But it shall come to pass if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to take heed to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.
Deuteronomy 28 promises blessing for obedience, then from verse 16 turns every promise inside out. The same city and the same field now lie under curse — but does that curse reach a person's standing before God?
Commentators say chapter 27 and chapter 28 work on different ground.
To put it as plainly and briefly as possible, chapter 27 is moral and personal. Chapter 28 is national, and belongs to God's dealings with Israel in her own time. Chapter 27 deals with the great root principle of man's moral condition: a sinner completely ruined and unable to meet God on the ground of law. Chapter 28, on the other hand, takes up the question of Israel as a nation, under the government of God.
The terms here are earthly: city, field, basket. Neither the blessing nor its reversal meets the deepest need a person has.
This is not what a poor soul wants. It in no way meets a sense of guilt or a dread of judgment. The sinner needs something which will stand for ever. He wants what will be in heaven, not just in the field or in the city. He wants acceptance for himself with God, not just full baskets and full storehouses; there is nothing of that sort here. In chapter 27 the question is not where we are cursed, but who is cursed. Here a particular curse falls on a particular sphere.
Verse 16 starts a list that matches the earlier blessings item for item.
If Israel would not obey God's commandments and statutes, the curse would follow them wherever they went. It would reach the cities and the country (v.16), the food stored in their homes (v.17), their children, their crops and the young of their livestock (v.18). Whether coming in or going out (v.19), moving from one to the other would not ease the misery.
One explanation looks at what God foresaw:
The section on curses takes up far more room than the section on blessings. The reason is likely this. God knew that Israel would soon turn away from Him in hard-hearted disobedience. So they would have no chance to enjoy the blessings promised for obedience, but every chance to feel the many curses that were their own choice.
The chapter also carries a lesson wider than Israel:
The section of curses is more than three times as long as the section of blessings. The blessings fill fifteen verses; the curses fill fifty-three. All the nations of the earth may learn from Israel's remarkable history that God must punish disobedience — and that He punishes it first of all in His own people. If He has not spared His own people, what will be the end of those who do not know Him?
Commentators point to the way this chapter has been read ever since:
Each year, Orthodox Jews read right through the five books of Moses in their synagogues. When they reach this chapter, the Rabbi reads in a hushed voice. They do well to read it quietly and think it over. Thousands of years ago the Spirit of God, through Moses, wrote here in advance the sad history of that remarkable nation — the scattering, the suffering and the trouble.
The principle reaches past Israel, and past people who simply break the law.
It does not only say, "as many as fail to keep the law," though that is true. As if to set the truth before us in the clearest and strongest way, the Holy Spirit declares that for everyone — Jew, Gentile, or Christian in name only — for all who stand on the ground or principle of works of law, there is, and can be, nothing but a curse.
That leaves one question: how does anyone get out? One writer answers with a picture:
Think of the curse as a great sword hanging by a thread over my head. It may fall at any moment and destroy me. Christ came above me, between me and the sword. The sword fell on Him; He received the blow that must have taken us down to hell; He took us out from under the curse.
- Condition — The chapter puts Israel under God's government as a nation. Life in the land hangs on obedience. It says nothing about a soul's acceptance with God.
- Reversal — At verse 16 every earlier blessing comes back inverted: city, field, food store, children, harvest, herds, coming in and going out. No corner is left to escape to.
- Reach — The curses run more than three times as long as the blessings, because God knew which side Israel would choose. And if He does not spare His own people, no nation can expect to escape.
- Record — The scattering and the centuries of sorrow stand written here in advance. That is why the chapter is still read in a hushed voice.
- Rescue — Everyone who stands on the ground of law-keeping stands under curse. The one way out is Christ, who came between us and the falling sword and took the blow in our place.
Cursed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough.
Moses is listing what will happen to Israel if they refuse to listen to God. The curses run item by item through ordinary life: city, field, children, livestock. Here they reach two containers no household could do without. So is this a threat against a nation's daily bread, or a sentence on the soul?
The basket carried the food in. The kneading bowl turned it into the day's bread. One writer reads this line as a curse on the household's provisions.
If Israel would not obey God's commandments and statutes, the curse would follow them wherever they went. It would reach the cities, the country (v.16), their house provisions (v.17), their children, the produce of their land and the offspring of their livestock (v.18). Whether coming in or going out (v.19) — that is, changing from one to the other would not ease the misery.
Another writer compares this list with the curses of the chapter before it.
In the previous chapter it is no question of where we are cursed, but rather of the person cursed. Here it is a particular curse that falls on a particular sphere.
These curses belong to God's rule over a nation living in His land. Commentators keep that apart from a second question: how a person stands accepted before God.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people. We also have the immediate consequences of obedience or disobedience. Those consequences were solemnly fulfilled in the fate of that unhappy people, still loved for the fathers' sakes. Now the law can be taken as the principle of relationship with God — as the way to a righteousness good enough for God to accept us. Do not confuse the consequences of breaking it in that sense with the temporary consequences of disobedience under the government of God. It is to this second kind that chapter 28 refers… As to Israel, universal history presents to us the fulfilment of the threats of the chapter.
The chapter does not give blessing and curse equal room. One writer suggests the reason.
This section dealing with curses occupies a far larger place than the one speaking of blessings. The reason is likely this. God knew full well that Israel would soon depart from Him in hard-hearted disobedience. So they would have no opportunity to experience the blessings promised on condition of obedience. They would have every opportunity to experience the many curses, which they had chosen for themselves.
The chapter is not only Israel's story. Others are meant to read it and take the warning.
The whole chapter gives an impressive commentary on the government of God, and a most forceful illustration of the fact that "our God is a consuming fire." All the nations of the earth may learn something from Israel's remarkable history. God must punish disobedience, and He punishes it first of all in His own people. And if He has not spared His own people, what shall be the end of those who do not know Him?
An empty basket is a real loss, but it is not the deepest human problem. One writer contrasts the chapter's blessings with what a guilty conscience actually needs.
"Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field." This is not what a poor soul wants. It in no way meets a sense of guilt or a dread of judgment. The sinner needs something that will stand for ever. He wants what will be in heaven, not just in the field or in the city. He wants acceptance for himself with God, not just a full basket and a full store. There is nothing of that sort here.
So what blessing reaches the nations through Christ? One writer answers from Galatians 3.
True, we read in Galatians 3 that "in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive" — what? Blessings in the city and in the field? Blessings in our basket and store? No. We receive "the promised Spirit through faith."
- Kitchen. The curse lands on the basket and the bowl — the household's food supply. God's government touches the most ordinary things people handle every day.
- Government. The curse is a temporary consequence of disobedience under God's rule of a nation. It does not settle how God accepts a person as righteous.
- Length. Curses fill far more of the chapter than blessings. God knew which of the two Israel would experience.
- Limit. An empty basket cannot meet a sense of guilt or a dread of judgment. The soul needs acceptance with God, and this chapter does not offer it.
- Lesson. God did not spare His own people when they disobeyed. Every nation that reads Israel's history should tremble — and look for a blessing no basket can hold.
Cursed shall be the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy ground, the offspring of thy kine, and the increase of thy sheep.
Moses is still setting out the terms on which Israel would hold the land. Here the curse falls on the very things blessed earlier in the chapter: children, crops, cattle and flocks.
The curses are not vague threats. They run through every part of daily life, and verse 18 names what a farming family lived on.
If Israel would not obey God's commandments and statutes, they would be cursed wherever they went. The curse would touch them in the cities and in the country (v.16), and in the food stored in their houses (v.17). It would touch their children, the produce of their land and the offspring of their livestock (v.18). Whether they were coming in or going out (v.19) — that is, changing from one to the other — would not ease the misery.
Fourteen verses earlier the same items carry the opposite verdict. One writer draws a lesson from that for today.
They would also find blessing in regard to their children and the produce of their crops, in the increase of their herds, of their cattle and of their flocks (v.4). This natural increase pictures the spiritual increase believers receive when they live in a spirit of devoted obedience to the Lord. There will be lasting results from their labors.
The last phrase, "the young of your flock," rests on an unusual Hebrew word: ashteroth. Translators have never agreed on how to render it.
"Ashteroth" is found four times in Deuteronomy (Deut. 7:13; Deut. 28:4, 18, 51). The King James Version translates it "flocks," and the Revised Version "young." Others give (much better) "ewes," while Young's translation gives "multiplications."
Chapter 27 also ends in curses, but commentators keep the two chapters apart.
Chapter 27 is — to put it as plainly and briefly as possible — moral and personal. Chapter 28 is dispensational and national. Chapter 27 deals with the great root principle of man's moral condition: a sinner completely ruined and unable to meet God on the ground of law. Chapter 28 takes up the question of Israel as a nation, under the government of God.
That said, the warning was never meant for Israel alone.
The whole chapter is an impressive commentary on the government of God... All the nations of the earth may learn from Israel's remarkable history that God must punish disobedience — and that He punishes it first of all in His own people.
One writer finds the reason in what God already knew.
This section dealing with curses takes up a far larger place than the section speaking of blessings. Likely the reason is that God knew full well that Israel would soon turn away from Him in callous disobedience. So they would have no opportunity to experience the blessings promised on condition of obedience, but every opportunity to experience the many curses — curses that were really their own choice.
Everything in the chapter hangs on "if you will not obey." One writer says plainly what Israel found on that ground.
Israel thought that blessing lay in the law, but the curse was there. Instead of life they found death. Instead of righteousness they found condemnation. Moses had said that the man who did the things commanded would live by doing them, but no man ever did them... They would have found blessing if they had obeyed. But they disobeyed, and the curse became their portion.
Deuteronomy does not leave the fruit of the womb under a curse for ever. The same words come back later in the book.
Long before, the Lord had foretold Israel's scattering, repentance, and final return and blessing. He had said, "The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground, for good" (Deut. 30:9).
One writer closes the chapter by pointing to who took that curse.
"Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'" (Galatians 3:13).
- Same list — children, crops and flocks are blessed in verse 4 and cursed in verse 18. Obedience decides which verdict falls.
- Same word — the closing phrase rests on a Hebrew term rendered "flocks," "young," or better "ewes."
- National, not personal — chapter 28 deals with Israel as a nation under God's government. Chapter 27 stands on other ground: moral and personal.
- Longer curse — the curses fill far more space than the blessings, because God knew which side Israel would take. Law promised blessing, but it gave them condemnation.
- Reversed at last — Deuteronomy 30 promises the fruit of the womb, cattle and ground blessed again "for good." And Christ, made a curse for us, redeems from the curse of the law.
Cursed shalt thou be in thy coming in, and cursed shalt thou be in thy going out.
Verse 19 closes the first group of curses, and it removes the last place Israel might have hoped to escape. One commentator takes the phrase as a picture of movement — leaving home and returning — and points out that a change of scene changes nothing.
If Israel would not obey God's commandments and statutes, they would be cursed wherever they went. The curse would fall on their cities and their fields (v.16), on the food stored in their houses (v.17), on their children, the crops of their land and the young of their livestock (v.18). Whether coming in or going out (v.19), moving from one to the other would not ease the misery.
The same writer reads the matching blessing in verse 6 the same way, and applies it to believers today.
God's blessing too would be consistent, whether in their coming in or going out (v.6). We can apply this to the blessing of private life, or of shared life among God's people. Coming in means enjoying the privileges of fellowship with the saints of God. Going out means carrying the gospel of God's grace to people in the world.
These curses are not about how God accepts a sinner. Commentators draw a sharp line between chapter 27 and chapter 28.
To put it as sharply and briefly as possible, chapter 27 is moral and personal. Chapter 28 is national: it belongs to God's dealings with Israel as a people. Chapter 27 deals with the great root principle of man's moral condition — a sinner completely ruined, and unable to meet God on the ground of law. Chapter 28 takes up the question of Israel as a nation, under the government of God.
Another writer warns against mixing the two questions. He also notes that these threats came true.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people, and the immediate results of obedience or disobedience. History has solemnly fulfilled those results in the fate of that unhappy people, who are still loved for their fathers' sake. The law can also be looked at as the principle of relationship with God, where everything turns on a righteousness good enough for God to accept a person. Do not confuse the results of breaking the law in that sense with the temporary results of disobedience under God's government.
William Kelly puts the same point from the reader's side. Blessing in the field or the city never answers a guilty conscience.
This is not what a poor soul wants. It in no way meets a sense of guilt or a dread of judgment. The sinner needs something which will stand for ever. He wants what will be in heaven, and not merely in the field or in the city. He wants acceptance for himself with God.
The blessings take six verses. The curses run to the end of the chapter. One writer traces this to what God knew was coming.
This section on curses takes up far more room than the section on blessings. The reason is likely this: God knew that Israel would soon turn away from Him in hard-hearted disobedience. So they would have no chance to enjoy the blessings promised for obedience, but every chance to meet the many curses that came by their own choice.
The chapter warns, but the book does not stop there. Moses goes on to promise a way back.
He warns Israel in even greater detail, and with deeper solemnity. If they would not listen to His voice, the LORD would send curses on them to consume Israel out of the land and to chase them elsewhere. They would become a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all nations… In Deuteronomy 30 Moses goes further. When Israel come to repentance among the nations where they are driven, and return to the LORD their God, and obey His voice, then He will bring them back from captivity. In His compassion He will gather them and bring them into the land. He will not only bless and multiply them there, but put all the curses on their enemies and persecutors.
The curse is not the last word for those under it. One writer pictures it as a sword.
Think of the curse as a great sword hanging by a thread over my head. It may fall at any moment and destroy me. Christ came above me, between me and the sword. The sword fell on Him; He received the blow that must have taken us down to hell; He took us out from under the curse.
- Everywhere. The curse in verse 19 covers every movement — going out and coming back. No change of place or work brings relief.
- Mirror. Verse 6 is the exact reverse. There obedience meant steady blessing over the same daily round.
- National. Chapter 28 governs Israel's standing as a nation in the land. It is not how God accepts a guilty person.
- Weighted. The curses outrun the blessings many times over. God knew what the nation would choose.
- Answered. God promises to restore Israel when they turn back to Him. And the curse itself fell on Christ, who bought His people out from under it.
Jehovah will send upon thee cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all the business of thy hand which thou doest, until thou be destroyed and until thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me.
Moses has just listed the blessings that follow obedience. Now he turns to the curses, and verse 20 opens the list by naming what God will send, how far it reaches, and why.
One writer draws a careful line here. This chapter is about how God ruled a people on earth, not about how God accepts a soul.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government in the midst of that people, and the immediate consequences of obedience or disobedience. Those consequences were solemnly fulfilled in the fate of that unhappy people, whom He still loves for the sake of their fathers. Breaking the law as the principle of relationship with God raises the question of a righteousness good enough to be the ground of God's acceptance. We must not confuse the consequences of that with the temporary consequences of disobedience under the government of God. Chapter 28 speaks of these latter ones.
So the chapter offers nothing to a person troubled about guilt. Its blessings and curses fall in the field and in the city.
This is not what a poor soul wants. It in no way meets a sense of guilt or a dread of judgment. The sinner needs something that will stand for ever. He wants what will be in heaven, and not merely in the field or in the city. He wants acceptance for himself with God.
The curse is not aimed at one part of life; it follows a person into whatever he does. Older translations render the verse's "frustration" as "rebuke."
The Lord would send on them cursing, confusion and rebuke in whatever they were busy with (v.20), and there would be no relief before they died early. Plagues would afflict them until they were consumed, either by death or by scattering them from the land (v.20).
There is a reason the curses fill so much more of the chapter than the blessings.
This section dealing with curses occupies a far larger place than that speaking of blessings. The likely reason is that God knew full well that Israel would soon turn away from Him in hard-hearted disobedience. They would have no chance to enjoy the blessings promised for obedience, but every chance to feel the many curses that were really their own choice.
Some read the word "destroyed" as wiping the nation out. The passage itself rules that out.
Yet we find it used to predict the curse on Israel. They are still under that penalty as a nation, and it is not "utter extinction," as the very passage shows. "Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number" (Deut. 28:61-62) — that is, not utterly extinct at all. Chapter 30 adds, "And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse… and you call them to mind and return to the LORD your God… then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes" (Deut. 30:1-3). Here is national repentance and restoration predicted, after what is called "utter extinction." This is the place in all Scripture where the word is used most often: Deuteronomy 28:20, 24, 45, 48, 51, 61 and 63.
The verse ends by naming the cause. Later chapters give the same answer when the nations ask what happened.
In Deuteronomy 28 He warns Israel in still greater detail, and still more solemnly. If they will not listen to His voice, the LORD will send curses on them to consume Israel from off the land and to pursue them elsewhere. They would become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations. In Deuteronomy 29 He pictures all the nations asking why the LORD had so ruined the holy land, and why such fierce anger. The answer is: because Israel forsook the covenant of the LORD for false gods. So the curse fell, and He rooted them out of their land in great anger.
Moses was not making a vague threat. He wrote the nation's later history before it happened.
This is one of the most solemn chapters in the Pentateuch. Orthodox Hebrews read through the entire five books of Moses in their synagogues each year. When they read this chapter, the Rabbi reads in a subdued voice. And well may they read it quietly and think it over. Here, written long before it happened, is the sad and sorrowful history of that remarkable nation.
The same writer applies it beyond Israel:
What a warning this chapter is to Gentile Christendom! "For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you" (Rom. 11:21).
- Cause. They had forsaken Him. When the nations later ask why the land lies waste, that is still the answer.
- Curse. This is God's government of a nation on earth. It is the temporary consequence of disobedience, not the question of how God accepts a soul.
- Reach. The curse follows them into whatever they take up. No corner of life escapes it.
- Limit. "Until you are destroyed" is not extinction. The same chapter says they will be "left few in number," and chapter 30 promises restoration to those who return.
- Result. The long list of curses matches what history did to the nation. The warning is not for Israel alone.
Jehovah will make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.
Deuteronomy 28 sets out two futures for Israel in the land: one for obedience, one for refusal. Verse 21 belongs to the second, where disease becomes a tool in God's hand. It raises sharp questions. Does God send plague? Does "consumed" mean the end of Israel? And what does the chapter say to a reader who never lived under this covenant?
This chapter does not ask how God receives a guilty person. It describes how God governs a nation He has taken into relationship with Himself.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people, and the immediate consequences of obedience or disobedience. Those consequences were fulfilled with great solemnity in the fate of that unhappy people, who are still beloved for the fathers' sakes. Breaking the law, as a principle of relationship with God, had consequences for the question of a righteousness good enough to be the ground of God's acceptance. Do not confuse those with the temporary consequences of disobedience under the government of God.
The threats run far longer than the blessings. That imbalance says something about the arrangement itself.
Notice how chapter 28 unfolds God's governmental dealings. It develops the curses and presses them at far greater length than the blessings, though in a matching way. This is bound to stamp a character of its own on the relationship between God and the people. We are used to perfect and untiring love, so this gives us a somewhat painful feeling — not about whether it is right, but about standing in such a relationship... it makes us see what the position of law is for man's heart.
The verse does not say disease would break out. It says the LORD would make the pestilence stick to His people — it holds on rather than passing through. Scripture speaks of pestilence this way elsewhere too.
This is often mentioned along with the sword and the famine as punishment from God upon His rebellious people. Scripture represents it as sent directly by God Himself. When David had numbered the people, the LORD sent a pestilence upon Israel, and 70,000 men died.
That episode is worth a pause. God gave David a choice of punishments, and David chose the plague.
David admits the great distress and confusion of his soul, but he chooses the last; and he was right. "Let me fall into the hand of the LORD, for His mercy is very great, but do not let me fall into the hand of man." David preferred — and rightly, in my opinion — the direct hand of the LORD... But he chose a clear chastening inflicted by God's own hand, through the destroying angel.
The word sounds final, and readers have taken it that way. But the chapter itself decides the meaning.
Deuteronomy 28 uses the word six times of Israel, and never once does it mean their extinction: "Every sickness also and every affliction ... the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed." Are they extinct? No — "you shall be left few in number". And after the curse has been fulfilled, Scripture adds, "the LORD your God will restore your fortunes"! (Deut. 30:1-3.)
(Older translations read this last phrase as "the LORD will turn your captivity".)
If the nation survives, why send the plague at all?
This was not merely punishment, but God's way of seeking to drive them back to Him. Yet it would continue until they perished, for God knew the stubbornness of their hearts. If they would only confess their guilt and turn from it, God would certainly forgive and restore them. But Israel's history so far has been one of rebellion.
Being "consumed from off the land" is the end of the chapter's road — but not the end of the story Moses tells.
In this same chapter He warns Israel with even greater detail and seriousness. If they will not listen to His voice, the LORD will send curses on them. Those curses will consume Israel from off the land and pursue them elsewhere, until they become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations... Further, in Deuteronomy 30, Moses declares what happens when Israel comes to repentance among the nations where they are driven. When they return to the LORD their God and obey His voice, He will turn their captivity. In His compassion He will gather them back and bring them into the land.
- Sphere — the chapter deals with God's government of a nation on earth. It is not about the righteousness that makes a person acceptable to God.
- Sender — the plague is not bad luck. Scripture presents it as sent directly by God, alongside sword and famine.
- Mercy — given his choice of punishments, David picked the plague because it came from God's own hand, whose mercy is very great.
- Scope — "consumed" never means Israel's extinction here. It means a people reduced, uprooted and scattered, left "few in number".
- Aim — the blow was meant to drive them back to God. Deuteronomy 30 promises that when they repent, He gathers them home.
Jehovah will smite thee with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with burning ague, and with drought, and with blight, and with mildew, and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
Moses is still listing what disobedience would cost Israel in the land, and here the blows fall on the body and the soil at once. Who sends them, what were they meant to do, and how did Israel answer?
Commentators are careful about what this chapter is measuring. The blessings and curses here belong to God's rule over a nation living in a land, not to the question of how a guilty person is accepted by God.
In Deuteronomy 28 we do not have law looked at in its own nature, as a question between God and man. We have law as the rule of earthly government, dealing with the circumstances of man. So here we have the blessing on one hand and the curse on the other.
The same writer draws the line plainly:
It is not a question therefore of dealing according to God's nature, but a matter of His ways in dealing with a nation in this world at that time, and nothing more.
The verse opens with two plain names for real illness. "Wasting disease" — older translations say "consumption" — names what the illness does to the body:
Wasting away of the body.
"Fever" carries the same everyday sense we give it now:
The words in the originals imply "a burning heat," so there is no doubt that they mean what we now call "fever."
The verse leaves nothing to chance or bad luck. The sickness, the scorching and the mildew come from one hand, and they carry a purpose beyond punishment.
Israel had disobeyed. So it would be the Lord Himself who would inflict on them wasting sickness, fever, inflammation, severe burning fever, the scourge of an enemy's sword, scorching and mildew (v.22). This was not merely punishment, but God's way of seeking to drive them back to Him. Yet it would continue until they perished, for God knew the stubbornness of their hearts. If they would only confess their guilt and turn from it, God would surely forgive and restore them, but Israel's history so far has been one of rebellion.
Blight and mildew did fall on Israel later. God carried out the threat, and it still failed to bend them.
He struck them with mildew and blight; the locusts came and ate up the plants; there were terrible plagues and other judgments, but they did not return to Him. Five times in this paragraph we find the same statement: "Yet you have not returned to Me."
One writer applies that failure to us. Trouble that leaves us unchanged is not a safe outcome:
God still governs on the same principle. Much of the chastening that falls on His people is meant to make them take their condition to heart... Every stroke of God's rod should stir deep searching of heart, and where it does not, a heavier chastening from His hand is sure to follow.
Verse 22 sits inside a section that dwarfs the promised blessings. One writer offers a reason.
Likely the reason is this. God knew well that Israel would soon turn away from Him in callous disobedience. So they would have no chance to know the blessings promised for obedience. They would have every chance to know the many curses that were their own choice.
Commentators do not leave the curse there. One writer shows who took it:
Above all, Christ has redeemed us from the curse by being made a curse for us; for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree" (Deut. 21:23). Christ bears our curse that we might receive blessing, and the promise of the Spirit, through faith in Christ.
- Sphere. Deuteronomy 28 is law as "the rule of earthly government" — national life, not how God accepts a soul.
- Source. The wasting sickness, fever, drought and mildew are not accidents: "it would be the Lord Himself who would inflict" them.
- Purpose. The rod aimed at recovery, "God's way of seeking to drive them back to Him," not at bare punishment.
- Response. Israel felt the rod and did not change: "Yet you have not returned to Me." A stroke that leaves the heart unsearched only invites a heavier one.
- Rescue. The curse itself fell on Christ, who "bears our curse that we might receive blessing."
And thy heavens which are over thy head shall be brass, and the earth which is under thee, iron.
The threat here turns the two things a farmer depends on — the sky above and the soil below — into metal. Israel's life hung on rain coming down and crops coming up. This one sentence shuts both doors at once.
The curse is not random. Both metals answer something in the people.
For this reason the heavens would be bronze and the earth iron (v.23). This would match their attitude. They could pray for material blessings or relief, but no loving answer would come from heaven. The sky would be as closed as their own heart. The earth would be like iron, not soft enough to produce anything, because their hearts were also hard.
The metal itself says something. It cannot yield. Leviticus pairs the same two metals in the opposite order. Older translations call the bronze of this verse brass or copper.
Copper is spoken of as a symbol of complete defence… The unyielding character of this metal also suggests judgment: "I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as copper" (Lev. 26:19). This order is reversed in Deut. 28:23.
Canaan was not Egypt. Egypt drew its water from a river. Canaan had to receive it from above.
What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from heaven. It was all human effort there. Not so in the Lord's land. The human foot could do nothing there, and there was no need. The blessed rain from heaven fell on it. The Lord Himself cared for it and watered it with the early and the late rains… In Egypt they watered with the foot. In Canaan they looked up to heaven.
Withheld rain belongs to how God governs a people already in relationship with Him. It does not answer how God accepts a person.
Deuteronomy 28 gives us the principles of God's government among that people. It shows the immediate results of obedience or disobedience. Those results came true in the sad fate of that people, who are still loved for the sake of their fathers. Breaking the law had consequences as a principle of relationship with God — that is, as to a righteousness good enough to be the ground of God's acceptance. Do not confuse those with the temporary consequences of disobedience under God's government.
A closed sky was a message, not just a hardship.
The famine then was God's call to repentance, and should always have been taken that way… Even where there had been no public turning away from God, such trouble should always have brought them onto their faces, searching their hearts and asking, Why is this?
Israel had a way back, and would not take it.
When Solomon led Israel in prayer at the dedication of the temple, he thought of every kind of trouble that might come on the people, including the stopping of the rain. "When heaven is shut up, and there is no rain, because they have sinned against you; if they pray toward this place, and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them: then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants" (1 Kings 8:35-36). Mark the words, "if they pray toward this place." Israel did nothing of the kind in Elijah's day. Their hearts were stubborn. They felt no guilt. They were in no mood to humble themselves before God.
Centuries later, under Ahab, the nation lived through this very threat. The drought outside matched the condition inside.
Israel had sinned, and Israel must feel the rod of Jehovah's righteous anger. What a humbling picture of God's ancient people, to see their king going out to look for grass!… But God had been deeply dishonoured, and His truth rejected… so the heaven above was iron, and the earth beneath brass. The state of the land was simply the expression of Israel's hard heart and low moral condition.
- Hardness — the metal sky answers a metal heart; the sky is as closed to their prayers as they were to God.
- Dependence — Egypt drank from a river; Canaan lived on rain. A shut sky touched everything at once.
- Government — these are temporary consequences of disobedience for a people God already governs, not the terms on which He accepts anyone.
- Purpose — the drought was a call to repentance. Solomon's prayer named the way back: pray, confess, turn.
- Proof — under Ahab the threat came true; a king went out looking for grass, and the barren land showed the state of the heart.
Jehovah will give as the rain of thy land powder and dust; from the heavens shall it come down upon thee until thou be destroyed.
Moses has just said that the sky over Israel would be bronze and the ground iron. Verse 24 says what falls from that sky instead of rain. The answer is dust. The sentence then runs on to the word "destroyed," which raises a second question: how far does this curse go?
One writer points out that Moses puts the supply of rain in God's own storehouse.
Blessing can only ever come from God in the end, and so it is here too. A fine illustration of this from the Bible is rain. People in southern countries understand this best of all. Without rain there can be no life or growth. It comes from the clouds above, and so it pictures blessing coming down from God. In Deuteronomy 28 Moses explains the way of blessing to the people. He links rain to it directly, and links it to heaven: "The LORD will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands" (Deut. 28:12).
Shut that treasury, and everything stops.
What barrenness and desolation there must be when heaven is shut up! No refreshing showers coming down, no dewdrops falling, no contact between heaven and earth.
The rain does not simply stop. Something falls in its place.
The rains of their land would be exchanged for powder and dust (v.24). This is not only negative — a lack of rain — but an active curse, to cause great distress.
Israel later lived through this. One writer traces the drought back to what the nation had done with its worship.
Israel had sinned, and Israel had to feel the rod of God's righteous anger. What a humbling picture of God's ancient people, to see their king going out to look for grass! What a contrast between all this and the rich abundance and glory of Solomon's day! But God had been deeply dishonoured and His truth rejected. Jezebel had spread her poisonous principles through her wicked prophets, and Baal's altar had replaced the altar of God. So the heaven above was iron and the earth beneath brass. The physical state of things was nothing but the expression of Israel's hardness of heart and low moral condition.
A shut sky was not the last word. At the temple's dedication, Solomon had already prayed about a sky that gives no rain. One writer notes why Israel never used that remedy in Elijah's day.
"When heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray toward this place and acknowledge your name and turn from their sin, when you afflict them, then hear in heaven and forgive the sin of your servants" (1 Kings 8:35-36). Notice the words, "if they pray toward this place." Israel did nothing of the kind in Elijah's day. Their hearts were stubborn; there was no sense of guilt; and they were in no mood to humble themselves before God. As for the place God loved, they had turned their backs on it.
The verse ends with a heavy word. One commentator takes up the claim that it means a people wiped out for good. He answers it from this chapter.
Some say this word, shamad, means "utter extinction," so it must be the strongest of all these terms. Yet we find it used to predict the curse on Israel. As a nation they are still under that curse, and it is not "utter extinction," as the passage itself shows. "Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number" (Deut. 28:61-62) — that is, not utterly extinct at all. Chapter 30 adds that when the blessing and the curse have all come on them, and they call them to mind and return to the LORD their God, He will bring them back from captivity. Here is national repentance and restoration predicted, after what is called "utter extinction." The word is found in Deuteronomy 28:20, 24, 45, 48, 51 and 61, translated "destroy," and in verse 63 "bring to nothing."
The law's blessings and curses all hung on one word. One writer contrasts that arrangement with the Christian's standing.
All of it was strictly conditional. It is, "If you walk... then I will give." Everything depended on their obedience, and that "If" proved fatal. The blessings promised were earthly and material... How great the contrast with the Christian's portion — blessed "in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3), and with no "if" attached.
- Gift — rain came out of God's "good treasury," so a watered field was blessing arriving from above.
- Reversal — the curse does not just hold back rain. Dust falls in its place: an active affliction, not a gap.
- Mirror — the iron sky expressed what was already true of Israel's heart. The weather matched the worship.
- Limit — "destroyed" is not extinction. Israel is left few in number, still a nation, still promised restoration if they return.
- Reopening — Solomon named the way back: acknowledge God's name, turn from sin, and pray toward the temple. Elijah's generation would not, and the sky stayed shut.