Deuteronomy 28:27

27 Yahweh will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof you can 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 Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth.
26 Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away.
27 Yahweh will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, whereof you can not be healed.
28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;
29 and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you.
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