Chapter 28
Chapter 27 ended with the instructions for the shouting from the two mountains, one blessings, the other curses. Then the curses are recounted, one by one, and at the end of each it says "And all the people shall say, Amen.". So these seem to be instruction in what to do, not narration of what was done.
Then the first 14 verses of Chapter 28 are the blessings God promises to give to Israel if they diligently keep all his commandments. It is a covenant, but most certainly a conditional one. It is a covenant with a nation, not with individual people. The nation will prosper, its flocks, herds, and crops will prosper, other nations will be defeated if they come against Israel, and they will lend to other nations but never borrow. This promise was to the nation of Israel. How anyone could ever claim that they kept this is beyond me. This was broken, and re-broken, with God ultimately sending all Israel, north and south, into captivity. Only the south even returned to the land...and again they failed to keep the covenant.
Perhaps this covenant fell under its own terms. (Second time - it most certainly did.)
But the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (I think) were all unconditional, and God swore by himself. Those must still be fulfilled. (Second time. Those to Abraham were unconditional. Need more detailed study on Isaac and Jacob, though the unconditional promises were renewed to them, there may have been some conditions added also.)
This verse is interesting:
11 And the LORD will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. [Deu 28:11 ESV]
True prosperity is measured in terms of increasing human population, increasing animal population, and increasing farm productivity. There is no mention here of them getting a lot of gold and silver and jewels - all of which were mediums of exchange at the time. But God doesn't look at things that don't breath as being useful to measure prosperity. Even plants respire. Prosperity is measured by the increasing abundance of living things. Only by that.
Possible FB Post. A good one.
2021 - Note that the promise applies "within the land that the LORD swore to your fathers". Here is another place where Gad, Reuben and half Manasseh should have paid more attention. They did well in the land they chose because that land was truly good for livestock, and they acquired it by conquest instead purchase, and so were well ahead financially when they started. But the promises made to the fathers DID NOT APPLY to this land the 2.5 tribes chose. What they chose lacked God's divine protection. I want to pay particular attention to how things go for these tribes and compare and contrast it to the rest of Israel, and especially to the other 7.5 tribes of the Northern Kingdom.
And why am I noticing this so often? Am I on the wrong "land"? Did I settle for good and forego best? Am I falling short because I am so "comfortable" with what I have that I don't realize the blessings offered if I get up and move? Are the things that go wrong just telling me that I'm in the wrong place and I'm interpreting them wrong? Or, am I right where I'm supposed to be and the things that seem to be turned against me, the hate even that is sometimes directed my way, are telling me that I am in the right place, setting an example - a poor one, but a recognizably different lifestyle than those around me? How do you know which is the case???
In the case of 28:7-14, all that is spoken is addressed to the nation of Israel. These things are not spoken to individuals. I mean they are, but to individuals in a collective sense. So the part about going where God puts you instead of settling in a pretty good spot...technically that is about a nation, and specifically about Israel in that day. So the second set of questions above apply more than the first. I need to be where God puts me, but then, God put me here, in this house, over 30 years ago and I am still in this house.
2023 - Gad, Reuben and Manasseh did request permission to settle where they settled, and all Israel had at that time conquered that land. If we study out exactly what land God promised Abraham, then the land where they settled may well have been included. Not the best of Canaan, but still promised land. So...there is an argument here that GRM should not have stayed where they did, but should have gone on across the Jordan before settling. But I am not sure it is a very good argument.
The rest of the verses, 15 through 68, are about what happens if they do not obey God in the land that He is giving them. The curses far outweigh the blessings. Much better, infinitely better, to obey. Only a stiff-necked, hard-hearted, arrogant people would not obey. It is also noteworthy that they had ample, specific. definite unambiguous information as to both the benefits and the curses associated with the covenant they had entered into. The curses that are about to be listed are not "new" - this is not the offering of a different covenant under which they will invade Canaan. These curses are amplifications of the conditions already in place. These verses list some possibilities that the people may not have considered, and are offered here to make it very clear that both blessing and cursing are dependent on their behavior - on their continued performance under the conditions of the covenant.
These verses about disease:
21 The LORD will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 22 The LORD will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. [Deu 28:21-22 ESV]
And here is another:
27 The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and scabs and itch, of which you cannot be healed. [Deu 28:27 ESV]
To claim that God does not use disease as a punishment would be to ignore many verses in the OT. It seems to me that disease is used not as a correction but as a consequence. Disease is not aimed at rehabilitation.
Here is one that hits me pretty hard right now, while we are restricted from seeing the grandkids:
32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, while your eyes look on and fail with longing for them all day long, but you shall be helpless. [Deu 28:32 ESV]
I most certainly do feel helpless right now. No way to argue, no logic to employ. It is all in other hands. It occurred to me this morning that this goes back to the FB post I did where griping about circumstances you don't like is not griping at Moses, but griping at God. Israel had no water, and they blamed Moses. I can't see my grands, and I blame Kristina. This is wrong. I need to make my appeals to the correct quarter. (Note: The morning I saw this error in how I was praying, I changed. I stopped blaming Kris, and I told God I knew this was His doing, and that I wanted Him to let me see my grandkids. We saw them later that very week, and I learned that we would the very first day I prayed the prayer the right way.)
Here is how it works:
47 Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. [Deu 28:47-48 ESV]
While this law is not in effect, surely this principle still is. If we despise God in favor of the things of this world, if we turn away from Him, and try to live our lives without Him, we always end up being slaves to a less benevolent master. We serve our jobs to get ahead, we serve our "toys" so we can play and enjoy, we serve the debt we acquire so that we can "enjoy" the good things of this world. We can end up slaves to alcohol, drugs, food, entertainment. We need to take a look at ourselves regularly, and make sure, honestly and dispassionately, who or what master we are working for. And we should never ignore those last five words, which give the result of serving the wrong master.
Good FB Post here also.
2021 -
49 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, 50 a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. [Deu 28:49-50 ESV] Wasn't the eagle a symbol for Assyria? Or was it Babylon? No mercy to old or young.
Several verses here, but I am pasting in the whole section. Among the worst of the curses are these:
53 And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces, and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. 56 The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces, to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns. [Deu 28:53-57 ESV]
People will end up eating their own children in the cities besieged by enemies God sends as a curse for breaking this covenant with him. Not just this...they will be so starving and hungry that they won't share the flesh of children, or the bloody afterbirth with those they profess to love. This is horror beyond horror.
I note that these curses start benignly. They start with a few food shortages, then those are followed by low birth rates among cattle and then people. Then confusion of mind - dementia if you will. People start to do things wrong, to see things wrong, to interpret cause and effect wrong. Then diseases of various kinds. Incurable some of them. Crime will get out of control. Hard won accumulation will be continually destroyed and stolen. The future will grow increasingly uncertain. You can't plan far ahead, because civil authority has broken down, and can no longer stop foreign raiders and robbers. Injustice at the hands of civil authority comes next - those from other countries will be favored to the point where they will be allowed to consume the produce of Israel and those who grew that produce can do nothing. Then full on invasion. Parts of the country taken captive or occupied. Children taken as slaves and nothing that can be done. As the country weakens further, full on armies invade, besieging towns and cities, to the point of cannibalism of ones own offspring within the "safety" of the city walls. This does not happen over night. But we are given a very detailed description of the consequences of despising our God.
This belongs on the website.
2021 - The cannibalism happened in 70 AD. I don't think it really did with Babylon's siege of Jerusalem. And perhaps that eagle symbol is what Rome carried, rather than Assyria or Babylon. Rome certainly came from further away. Perhaps these verses in Deuteronomy are about the end of the Old Covenant completely and the beginning and impetus for the New Covenant. There was no Israel after 70 AD.
2023 - I think there was cannibalism during Babylon's siege of Jerusalem too.
2024 - Double punishment. God later tells them they will be doubly punished. The first was when Babylon came, the second when Rome came. So that part is fulfilled. But he also says that he will continue to punish Israel until his wrath is spent on them. That wrath started with two successful invasions of Israel, 600 years apart, and continues now with worldwide antisemitism, a nation scattered all over the planet, always disdained, always mistreated, never feared or respected. All this is in Dt 28.
These verses sum up:
58 "If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, 59 then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 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. [Deu 28:58-61 ESV]
It seems that invaders and siege are still not the last. The final demise of the nation will be brought about by disease. This is the ultimate punishment, in that it can take out a whole nation - where invaders would let some live as slaves.
I am pasting a lot of verses...this is God talking:
63 And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. [Deu 28:63 ESV]
This one got my attention because it says God takes delight in bringing ruin. I suspect this is more in the context of justice than pleasure. God delights in justice and righteousness, whether positive or negative for the recipients. MSB has some references here, but no comment.
And then there is this, that reminds me of the persecution of the Jews when Hitler came to power:
64 "And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. [Deu 28:64-66 ESV]
2024 - Here is another phrase:
61 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. 62 Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God. [Deu 28:61-62 ESV]. Has this happened? Did these diseases overtake Israel in 586 BC and 70 AD? Or are they still out there somewhere? It is hard to imagine that such a thing could happen with them scattered all over the globe. But it could have happened before, twice. I don't think there's a lot of documentation of what happened in Jerusalem and other places during those two periods.
No rest. Hearts fluttering constantly for fear. No backbone to fight back. Cowering like rabbits.
2021 - Here, in vss 15-68, are the verses I've been looking for. This is the progression from God's correction to punishment to wrath, when a nation disobeys God, leaves Him out, worships other gods or none at all. This is the promised pattern of how God deals with unruly nations. These are the things we should be looking for in the news every day as we try to determine if what is going on in the US is about the US and our apostasy, or is about the end of the age, and we are just the first that must be taken out of the way. If the second, then the pattern will be different, because it will be Satan taking us out and not God correcting us. The difference should be obvious. I want to go through these "steps" in detail, and put the chronology together and be able to link the daily news directly into it and thus see where exactly we are.
2024 - Another aspect of all this:
68 And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer." [Deu 28:68 ESV]. I don't believe anything even remotely like this has occurred. This doesn't look like a prophecy of a few but of many. Will this be what occurs between the rapture and the defeat of Antichrist? You wouldn't think so, because the Jews will be turning back to God in great numbers at that time. But perhaps this is the culmination of God's wrath toward them, in making them sink so low as to sell themselves back into Egyptian slavery. I suppose it is also possible that it just never got this bad. This also is a part of that conditional covenant. The "no one will buy you" part though speaks of a time when no one will want anything to do with Jews, perhaps because they are hotly pursued where ever they go by the followers of the SoP.
2024 - The note on 28:68 in MSB says that after 70 AD, Titus shipped 17,000 adult Jews to Egypt to perform hard labor there and had those who were under 17 years old publicly sold. He goes on to say that under Hadrian, countless Jews were sold and suffered such bondage and cruelty. BUT, you cannot sell them without buyers. So perhaps this is still to come, as a part of end times persecution.