Deuteronomy 28

The Blessings of Obedience// Leviticus 25:18–22

¹“Now if you faithfully obey the voice of Yahweh your God and are careful to follow all His commandments I am giving you today, Yahweh your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. ²And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the voice of Yahweh your God:

³You will be blessed in the city

and blessed in the country.

⁴The fruit of your womb will be blessed,

as well as the produce of your land

and the offspring of your livestock—

the calves of your herds

and the lambs of your flocks.

⁵Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed.

⁶You will be blessed when you come in

and blessed when you go out.

⁷Yahweh will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you in one direction but flee from you in seven.

⁸Yahweh will decree a blessing on your barns and on everything to which you put your hand; Yahweh your God will bless you in the land He is giving you. ⁹Yahweh will establish you as His holy people, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of Yahweh your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of Yahweh, and they will stand in awe of you.

¹¹Yahweh will make you prosper abundantly—in the fruit of your womb, the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your land—in the land that Yahweh swore to your fathers to give you.

¹²Yahweh will open the heavens, His abundant storehouse, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but borrow from none.

¹³Yahweh will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward, if you hear and carefully follow the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am giving you today. ¹⁴Do not turn aside to the right or to the left from any of the words I command you today, and do not go after other gods to serve them.

• DT 28:14[DEMONIC]Do not go after other gods to serve them

The Curses of Disobedience// Leviticus 20:1–9; Leviticus 26:14–39

¹⁵If, however, you do not obey Yahweh your God by carefully following all His commandments and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:

• DT 28:15[PROPHECY]Curses in the city and country if you do not obey → Fulfilled repeatedly throughout Israel's history during periods of apostasy

¹⁶You will be cursed in the city

and cursed in the country.

¹⁷Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.

¹⁸The fruit of your womb will be cursed,

as well as the produce of your land,

the calves of your herds,

and the lambs of your flocks.

¹⁹You will be cursed when you come in

and cursed when you go out.

²⁰Yahweh will send curses upon you, confusion and reproof in all to which you put your hand, until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the wickedness you have committed in forsaking Him.

²¹Yahweh will make the plague cling to you until He has exterminated you from the land that you are entering to possess. ²²Yahweh will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish. ²³The sky over your head will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.

• DT 28:23[PROPHECY]The heavens above your head shall be bronze, the earth beneath you iron; rain turned to powder and dust → Fulfilled in droughts in Elijah's day (1KI 17) and others

²⁴Yahweh will turn the rain of your land into dust and powder; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.

²⁵Yahweh will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to scare them away.

• DT 28:25[PROPHECY]Yahweh will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways → Fulfilled in Israel's military defeats

²⁷Yahweh will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors and scabs and itch from which you cannot be cured.

²⁸Yahweh will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind, ²⁹and at noon you will grope about like a blind man in the darkness. You will not prosper in your ways. Day after day you will be oppressed and plundered, with no one to save you.

³⁰You will be pledged in marriage to a woman, but another man will violate her. You will build a house but will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but will not enjoy its fruit. ³¹Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will save you.

³²Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, while your eyes grow weary looking for them day after day, with no power in your hand. ³³A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed. ³⁴You will be driven mad by the sights you see.

³⁵Yahweh will afflict you with painful, incurable boils on your knees and thighs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

³⁶Yahweh will bring you and the king you appoint to a nation neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone. ³⁷You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which Yahweh will drive you.

• DT 28:36[PROPHECY]Yahweh will bring you and your king to a nation you have not known; you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, a byword → Fulfilled in Assyrian exile of northern kingdom and Babylonian exile of Judah
• DT 28:36[DEMONIC]In exile you will serve gods of wood and stone

³⁸You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because the locusts will consume it. ³⁹You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰You will have olive trees throughout your territory but will never anoint yourself with oil, because the olives will drop off. ⁴¹You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will go into captivity. ⁴²Swarms of locusts will consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

⁴³The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. ⁴⁴He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey Yahweh your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you. ⁴⁶These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.

⁴⁷Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, ⁴⁸you will serve your enemies Yahweh will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁴⁹Yahweh will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. ⁵¹They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. ⁵²They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that Yahweh your God has given you.

• DT 28:49[PROPHECY]Yahweh will bring a nation against you from afar, from the ends of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies, whose language you shall not understand; a nation of fierce countenance → 2KI 25:1-4

⁵³Then you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you.

• DT 28:53[PROPHECY]You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and daughters, in the siege → HISTORY: During the Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, starving people ate anything, and a mother named Mary ate her own son. Recorded by Josephus, Jewish War 6.3.4.

⁵⁴The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, ⁵⁵refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within all your gates.

⁵⁶The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter ⁵⁷the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and distress that your enemy will inflict on you within your gates.

⁵⁸If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name—Yahweh your God— ⁵⁹He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses. ⁶⁰He will afflict you again with all the diseases you dreaded in Egypt, and they will cling to you.

⁶¹Yahweh will also bring upon you every sickness and plague not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed. ⁶²You who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left few in number, because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

⁶³Just as it pleased Yahweh to make you prosper and multiply, so also it will please Him to annihilate you and destroy you. And you will be uprooted from the land you are entering to possess.

• DT 28:63[PROPHECY]Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other; you shall serve other gods there → HISTORY: Babylon carried the Jews away in 597 and 586 BC, and Rome scattered them again after AD 70 and AD 135. Found in the Babylonian Chronicle and recorded by Josephus and Cassius Dio.

⁶⁴Then Yahweh will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. ⁶⁵Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There Yahweh will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

• DT 28:64[DEMONIC]Scattered among the nations you will worship other gods
• DT 28:65[PROPHECY]Among those nations you shall find no rest; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life → HISTORY: Jews were driven out of England in 1290 and Spain in 1492, and about six million were murdered in the Holocaust, 1939 to 1945. Recorded in the royal orders of expulsion and Nazi records.

⁶⁶So your life will hang in doubt before you, and you will be afraid night and day, never certain of survival. ⁶⁷In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say, ‘If only it were morning!’—because of the dread in your hearts of the terrifying sights you will see.

⁶⁸Yahweh will return you to Egypt in ships by a route that I said you should never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

• DT 28:68[PROPHECY]Israel would be taken back to Egypt and sold as slaves, but no one would buy → HISTORY: After Rome took Jerusalem in AD 70, captives were sent in chains to Egypt's mines. So many were sold that buyers were few and the price was very low. Recorded by Josephus, Jewish War 6.8.2 and 6.9.2.MEDIUM