Deuteronomy 28:8-18

8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.

9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him.

10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you.

11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you.

12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none.

13 The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom.

14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

Curses for Disobedience

15 However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.

17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.

Deuteronomy 28:8-18 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

• 1. Deuteronomy 15:4
• 2. S Exodus 19:6; Deuteronomy 7:6
• 3. S Leviticus 26:3
• 4. S Numbers 6:27; 1 Kings 8:43; Jeremiah 25:29; Daniel 9:18; 2 Chronicles 7:14
• 5. S Genesis 30:27
• 6. ver 4; Deuteronomy 30:9; Proverbs 10:22
• 7. Job 38:22; Psalms 135:7; Jeremiah 10:13; Jeremiah 51:16
• 8. Psalms 65:11; Psalms 68:10; Jeremiah 31:12
• 9. S Leviticus 26:4; 1 Kings 8:35-36; 1 Kings 18:1; Psalms 104:13; Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 30:23; Isaiah 32:20
• 10. Isaiah 61:9; Isaiah 65:23; Jeremiah 32:38-41; Malachi 3:12
• 11. ver 44; S Leviticus 25:19; S Deuteronomy 15:3,6; Ezekiel 34:26
• 12. Jeremiah 11:6
• 13. S Deuteronomy 26:19
• 14. S Deuteronomy 5:32; Joshua 1:7
• 15. 1 Kings 9:6; 2 Chronicles 7:19; Leviticus 26:14
• 16. S Deuteronomy 27:26
• 17. Deuteronomy 29:27; Joshua 23:15; 2 Chronicles 12:5; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 2:2
• 18. ver 3
• 19. ver 5
• 20. ver 4