The Curses Begin
15 But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to Yahweh your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come on you and overtake you. 16 You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field. 17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. 18 The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed. 19 You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out. 20 Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. 21 Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it. 22 Yahweh will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish. 23 Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron. 24 Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed. 25 Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away. 27 Yahweh will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumors, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart. 29 You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you. 30 You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit. 31 Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you. 32 Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand. 33 A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always, 34 so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad. 35 Yahweh will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.
The same four categories are reversed word for word, and the worst of the curses is that a man watches other people use what he made.
The reversal is exact, and its exactness is the argument. The four categories of blessing are repeated with one word changed — city and field, basket and kneading trough, offspring and livestock, coming in and going out Deuteronomy 28:16–19.
One detail keeps it from being a mechanical copy: the middle two exchange places. The blessing named the offspring before the basket; the curse names the basket before the offspring. Somebody composing this was listening to it rather than transcribing it.
Then the curses proper, and they are cumulative rather than catastrophic. Pestilence. Fever and inflammation. Blight and mildew on the crops Deuteronomy 28:21–22.
The sky becomes bronze and the ground iron Deuteronomy 28:23 — a shut heaven and a soil that cannot be broken, which is the exact undoing of the promise of rain in its season. And the rain that does come is powder and dust Deuteronomy 28:24.
The military reversal is stated in the words of the blessing turned around. There, enemies fled seven ways; here, you will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them Deuteronomy 28:25.
The most terrible section is not the disease. It is verses 30 to 33, and every clause has the same shape.
You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won't dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit Deuteronomy 28:30. The ox slaughtered in front of him and eaten by someone else. The donkey taken and not returned. Sons and daughters given to another people, with your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long Deuteronomy 28:32.
These are precisely the three exemptions from military service — the new house, the new vineyard, the new marriage Deuteronomy 20:5–7. The law had sent men home so they would not lose those things to another man. The curse is that they lose them anyway, and to nobody's sword.
What is being described is not destruction but futility. The work is done and the harvest comes in and none of it is his, and he is present to watch. The chapter names the effect: the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad Deuteronomy 28:34.
It should be said that this section is the longest curse passage in Scripture and that its length is deliberate. Fourteen verses of blessing, and fifty-four of curse. The disproportion is a rhetorical decision by a speaker who knew which way his audience would go.
settled What this mark means