Deuteronomy 28:27

27 The LORD will afflict you with Egyptian inflammation, hemorrhoids, rash, and itch. You will be untreatable.

Deuteronomy 28:27 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 28:27

The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt
Which some understand of the leprosy, Of that sort of it called "elephantiasis", frequent among the Egyptians; (See Gill on Leviticus 13:2). Thevenot F9 relates, that when the time of the increase of the Nile expires, the Egyptians are attended with sharp prickings in their skin like needles. So Vansleb says F11,

``the waters of the Nile cause an itch in the skin, which troubles such as drink of them when the river increases. This itch is very small, and appears first about the arms, next upon the stomach, and spreads all about the body, which causes a grievous pain; and not only the river water, but that out of the cisterns drank of, brings it, and it lasts about six weeks.''

Though some take this botch to be the botch and blain which the Egyptians were plagued with for refusing to let Israel go, ( Exodus 9:9 Exodus 9:10 ) ;

and with the emerods;
or haemorrhoids, the piles, a disease of the fundament, attended sometimes with ulcers there; see ( 1 Samuel 5:9 ) ;

and with the scab and with the itch:
the one moist, the other dry, and both very distressing:

whereof thou canst not be healed;
by any art of men; which shows these to be uncommon ones, and from the immediate hand of God.


FOOTNOTES:

F9 Apud Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 3. p. 426, 427.
F11 Relation of a Voyage to Egypt, p. 35, 36.

Deuteronomy 28:27 In-Context

25 The LORD will hand you over defeated to your enemies. You will go out against them by one direction, but you will run for your life away from them in seven different directions. All the earth's kingdoms will be horrified by you.
26 Your corpses will be food for every bird in the sky and animal on earth; no one will frighten them off.
27 The LORD will afflict you with Egyptian inflammation, hemorrhoids, rash, and itch. You will be untreatable.
28 The LORD will make you go crazy, make you blind, make your mind confused.
29 You will fumble around at high noon as blind people fumble around in darkness. Your plans won't prosper. Instead, you will be constantly oppressed and taken advantage of without any savior.

Footnotes 1

Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible