah 3:4; 6:14 (x2), 15 (x3); Zeph. 32Your sons and your daughters shall be given to (R)another people, and your eyes shall look and (S)fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be [e]no strength in your (T)hand. GameStop Moderna Pfizer Johnson & Johnson AstraZeneca Walgreens Best Buy Novavax SpaceX Tesla. Clearly the ritual context of treaty formation in ancient Israel and Judah involved a complex body of rites and actions, encompassing at the very least signs, sacrifice, the recitation and writing of curses and perhaps a ritual procession between the two halves of an animal as implied in Genesis 15, and explicit in Jeremiah 34. Root Strong's. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. _ALL THESE BLESSINGS SHALL COME ON THEE_] God shall pour out his blessing from WebDeuteronomy 28 Fruit of thy body ( vv. 60He will bring on you all the diseases of Egypt(CE) that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. WebHeres what will happen if you dont obediently listen to the Voice of GOD, your God, and diligently keep all the commandments and guidelines that Im commanding you today. The full measure of the divine curse would come on Israel when its disobedience had been hardened into disregard for the glorious and awesome character of God. Placing the biblical curses within the larger context of this ancient Near Eastern material provides new insights into the background and function of the curses in the book of Deuteronomy, and in the Hebrew Bible more generally. 18Cursed shall be the [a]fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Morrow, William S. 2005. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. Copyright 2002-2023 Got Questions Ministries. What are the curses God promised Israel for disobedience? Who we are:Calvary Chapel Fergus Falls is a Christian fellowship of believers in Jesus Christ located in Fergus Falls, MN. 23And (H)your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. 28:22) God loves you so much He allowed His own Son to become a curse so MacArthur: God would raise up a nation to act as His own instrument of judgment against His ungrateful people. 20, 45, 47, 62). 15 - Eugene Merrill: As impervious as these metals are to water and tools, so both the heavens and the earth would be in the day of calamity. (CP) There you will worship other godsgods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. While linked in substance, the styles of these bookends differ. Eugene Merrill: The result would be a greatly reduced population. WebA retired old guy who loves people and is happy to share my (FREE) advice, mistakes, valuable career and life lessons, wisdom - and plenty of funny stuff, too. WebIn the third portion, Moses describes the blessings Israel will face if they keep the covenant, and the curses that will destroy them if they do not (Deut. The gentlest soul would abandon all restraint and loyalty and in his hour of self-preservation would feed upon his own precious loved ones (v. 54), not retaining a shred of generosity toward others in similar plight (v. 55). You may unsubscribe from Bible Gateways emails at any time. Whatever it is, it will be chronic, as the verb form indicates (hidbq, cause to cling to). They will leave you no grain, new wine(BR) or olive oil,(BS) nor any calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks until you are ruined. WebThis is the list Ive come up withbut again I want to recommend you go to that passage in Deuteronomy 28, the last 53 verses and read them for yourself. See also Deuteronomy 28:2 in other biblical comments: Adam Clarke Bible Commentary. WebDeuteronomy 28 1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations A. b. 19:9; Lam. 12:11; Job 31:10; Jer. No software to install. The seven listed here correspond to the seven listed after the same principal clause in verse 22, though now the first four involve incurable skin ailments, while the last three are psychosomatic and psychological in nature. What is the difference between the ceremonial law, the moral law, and the judicial law in the Old Testament? Everything the people of Israel have will be taken by those who conquer them: their fiances will be raped, their homes and vineyards taken, their oxen slaughtered, their asses and sheep stolen, their children enslaved, and their produce consumed. Cuneiform Literacy and Deuteronomic Composition,Bibliotheca Orientalis62: 204-213. Deu 28:63 And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. (AZ) 42Swarms of locusts(BA) will take over all your trees and the crops of your land. 2:2, Deut. Verse Deuteronomy 28:2. Why Does God Establish rather than Cut Covenants in the Priestly Source? pp. WebLeviticus chapter 26 verses 14-46 speaks of the curses/punishments that would come upon Israel if they chose to disobey the laws of Yah. All these curses will come But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, ), ferocity, and sheer horror swallow up the delicate and kind blessings in the same way that the emaciated cows devoured the fat ones in Pharaoh's dreams. WebThe first of these 12 curses is upon those who would treat their father or mother with contempt. Deuteronomy 28:1 Deuteronomy 28:5. 4, 11) Offspring of your cows Plenteous ( v. 11) To have many Vexation ( v. 20) Confusion and frustration Rebuke ( v. 20) Reprimand, scold Pestilence ( v. 21) Plagues, diseases Cleave ( vv. 5859). What did it mean to be devoted to destruction? WebIn the third portion, Moses describes the blessings Israel will face if they keep the covenant, and the curses that will destroy them if they do not (Deut. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.. 9 The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he Eugene Merrill: The inevitable calamities that befall the disobedient nation would be indelibly engraved in their memories and forever after would witness to the truth that the Lord and his covenant will cannot be flaunted. The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish.. WebDeuteronomy Images and Notes. 26:29; 2 Kin. In Joshua 24, a large stone acts as witness to all the words that the Lord spoke to us. A standing stone is also utilized in the ratification of the covenant between two human actors, so Jacob and Laban in Genesis 31; while it is a tamarisk tree that marks the spot of the agreement between Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis 21. Chapter. For the terminology see notes on Deuteronomy 28:1. The first three are clearly human diseases (consumption, fever, and inflammation). The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from 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, but you shall flee seven ways before them, and you shall be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Whereas verse 20 has Yahweh dispatching the agents of Israels doom, verse 45 compares the curses to an animal pursuing and overtaking its prey. 53Because of the suffering your enemy will inflict on you during the siege, you will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you. (W) 26Your carcasses will be food for all the birds(X) and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. WebBusiness, Economics, and Finance. 6:28, 29; Jer. Just as Ezra had intermediaries to help the people understand the reading of the Torah, translating it and giving the sense (Neh. Note the if in Deuteronomy 28:1. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bible Gateway, a division of The Zondervan Corporation, 3900 Sparks Drive SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 USA, including commercial communications and messages from partners of Bible Gateway. The first image is tragic: Exhibiting no compassion toward his brothers and remaining children, the father refuses to share with them the flesh of his children. God wanted His people to know that when these calamities struck, they would recognize the hand of the Lord and not think it was a series of coincidences. You will be cursed in the field 3. (:45) Inescapable Destruction Due to Disobedience, So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you., And they shall become a sign and a wonder on you. Moses was about to die, the congregation were about to cross the Jordan, and the whole future of Israel depended on faithful obedience to the law of God. What does Deuteronomy 24 teach about divorce. 54The [k]sensitive and very refined man among you (AN)will[l] be hostile toward his brother, toward (AO)the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, 55so 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. (:20-46) DETAILED CURSES DUE TO DISOBEDIENCE, Variety of Curses Leading to Destruction Due to Wicked Covenant Disloyalty. 1:6 (x4); Zech. Duane Christensen: The center of this structure (vv 3031) contains a list of calamities that essentially undo the blessings of vv 4, 8, and 11. (:63-68) Hopeless Condition How Bad Will It Get? SAA, II; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. A. Skip Next. View Options English. 22(F)The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with (G)scorching,[c] and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. WebIn Deuteronomy 28 Moses sets before the congregation of Israel the blessings and the curses of the covenant that they are renewing. Two things about the blessing and cursing sections of this chapter merit comment: (1) Israels God comes first to bless His people. 43The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. COVENANT CURSINGS (THE REVERSAL OF GODS BLESSINGS) ATTACH TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD CONDITIONED ON DISOBEDIENCE. 27:1-28:68). 2016. 44 He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.. (AK), 36The Lord will drive you and the king(AL) you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. The syntactical, lexical and ideational regularity of the futility curses demonstrates that it was a standard literary form which was utilized by Northwest Semitic scribes in the first-millennium BCE (see also Ramos 2016). (BW) 54Even the most gentle and sensitive man among you will have no compassion on his own brother or the wife he loves or his surviving children, 55and he will not give to one of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. Lev. Yahweh repeatedly demanded that his covenantal nation trust him. This seems to have been essential to both cosmic and terrestrial covenants. Hebrew. WebDeuteronomy 28:30: 2 Sam. 2:20; 4:10, Lev. Web28 If you fully obey the Lordyour God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lordyour God will set you high above all the nations on earth.2 All these blessings Daniel Block: The opening declaration (v. 20) may be interpreted as a heading for the entire section, summarizing the key issues in the imprecations: Verses 20 and 4546 frame the first volley of woes, announcing the issues involved. 20:6; Job 31:8; Jer. 1:13 (x2); Hag. 44He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. As with the list of blessings, after a short general set in the passive voice, stating that Israel will be cursed everywhere and all the time, the text continues with further curses in which God is the active agent against Israel. All rights reserved worldwide. 63Just as it pleased(CJ) the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please(CK) him to ruin and destroy you. At critical junctures Moses inserts reminders of the causes of these disasters. (R) 24The Lord will turn the rain(S) of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. (:64) Scattered and Subjected to Foreign Bondage, Moreover, the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known., And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul. your sheep shall be given to your enemies. He demonstrated his stupendous power and willingness to intervene in their behalf on numerous occasions. 30(O)You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; (P)you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; (Q)you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. 28 and the Assyrian texts indicate that they have drawn on these resources, but in both texts they have been adapted to their immediate context. In fact, they would keep for themselves their newborn infants and even the afterbirth even if it meant that their husbands and other children had to do without and starve. 45Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you [i]did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. These curses all provide a protasis that defines an action of some kind, followed by an apodosis in which this action is frustrated: we might typify this curse as a threat of maximum effort, but minimal gain. 61The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law,(CF) until you are destroyed. 56The [m]tender and [n]delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, [o]will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, 57her [p]placenta which comes out (AP)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. The imbalance [between blessings and curses] finds an obvious reason in light of the purpose of the exposition of the curses in the address of Moses. Because Israel did not serve God, it will serve the enemy (vv. Peter Craigie: First, the general principle is expressed; disobedience to the law of God invites the curse of God (vv. Rather, Deuteronomy 28 mediates between the traditions of the East and West, featuring characteristic examples of the Northwest Semitic futility curse type, as well as curses more common to Akkadian, East Semitic texts like the Esarhaddon Treaties. WebAnd the LORD thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. Once she lived in security, but now she would live in anxiety, despair, and in constant suspense and fear for her life (vv. (AY) 41You will have sons and daughters but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. You may unsubscribe from Bible Gateways emails at any time. Word Order. It is likely that there existed a common collection of covenantal curse statements that appear with slight variations throughout ancient Near Eastern treaties. 51They will devour the young of your livestock and the crops of your land until you are destroyed. Indeed, the text in Deuteronomy seems to build upon and amplify the Akkadian, adding additional clauses that stress the perpetuity of the curse, so you shall never recover with none to give help. The last three describe climatic or agricultural conditions. Those normally exempted from military service would be forced to fight and be killed. If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the LORD your God,. A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you shall never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually., And you shall be driven mad by the sight of what you see., The LORD will strike you on the knees and legs with sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.. 28The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. The motifs in this section of text are characteristic of the scriptural and inscriptional Northwest Semitic texts found in Old Aramaic and in the Hebrew Bible, utilizing a similar repertoire of language and stock images of vineyards and olive groves, all couched in the syntax of a maximum effort but a minimal gain. The nature of the sickness is unclear since the generic term deber is used (v. 21). 20 shall be handed over to their enemies, to those who seek to kill them. 18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Whereas in verse 20 Yahweh commissions a triad of agents of doom against Israel, verse 45 replaces these with a triad of verbs. How did these parallels come into existence? If we are to understand anything about the composition of the Hebrew Bible, especially in comparison with texts from the ancient Near East, we must first nuance our attempts with detailed consideration of the writing culture of the ancient Levant incorporating oral and written modes of literary transmission, the Northwest Semitic literary remains, scribal practice, and bilingualism. 42 The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground. The land they live in will produce all the food they need ( Deuteronomy 28:4 ). Hebrew Root. (BC) They will be the head, but you will be the tail.(BD). Cant avoid a pang of depression when it appears that my religion and that of so many others rests on a sacred book which gives an important places to, of all things, futility curses. Grid & List Views. Web15 Curses for Disobedience 1. C. (:53-57) Radical Cannibalism in Desperate Times, Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, during the siege and the distress by which your enemy shall oppress you.. This foreign nation was described as coming from a far distance from Israel, a nation that would arise quickly and one that would completely devastate the Land. Princeton University WebThe curses of Deuteronomy 28 are suppose to be on Israel "FOREVER" (until YAH returns to redeem them) therefore unless forever ended in 1948 when Israel became a nation English Hebrew. 1:28 (x2). instincts would prevail when choice had to be made between ones own life and anothers. Deuteronomy 28:16 (KJV) Cursed shalt (CL) You will be uprooted(CM) from the land you are entering to possess. Bible Outlines is dedicated to helping others understand scriptures through the Big Idea concept. (:29b) Material Deprivation and Physical Danger, and you shall not prosper in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed continually, with none to save you., 3. More insights from your Bible study - Get Started with Logos Bible Software for Free! Deuteronomy 28:1 - And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe [and] to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: Deuteronomy 28:2 - And all 26:1439; Josh. In the process the land and the children God has given will be lost. Gerald Gerbrandt: If Israel does not obey, well-deserved punishment will follow (v. 15). Deu 28:55 So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children Warren Wiersbe: This section is predictive; it describes the judgments God promised to send on the nation if the people refused to obey His law. WebThe opposite is true also of the curses (Deuteronomy 28:15). And not just the most crass or barbaric among them would do so. It has become fairly common in the history of the interpretation of the book of Deuteronomy to understand the book as a covenant or treaty detailing the terms of the relationship between God and man, and developed along the same structural lines as ancient Near Eastern treaty texts. This verse is a near replica of 28:1, except for the last clause. While this method of divine encouragement to keep the commandments of God might seem surprising from a theological point of view, curses were an integral part of the legal, political and religious life of the ancient Near East, found in a variety of ancient texts including the Hebrew Bible, Neo-Assyrian treaties, and Northwest Semitic inscriptions. WebWho we are:Calvary Chapel Fergus Falls is a Christian fellowship of believers in Jesus Christ located in Fergus Falls, MN.