Deuteronomy 28:27

27 The Lord smite thee with the botch of Egypt in the seat, and with a malignant scab, and itch, so that 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.

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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 give thee up for slaughter before thine enemies: thou shalt go out against them one way, and flee from their face seven ways; and thou shalt be a dispersion in all the kingdoms of the earth.

26 And your dead men shall be food to the birds of the sky, and to the beasts of the earth; and there shall be none to scare them away.

27 The Lord smite thee with the botch of Egypt in the seat, and with a malignant scab, and itch, so that thou canst not be healed.

28 The Lord smite thee with insanity, and blindness, and astonishment of mind.

29 And thou shalt grope at mid-day, as a blind man would grope in the darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and then thou shalt be unjustly treated, and plundered continually, and there shall be no helper.