Est Elephas morbus, qui circum flumina Nili
Nascitur, Aegypto in media; nec praeterea usquam.
Lib. vi., ver. 1112.
Emerods - עפלים ophalim, from עפל aphal, to be elevated, raised up; swellings, protuberances; probably the bleeding piles.
Scab - brg garab does not occur as a verb in the Hebrew Bible, but gharb, in Arabic, signifies a distemper in the corner of the eye, (Castel)., and may amount to the Egyptian ophthalmia, which is so epidemic and distressing in that country: some suppose the scurvy to be intended.
Itch - חרס cheres, a burning itch, probably something of the erysipelatous kind, or what is commonly called St. Anthony's fire.
Whereof thou canst not be healed - For as they were inflicted by God's justice, they could not of course be cured by human art.
Verse 28
The Lord shall smite thee with madness - שגעון shiggaon, distraction, so that thou shalt not know what to do.
And blindness - עורון ivvaron, blindness, both physical and mental; the גרב garab, ([Deu 28:27]), destroying their eyes, and the judgments of God confounding their understandings.
Astonishment - תמהון timmahon, stupidity and amazement. By the just judgments of God they were so completely confounded, as not to discern the means by which they might prevent or remove their calamities, and to adopt those which led directly to their ruin. How true is the ancient saying, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat! "Those whom God is determined to destroy, he first infatuates." But this applies not exclusively to the poor Jews: how miserably infatuated have the powers of the continent of Europe been, in all their councils and measures, for several years past! And what is the result? They have fallen - most deplorably fallen!
Verse 29
Thou shalt be only oppressed, etc. - Perhaps no people under the sun have been more oppressed and spoiled than the rebellious Jews. Indeed, this has been their portion, with but little intermission, for nearly 1,800 years. And still they grope at noon day, as the blind gropeth in darkness - they do not yet discover, notwithstanding the effulgence of the light by which they are encompassed, that the rejection of their own Messiah is the cause of all their calamities.
Verse 30
Thou shalt betroth a wife, etc. - Can any heart imagine any thing more grievous than the evils threatened in this and the following verses? To be on the brink of all social and domestic happiness, and then to be suddenly deprived of all, and see an enemy possess and enjoy every thing that was dear to them, must excite them to the utmost pitch of distraction and madness. They have, it is true, grievously sinned; but, O ye Christians, have they not grievously suffered for it? Is not the stroke of God heavy enough upon them? Do not then, by unkind treatment or cruel Oppression, increase their miseries. They are, above all others, the men who have seen affliction by the stroke of his rod; [Lam 3:1].
Verse 32
Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people - In several countries, particularly in Spain and Portugal, the children of the Jews have been taken from them by order of government, and educated in the Popish faith. There have been some instances of Jewish children being taken from their parents even in Protestant countries.
Verse 35
With a sore botch - שחין shechin, an inflammatory swelling, a burning boil. See [Deu 28:27].
Verse 36
Can any thing be conceived more dreadful than the calamities threatened in these verses?
Verse 48
Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies - Because they would not serve God, therefore they became slaves to men.
Verse 49
A nation - from far - Probably the Romans.
As the eagle flieth - The very animal on all the Roman standards. The Roman eagle is proverbial.
Whose tongue thou shalt not understand - The Latin language, than which none was more foreign to the structure and idiom of the Hebrew.
Verse 52
He - Nebuchadnezzar first, ([2Kgs 25:1], [2Kgs 25:2], etc)., and Titus next; shall besiege thee - beset thee round on every side, and cast a trench around thee: viz., lines of circumvallation, as our Lord predicted; (see [Mat 24:1], etc., and [Luk 21:5], etc.); in all thy gates throughout all thy land - all thy fenced cities, which points out that their subjugation should be complete, as both Jerusalem and all their fortified places should be taken. This was done literally by Nebuchadnezzar and the Romans.
Verse 56
The tender and delicate woman - This was literally fulfilled when Jerusalem was besieged by the Romans; a woman named Mary, of a noble family, driven to distraction by famine, boiled and ate her own child! See a similar case [2Kgs 6:29] (note); and [Lev 26:29] (note).
Verse 57
Toward her young one - and toward her children which she shall bear - There seems to be a species of tautology in the two clauses of this verse, which may be prevented by translating the last word, שליתה shilyathah, literally, her secondines, which is the meaning of the Arabic sala, not badly understood by the Septuagint, χοριον αυτης, the chorion or exterior membrane, which invests the fetus in the womb; and still better translated by Luther, the after-birth; which saying of Moses strongly marks the deepest distress, when the mother is represented as feeling the most poignant regret that her child was brought forth into such a state of suffering and death; and 2dly, that it was likely, from the favorable circumstances after the birth, that she herself should survive her inlaying. No words can more forcibly depict the miseries of those dreadful times. On this ground I see no absolute need for Kennicott's criticism, who, instead of ובשליתה ubeshilyathah, against her secondines, reads ובשלה ubashelah, and she shall boll, and translates the 56th and 57th verses as follows: "The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter. 57. And she shall boil that which cometh out from between her feet, even her children, which she shall bear, for she shall eat them, for want of all things, secretly." These words, says he, being prophetical, are fulfilled in [2Kgs 6:29], for we read there that two women of Samaria having agreed to eat their own children, one was actually boiled, where the very same word, בשל bashal is used. See Kennicott's Dissertations on 1 Chronicles 11, etc., p. 421.
Verse 64
The Lord shall scatter thee among all people - How literally has this been fulfilled! The people of the Jews are scattered over every nation under heaven.
Verse 65
No ease - a trembling heart, and failing of eyes - The trembling of heart may refer to their state of continual insecurity, being, under every kind of government, proscribed, and, even under the most mild, uncertain of toleration and protection; and the failing of eyes, to their vain and ever-disappointed expectation of the Messiah.
Verse 68
And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again - That is, into another state of slavery and bondage similar to that of Egypt, out of which they had been lately brought. And there ye shall be sold, that is, be exposed to sale, or expose yourself to sale as the word התמכרתם hithmaccartem may be rendered; they were vagrants, and wished to become slaves that they might be provided with the necessaries of life. And no man shall buy you; even the Romans thought it a reproach to have a Jew for a slave, they had become so despicable to all mankind. When Jerusalem was taken by Titus, many of the captives, which were above seventeen years of age, were sent into the works in Egypt. See Josephus, Antiq., b. xii, 100:1, 2, War b. vi., c. 9, s. 2; and above all, see Bp. Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies.
The first verse of the next chapter, in some of the most correct Hebrew Bibles, makes the 69th of this; and very properly, as the second verse of the following chapter begins a new subject.
This is an astonishing chapter: in it are prophecies delivered more than 3,000 years ago, and now fulfilling.
O God, how immense is thy wisdom, and how profound thy counsels! To thee alone are known all thy works from the beginning to the end. What an irrefragable proof does this chapter, compared with the past and present state of the Jewish people, afford of the truth and Divine origin of the Pentateuch!
Introduction
A recapitulation of God's gracious dealings with Israel, [Deu 29:1-8]. An exhortation to obedience, and to enter into covenant with their God, that they and their posterity may be established in the good land, [Deu 29:9-15]. They are to remember the abominations of Egypt, and to avoid them, [Deu 29:16], [Deu 29:17]. He who hardens his heart, when he hears these curses, shall be utterly consumed, [Deu 29:18-21]. Their posterity shall be astonished at the desolations that shall fall upon them, [Deu 29:22], [Deu 29:23]; shall inquire the reason, and shall be informed that the Lord has done thus to them because of their disobedience and idolatry, [Deu 29:24-28]. A caution against prying too curiously into the secrets of the Divine providence, and to be contented with what God has revealed, [Deu 29:29].