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27,299 commentary entries
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:40
Thine olive shall cast his fruit. Some would render here "shall be plundered or rooted out," taking the verb יִשַּׁל as the Niph. of שָׁלַל; but the majority regard it as part of the verb נָשַׁל, and render "shall drop…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:42
Consume; literally, take possession of. The name given here to the ravaging insect is not the same as in Deuteronomy 28:38; but there can be no doubt it is the locust that is intended. Deuteronomy 28:43, Deuteronomy 28:…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:45-68
The remoter consequences of rebellion. The evil if uncured aggravates itself—develops new symptoms; and as the evil grows, so misery increases likewise. The man of God foresees a yet further stage of misery in the dista…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:46
These curses would be for a sign and for a wonder, exciting astonishment and dismay in the beholder, and showing that it was indeed the hand of God that was upon the rebellious nation. Forever. This, though it may imply…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:47-57
Fourth group. In order still more to impress on the minds of the people the evil and danger of rebellion and apostasy, Moses enlarges on the calamities that would ensue on their being given up to the power of the heathe…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:49-59
The extremity of the curse. A truly appalling description of the evils which would overtake apostate Israel; one, too, not more remarkable for the sustained vehemence and energy of its thought and diction, than for the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:49
As the eagle flieth. The eagle was the common ensign of the legion in the Roman army; and by the Latin writers aquila (eagle) is sometimes used for a legion (Caes; 'Hisp.,' 30; cf. Matthew 24:28).
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:50
A nation of fierce countenance; literally, firm or hard of face; i.e. obdurate and determined (cf. Proverbs 21:29; Daniel 8:23).
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:52
The high and fenced walls. God's enemies will ultimately be driven from all their defenses. Cities "great and fenced up to heaven" will be no defense to them, any more than they were to the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 9:1).…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:52-57
(Cf. Le 26:29; 2 Kings 6:24-30; Jeremiah 19:9; Lain. Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 4:10.)
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:56
So intense should be the hunger, that the delicate and sensitive woman, brought up in luxury, and who would not set her foot on the ground lest she should be fatigued by the exertion or offended by coming in contact wit…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:57
Her young one; literally, her after-birth. The Hebrew suggests an extreme of horror beyond what the Authorized Version indicates.
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:58
This book. Not the Book of Deuteronomy, which was not then written, but the Book of the Law, the Torah, delivered by Moses to Israel from God; and of which he had been, in his addresses to the people, recapitulating som…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:58-68
Fifth group. Even these fearful calamities would not be the consummation of their punishment. If they should be obstinate in their rebellion; if they would not observe to do all that the Law delivered by Moses enjoined…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:62
(Cf. Deuteronomy 4:27; Deuteronomy 10:22; Nehemiah 9:23.)
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:63
(Cf. Deuteronomy 30:9; Jeremiah 32:41.) He, whose joy it had been to do them good, should rejoice over their destruction (of. Proverbs 1:26).
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:63
God rejoicing in judgment. The language in this verse is bold, almost beyond example. It jars with our conceptions of the Divine Being to think of him as "rejoicing" in the destruction of even the most obdurate of sinne…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:64
Those of them that survived the plagues that should come upon them, and the horrors of the siege, should be scattered amongst all nations to the ends of the earth, and there subjugated to the utmost indignities and suff…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:65-69
Mental torture as a result of sin. The picture here drawn is true in an especial sense of the Jews in their state of exile, maddened, affrighted, and kept in continual torture and suspense by the persecutions and miseri…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:66
Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; literally, Thy life shall be hung up before thee; i.e. shall be like an object suspended by a thread which hangs dangling before the view, ready to fall or to be cut down at any…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:68
Worst of all, they should be again reduced to bondage, carried back to Egypt, put up for sale as slaves, and be so utterly despicable that no one would purchase them. Bring thee into Egypt again. "If the Exodus was the…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1
Thou shalt call them to mind (cf. 1 Kings 8:47, where the same expression is rendered by "bethink themselves"). This is the meaning here also; it is not the mere recollection of the curse and the blessing that is referr…
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-20
EXPOSITION
The Pulpit Commentary on Deuteronomy 30:1-10
Though rejected and exiled because of rebellion and apostasy, Israel should not be absolutely or forever cast off. When dispersed among the nations, if the people should return to Jehovah their God, he would again recei…