Deuteronomy 28:47-51

The Curse of Military Siege

28:47 “Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 28:48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty ¹  you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They ²  will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth ³  as the eagle flies, ⁴  a nation whose language you will not understand, 28:50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 28:51 They ⁵  will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, ⁶  or lambs of your flocks ⁷  until they have destroyed you.

[28:48]  ¹ tn Heb “lack of everything.”

[28:48]  ² tn Heb “he” (also later in this verse). The pronoun is a collective singular referring to the enemies (cf. CEV, NLT). Many translations understand the singular pronoun to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV).

[28:49]  ³ tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”

[28:49]  ⁴ tn Some translations understand this to mean “like an eagle swoops down” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), comparing the swift attack of an eagle to the attack of the Israelites’ enemies.

[28:51]  ⁵ tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).

[28:51]  ⁶ tn Heb “increase of herds.”

[28:51]  ⁷ tn Heb “growth of flocks.”