And Jehovah will scatter thee among all peoples, from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; and thou shalt there serve other gods, whom thou hast not known, neither thou nor thy fathers, wood and stone.
Two very different things can be mixed up here. One writer separates them.
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, who are still loved for the fathers' sakes. Breaking the law, as the basis of relationship with God, has its own consequences. They concern righteousness — whether a person has an adequate ground of acceptance with God. Do not confuse those consequences with the temporary consequences of disobedience under the government of God. It is these last ones that chapter 28 is about.
The verse does not say Israel drifted away. It says the Lord scatters them. The hand that once made them many now makes them few.
Just as the Lord at one time had blessed and multiplied the nation, so He would curse and reduce them (v.63). He would scatter the people among all nations, where they would serve idols (v.64). We know this has taken place. Jews are scattered over all the world, and any acknowledgement of their God has grown vague, and in many cases has died out.
The scattering ends in idolatry. That is the strangest part of the verse. Israel had already wanted to be like the nations around them. God's answer is not to give in, but to say that He will still reign.
We have cause to enter into the feelings of the prophet as God's voice denounces those who chose darkness on purpose, though He had given them light. They said: "We will be as the nations, as the families of the countries, in serving wood and stone." They had plenty of evidence before their eyes. But anything that offers a hiding place from God has always found a sad welcome with hearts that wander from Him. If He reigns at all, it must be in power.
The warning came true. One writer looks at the nation's condition and says the whole world can read something in it.
Under the heavy weight of these judgments they are suffering at this very hour. Scattered and stripped, wasted and outcast, they are the monuments of Jehovah's unbending truth and justice. They read aloud, to all the nations of the earth, a most impressive lesson on the moral government of God. It would be worth those nations' while to study that lesson well, and it would do our own hearts good to weigh it too.
The lesson is not for Israel alone. The same pattern of trust given and trust lost runs through the whole Bible.
God gave the Garden of Eden, fresh from His own hand, to Adam to dress and keep. Adam failed, and God drove him out. God drove his son from His face too, to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. God trusted the new world to Noah. Noah failed, and God divided and scattered his descendants "abroad upon the face of all the earth." God gave the land of Canaan to Israel. Israel failed completely, and God scattered them among the nations, just as He foretold.
The same book that predicts the scattering also promises a gathering.
Moses goes further in Deuteronomy 30. When Israel come to repentance among the nations where they are driven, and return to Jehovah their God, and obey His voice, then He will turn their captivity. In His compassion He will gather them back and bring them into the land. There He will bless and multiply them, and He will put all the curses on their enemies and persecutors.
- Scattered. The scattering is God's own act in governing Israel. It is temporary discipline for disobedience, not a verdict on whether God accepts a soul.
- Served. The punishment fits the sin. A people who wanted to be like the nations end up serving wood and stone — gods they never knew.
- Seen. Scattered Israel is a public lesson to every nation about how God governs the world.
- Shared. The same failure runs from Eden to Noah to Israel. No one trusted with responsibility has kept it.
- Sought. Moses does not stop at scattering. The same book promises that if Israel repent among the nations, God will have compassion and gather them home.
And among these nations shalt thou have no rest, neither shall the sole of thy foot have a resting-place, and Jehovah shall give thee there a trembling heart, languishing of the eyes, and pining of the soul.
Moses ends his warnings with a picture of life for a people driven from their land — exile with nowhere to settle and no hour of peace. Two questions follow: what is God doing here, and is there any way back?
This chapter's blessings and curses are not about how God accepts a sinner. They describe how He governs a people on earth, and what follows when they obey or disobey.
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 solemnly fulfilled in the fate of that unhappy people, who are still beloved for the fathers' sakes. The law was a principle of relationship with God, offering a righteousness that was an adequate ground of His acceptance. The consequences of breaking it must not be confused with the temporary consequences of disobedience under God's government. It is to these latter that chapter 28 refers.
That distinction shapes how we read the verse. It is a national sentence, worked out in the world over centuries.
So in part of this chapter we see the state Israel would be in, right up to the present day. This is not God dealing according to His nature. It is a matter of the way He governs a nation in this world, and nothing more.
The verse names three losses: in the heart, in the eyes, in the soul. The verses that follow show what daily life becomes.
Yet among these nations they would find no relief, no rest, but fear and trembling, failing eyes and anguish of soul (v. 65). They would fear day and night that they might lose their lives (v. 66). In the morning they would wish it were evening; in the evening they would wish it were morning, because life was one long trauma (v. 67).
The Hebrew word behind "failing eyes" is rare.
In Isaiah 10:22 the word is "killahyohn" ("the consumption"), not "kahlah"; Deuteronomy 28:65 ("and failing of") is the only other place it is used. So the two words are not the same, though both come from the same root and are closely related.
The later history of the Jewish people shows these words at work. Two facts stand together: no settled rest, and yet no disappearance.
It is a matter of history that the Jews were driven from their own land, and scattered among the nations… We stand amazed at the sight of a people without a country. They are scattered in many lands, without cohesion, without a centre. They have survived despite cruel persecutions, and have resisted absorption into the countries where they lived. By all the laws that govern such situations, the Jew should have vanished without a trace centuries ago.
Human effort cannot undo this sentence. One writer applies it to a return to the land made in self-confidence.
There was no rest, no peace, but uncertainty and affliction. The curse said, No rest for the sole of their feet — and it has come true to the letter. Again the people seek a resting place in the land without their God and their Saviour, all in the confidence of the flesh. They will succeed in their restoration plans. But in the end they will find themselves in greater difficulties, facing worse afflictions than ever before.
These words are also a mirror for believers today. Turning away from God brings the same restlessness.
The greater our blessing, the greater our responsibility… And are there not witnesses around us who show how bitter it is to depart from the living God? Are not many of God's people captive at this very day? May it not be said of such, "you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot"? And in their captivity, do they not have "a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul"?
Moses does not stop at verse 65. The same speech that spells out the scattering also names the condition on which it ends.
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. He will not only bless and multiply them there, but also put all the curses on their enemies and persecutors.
- Government, not acceptance. Chapter 28 shows how God governs a people on earth. Its curses follow disobedience under that government. They do not tell us how God accepts a sinner.
- Scattering. Driven from the land, the nation found no settled place among the nations. The sentence reaches the whole person: heart, eyes, soul.
- Restlessness. Life becomes fear by day and by night: morning longs for evening, evening for morning. Returning to the land in self-confidence cannot create rest.
- Witness. A people persecuted and scattered, yet never absorbed, shows the world that Moses spoke the truth.
- Return. The same speech that promised no rest also promises compassion and regathering. It comes when the scattered people repent and obey God's voice.
And thy life shall hang in suspense before thee; and thou shalt be in terror day and night and shalt be afraid of thy life.
Moses ends his long list of warnings with a state of mind rather than a single blow. Life itself feels uncertain, and fear does not let go by day or by night. Three questions follow. What judgment is this? Did it ever happen? And does God leave His people there?
Commentators are careful about what this warning covers. It is not about how God accepts a person. It is about how He rules a nation in this world.
In Deuteronomy 28 we have the principles of God's government among that people, and the immediate results of obedience or disobedience. Those solemn results came true in the fate of that unhappy people, who are still loved for their fathers' sakes. Breaking the law has consequences when the law is taken as the basis of relationship with God — as the righteousness that would be an adequate ground of God's acceptance. We must not confuse those with the temporary consequences of disobedience under God's government. Chapter 28 speaks of the second.
The word "assurance" here does not carry the sense it has in the New Testament.
In the Old Testament this word is used differently from the way it is used in the New. In the Old Testament it means "confidence or trust." It fits the hopes of God's earthly people, tied to the security in which Israel will dwell when God restores them to their land and puts down all their enemies by His power. Then the effect of righteousness will be "quietness and assurance for ever," Isaiah 32:17. But in their disobedience they should fear day and night and have no assurance of their life. Deuteronomy 28:66.
Isaiah 32:17 appears here in an older translation; the ESV reads "quietness and trust forever." What obedience secures, disobedience loses.
One writer counts the verses. The warnings run far longer than the blessings, and he draws a lesson for everyone, not only for Israel.
The chapter divides naturally into two parts. In the first we have a full and most blessed statement of the results of obedience (see verses 1-15). In the second we have a very solemn and moving statement of the awful consequences of disobedience (see verses 16-68). We cannot help being struck that the curses take more than three times the space of the 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. 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?
One writer tests this passage against events: the fall of Jerusalem under Titus, and the centuries after it.
Moses warned them what would follow if they disobeyed their God and ignored His covenant. They would be plucked out of their promised land and scattered among all peoples... Their lives would hang in doubt. In the morning they would long for the night, and in the night they would say, If only it were morning. These solemn words have been fulfilled to the letter. It was the thirty-sixth anniversary of that fateful Passover when they cried after their Messiah, "Away with Him, crucify Him." Almost the whole nation had gathered in Jerusalem when Titus the Roman besieged the city. The stubborn and fanatical defence enraged the invaders. They burned and destroyed the city and temple. They butchered close to a million of the people without pity, and sent the rest to the Egyptian slave markets... But they have outlived all their ancient enemies... the Jews remain. The nations they live among have never absorbed them, and they keep their identity and character despite fierce persecutions. They are an indestructible witness to the accuracy of prophecy in the God-breathed Scriptures.
The warning is not the last word. The next chapters turn from threat to promise, and the promise begins with repentance.
Further, in Deuteronomy 30 Moses declares what will happen 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 back their captivity. In His compassion He will gather them and bring them into the land. He will not only bless and multiply them there, but also put all the curses on their enemies and persecutors.
- Government, not acceptance. This chapter shows how God rules His people on earth. It does not deal with how God accepts a soul as righteous.
- Assurance defined. In the Old Testament "assurance" means confidence and trust — a people safe in their own land. Lose it, and fear fills day and night.
- Warning weighted. The curses run more than three times longer than the blessings. God did not spare His own people, so no one else can expect to escape.
- Warning verified. Commentators read the nation's later history — the fall of Jerusalem, the scattering, the persecutions — as this prophecy fulfilled to the letter. For them it is proof that Scripture is God's word.
- Assurance restored. Fear is not the last word. When Israel repents, God promises to gather them, bring them back, and bless them — the "quietness and assurance for ever" that disobedience lost.