
Text -- Deuteronomy 28:57 (NET)




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collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)
Heb.

Wesley: Deu 28:57 - -- birth: that which was loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together with it she shall eat the child which was wrapt up in it, and may...
birth: that which was loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together with it she shall eat the child which was wrapt up in it, and may be included in this expression.

Or, which she shall have born, that is, her more grown children.

Wesley: Deu 28:57 - -- This was fulfilled more than once, to the perpetual reproach of the Jewish nation. Never was the like done either by Greek or Barbarian. See the fruit...
This was fulfilled more than once, to the perpetual reproach of the Jewish nation. Never was the like done either by Greek or Barbarian. See the fruit of being abandoned by God!
JFB -> Deu 28:53-57
JFB: Deu 28:53-57 - -- (See 2Ki 6:29; Lam 4:10). Such were the dreadful extremities to which the inhabitants during the siege were reduced that many women sustained a wretch...
(See 2Ki 6:29; Lam 4:10). Such were the dreadful extremities to which the inhabitants during the siege were reduced that many women sustained a wretched existence by eating the flesh of their own children. Parental affection was extinguished, and the nearest relatives were jealously, avoided, lest they should discover and demand a share of the revolting viands.
Clarke -> Deu 28:57
Clarke: Deu 28:57 - -- Toward her young one - and toward her children which she shall bear - There seems to be a species of tautology in the two clauses of this verse, whi...
Toward her young one - and toward her children which she shall bear - There seems to be a species of tautology in the two clauses of this verse, which may be prevented by translating the last word,
TSK -> Deu 28:57

collapse allCommentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)
Barnes -> Deu 28:15-68
Barnes: Deu 28:15-68 - -- The curses correspond in form and number Deu 28:15-19 to the blessings Deu 28:3-6, and the special modes in which these threats should be executed a...
The curses correspond in form and number Deu 28:15-19 to the blessings Deu 28:3-6, and the special modes in which these threats should be executed are described in five groups of denunciations Deut. 28:20-68.
First series of judgments. The curse of God should rest on all they did, and should issue in manifold forms of disease, in famine, and in defeat in war.
Vexation - Rather, confusion: the word in the original is used Deu 7:23; 1Sa 14:20 for the panic and disorder with which the curse of God smites His foes.
"Blasting"denotes (compare Gen 41:23) the result of the scorching east wind; "mildew"that of an untimely blight falling on the green ear, withering it and marring its produce.
When the heat is very great the atmosphere in Palestine is often filled with dust and sand; the wind is a burning sirocco, and the air comparable to the glowing heat at the mouth of a furnace.
Shalt be removed - See the margin. The threat differs from that in Lev 26:33, which refers to a dispersion of the people among the pagan. Here it is meant that they should be tossed to and fro at the will of others, driven from one country to another without any certain settlement.
Second series of judgments on the body, mind, and outward circumstances of the sinners.
The "botch"(rather "boil;"see Exo 9:9), the "emerods"or tumors 1Sa 5:6, 1Sa 5:9, the "scab"and "itch"represent the various forms of the loathsome skin diseases which are common in Syria and Egypt.
Mental maladies shah be added to those sore bodily plagues, and should Deu 28:29-34 reduce the sufferers to powerlessness before their enemies and oppressors.
Blindness - Most probably mental blindness; compare Lam 4:14; Zep 1:17; 2Co 3:14 ff.
See the marginal references for the fulfillment of these judgments.
Third series of judgments, affecting every kind of labor and enterprise until it had accomplished the total ruin of the nation, and its subjection to its enemies.
Worms - i. e. the vine-weevil. Naturalists prescribed elaborate precautions against its ravages.
Cast ... - Some prefer "shall be spoiled"or "plundered."
Contrast Deu 28:12 and Deu 28:13.
Forever - Yet "the remnant"Rom 9:27; Rom 11:5 would by faith and obedience become a holy seed.
Fourth series of judgments, descriptive of the calamities and horrors which should ensue when Israel should be subjugated by its foreign foes.
The description (compare the marginal references) applies undoubtedly to the Chaldeans, and in a degree to other nations also whom God raised up as ministers of vengeance upon apostate Israel (e. g. the Medes). But it only needs to read this part of the denunciation, and to compare it with the narrative of Josephus, to see that its full and exact accomplishment took place in the wars of Vespasian and Titus against the Jews, as indeed the Jews themselves generally admit.
The eagle - The Roman ensign; compare Mat 24:28; and consult throughout this passage the marginal references.
Evil - i. e. grudging; compare Deu 15:9.
Young one - The "afterbirth"(see the margin). The Hebrew text in fact suggests an extremity of horror which the King James Version fails to exhibit. Compare 2Ki 6:29.
Fifth series of judgments. The uprooting of Israel from the promised land, and its dispersion among other nations. Examine the marginal references.
In this book - i. e. in the book of the Law, or the Pentateuch in so far as it contains commands of God to Israel. Deuteronomy is included, but not exclusively intended. So Deu 28:61; compare Deu 27:3 and note, Deu 31:9.
Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee - i. e. shall be hanging as it were on a thread, and that before thine own eyes. The fathers regard this passage as suggesting in a secondary or mystical sense Christ hanging on the cross, as the life of the Jews who would not believe in Him.
This is the climax. As the Exodus from Egypt was as it were the birth of the nation into its covenant relationship with God, so the return to the house of bondage is in like manner the death of it. The mode of conveyance, "in ships,"is added to heighten the contrast. They crossed the sea from Egypt with a high hand. the waves being parted before them. They should go back again cooped up in slaveships.
There ye shall be sold - Rather, "there shall ye offer yourselves, or be offered for sale."This denunciation was literally fulfilled on more than one occasion: most signally when many thousand Jews were sold into slavery and sent into Egypt by Titus; but also under Hadrian, when numbers were sold at Rachel’ s grave Gen 35:19.
No man shall buy you - i. e. no one shall venture even to employ you as slaves, regarding you as accursed of God, and to be shunned in everything.
Poole -> Deu 28:57
Poole: Deu 28:57 - -- Her young one Heb. after-birth ; that which was loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together with it she shall eat the child which...
Her young one Heb. after-birth ; that which was loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together with it she shall eat the child which was wrapt up in it, and may be included in this expression.
Which she shall bear or, which she shall have born, i.e. her more grown children.
Haydock -> Deu 28:57
Haydock: Deu 28:57 - -- And the filth, &c. They will eat the child just born, through extreme hunger, Lamentations ii. 20. The Chaldean, Septuagint, &c., agree with the Vu...
And the filth, &c. They will eat the child just born, through extreme hunger, Lamentations ii. 20. The Chaldean, Septuagint, &c., agree with the Vulgate, which conveys an idea of the most horrible distress. (Calmet) ---
Indeed it is so horrible and disgusting, that we find no vestiges in history of the completion of the prophecy, taken in this sense. Some, therefore, explain the original, "And her feast, or dressed meat, (shall be) between her feet, even of her own children, which she shall bring forth." (Bate, p. 71.; Parkhurst on itsoth. ) Others believe that the Hebrew is corrupted by the insertion of b before another b, in children; and by the transposition or addition of i in the first word; so that to translate, with the generality of interpreters, "She shall grudge ever bit, or her eye shall be evil towards her husband, and towards her son, and towards her daughter, and towards her afterbirth....and towards her sons which she shall have brought forth," seems absurd enough. If the woman's eye be evil towards her son, and towards her afterbirth, (which, however, is incapable of depriving her of food) what need of repeating, and towards her sons? Yet the present construction requires this translation; though it is obvious that the woman must have been actuated in a different manner, with respect to these different things, as all allow that she was afraid lest those who were grown up, how dear soever to her, might deprive her of her abominable food, while her eye was evil towards her afterbirth, (or secundines, if the word ssolithe can have this meaning) because she was designing to eat it privately. The Septuagint translate Korion, "the skin," or Chorion, "a little girl," (Houbigant) unless (Haydock) the former word may rather have this signification. Hill. ---
The Arabic deviates a little from the Hebrew, "She will deny her husband, her son, and her daughter, her secundies, which fall from her." If, therefore, the two corrections proposed by Houbigant, and approved by Kennicott, (who produces for one of them ( ubnie ) the authority of the oldest Hebrew manuscript in England) be admitted, all will be clear and conformable to the event. "[Ver.] 56. Her eye shall be evil towards....her son, and towards her daughter. [Ver.] 57. And she shall boil, ( ubossilthe, instead of ubossolithe ) that which cometh out from between her feet, even her children, ( ubnie, not ubobnie ) which she shall bear; for she shall eat them, for want of all things, secretly." This prophetical and terrible denunciation was realized in the siege of Samaria, when two women agreed to eat their own children, one of whom was actually boiled, and the very word here in dispute is used, 4 Kings vi. 29. (Kennicott) ---
And in the last siege of Jerusalem we read (Josephus, [Antiquities?] vii. 8) of a mother killing her own child, to satisfy the cravings of hunger and rage against the rioters who had repeatedly plundered her house. Her name was Mary. She also boiled her suckling infant, and actually devoured a part of it. (Haydock)
Gill -> Deu 28:57
Gill: Deu 28:57 - -- And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet,.... Or her secundine, "her afterbirth", as in the margin of our Bibles; so the Targum ...
And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet,.... Or her secundine, "her afterbirth", as in the margin of our Bibles; so the Targum of Jonathan and Aben Ezra interpret it. The latter describes it,"the place of the fetus, while it abides in the womb of its mother;''the membrane in which the child is wrapped; and it is suggested that, as nauseous as that is, the delicate woman should eat it, and then the newborn child that was wrapped in it; so Jarchi interprets it, little children; though it seems to be distinguished from the children she bears or brings forth in the next clause:
and towards her children which she shall bear; that is, have an evil eye towards them, to eat them as follows:
for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates; that is, eat her children, being reduced to the utmost extremity, being in want of all things, having nothing at all to abate her sharp hunger; which, and nothing else, could incline her, and prevail upon her to do an action so monstrously horrid: and which she would do in the most private and secret manner; both lest others should partake with her, as well as being conscious of the foulness and blackness of the crime, that would not by any means bear the light; and all this owing to the closeness of the siege, and the unspeakable distress they should be in through it. For the illustration of this, take the following story as related by Josephus f;"a woman, whose name was Mary, that lived beyond Jordan, illustrious for her descent and riches fled with the multitude to Jerusalem when besieged carrying with her her substance, and what food she could get that were left to her by the spoilers; where being pressed with famine, she took her sucking child, killed it boiled it, and ate half of it, and then laid up the rest, and covered it; and when the seditious party entered the house, they smelt it, and demanded her food, threatening to kill her if she did not deliver it; which when she brought forth, declaring what she had done, they were struck with horror; to whom she said, this is my son, and this my own deed; eat, for I have eaten; be not more tender or softer than a woman, and more sympathizing or more pitiful than a mother.''All the ideas that this prophecy of Moses conveys are to be met with in this account; as of a woman well bred and delicate, reduced to the utmost distress, and wanting all the necessaries of life, killing her tender infant, a sucking babe, eating it secretly, and laying up the rest covered for another time. If Moses had lived to have known the fact committed, as Josephus did, he could not have expressed it well in stronger and clearer terms than he has done. This is a most amazing instance of a prophecy delivered out two thousand years or more before the fact was done, and of the exact accomplishment of it; and if the observation of a learned critic g can be established, that the first word of this verse should be

expand allCommentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

expand allCommentary -- Verse Range Notes
TSK Synopsis -> Deu 28:1-68
MHCC -> Deu 28:45-68
MHCC: Deu 28:45-68 - --If God inflicts vengeance, what miseries his curse can bring upon mankind, even in this present world! Yet these are but the beginning of sorrows to t...
Matthew Henry -> Deu 28:45-68
Matthew Henry: 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 ungo...
Keil-Delitzsch -> Deu 28:15-68
Keil-Delitzsch: Deu 28:15-68 - --
The Curse, in case Israel should not hearken to the voice of its God, to keep His commandments. After the announcement that all these (the following...
Constable -> Deu 27:1--29:2; Deu 28:15-68
Constable: Deu 27:1--29:2 - --V. PREPARATIONS FOR RENEWING THE COVENANT 27:1--29:1
Moses now gave the new generation its instructions concerni...
