_A.M. 2553. B.C. 1451._ The blessings of obedience, personal, family, and national, Deuteronomy 28:1. The curses of the disobedient; their extreme vexation, Deuteronomy 28:15. Their utter ruin and destruction, Deuteronomy 28:45.... [ Continue Reading ]
_If thou hearken diligently_ The foregoing blessings and curses being appointed to be pronounced in so solemn a manner, Moses takes occasion from thence to enlarge upon both of them, to show the Israelites what they and their posterity had to expect at the hands of God, according as they complied or... [ Continue Reading ]
_All these blessings shall overtake thee_ The blessings which others greedily follow after, and never overtake, shall follow after thee, and shall be thrown into thy lap by special kindness. _In the city, and in the field _ Whether they were husbandmen or tradesmen, whether in the town or country, t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Establish thee_ Shall confirm his covenant with thee, by which he separated thee to himself as a holy and peculiar people. _Called by the name of the Lord_ That you are in truth his people and children: a most excellent and glorious people, under the peculiar care and countenance of the great God.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Plenteous in goods_ The same things which were said before are repeated, to show that God would repeat and multiply his blessings upon them. _His good treasure_ The heaven or the air, which is God's store-house, where he treasures up rain or wind for man's use.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The head_ The chief of all people in power, or at least in dignity and privileges; so that even they that are not under thy authority shall reverence thy greatness and excellence. So it was in David's and Solomon's time, and so it should have been oftener and much more, if they had performed the co... [ Continue Reading ]
_These curses shall overtake thee_ So that thou shalt not be able to escape them, as thou shalt vainly hope and endeavour to do. There is no running from God, but by running to him; no fleeing from his justice, but by fleeing to his mercy.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Cursing, vexation, and rebuke_ The first of these words seems to import that God would blast all their designs; the second relates to disquiet and perplexity of mind, arising from the disappointment of their hopes, and presages of approaching miseries; the third respects such chastisements from God... [ Continue Reading ]
_Shall make the pestilence cleave to thee_ Sometimes Divine Providence shall scourge you by one calamity, and sometimes by another, and they will cut off your people in great numbers. _Thy heaven shall be brass_ Dry, and shut up from giving rain or dew. _The earth iron _ Exceeding hard through droug... [ Continue Reading ]
_The botch of Egypt_ Such boils or blains as the Egyptians were plagued with, spreading from head to foot. _The emerods_ Those painful swellings of the hemorrhoidal vessels, called piles. _Blindness_ Of mind, so that they should not know what to do. _Astonishment_ They should be filled with wonder a... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given_ When you have provoked the divine justice to deliver you into the hands of your enemies, you shall have nothing left which you can call your own. Your very wives and children shall become a prey to your enemies; shall be taken from you and _given_, or sold... [ Continue Reading ]
_Which thou knowest not_ Who shall come from a far country, whom thou didst not at all expect or fear, and therefore will be the more dreadful when they come. This was remarkably fulfilled when Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, came and dispossessed the ten tribes, and when Nebuchadnezzar carried the ot... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes_ Quite bereaved of all comfort and hope, and abandoned to utter despair. “Into what madness, fury, and desperation have they been pushed,” says Bishop Newton, in illustration of this prophecy, “by the cruel usage, extortions, and oppressions which they... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord shall bring thee and thy king_ The calamity shall be universal; even thy king shall not be able to avoid it, much less his subjects, who have far less advantage and opportunity for escape; he who should protect or rescue them shall be lost with them. This was partly fulfilled when Jehoiach... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word _ “And do we not hear and see this prophecy fulfilled almost every day? Is not the avarice, usury, and hard-heartedness of a Jew grown proverbial? And are not their persons generally odious among all sorts of people? Mohammedans, heathens,... [ Continue Reading ]
_The stranger that is within thee_ Within thy gates; who formerly honoured and served thee, and were, some of them, glad of the crumbs which fell from thy table. _Shall get above thee very high_ Shall rise to great wealth and prosperity upon thy ruin.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Moreover, all these curses_ Here some critics have made a division of these prophecies, and have interpreted the preceding part as relating to the former captivity of the Jews, and the calamities which they suffered under the Chaldeans; and the remaining part as referring to their latter captivity,... [ Continue Reading ]
_They_ (these curses now mentioned) _shall be upon thee for a sign _ This, indeed, they have been in a most wonderful and astonishing manner. Since man was first placed on the earth, never was there a people that were such a sign to all the inhabitants of it as the Jews have been. Never did any othe... [ Continue Reading ]
_He shall put a yoke of iron about thy neck_ That is, cruel thraldom, and rigorous oppression, Jeremiah 27:11. This is highly just, that they who refuse the reasonable service of God should be made slaves to their enemies; and, instead of the easy yoke of God, should be put under a yoke of iron. See... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far_ “The Chaldeans might be said to come from far, in comparison of the Moabites, Philistines, and other neighbouring nations, which used to infest Judea.” See Jeremiah 5:15; Jeremiah 6:22. And they are represented as pursuing them with the swiftness... [ Continue Reading ]
_A nation of a fierce countenance_ Such were the Chaldeans, who, according to the historian, “slew the young men” of the Jews “in the house of the sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age.” Such also were the Romans, who, Josephus says, when they... [ Continue Reading ]
_He shall besiege thee in all thy gates_ Thus did Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar. See 2Ki 18:9-10; 2 Kings 18:13, and 2 Kings 25:10. But this prediction was especially fulfilled by the Romans, to whom the best fortified places in Judea were forced to yield, as may be seen in Josephus's... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body_ The stoutest and most obstinate resistance will avail you nothing; all the advantage you will gain by it will be to suffer such long and pressing straits by the siege as will force you, after thousands have perished with hunger, to feed upon the flesh of... [ Continue Reading ]
_His eye shall be evil toward his brother_ His wants will make him throw off all distinction of, and compassion for, his nearest and dearest relations. Hunger will make him snatch the meat out of the mouths of his own children, and grudge every morsel that they eat. Accordingly Josephus informs us t... [ Continue Reading ]
_The tender and delicate woman shall eat her children secretly_ Not in order to escape the infamy of the action, but lest others should have a share with her. _In the siege and straitness_ This was fulfilled about six hundred years after the time of Moses, among the Israelites, when Samaria was besi... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ye shall be left few in number_ “Not to mention here any other of the calamities and slaughters which the Jews have undergone, there was in the last siege of Jerusalem, by Titus, an infinite multitude, saith Josephus, who perished by famine; and he computes that, during the whole siege, the number... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord will rejoice over you, to destroy you_ His just indignation against you will be so great, that it will be a pleasure to him to take vengeance on you. For though he doth not delight in the death of a sinner in itself, yet he doth delight in glorifying his justice upon incorrigible transgres... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord shall scatter thee among all people_ According to Nehemiah, (Nehemiah 1:8,) these words were fulfilled in the Babylonish captivity; but they have been far more amply fulfilled since the great dispersion of the Jews by the Romans. “What people have been scattered so far and wide as they? An... [ Continue Reading ]
_Among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall thy foot have rest_ They have been so far from finding rest, that they have been banished from city to city, from country to country. In many places they have been banished and recalled, and banished again. Several remarkable instances of t... [ Continue Reading ]
_Thy life shall hang in doubt_ Either because thou art in the hands of thy enemies that have power, and want not the will, to destroy thee; or because of the terrors of thy own mind, and the guilt of thy conscience making thee to fear, even where no fear is.... [ Continue Reading ]
_The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt_ Which was literally fulfilled under Titus, when multitudes of them were carried thither and sold for slaves. _With ships_ This expression seems to be intended to remind them of that time when they went over the sea without ships, God miraculously drying up the... [ Continue Reading ]