Deuteronomy 28:45 - Meaning and Application

It might have seemed that enough had already been said to awaken a dread of God’s wrath against human sin. But Moses shows how deep that wrath runs, and that even more and worse still lies ahead. When it seems he has finished this dark warning, he begins again and adds more curses, just as Jeremiah later did in his own prophecy (Jeremiah 36:32).

The earlier part of this warning seems to point to the Babylonian captivity and the troubles that came with it. Those sufferings left Israel in the low and poor condition described in Deuteronomy 28:44, where their enemies were the head and they were the tail. But here, in the later part, Moses foretells their final destruction by the Romans and the scattering that followed. The present sad condition of the Jewish nation, and of all who joined themselves to them by embracing their religion, fits these verses so closely that it stands as strong proof that prophecy is true and Scripture comes from God.

Because this later destruction is described as worse than the former, it also shows how serious their sin was in rejecting Christ and his gospel. That sin was more offensive to God than idolatry itself, and it left them more under Satan’s power. Their captivity in Babylon cured them of idolatry in seventy years, but after this later judgment, now for more than 1,600 years, they have continued stubbornly opposed to the Lord Jesus.

Notice, then, what is said in general about the wrath of God that would fall on them for their sins. If they would not be ruled by God’s commands, they would surely be ruined by his curse, verses 45 and 46. Because they would not keep his commandments, especially the command to hear and obey the great prophet, these curses would come on them as on a people marked for destruction, a generation under God’s anger. They would become a sign and a wonder. It is astonishing that a people long favored by heaven should be so completely cast off, so widely scattered, and yet still remain distinct among the nations, like Cain, fugitives and wanderers, yet still marked out and known.

If they would not serve God gladly, they would be forced to serve their enemies, verses 47 and 48, so that they would learn the difference between these two conditions (2 Chronicles 12:8). Some think this is also the sense of Ezekiel 20:24, 25, where God says, “Because they despised my statutes, I gave them statutes that were not good.” It is right to expect that those whom God blesses with many good things in this life should serve him. He gives us life and provision so that we may do his work and be useful for his glory.

The more God gives us, the more cheerfully we should serve him. Our abundance should make obedience easier, like oil that helps the wheels turn. God is a Master who wants willing service and delights to hear us sing while we work. But if we receive God’s gifts and either do not serve him at all or serve him grudgingly, it is just for him to make us feel want and hard labor. Those who complain without reason deserve to find a reason to complain. “Happy, and yet not easy” is a fitting rebuke for such folly and ingratitude.

If they would not give God glory by reverent obedience, he would win honor from them through amazing plagues, verses 58 and 59. God rightly expects us to fear his awesome name. And what a great name it is: “the LORD your God.” Nothing sounds more majestic than that. Nothing is more comforting, and nothing is more sobering, than this truth, that the one we answer to is the LORD, the perfectly blessed and all-powerful Creator, and that he is our God, our rightful Lord and owner, from whom we receive commands and to whom we must give account.

We may also rightly expect this, if we do not fear his awesome name, we will feel his awesome plagues. God will be feared in one way or another. All his judgments are dreadful, but some are especially remarkable, carrying clear marks of divine power and justice, so that people who see them can say at once, “Truly, there is a God who judges on earth.”

Moses is here dealing with the same sad subject our Lord spoke about in his farewell teaching to the disciples, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation (Matthew 24). Five things are foretold as steps toward their ruin. First, they would be attacked by a foreign enemy, verses 49 and 50. This refers to the Romans, who would come from far away, swift as an eagle rushing toward its prey. Jesus used the same image when he said, “Where the carcass is, there the eagles will gather” (Matthew 24:28). Bishop Patrick notes that this is even more striking because the Roman armies carried the eagle as their standard. This nation is described as having a fierce face, showing a harsh and unpitying spirit that would spare neither small children nor old people.

Second, the land would be devastated, and the army of foreigners would consume its produce, verse 51. That is the natural result of invasion, especially when the invaders come, as the Romans did, to punish rebels. They would eat the fruit of the people’s cattle and land, so the inhabitants would starve while the conquerors were fully fed.

Third, their cities would be besieged, and the stubbornness of the besieged and the strength of the besiegers would bring them to the very edge of ruin, until at last they fell into the enemy’s hands, verse 52. No place, however strong, would escape, not even Jerusalem itself, though it held out for a long time. Two common results of a long siege are foretold here: terrible famine, and such hunger that they would kill and eat their own children, verse 53. Men, even with their strength, would do this. And although natural law should have moved them to care for their families, they would refuse to share with a starving wife and children any part of the child that had been cruelly butchered, verses 54 and 55.

Women of quality, despite their natural delicacy about food and their love for their children, would become so desperate from hunger that they would lose all human feeling and kill and eat their own children (Deuteronomy 28:56-57). We should notice how bitter such a fate would be for tender and refined women. This should teach us not to pamper ourselves in ease and delicacy, because we do not know what we may be brought to before we die.

The more fastidious we are, the harder it will be to endure want. We also run a greater risk of sacrificing reason, religion, and even natural affection itself to the cries of an uncontrolled appetite. This warning was fulfilled exactly, more than once, to the lasting shame of the Jewish nation. Such a thing was not heard of among Greeks or barbarians, except in the siege of Samaria, where a woman boiled her own son (2 Kings 6:28-29). It was also spoken of as common in the siege of Jerusalem by the Babylonians (Lamentations 4:10).

In the last siege by the Romans, Josephus tells of a noble woman who killed and ate her own child because of the famine. After she had secretly eaten half of it, so she could keep it for herself (Deuteronomy 28:57), the mob, smelling the meat, broke into her house. She showed them the other half, which she had saved for another time, and even invited them to share it. What cruelty can those not commit who have been abandoned by God?

Another common result of a long siege is sickness, and that is threatened here as well: severe sickness that lasts a long time (Deuteronomy 28:59). These troubles would follow the Jews wherever they went afterward, including the diseases of Egypt, such as leprosy, boils, and painful sores (Deuteronomy 28:60). As if these specific afflictions were not enough, the warning ends with, and more besides (Deuteronomy 28:61). The Lord will bring on them every sickness and every plague, even those not written in the book of this law. Those who fall under God’s curse will find that the full weight and terror of it were greater than they were told.

Many of them would also perish, so that they would become few in number (Deuteronomy 28:62). This was a nation God had greatly increased, so that they were as numerous as the stars of heaven. But because of their sin, they were reduced and brought low (Psalm 107:38-39). Josephus reports that when the Romans destroyed the Jewish nation, more than two million died by the sword in different places, besides those who died from famine and disease. The whole land was left empty and turned into a wilderness.

That is a terrible sentence: as the Lord once rejoiced to do you good, so he will rejoice to destroy you (Deuteronomy 28:63). Here we see both the goodness and the severity of God. His mercy shines in the joy he takes in doing good, and his justice appears just as clearly in the joy he takes in destroying the stubborn and unrepentant. He does not delight in making his creatures miserable for its own sake, but in defending his honor and securing the ends of his rule. This shows how terrible sin is, since it can make it necessary, as it were, for the God of perfect goodness to rejoice in the destruction of those who were once his favored people.

The remnant would be scattered among all nations, and that would complete their misery (Deuteronomy 28:64). This is clearly seen in their present dispersion, for Jews can be found in almost every land under Christian or Muslim rule. They are so many that it has been said that if they could unite around one common interest, they would be very powerful. Yet this curse still rests on them, and they remain scattered and unable to unite.

In this dispersion, they would have no real religion, or none that could help them, because they would have no temple, no altar, and no priesthood, but would serve other gods. Some think this was fulfilled when Jews in Roman Catholic countries were forced to worship the images used in that church, to their great distress. They would also have no rest, neither in body nor in mind. The sole of their foot would have no rest (Deuteronomy 28:65), because they would always be moving, either hoping for gain or fearing persecution. They would be wandering Jews, with a trembling heart and no assurance of life (Deuteronomy 28:66). They would grow weary of both light and darkness, though both are welcome to a peaceful mind, because day and night would each bring terror to them (Deuteronomy 28:67).

Job was once in a similar condition (Job 7:4), but for them it would be constant and lasting. The blindness and darkness Paul speaks of as coming upon Israel, and the guilt that bowed their backs forever (Romans 11:8-10), would naturally produce this kind of unrest and dread. People who fear day and night and never feel safe are a torment to themselves and to everyone around them. Let good people fight against such fear and not give way to fear that brings torment. Let wicked people not feel secure in their sin, because their hearts cannot endure it, and their hands will not be strong, when God’s terrors rise against them.

Those who say in the morning, If only it were evening, and in the evening, If only it were morning, show two things. First, they are constantly fretting and miserable, complaining that time moves too slowly and every minute is too long. We should value time in seasons of prosperity, so that it will not seem so long to us in trouble. Second, they are constantly frightened, afraid in the morning of the arrow that flies by day, and wishing the day over. But that will not help them, because when evening comes, the trembling heart is still afraid of terror by night (Psalm 91:5-6). Happy are those whose minds rest on God and are quiet in the fear of evil.

Notice that this terror comes not only from what their eyes see, but from fear in their hearts. It comes not only from real danger, but also from imagined danger. When fear is examined closely, what seems dreadful often turns out to be only the product of the imagination.

At the close, God threatens to leave them where he found them, in a house of bondage (Deuteronomy 28:68). The Lord would bring them back to Egypt, that is, into a miserable condition like the one they had when they were slaves under harsh masters. God had brought them out of Egypt and said they would never see it again (Deuteronomy 17:16), but now they would be reduced to the same kind of slavery they had once known there. To be sold to strangers would be bad enough, but to be sold to their enemies would be far worse.

Even slaves may be valued in that way, but a Jew should be regarded so poorly for every shameful thing that, when he was put up for sale, no one would buy him. That would make the master who owned him even harsher toward him. They say thirty Jews were sold for one small piece of money, just as they sold our Savior for thirty pieces.

On the whole, two lessons come from this. First, the fulfillment of these warnings in the Jewish nation shows that Moses spoke by the Spirit of God. God surely sees the ruin of sinners and warns them ahead of time, so they may turn back through true and timely repentance, or else be left without excuse. Second, let us all learn to fear God and avoid sin.

I have heard of a wicked man who, after reading the threats in this chapter, became so angry that he tore the page out of his Bible, just as Jehoiakim cut up Jeremiah's scroll. But what good is it to destroy a copy when the original still stands in God's own plan? It is fixed there beyond change, that the wages of sin is death, whether people listen or refuse to listen.