45 “All these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you till you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that he commanded you. 46 They shall be a sign and a wonder against you and your offspring forever. 47 Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, 48 therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand, 50 a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young. 51 It shall eat the offspring of your cattle and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; it also shall not leave you grain, wine, or oil, the increase of your herds or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.
52 “They shall besiege you in all your towns, until your high and fortified walls, in which you trusted, come down throughout all your land. And they shall besiege you in all your towns throughout all your land, which the Lord your God has given you. 53 And you shall eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. 54 The man who is the most tender and refined among you will begrudge food to his brother, to the wife he embraces,1 and to the last of the children whom he has left, 55 so that he will not give to any of them any of the flesh of his children whom he is eating, because he has nothing else left, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your towns. 56 The most tender and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and tender, will begrudge to the husband she embraces,2 to her son and to her daughter, 57 her afterbirth that comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears, because lacking everything she will eat them secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your towns.
58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 59 then the Lord will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the Lord will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. 62 Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And as the Lord took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the Lord will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.
64 “And the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the Lord will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see. 68 And the Lord will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”
293 These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb.
Section Overview: War and Exile
The threats that will reduce Israel to being the least of all nations are further developed in a sequence of events that will reverse the entrance to the land now underway. Through war and plagues Israel will return the way they have come. They will be in exile as they were in Egypt. Two transitional verses divide this section into two topics. Deuteronomy 28:45 is a transitional recapitulation of verse 15, forming an inclusio around the curses. Proof of the disobedience of Israel will be evident through invasion and siege warfare. The horrors of such warfare are graphically described. Verse 58 repeats the condition of obedience and transitions to the decimation of Israel and its ultimate exile.
The threats of this section are given in terms reminiscent of Israel’s experience in the bondage of Egypt. The plagues that led to the liberation of Israel were to be a proof of the presence of Yahweh forever, which they would perpetually tell their children in the celebration of the Passover and redemption from Egypt (Ex. 10:1–2). In contrast, the proof of disobeying the Torah will be seen by all nations in Israel’s decimation, a perpetual testimony to their descendants (Deut. 28:46). Israel will once again enter bondage in service to its enemies (v. 48), and all the diseases of Egypt will come upon them (v. 60). Instead of being as numerous as the stars of heaven, they will be few in number, as when they entered Egypt. Finally, they will be taken back to Egypt, where they will sell themselves into slavery (v. 68). Failure to keep the Torah will be the reversal of the blessing of receiving this Torah.
Section Outline
II.F. Covenant Blessings and Curses (28:1–29:1) . . .
3. Curse of Siege Warfare (28:45–57)
a. Proof of Disobedience (28:45–48)
b. Invasion of Ruthless Nation (28:49–51)
c. Starvation during Siege (28:52–57)
4. Plagues and Exile (28:58–68)
a. Failure to Observe the Words of the Torah (28:58)
b. Plagues and Decimation (28:59–62)
c. Exile to a Distant Land (28:63–68)
5. Subscription to the Covenant in Moab (29:1)
Response
The story of Israel was one of covenant disobedience, and so the end of Israel occurred precisely as described in these verses. The city of Jerusalem came under a three-year siege, by which time terrible famine had occurred. The city collapsed and its leaders fled but were captured (2 Kings 25:1–7). The Babylonian king appointed Gedaliah (a member of a noble family of Judah) to rule in Judah (2 Kings 25:22–26). Hatred of the Babylonians resulted in the assassination of Gedaliah. Ishmael (a member of the royal family) and other Judahites had escaped from Jerusalem before the siege began. Ishmael killed numerous other people, including eighty men who had come from Shechem and Shiloh to bring offerings as a rite of mourning (Jer. 41:1–7). The people of Judah, fearful of Babylonian revenge, fled to Egypt and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to go with them (Jer. 43:4–7). All of this was contrary to the word of the Lord as declared by Jeremiah. Even when under the curse of the covenant, the people preferred their own way rather than listening to the word of a prophet. The words of Moses were prophetic in declaring the word of the Lord. The path of disobedience left no doubt that the future of Jerusalem would end in famine and exile.
The gruesome nature of famine is not exaggerated in these curses, nor is it limited to the methods of ancient warfare. Modern warfare has created the same horrors, except in numbers inconceivable in ancient times. Perhaps the worst of all time was the Soviet-inflicted genocide estimated to have killed up to ten million Ukrainians in 1932–1933, known as Holodomor. The word holod means “hunger,” and mor means “plague”; the expression moryty holodom means to “inflict death by hunger.” The story of this terror-famine has been documented again with great precision by Anne Applebaum in her book Red Famine.75 Applebaum cites descriptions of this error: “People with swollen legs, covered in sores, could not sit. ‘When such a person sat down, the skin broke, liquid began to run down their legs, the smell was awful, and they felt unbearable pain.’”76 Elsewhere she writes, “One woman remembered a girl who was so emaciated that ‘one could see how her heart was beating beneath the skin.’”77 Starvation causes the heart to fail, sometimes suddenly and without warning. A child would die while sitting at a school desk. What Applebaum provides that are not found in Deuteronomy are beautiful and ugly plates of numerous scenes of state confiscation and starvation of peasants (farmers). It will not do to attempt to avoid such realities by not talking about them. The truth of Deuteronomy will continue to be repeated because of human pride, pursuit of power, and denial of God, just as in Deuteronomy.