We will come back to the curses, but first we are given the blessings, “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God:” (v1,2)
One writer says that Israel had a choice to obey or not. God was going to show Himself to the world through Israel, either making them so great that only God could have blessed them and so cursed that only God could have cursed them.
They would be high above the nations if they obeyed.
In verses 3-14 God lists the blessings. They would be so blessed that The LORD would cause their enemies to be defeated whenever they came against them, and establish them as a holy people to Himself, they would be blessed materially, but they had to walk in His ways. God would bring glory to His name through His people, and all the peoples of the earth would know that Israel’s blessing had come from God and God alone. Even when God cursed and punished them this would be seen by the nations who would acknowledge God through it all.
From v15 – 68 we have listed the curses that would come upon them if they failed to obey the voice of The LORD their God and observe all His commandments. The curses would bring confusion upon them, and they would perish quickly because of their wickedness (v20). God would strike their bodies and their produce of crops (v22) etc. He would strike them with the elements like rain (v24). He would cause them to be defeated by their enemies, in fact, they would become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth (v25) and their carcasses would be eaten by animals and birds (v26). He would cause them to become deranged in the minds, blind in their eyes, their wives would be taken by other men, their sons and daughters would be taken from them (v32) and their vineyards together with their cattle (v29-31etc). Therefore, they would be affected in their bodies, family life, work, business, safety and security, food, health and their reputation and everywhere they went and be led into idolatry. The effect of the curses would be total. Even the foreigners living amongst them would take over and become higher than them (v43). They would be worthless even as slaves and full of fear (v68). God in His grace and mercy was giving them warning, so that they would have no excuse for not knowing and for thinking that God had taken them by surprise by bringing all these calamities upon them.
It doesn’t stop there. Abraham was told that they would number like the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. Here, The LORD God warns them that they would be decimated and left few in number because they would not obey His voice. God would reverse His promise to Abraham and even rejoice over them to destroy them and bring them to nothing and scattered among the nations and they would fear for their lives. Seems strange that God would rejoice in their downfall, but this was all for the glory of God (v62-68).
Why on earth would they want to disobey? They evidently did and many of these curses came upon a disobedient Israel. Some were fulfilled in the years of history recorded in the Old Testament (see e.g. 2 Kings 6, Lamentations 4, Zechariah 12); but their fulfilment did not end with the end of Bible history, Old or New Testament. Many have come to pass since the closure of our Bible as history will show.
However, that was not the end. In Genesis 12:3 God told Abraham that He would bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him. God has not forgotten those who have treated the Jews badly and has judged Assyria, Babylon, the Romans and Nazi Germany and all who have persecuted the Jews. In the last hundred years millions of Jews were put into concentration camps and many of whom lost their lives from starvation and other atrocities. There is still antisemitism today and sadly even parts of the church have, out of misguided ideas, treated the Jews badly. They are God’s people, and He will have the last word on what happens to them.
Think how God preserved them when in the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph’s brothers had tried to get rid of him, but God brought good from their evil schemes, when there was severe famine on the earth which could have destroyed them all, and Jacob sent his remaining sons to get food from Egypt. Joseph was their ‘saviour’ and in that moving reunion, he provided them with food because God had used him and placed him there, and eventually all his family, the family of Israel (Jacob) moved to Egypt, and they grew into a great nation and eventually they become this very people who Moses addressed here in this book.
You might think that the curse was the end of God’s interest and plan for the Jews, but it is not. Ezekiel 37 tells us that God still has plans for them in the last days which we see unfolding in the New Testament.
