Deuteronomy 28:21-22

28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases ¹  until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He ²  will afflict you with weakness, ³  fever, inflammation, infection, ⁴  sword, ⁵  blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish.

Deuteronomy 28:25

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁶  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28:38-42

The Curse of Reversed Status

28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. ⁷  28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 28:42 Whirring locusts ⁸  will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil.

Deuteronomy 28:52-61

28:52 They will besiege all of your villages ⁹  until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, ¹⁰  the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege ¹¹  by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict ¹²  you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most ¹³  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ¹⁴  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth ¹⁵  and her newborn children ¹⁶  (since she has nothing else), ¹⁷  because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.

The Curse of Covenant Termination

28:58 “If you refuse to obey ¹⁸  all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 28:59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants – great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt ¹⁹  that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. ²⁰  28:61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, ²¹  until you have perished.

[28:21]  ¹ tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”

[28:22]  ² tn Heb “The Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:22]  ³ 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]  ⁴ tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”

[28:22]  ⁵ tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:25]  ⁶ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[28:40]  ⁷ tn Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen.

[28:42]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew term denotes some sort of buzzing or whirring insect; some have understood this to be a type of locust (KJV, NIV, CEV), but other insects have also been suggested: “buzzing insects” (NAB); “the cricket” (NASB); “the cicada” (NRSV).

[28:52]  ⁹ tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.

[28:53]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”

[28:53]  ¹¹ tn Heb “siege and stress.”

[28:55]  ¹² tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

[28:56]  ¹³ tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.

[28:56]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”

[28:57]  ¹⁵ tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”

[28:57]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”

[28:57]  ¹⁷ tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”

[28:58]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”

[28:60]  ¹⁹ sn These are the plagues the Lord inflicted on the Egyptians prior to the exodus which, though they did not fall upon the Israelites, must have caused great terror (cf. Exod 15:26).

[28:60]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”

[28:61]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew term תּוֹרָה (torah) can refer either (1) to the whole Pentateuch or, more likely, (2) to the book of Deuteronomy or even (3) only to this curse section of the covenant text. “Scroll” better reflects the actual document, since “book” conveys the notion of a bound book with pages to the modern English reader. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the book of this law”; NIV, NLT “this Book of the Law”; TEV “this book of God’s laws and teachings.”