Because You Did Not Serve Him with Joy
47 Because you didn’t serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; 48 therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you. 49 Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favor to the young. 51 They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. 52 They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which Yahweh your God has given you. 53 You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you. 54 The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil toward his brother, toward the wife whom he loves, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining, 55 so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates. 56 The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil toward the husband that she loves, toward her son, toward her daughter, 57 toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates. 58 If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH your God, 59 then Yahweh will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration. 60 He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, Yahweh will bring them on you until you are destroyed. 62 You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to Yahweh your God’s voice. 63 It will happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess. 64 Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. 65 Among these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life. 67 In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see. 68 Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.
The reason given for the whole disaster is that obedience was joyless in a time of plenty, and the chapter ends with a return to Egypt nobody will buy.
The most surprising verse in the chapter is the one that explains it.
47 Because you didn’t serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; 48 therefore you will serve your enemies whom Yahweh sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.
The charge is not that they stopped serving. It is that they served without gladness while they had everything. Grudging obedience in a time of plenty is named as the thing that brought it all down, and the penalty is stated as a substitution of masters: service without joy is replaced by service in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things.
The invader is described without being named: a nation from far off, as the eagle flies, whose language they will not understand, of fierce facial expressions, with no respect for the old or pity for the young Deuteronomy 28:49–50.
The siege that follows produces the passage that is hardest to read in the whole book, in which starvation drives parents to eat their children Deuteronomy 28:53–57. The description is deliberate about who it happens to — the man who is tender among you, and very delicate, and the tender and delicate woman... who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground.
The refined are named because the horror is that a siege reduces everyone to the same condition. The text does not present this as a punishment God inflicts directly. It is what people do to each other inside a walled city with no food, and it happened in the history that followed 2 Kings 6:28–29.
The closing verses widen from siege to scattering. Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end Deuteronomy 28:64, with no rest for the sole of your foot, a trembling heart, and a life that will hang in doubt before you Deuteronomy 28:65–66.
The picture of that fear is domestic and exact: in the morning you will say, 'I wish it were evening!' and at evening you will say, 'I wish it were morning!' Deuteronomy 28:67. Dread that has no content and no end, only a wish for whichever part of the day it is not.
And the last verse is the bleakest sentence in the book. They will be brought back to Egypt with ships, offered for sale as slaves, and nobody will buy you Deuteronomy 28:68.
The exodus run backward, by sea, ending in a market where they are not even worth purchasing. The book has spent twenty-eight chapters saying remember that you were a slave in Egypt. This is what forgetting comes to.
settled What this mark means