Deuteronomy 28
The
Blessings And The Curses!*
The
Warnings!
:1-2 “And it shall be, if you
diligently obey the voice of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM, to guard** to do all His
commands which I (Moses) command you today, that JEHOVAH your ELOHIM shall set
you high above all nations of the earth. And all these Blessings shall come
upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM:”
:14-15 “And do not turn aside from
any of the Words which I Am Commanding you today, right or left to go after
other mighty ones (idols, gods) to serve them. And it shall be if you do not
Obey the voice of your ELOHIM, to guard to do all His Commands and His Laws
which I (Moses) command you today, than all these Curses shall come upon you
and overtake you:”
:45-46 “And all these Curses
shall come upon you and they shall pursue and overtake you until you are
destroyed because you did not Obey the voice of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM to
guard His Commands and His Laws which He Commanded you. And they shall be upon
you for a Sign and a Wonder and on your seed (descendants) forever.”
:58-59 “If you do not guard to do
all The Words of This Torah that are written in this book, to Fear this
Esteemed and Awesome Name, JEHOVAH your ELOHIM,
then JEHOVAH shall bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary
Plagues, Great and Lasting Plagues and Grievous and Lasting Sicknesses.”
The
Blessings!
3-13 “Blessed are you in the city
and Blessed are you in the field. Blessed are you in the fruit of your body and
in the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your livestock – the increase of
your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed is your basket and your
kneading bowl. Blessed are you when you come in and blessed are you when you go
out. JEHOVAH causes your enemies which rise before you to be smitten before
your face – they come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.
JEHOVAH Commands the Blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which
you set your hand and shall Bless you in the land which JEHOVAH your ELOHIM is
giving you. JEHOVAH does establish you as a set-apart (holy) people to Himself,
as he has sworn to you, if you guard the Commands of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM and
walk in His Ways. And all peoples of the earth shall see that The Name of
JEHAVAH is called upon you and they shall be afraid of you. And JEHOVAH shall
make you to have plenty of what is good, in all the fruit of your body, in the
fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, in the land of which
JEHOVAH swore to your fathers to give you. JEHOVAH opens to you His Good
Treasure, the heavens to give the rain to your land in its season and to Bless
all the work of your hand. And you shall lent to many nations, but you do not
borrow. And JEHOVAH shall make you he head and not the tail, and you shall be
only on top and not be beneath, if you Obey the Commands of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM,
which I (Moses) command you today to guard and do.” (Matthew 6:25-34; John
8:29-32)
The
Curses!
:16-44, 47-68 “Cursed are you in
the city and cursed are you in the field. Cursed is your basket and your
kneading bowl. Cursed is the fruit of your body and the fruit of your land, the
increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed are you when
you come in and cursed are you when you go out (:3-6). JEHOVAH sends on you the
Curse, the Confusion and the Rebuke in all that you set your hand to do (:8), until
you are Destroyed and until you Perish quickly, because of the evil in your
doings by which you have forsaken Me. JEHOVAH makes the Plague cling to you until
He has Consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. JEHOVAH
strikes you with Wasting Disease and with Inflammation and with Burning and
with Extreme Heat (Revelation 16:8-9) and with the Sword and with Blight and
with Mildew; and they shall pursue you until you Perish. And your
heavens which are over your head shall be Bronze and the earth which is under
you Iron. JEHOVAH makes the rain of your land Powder and Dust; from the
heavens it comes down on you until you are destroyed. JEHOVAH causes you to
be Defeated before your Enemies – you go out one way against them and flee
seven ways before them; and you shall become a Horror to all the reigns
(kingdoms) of the earth (:7); your carcasses shall be Food for all the
birds of the heavens (Ezekiel 39:17-20; Revelation 19:17-21 and the beasts of
the earth, with no one to frighten them away. JEHOVAH will strike you with the
boils of Mitsrayim (Egypt, Exodus 9:8-11) with tumors, with scab and with the
itch, from which you are unable to be healed. JEHOVAH shall Strike you
with Madness and Blindness and Bewilderment of Heart; and you shall be Grouping
at noon, as a blind man groups in darkness (Revelation 16:10-11) and not prosper
in your ways; and you shall be Depressed and Plundered all the days with no
one to Save you. You shall become engaged to a wife, but another man does
lie with her; you build a house , but do not dwell in it. You plant a vineyard,
but do not use its fruit. Your ox is slaughtered before your eyes, but you do
not eat it; your donkey is violently taken from before you and it is not given
back to you; your sheep are given to your enemies with on one to save them.
Your sons and your daughters are given to another people and your eyes look and
fail for them all day long and your hand powerless. A people you have not know
eat the fruit of your land and all your labors; and you shall be Oppressed
and Crushed all the days. And you shall be maddened because of the sight
which your eyes see. JEHOVAH strikes you in the knees and on the legs with
evil boils of which you are unable to be healed and from the sole of your foot
to the top of your head. JEHOVAH brings you and the sovereign whom you set over
you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known and there you
will serve other mighty ones, wood and stone. Thus you shall become an Astonishment,
a Proverb and a Mockery among all the peoples to which JEHOVAH drives you. You
take much seed out into the field but gather little in, for the locust consumes
it. You plant vineyards and shall labor, but you neither drink of the wine nor
gather, for the worm eats it (Joel1:4-12). You have olive trees in all your
border, but you do not anoint with oil, for your olives drop off. You bring
forth sons and daughters, but they are not with you, for they go into captivity.
Locusts possess all your trees and the fruit of the ground (Exodus 10:12-14).
The sojourner who resides among you rises higher and higher above you, but you
come down lower and lower; he lends to you, but you do not lend to him; he
is the head and you are the tail….Because you did not Serve JEHOVAH your
ELOHIM with Joy and Gladness of Heart for all the Plenty, you shall Serve your Enemies
whom JEHOVAH sends against you, in Hunger and in Thirst and in Nakedness and in
Need of all and he shall put a Yoke of Iron on your Neck until he has Destroyed
you. JEHOVAH shall bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of
the earth, as swift as an eagle flies, a nation whose language you shall not
understand, a fierce-looking nation which shall no regard for the elderly nor
show favor for the young. And they shall eat the fruit of your livestock and
the fruit of your land until you are destroyed; they leave no grain nor
new wine, nor oil nor the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your
flocks, until they have destroyed you. And they shall besiege you at all
your gates till your high and fenced walls, in which you are trusting, come
down in all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates in all your
land which JEHOVAH your ELOHIM has given you. And you shall eat the fruit of
your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom JEHOVAH your
ELOHIM has given you, in the siege and distress in which your enemies distress
you. The man among you who is tender (sensitive) and who is very delicate
(refined), his eye is evil (Lit. his eye shall be evil) against his
brother, against the wife of his bosom and against the rest of his children
whom he leaves behind, against giving any of them the flesh of his children
that he eats, because it is all that has been left to him (he has nothing
left) in the siege and distress with which your enemy distresses you in all
your gates. The tender (sensitive) and delicate (refined) woman
among you, who has not tried to set the sole of her foot on the ground because
of her delicateness and tenderness, her eye (Lit. her eye shall be evil
toward) is evil against the husband of her bosom and against her son and
against her daughter and against her seed (afterbirth or placenta)
which comes out from between her feet; and her children whom she bears for she
eats them in concealment for lack of all (everything), in the siege and
distress with which your enemy distresses you in all your gates (2 Kings 6:24-30)…And
He shall bring back on you all the diseases of Mitsrayim, of which you were
afraid and they shall cling to you, also every sickness and every plague that
is written in the Book of this Torah (Revelation 22:18-19), JEHOVAH does
bring upon you until you are destroyed! And you shall be left with few men,
although you had become as numerous as the stars of the heavens, because you
did not Obey the voice of JEHOVAH your ELOHIM.
And it shall be that as JEHOVAH rejoiced*** over you to do you Good and
Increase you (Zephaniah 3:16-17), so JEHOVAH does rejoice over you to
destroy you and lay waste; and you shall be plucked (torn) from off
the land which you go to possess. And JOHOVAH shall Scatter you among all
peoples, from one end of the earth to the other (this happened in 70AD), and
there you shall serve other mighty ones, which neither you nor your fathers
have known, wood and stone. And among those nations you are to find no Rest,
nor have a Resting place for the sole of your foot. But there JEHOVAH shall
give you a Trembling heart and Failing eyes and Sorrow of Being. And your Life
shall be Hanging in Suspense before you and you shall Fear night and day and
not be certain of your Life. In the morning you say, ‘Oh, that it were evening!’
and at evening you say, ‘Oh, that it were morning!’ because of the Fear of your
heart, with which you Fear and because of the sight which your eyes see. And
JEHOVAH shall bring you back to Mitsrayim in ships, by a way of which I said to
you, ‘You are never to see it again (Deuteronomy 17:16).’ And there you shall be Sold to your enemies as
male and female Slaves, but no one to buy (no one will buy you).”
* There are 8 verses of Warnings;10
verses of Blessings; and 50 verses of Curses!
** Graur = Observe
***Rejoice, verse 68 rejoiced and
rejoice are the same Hebrew word, sûws or sîys = a primary root; to be bright, i.e.
cheerful:-be glad, x greatly, joy, make mirth, rejoice.
This is an interesting concept
since JEHOVAH says He takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner (Ezekiel 18:32,
33:11)