Deuteronomy 28:28

The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) Madness, and blindness, and astonishment.—The three words are all found in Zechariah 12:4

But in that place the threat seems directed against the enemies of Jerusalem (see Deuteronomy 30:7).

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

Mental maladies shah be added to those sore bodily plagues, and should Deuteronomy 28:29-34 reduce the sufferers to powerlessness before their enemies and oppressors.

Blindness - Most probably mental blindness; compare Lamentations 4:14; Zephaniah 1:17; 2 Corinthians 3:14 ff.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart—They would be bewildered and paralyzed with terror at the extent of their calamities.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Blindness, to wit, of mind, so that they shall not know what to do; see Job 5:13,14; so as they shall commonly choose and follow the worst counsels and courses, to their own ruin.

Astonishment of heart; they shall be filled with wonder and horror, because of the strangeness and soreness of their calamities.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord shall smite thee with madness,.... At the calamities befallen them, and through the force of diseases on them:

and blindness; not of body, but of mind; with judicial blindness and hardness of heart:

and astonishment of heart; at the miserable condition they and their families should be in.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. Cp. Zechariah 12:4; astonishment, better, dismay.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 28, 29. - Besides bodily ailments, mental diseases should come upon them - insanity, incapacity, confusion of mind, so that even at midday they should grope as a blind man gropes, i.e. under the most favorable circumstances they should be unable to find the right path, to hit on the right and safe course. It is of mental blindness that the word is here used (cf. Isaiah 42:19; Lamentations 4:14; Zephaniah 1:17; Romans 11:25; 2 Corinthians 4:4). Thou shalt grope (cf. Isaiah 59:10). Thus afflicted in body and mind, their state should be one only of oppression and calamity, with no hope of deliverance. Deuteronomy 28:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In addition to this, there would come idiocy, blindness, and confusion of mind, - three psychical maladies; for although עוּרון signifies primarily bodily blindness, the position of the word between idiocy and confusion of heart, i.e., of the understanding, points to mental blindness here.