The eye of the man in thy midst that is tender and very luxurious shall be evil towards his brother, and the wife of his bosom, and the residue of his children which he hath left;
The words fall in the middle of a siege scene. Moses is describing what hunger does inside a walled city. The gentlest man in Israel will look at his own brother, his own wife, and his last surviving children — and refuse them a bite of food.
Deuteronomy 28 is not about how God accepts a person. It sets out the terms of God's rule over that nation.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people. We also have the immediate results of obedience or disobedience. Those results were solemnly fulfilled 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, has its own consequences on the point 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. It is to these latter that chapter 28 refers.
The man in view is not a brute. He is the most refined person in the community.
They would besiege the cities, however well fortified. The starving people inside would go so far as to eat their own children (v.53). See 2 Kings 6:28-29 and Jeremiah 19:8-9. We may well wonder why such things would not drive people's hearts back to the Lord. But in verse 54 we read that even the most refined of people would turn hostile toward their wives and their children. Hunger would make them so desperate that no thought was left for even the closest loved ones (v.55).
The ESV reads "the wife he embraces." Older translations render it "the wife of his bosom." Scripture uses that word for the deepest affection.
Used symbolically for the seat of deep affection. John speaks of the Lord Jesus as the only begotten Son "in the bosom of the Father." John 1:18. The tender and sacred relationship which husband and wife have to each other is also called the "bosom." Deut. 28:54, 56.
Older translations read, "his eye shall be evil toward his brother." Scripture uses that phrase in other places too.
In the Scriptures, the evil eye often keeps close company with covetousness, selfishness and envious jealousy. The evil eye ignores the sufferings of others if it can secure personal gain. The Lord warned the people of Israel against having an evil eye towards a poor brother in need and withholding proper help from him (Deut. 15:7-9; Deut. 28:54-55).
These sentences did not stay on the page. Writers point to Samaria under siege, centuries after Moses spoke.
Moses had warned the people of God that if they departed from God, the time would come when, besieged by their enemies, they would come to such desperate need that tender, delicate women would secretly eat their young children (Lev. 26:21-29; Deut. 28:49-57). This abomination had at last come to pass.
Another writer points to Rome, named by Moses before Rome existed.
Moses clearly predicted the Roman power that would break the Jews, and he did so at a time when no such power existed. Read verses 49-50. "The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand." The eagle was the standard of the Roman armies. The Jews understood many eastern languages, but they did not know Latin. The same passage says, "a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young." Rome killed the old people and the children. These words were fulfilled in the dreadful sieges of Jerusalem, perhaps the most terrible events in the history of blood and tears of this poor earth.
The chapter itself names the starting point, and it is not cruelty. It is joyless plenty.
"Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything." When joy fails, there is a practical loss of the possession here, on our tested path. What need there is of diligent, watchful keeping of the heart against the first weakening of joy! For this shows that decline has begun, and the descent is easy and rapid once the heart begins to go.
- Government. The chapter deals with God's rule over a nation in the land — not with the ground of a person's acceptance before Him.
- Joyless plenty. The slide starts with abundance held without gladness; the loss of joy is the first sign that a heart is going.
- Then want. Plenty held without gladness ends in serving enemies, "in hunger and thirst," with nothing left.
- Then the evil eye. Under siege, a starving man weighs even a brother's survival against his own gain.
- Then the bosom. The last thing to break is the tenderest tie, and the sieges of Jerusalem showed the words were no exaggeration.
so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children that he eateth, because he hath nothing left him in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.
Verse 55 sits at the lowest point of a long chapter of warnings. Two questions press on any reader: why would God put such a warning in writing, and does the chapter leave Israel a way back?
This chapter is about God's dealings with Israel as a nation on earth. One writer warns us not to mix it up with how a person stands before God.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people. We also have the immediate results of obedience or disobedience. Those results came true, with great solemnity, in the fate of that unhappy people, still loved for the sake of their fathers. Two things must not be confused. One is what follows from breaking the law when the law is treated as the basis of relationship with God — as a righteousness good enough for God to accept a person. The other is the temporary result of disobedience under God's government. Chapter 28 speaks of this second one.
The horror of verse 55 does not start with poverty. Earlier in the chapter Moses names the root: they did not serve God with joy while everything was plentiful.
Deuteronomy holds one more word of solemn meaning and warning for us. It is the only other mention of joy in the book. Deuteronomy 28:47-48 says: "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything." Lose your joy, and you lose the possession in practice... What need of diligent, watchful keeping of the heart against the first weakening of joy! For this shows that decline has begun, and the descent is easy and rapid once the heart begins to go.
The verse is not only about starvation. It is about what starvation exposes — a man who will not share with the people he loves most.
These enemies would besiege the cities, no matter how well fortified. The starving people inside would go so far as to eat their own children (v.53)... We may well wonder why such things would not drive people's hearts back to the Lord, but in verse 54 we read that even the most refined of people would become hostile toward their wives and their children. Hunger would make them so desperate that they would have no thought left even for their closest loved ones (v.55).
Moses names details that fit one nation in particular. That nation did not exist when he wrote.
Moses clearly predicted the Roman power that would break the Jews, and he did so at a time when no such power existed. Read verses 49-50... The eagle was the standard of the Roman armies; the Jews knew many eastern languages, but they did not know Latin. "Who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young." Rome killed the old people and the children... Moses went on to say that a refined woman would eat her own children in the siege (verses 54-57). This came true in the dreadful sieges of Jerusalem, perhaps the most terrible events in this poor earth's history of blood and tears. Every verse from the fifteenth to the end of this chapter has come true again and again.
Extreme distress did not turn hearts back to God. One writer describes what happened in an actual siege.
Israel's heart was hardened, so that, in the famine accompanying the siege, instead of turning to Jehovah, some of the inhabitants in their terrible extremity turned to the horrible deed of eating even their own offspring! See Leviticus 26:26-29; Deuteronomy 28:52-53; which was finally fulfilled under the Romans.
One writer turns this chapter into a warning for people outside Israel too.
It would take a great many pages to follow the different predictions and show their literal fulfilment in the nation, which turned away from Jehovah and disobeyed His Word. What a warning this chapter is to Gentile Christendom! "If God did not spare the natural branches, neither will He spare you" (Rom. 11:21).
The curses say Israel will be destroyed. One writer asks what that word means here.
Deuteronomy 28 uses the word six times of Israel, and never once does it mean that they die out: "Also every sickness and every plague... them will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed." Are they extinct? No. Instead, "you shall be left few in number," and once the curse has run its course the book adds, "the LORD will restore your fortunes"! (Deut. 30:1-3.)
- Cause — It began in good times. They did not serve the Lord with joy when they had plenty.
- Collapse — Lost joy leads to lost possession. Verse 55 is the end of that slide. The first weakening of the heart is the start of it.
- Character — Extreme need does not make people good. It strips goodness away, until a father shares nothing with his wife and children.
- Confirmation — Moses wrote the details centuries early. Rome did not yet exist, and the sieges of Jerusalem matched what he said.
- Continuation — "Destroyed" never meant wiped out. God left them few in number, then promised to restore their fortunes. The judgment is real, but it is not the last word.