Deuteronomy 11:26-28

Anticipation of a Blessing and Cursing Ceremony

11:26 Take note – I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: ¹  11:27 the blessing if you take to heart ²  the commandments of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, 11:28 and the curse if you pay no attention ³  to his ⁴  commandments and turn from the way I am setting before ⁵  you today to pursue ⁶  other gods you have not known.

Deuteronomy 29:20

29:20 The Lord will be unwilling to forgive him, and his intense anger ⁷  will rage ⁸  against that man; all the curses ⁹  written in this scroll will fall upon him ¹⁰  and the Lord will obliterate his name from memory. ¹¹ 

Isaiah 43:28

43:28 So I defiled your holy princes,

and handed Jacob over to destruction,

and subjected ¹²  Israel to humiliating abuse.”

Matthew 25:41

25:41 “Then he will say ¹³  to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels!

[11:26]  ¹ sn A blessing and a curse. Every extant treaty text of the late Bronze Age attests to a section known as the “blessings and curses,” the former for covenant loyalty and the latter for covenant breach. Blessings were promised rewards for obedience; curses were threatened judgments for disobedience. In the Book of Deuteronomy these are fully developed in 27:1–28:68. Here Moses adumbrates the whole by way of anticipation.

[11:27]  ² tn Heb “listen to,” that is, obey.

[11:28]  ³ tn Heb “do not listen to,” that is, do not obey.

[11:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[11:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “am commanding” (so NASB, NRSV).

[11:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “walk after”; NIV “by following”; NLT “by worshiping.” This is a violation of the first commandment, the most serious of the covenant violations (Deut 5:6-7).

[29:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “the wrath of the Lord and his zeal.” The expression is a hendiadys, a figure in which the second noun becomes adjectival to the first.

[29:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “smoke,” or “smolder.”

[29:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “the entire oath.”

[29:20]  ⁷ tn Or “will lie in wait against him.”

[29:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “blot out his name from under the sky.”

[43:28]  ⁵ tn The word “subjected” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[25:41]  ⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.