““If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them. “But if you refuse to listen to the Lord your God and do not obey all the commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overwhelm you: Your towns and your fields will be cursed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be cursed. Your children and your crops will be cursed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be cursed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be cursed. “The Lord himself will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in everything you do, until at last you are completely destroyed for doing evil and abandoning me.”
Deuteronomy 28:1-20 NLT
The curses found in Deuteronomy 28 are extreme. They include everything from slavery to cannibalism. Yet, what people fail to take into account is the perspective from which the passage is given. The passage is not a threat. It is a warning. There is a nature to the way things work for humanity. There is a compulsion to the finiteness of man. As much as he is commanded by his nature to thirst, he is also a creature who is commanded to live in the providence of a good God. Eden was the unhindered manifestation of this providence. Every good thing was readily available and sustainable. But in a world run by sin, the finite man’s thirst grows stronger and insatiable. Man expands and expounds upon areas of his psyche and form that are unmeant to be stressed. This list is a mirror to the description in Romans 1. In both chapters, we see a very clear connection between a lack of proper worship, and vile behaviors and thinking. Here God draws the clear connection for Israel. This list is not a threat. It is a statement of cause and effect. It is a warning at the things to come. God wants blessings for man, but it is not right to allow him to devolve into a godless creature. For that creature, it is God ‘s goodwill that he be destroyed. But this passage serves as a warning to not allow those things to manifest. He doesn’t ultimately want that at all.
Nature of Curses: Not threats but warnings reflecting the consequences of deviating from God’s providence.
Cause and Effect: Illustrates the connection between lack of proper worship and negative behaviors, mirroring Romans 1.
God’s Will: Desires blessings for humanity but acknowledges the need for consequences when they reject God.
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