Chapter 28:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Numbers Joshua
Deuteronomy 28
The blessings of obedience, personal, family and
national, ver. 1-14. The curses of the disobedient; their extreme
vexation, ver. 15-44. Their utter ruin and destruction, ver. 45-68.
Verse 2. Overtake thee - Those blessings which others greedily follow
after, and never overtake, shall follow after thee, and shall be
thrown into thy lap by special kindness.
Verse 3. In the city, and in the field - Whether they were husbandmen or
tradesmen, whether in the town or country, they should be
preserved from the dangers of both, and have the comforts of
both. How constantly must we depend upon God, both for the
continuance and comfort of life! We need him at every turn: we
cannot be safe, if he withdraw his protection, nor easy, if he
suspends his savour: but if he bless us, go where we will, 'tis well
with us.
Verse 5. Store - Store-house, it shall always be well replenished and the
provision thou hast there shall be preserved for thy use and
service.
Verse 6. Comest in - That is, in all thy affairs and administrations.
Verse 9. Establish thee - Shall confirm his covenant with thee, by which
he separated thee to himself as an holy and peculiar people.
Verse 10. Of the Lord - That you are in truth his people and children: A
most excellent and glorious people, under the peculiar care and
countenance of the great God.
Verse 11. The same things which were said before are repeated, to shew
that God would repeat and multiply his blessings upon them.
Verse 12. His treasure - The heaven or the air, which is God's
storehouse, where he treasures up rain or wind for man's use.
Verse 13. The head - The chief of all people in power, or at least in
dignity and privileges; so that even they that are not under thine
authority shall reverence thy greatness and excellency. So it was
in David's and Solomon's time, and so it should have been much
oftner and much more, if they had performed the conditions.
Verse 15. Overtake thee - So that thou shalt not be able to escape them,
as thou shalt vainly hope and endeavour to do. There is no
running from God, but by running to him; no flying from his
justice, but by flying to his mercy.
Verse 20. Vexation - This seems chiefly to concern the mind, arising
from the disappointment of hopes and the presages of its
approaching miseries. Rebuke - Namely, from God, not so much
in words as by his actions, by cross providences, by sharp and
sore afflictions.
Verse 23. Brass - Like brass, hard and dry, and shut up from giving rain.
Iron - Hard and chapt and barren.
Verse 24. Dust - Either thy rain shall be as unprofitable to thy ground
and seed as if it were only so much dust. Or instead of rain shall
come nothing but dust from heaven, which being raised and
carried up by the wind in great abundance, returns, and falls upon
the earth as it were in clouds or showers.
Verse 27. The botch of Egypt - Such boils and blains as the Egyptians
were plagued with, spreading from head to foot: The emerodes -
Or piles.
Verse 28. Blindness - Of mind, so that they shall not know what to do:
Astonishment - They shall be filled with wonder and horror
because of the strangeness and soreness of their calamities.
Verse 29. Grope at noon day - In the most clear and evident matters thou
shalt grossly mistake. Thy ways - Thy counsels and enterprizes
shall be frustrated and turn to thy destruction.
Verse 32. Unto another people - By those who have conquered them,
and taken them captives, who shall give or sell them to other
persons. Fail - Or, be consumed, partly with grief and plentiful
tears; and partly with earnest desire, and vain and long
expectation of their return. No might - No power to rescue, nor
money to ransom them.
Verse 33. Which thou knowest not - Which shall come from a far
country, which thou didst not at all expect or fear, and therefore
will be the more dreadful when they come; a nation whose
language thou understandest not, and therefore canst not plead
with them for mercy, nor expect any favour from them.
Verse 34. Thou shalt be mad for the sight of thine eyes - Quite put out of
the possession of their own souls; quite bereaved of all comfort
and hope, and abandoned to utter despair. They that walk by sight,
and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when all
about them looks frightful; and their condition is bad indeed, who
are mad for the sight of their eyes.
Verse 36. Thy king - The calamity shall be both universal, which even
thy king shall not be able to avoid, much less the subjects, who
have far less advantage and opportunity for escape; and
irrecoverable, because he who should protect or rescue them is
lost with them, Lam. iv, 10. Wood and stone - So what formerly
was their choice and delight now becomes their plague and
misery. And this doubtless was the condition of many Israelites
under the Assyrian and Balylonish captivities.
Verse 43. Within thee - Within thy gates; who formerly honoured and
served thee, and were some of them glad of the crumbs which fell
from thy table.
Verse 45. Moreover all these curses - It seems Moses has been hitherto
foretelling their captivity in Babylon, by which even after their
return, they were brought to the low condition mentioned, ver. 44.
But in the following he foretells their last destruction by the
Romans. And the present deplorable state of the Jewish nation, so
exactly answers this prediction, that it is an incontestable proof of
the truth of the prophecy, and consequently of the divine authority
of the scriptures. And this destruction more dreadful than the
former shews, that their sin in rejecting Christ, was more
provoking to God than idolatry itself, and left them more under
the power of Satan. For their captivity in Babylon cured them
effectually of idolatry in seventy years. But under this last
destruction, they continue above sixteen hundred years incurably
averse to the Lord Jesus.
Verse 46. They - These curses now mentioned. A wonder - Signal and
wonderful to all that hear of them. 'Tis amazing, a people so
incorporated, should be so universally disperst! And that a people
scattered in all nations, should not mix with any, but like Cain, be
fugitives and vagabonds, and yet so marked as to be known.
Verse 54. Evil - Unkind, envious, covetous to monopolize these dainty
bits to themselves, and grudging that their dearest relations should
have any part of them.
Verse 56. Evil - Unmerciful: she will desire or design their destruction
for her food.
Verse 57. Her young one - Hebrew. after-birth: that which was
loathsome to behold, will now be pleasant to eat; and together
with it she shall eat the child which was wrapt up in it, and may
be included in this expression. Which she shall bear - Or, which
she shall have born, that is, her more grown children. She shall eat
them - This was fulfilled more than once, to the perpetual
reproach of the Jewish nation. Never was the like done either by
Greek or Barbarian. See the fruit of being abandoned by God!
Verse 63. To destroy you - His just indignation against you will be so
great, that it will be a pleasure to him to take vengeance on you.
For though he doth not delight in the death of a sinner in itself, yet
he doth delight in glorifying his justice upon incorrigible sinners,
seeing the exercise of all his attributes must needs please him, else
he were not perfectly happy.
Verse 65. Neither shall thy foot have rest - Ye shall have no settlement
in the land whither you are banished, but there you shall be tossed
about from place to place, and sold from person to person, or Cain
- like, wander about.
Verse 66. Thy life shall hang in doubt - Either because thou art in the
hands of thy enemies that have power, and want no will, to
destroy thee: or because of the terrors of thy own mind, and the
guilt of thy conscience making thee to fear, even where no fear is.
Verse 68. Into Egypt - Which was literally fulfilled under Titus, when
multitudes of them were carried thither in ships, and sold for
slaves. And this expression seems to mind them of that time when
they went over the sea without ships, God miraculously drying up
the sea before them, which now they would have occasion sadly
to remember. By the way - Or, to the way. And the way seems not
to be meant here of the usual road-way from Canaan to Egypt,
which was wholly by land, but to be put for the end of the way or
journey, even the land of Egypt, for to this, and not to the road-
way between Canaan and Egypt, agree the words here following,
whereof I speak unto thee, thou shalt see it, (that is, Egypt) no
more again. No man shall buy you - Either because the number of
your captives shall be so great, that the market shall be glutted
with you; or because you shall be so loathsome and contemptible
that men shall not be willing to have you for slaves. And this was
the condition of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, as
Josephus the Jew hath left upon record. Let us all learn hence, to
stand in awe and not to sin. I have heard of a wicked man (says
Mr. Henry) who on reading these threatenings, was so enraged,
that he tore the leaf out of his bible. But to what purpose is it, to
deface a copy, while the original remains unchangeable? By
which it is determined, that the wages of sin is death: yea, a death
more dreadful than all that is here spoken!
Chapter 28:
| Darby
| Geneva
| Gill
| Jamieson Faussett Brown
| Matthew Henry
| Matthew Henry Concise
| Wesley
| Index
| Bible Gateway |
Introduction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Numbers Joshua
This version of Wesley's Notes on the Bible is a derivative of an electronic version, Copyright 1997, by Sulu D. Kelley. All rights reserved. Used by permission. It may not be modified or used commercially without permission of Wesleyan Heritage Publishing and Sulu Kelley. A special thanks to Mr. Kelley and Wesleyan Heritage Publishing for permission to create and post this version of Wesley's Notes on the Bible.
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