Deuteronomy 28:20-23

Curses by Disease and Drought

28:20 “The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you ¹  in everything you undertake ²  until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. ³  28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases ⁴  until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He ⁵  will afflict you with weakness, ⁶  fever, inflammation, infection, ⁷  sword, ⁸  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 28:23 The ⁹  sky ¹⁰  above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron.

[28:20]  ¹ tn Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” (NASB and NIV similar); NRSV “disaster, panic, and frustration.”

[28:20]  ² tn Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”

[28:20]  ³ tc For the MT first person common singular suffix (“me”), the LXX reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The MT’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text.

[28:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”

[28:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:22]  ⁶ tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).

[28:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”

[28:22]  ⁸ tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:23]  ⁹ tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”

[28:23]  ¹⁰ tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.