Deuteronomy 28:27

27 "Yahweh shall afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scurvy and with {the skin rash that cannot 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 "Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated {before} your enemies; on one road you shall go {against} them, but you will flee on seven roads {before} them, and you shall become a thing of horror to all of the kingdoms of the earth.
26 And your dead bodies shall be as food for all of the birds of the heaven and to the animals of the earth, and there shall not be {anyone to frighten them away}.
27 "Yahweh shall afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors and with the scurvy and with {the skin rash that cannot be healed}.
28 Yahweh shall afflict you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.
29 And you shall be groping at noon just as the blind person gropes in the dark, and you shall not succeed [in finding] your way, and you shall only be abused and robbed {all the time}, and there will not be {anyone who will rescue you}.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Literally "the skin rash that not it is able it to be healed"
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