Deuteronomy 28:22

The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) Consumption.—Only here and in Leviticus 26:16. “With which the flesh is consumed and puffed out” (Rashi).

Fever.—Only here and in Leviticus 26:16, where it is rendered “burning ague.” ( Comp. Deuteronomy 32:22 : “A fire is kindled in mine anger.”)

Inflammation.—Here only. The word is derived from a verb signifying to burn, or pursue hotly, like a fire that hastens on its way. “A heat greater than the fever” (Rashi).

Extreme burning.—Here only. “A disease which heats the body inwardly” (Rashi).

Blasting and mildew.—“I have smitten you with blasting and with mildew” (Amos 4:9, same words). (See also 1Kings 8:37, where “pestilence, blasting, and mildew” are contemplated as possibilities, very probably in view of this curse. Also Haggai 2:17.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:15-44 If we do not keep God's commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which includes all misery, as the blessing all happiness. Observe the justice of this curse. It is not a curse causeless, or for some light cause. The extent and power of this curse. Wherever the sinner goes, the curse of God follows; wherever he is, it rests upon him. Whatever he has is under a curse. All his enjoyments are made bitter; he cannot take any true comfort in them, for the wrath of God mixes itself with them. Many judgments are here stated, which would be the fruits of the curse, and with which God would punish the people of the Jews, for their apostacy and disobedience. We may observe the fulfilling of these threatenings in their present state. To complete their misery, it is threatened that by these troubles they should be bereaved of all comfort and hope, and left to utter despair. Those who walk by sight, and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when every thing about them looks frightful.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

"Blasting" denotes (compare Genesis 41:23) the result of the scorching east wind; "mildew" that of an untimely blight falling on the green ear, withering it and marring its produce.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. a consumption—a wasting disorder; but the modern tuberculosis is almost unknown in Asia.

fever … inflammation … extreme burning—Fever is rendered "burning ague" (Le 26:16), and the others mentioned along with it evidently point to those febrile affections which are of malignant character and great frequency in the East.

the sword—rather, "dryness"—the effect on the human body of such violent disorders.

blasting, and with mildew—two atmospheric influences fatal to grain.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

With blasting, and with mildew; two plagues or evil affections of corn. See 1 Kings 8:37 2 Chronicles 6:28 Amos 4:9 Haggai 2:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption,.... An emaciation of their bodies, either through famine or wasting diseases, whereby the fluids are washed off, and men are reduced to skin and bones:

and with a fever; a hot burning disease, which dries up the radical moisture, consumes it, and so threatens with death; of which there are various sorts, and some very pestilential and mortal Jarchi and Aben Ezra interpret it of a fire in the face, by which they seem to mean what is called St. Anthony's fire:

and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning; either in the inward parts, as an inflammation of the lungs; or in the outward parts, as carbuncles, burning ulcers, and the like:

and with the sword; in the margin it is, "with drought"; so Aben Ezra interprets the word, which seems better to suit with what it is in company with; and designs either drought in human bodies, occasioned by fevers, inflammations, and extreme burnings; or in the earth, through the force of the sun, and want of rain, which render the earth barren and unfruitful, and so cause a famine:

and with blasting and with mildew; whereby the corn that is sown, and springs up, comes to nothing, being blasted by east winds, or turns pale and yellow by the mildew, and so withers away; the consequence of which is want of food, and so destruction and ruin; see Amos 4:9,

and they shall pursue thee until thou perish; follow hard after them, and come so close one after another upon them, until they are utterly destroyed.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. Seven Plagues, four on men, and three on their crops. On the former see Leviticus 26:16, and consult A. Macalister, art. ‘Medicine’ in Hastings’ D.B.

consumption] Heb. shaḥepheth; from the meaning of the corr. Ar. saḥaf, ‘to affect with consumption of the lungs,’ this is usually conceived as phthisis, but Macalister, from the connection here, thinks more likely a wasting fever of the Mediterranean or Malta type. LXX ἀπορία.

fever] Heb. ḳaddaḥath, lit. kindling, LXX πυρετὸς; cp. Luke 4:38, John 4:52. ‘May be malarial fever’ (Macalister).

inflammation] Heb. dalléḳeth, lit. burning, LXX ῥῖγος. ‘Possibly … some form of ague,’ but ‘perhaps indeed typhoid’ (Macalister).

fiery heat] Heb. ḥarḥur, lit. burning or parchedness, LXX ἐρεθισμός, ‘irritation’; ‘such as erysipelas, only this is not very common in Palestine. It might be one of the exanthemata’ (Macalister).

the sword] Heb. ḥereb, LXX A F, etc., φόνος, LXX B, etc., omit. But with Sam., Vulg. and R.V. marg. we may read ḥoreb, dryness; either (as in the similarly emended text of Zechariah 11:17, cp. Job 30:30) a withering of the body, or, in harmony with the following, drought of the earth.

blasting] Heb. shiddaphôn, mostly the effect of the Sirocco (see Jerusalem, i. pp. 12, 20 f.). Hence the LXX ἀνεμοφθορία.

mildew] Heb. yeraḳôn, wanness, lividness; LXX ὤχρα.

Deuteronomy 28:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The first view, in which the bursting of the threatened curse upon the disobedient people is proclaimed in all its forms. First of all, quite generally in Deuteronomy 28:20. "The Lord will send the curse against thee, consternation and threatening in every undertaking of thy hand which thou carriest out (see Deuteronomy 12:7), till thou be destroyed, till thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, because thou hast forsaken Me." The three words, מארה, מהוּמה, and מגערת, are synonymous, and are connected together to strengthen the thought. מארה, curse or malediction; המּהוּמה, the consternation produced by the curse of God, namely, the confusion with which God smites His foes (see at Deuteronomy 7:23); המּגערה is the threatening word of the divine wrath. - Then Deuteronomy 28:21. in detail. "The Lord will make the pestilence fasten upon (cleave to) thee, till He hath destroyed thee out of the land...to smite thee with giddiness and fever (cf. Leviticus 26:16), inflammation, burning, and sword, blasting of corn, and mildew (of the seed);" seven diseases therefore (seven as the stamp of the words of God), whilst pestilence in particular is mentioned first, as the most terrible enemy of life. דּלּקת, from דּלק to burn, and חרחר, from חרר to glow, signify inflammatory diseases, burning fevers; the distinction between these and קדּחת cannot be determined. Instead of חרב, the sword as the instrument of death, used to designate slaughter and death, the Vulgate, Arabic, and Samaritan have adopted the reading חרב, aestus, heat (Genesis 31:40), or drought, according to which there would be four evils mentioned by which human life is attacked, and three which are injurious to the corn. But as the lxx, Jon., Syr., and others read חרב, this alteration is very questionable, especially as the reading can be fully defended in this connection; and one objection to the alteration is, that drought is threatened for the first time in Deuteronomy 28:23, Deuteronomy 28:24. שׁדּפון, from שׁדף to singe or blacken, and ירקון, from ירק to be yellowish, refer to two diseases which attack the corn: the former to the withering or burning of the ears, caused by the east wind (Genesis 41:23); the other to the effect produced by a warm wind in Arabia, by which the green ears are turned yellow, so that they bear no grains of corn.