28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;
Now the Spirit of Yahweh departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Yahweh troubled him.
You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine that makes us stagger.
He said, "Go, and tell this people, 'You hear indeed, But don't understand; And you see indeed, But don't perceive.' Make the heart of this people fat; Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And turn again, and be healed."
The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how do you say to Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? Where then are your wise men? and let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Hosts has purposed concerning Egypt. The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Memphis are deceived; they have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the corner-stone of her tribes. Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the midst of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in every work of it, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit. Neither shall there be for Egypt any work, which head or tail, palm-branch or rush, may do. In that day shall the Egyptians be like women; and they shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of Yahweh of Hosts, which he shakes over them. The land of Judah shall become a terror to Egypt; everyone to whom mention is made of it shall be afraid, because of the purpose of Yahweh of Hosts, which he purposes against it.
Behold, I will do a new thing; now shall it spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves; men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world: for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie;
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 28
Commentary on Deuteronomy 28 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 28
This chapter is a very large exposition of two words in the foregoing chapter, the blessing and the curse. Those were pronounced blessed in general that were obedient, and those cursed that were disobedient; but, because generals are not so affecting, Moses here descends to particulars, and describes the blessing and the curse, not in their fountains (these are out of sight, and therefore the most considerable, yet least considered, the favour of God the spring of all the blessings, and the wrath of God the spring of all the curses), but in their streams, the sensible effects of the blessing and the curse, for they are real things and have real effects.
Deu 28:1-14
The blessings are here put before the curses, to intimate,
Deu 28:15-44
Having viewed the bright side of the cloud, which is towards the obedient, we have now presented to us the dark side, which is towards the disobedient. If we do not keep God's commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which is as comprehensive of all misery as the blessing is of all happiness. Observe,
Deu 28:45-68
One would have thought that enough had been said to possess them with a dread of that wrath of God which is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. But to show how deep the treasures of that wrath are, and that still there is more and worse behind, Moses, when one would have thought that he had concluded this dismal subject, begins again, and adds to this roll of curses many similar words: as Jeremiah did to his, Jer. 36:32. It should seem that in the former part of this commination Moses foretells their captivity in Babylon, and the calamities which introduced and attended that, by which, even after their return, they were brought to that low and poor condition which is described, v. 44. That their enemies should be the head, and they the tail: but here, in this latter part, he foretels their last destruction by the Romans and their dispersion thereupon. And the present deplorable state of the Jewish nation, and of all that have incorporated themselves with them, by embracing their religion, does so fully and exactly answer to the prediction in these verses that it serves for an incontestable proof of the truth of prophecy, and consequently of the divine authority of the scripture. And, this last destruction being here represented as more dreadful than the former, it shows that their sin, in rejecting Christ and his gospel, was more heinous and more provoking to God than idolatry itself, and left them more under the power of Satan; for their captivity in Babylon cured them effectually of their idolatry in seventy years' time; but under this last destruction now for above 1600 years they continue incurably averse to the Lord Jesus. Observe,