Deuteronomy 28:46
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These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This chapter is a very large exposition of two words in the foregoing chapter, the blessing and the curse. Those were pronounced blessed in general that were obedient, and those cursed that were disobedient; but, because generals are not so affecting, Moses here descends to particulars, and describes the blessing and the curse, not in their fountains (these are out of sight, and therefore the most considerable, yet least considered, the favour of God the spring of all the blessings, and the wrath of God the spring of all the curses), but in their streams, the sensible effects of the blessing and the curse, for they are real things and have real effects. I. He describes the blessings that should come upon them if they were obedient; personal, family, and especially national, for in that capacity especially they are here treated with (Deu 28:1-14). II. He more largely describes the curses which would come upon them if they were disobedient; such as would be, I. Their extreme vexation (v. 15-44). 2. Their utter ruin and destruction at last (v. 45-68). This chapter is much to the same purport with Lev. 26, setting before them life and death, good and evil; and the promise, in the close of that chapter, of their restoration, upon their repentance, is here likewise more largely repeated, ch. 30. Thus, as they had precept upon precept in the repetition of the law, so they had line upon line in the repetition of the promises and threatenings. And these are both there and here delivered, not only as sanctions of the law, what should be conditionally, but as predictions of the event, what would be certainly, that for a while the people of Israel would be happy in their obedience, but that at length they would be undone by their disobedience; and therefore it is said (Deu 30:1) th…
Open source ↗28:46 sign and warning (literally sign and wonder): This expression indicates God’s miraculous acts that arrest the attention of those who witness them and attest to his power and sovereignty (see 6:22). They are intended to produce intense fear among his own people.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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Here am I, and the children the LORD has given me as signs and symbols in Israel from the LORD of Hosts, who dwells on Mount Zion.
I will set My face against that man and make him a sign and a proverb; I will cut him off from among My people. Then you will know that I am the LORD.
You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
to make them a ruin, an object of horror and contempt and cursing, as they are to this day—Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and officials;
The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.
I will make this city a desolation and an object of scorn. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.
The LORD uprooted them from their land in His anger, rage, and great wrath, and He cast them into another land, where they are today.’
Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.
And wherever they went among the nations, they profaned My holy name, because it was said of them, ‘These are the people of the LORD, yet they had to leave His land.’