Deuteronomy 28:27

27 The LORD will smite thee with the boil of Egypt and with the hemorrhoids and with the scab and with the itch, of which thou canst not be healed.

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 shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies; thou shalt go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them and shalt be an object of trembling unto all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 And thy carcase shall be food unto all fowls of the air and unto the beasts of the earth, and there shall be no one to frighten them away.
27 The LORD will smite thee with the boil of Egypt and with the hemorrhoids and with the scab and with the itch, of which thou canst not be healed.
28 The LORD shall smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart.
29 And thou shalt grope at noonday as the blind grope in the darkness, and thou shalt not be prospered in thy ways; and thou shalt only be oppressed and spoiled all the days, and there shall be no one to save thee.
The Jubilee Bible (from the Scriptures of the Reformation), edited by Russell M. Stendal, Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2010