Deuteronomy 28:28-38

28 The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind.
29 At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark. You will be unsuccessful in everything you do; day after day you will be oppressed and robbed, with no one to rescue you.
30 You will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her and rape her. You will build a house, but you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will not even begin to enjoy its fruit.
31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will eat none of it. Your donkey will be forcibly taken from you and will not be returned. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue them.
32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation, and you will wear out your eyes watching for them day after day, powerless to lift a hand.
33 A people that you do not know will eat what your land and labor produce, and you will have nothing but cruel oppression all your days.
34 The sights you see will drive you mad.
35 The LORD will afflict your knees and legs with painful boils that cannot be cured, spreading from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.
36 The LORD will drive you and the king you set over you to a nation unknown to you or your ancestors. There you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone.
37 You will become a thing of horror, a byword and an object of ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.
38 You will sow much seed in the field but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it.

Deuteronomy 28:28-38 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 28

In this chapter Moses enlarges on the blessings and the curses which belong, the one to the doers, the other to the transgressors of the law; the blessings, De 28:1-14; the curses, some of which concern individual persons, others the whole nation and body of people, and that both under the former and present dispensations, and which had their fulfilment in their former captivities, and more especially in their present dispersion, De 28:15-68.

Cross References 21

  • 1. Genesis 19:11; Exodus 10:21; Job 5:14; Job 12:25; Job 24:13; Job 38:15; Isaiah 59:10
  • 2. Judges 3:9; 2 Kings 13:5; Esther 4:14; Isaiah 19:20; Isaiah 43:11; Hosea 13:4; Obadiah 1:21
  • 3. Job 31:10; Jeremiah 8:10
  • 4. Isaiah 65:22; Amos 5:11
  • 5. Jeremiah 12:13
  • 6. ver 41
  • 7. Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 22:17
  • 8. Jeremiah 5:15-17; Ezekiel 25:4
  • 9. ver 67
  • 10. ver 27; Deuteronomy 7:15; Revelation 16:2
  • 11. Job 2:7; Job 7:5; Job 13:28; Job 30:17,30; Isaiah 1:6
  • 12. 1 Samuel 12:25; 2 Kings 17:4,6; 2 Kings 24:12,14; 2 Kings 25:7,11
  • 13. S Deuteronomy 4:27; 2 Kings 24:14; 2 Kings 25:7,11; 2 Chronicles 33:11; 2 Chronicles 36:21; Ezra 5:12; Jeremiah 15:14; Jeremiah 16:13; Jeremiah 27:20; Jeremiah 39:1-9; Jeremiah 52:28; Lamentations 1:3
  • 14. S Deuteronomy 4:28
  • 15. ver 25; Jeremiah 42:18; Ezekiel 5:15
  • 16. Psalms 22:7; Psalms 39:8; Psalms 44:13; Psalms 64:8; Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 48:27; Micah 6:16
  • 17. 2 Chronicles 7:20; Ezra 9:7; Jeremiah 44:8
  • 18. 1 Kings 9:7; Psalms 44:14; Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 25:9,18; Jeremiah 29:18; Lamentations 2:15
  • 19. Leviticus 26:20; Psalms 129:7; Isaiah 5:10; Jeremiah 12:13; Hosea 8:7; Micah 6:15; Haggai 1:6,9; Haggai 2:16
  • 20. S Exodus 10:4
  • 21. S Exodus 10:15; Joel 1:4
Scripture quoted by permission.  Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®.  NIV®.  Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica.  All rights reserved worldwide.