Deuteronomy 28

1. Would we have a blessing in our estates? Let us obey (Deuteronomy 28:1, 3). If you shall hearken to the voice of the Lord, to do all his commandments, blessed shall you be in the field; blessed shall be your basket and your store.

This name of God sets forth his majesty: Sanctius habitum fuit, says Buxtorf, the name Jehovah was had in more reverence among the Jews, than any other name of God; it signifies God's self-sufficiency, eternity, independency, immutability (Malachi 3:6). Use 1. If God be Jehovah,…

When we are commanded to keep the Sabbath day holy, there we are forbidden to break the Sabbath: when we are commanded to live in a calling, "Six days shall you labor," there we are forbidden to live idly and out of a calling. 2. Where any sin is forbidden, there the contrary du…

Magistrates may have a civil respect or veneration, God only a religious adoration. 5. To make God to be a God to us, is to fear him (Deuteronomy 28:58): That you may fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord your God. This fearing of God is, 1. To have God always in our eye…

Quest. How many ways may we be said to take God's name in vain? Resp. 1. We take God's name in vain, when we speak slightly and irreverently of his name (Deuteronomy 28:58): That you may fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord your God. David speaks of God with reverence (…

David tasted the Word sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb (Psalm 19:10). There is that in Scripture that may breed delight: it shows us the way to riches (Deuteronomy 28:5; Proverbs 3:16), to long life (Psalm 34:12), to a kingdom (Hebrews 12:28). Well then may we count thos…

1. By their tongues. 1. They speak irreverently of God's name: God's name is sacred: (Deuteronomy 28:58) "That you may fear this glorious and fearful name, The Lord your God." The names of kings are not mentioned without giving them their titles of honor, High and Mighty; but me…

2. This is the end of all God's promises to draw us to do God's will; the promises are lodestones to obedience, (Deuteronomy 11:27) A blessing if you obey; as a father gives his son money to bribe him to obedience. (Deuteronomy 28:1) If you shall hearken to the voice of the Lord…

And the like has been the state of many of Gods children: Psalm 88:3, 7, My soul is filled with evils: thou hast vexed me with all thy waves, etc. Question. How can this stand with the truth of Gods word, wherein are promises of all manner of blessings both temporal and spiritua…

Proverbs 30:8: Give me neither riches nor poverty. Deuteronomy 28:22: Poverty is numbered among the curses of the law, none of which are to be vowed. And it is the rule of the Holy Spirit in 2 Thessalonians 3:10: He that will not labor in some special and warrantable calling mus…

God's heart is toward Ephraim as his dear child, and his bowels turned within for their misery, even when he speaks against them (Jeremiah 31:20-21). But the coals of the furnace cast upon reprobates are dipped in the curse of God; so that in a small affliction, even in the misc…

1. Some take word, for the word of precept; and expound it thus, if you be faithful to your duty, God will provide for you. For in every command of God, general or particular, there is a promise expressed or implied of all things necessary (Deuteronomy 28:5): "Blessed shall be y…

And he calls that which is bestowed upon the ministers of the word, seed, which being sown, does recompense the cost, thirty, sixty, a hundred fold: that so they might not think their labor lost, nor their cost bestowed in vain, seeing they were to receive, that which they laid…

For although they should take care how to live, yet should they be consumed by penury and famine: because the enemy shall spoil and waste whatever they have gotten by their industry. This place is taken out of Moses: for this curse among others is there pronounced. (Deuteronomy…

He calls them a terrible nation, because they should be an astonishment to all those that should behold them, being disfigured with such horrible calamities. For I cannot approve of their judgment who expound this of signs and wonders which the Lord showed among the Jews to make…

His meaning is, that this fear shall not last a day only, or some little space: as if the watchman should answer, I will tell you that tomorrow which I told you today; and if you fear now, you shall also fear tomorrow. Now it is a most miserable condition, when men are so troubl…

Alas! all our power is but weakness, except the Lord fortify and strengthen us with the power of his holy Spirit. This sentence is often found in the law; to wit, that when they have forsaken the Lord, many of them shall be put to flight before a few of their enemies (Deuteronom…

The Prophet borrows all these words from Moses, whom he follows so near, that we may well discern the style of the one, in the writings of the other. The Prophets therefore forged nothing of their own heads: for thus says Moses; 'You shall be an astonishment, a proverb, and a sc…

When he promises a peaceable enjoying of wheat and wine, it is to show, that when the Church is destitute of them, that it falls not out by chance, but by the just judgment of God. For as often as the enemies spoil and rob us of them, let us assure ourselves that this falls out…

In these two verses he puts them in mind of the blessings contained in the law; namely, that such as served God should inhabit the houses they had built, and should eat the fruits of their trees (Leviticus 20:10). As on the contrary, the rebellious should be driven out of their…

Like many others of his scriptural allusions, this is not marked by our Author. It approaches very nearly to the language of one of the curses pronounced by Moses on the people of Israel, "If they should not hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God;" -- "you shall grope at n…

Now, he exhorts him to indulge a foolish and vain confidence, -- to neglect the means which are in his power, -- to throw himself, without necessity, into manifest danger, -- and, as we might say, to overleap all bounds. As it is not proper for us to be discouraged, when we are…

(5.) Eye the Design and end of God in all your comforts. Know that it is not sent to satisfy the cravings of your sensual appetite, but to quicken and enable you for a more cheerful discharge of your duty, Deuteronomy 28:47 (6.) Eye the Way and Method in which your mercies are c…

This Satan implies in these words, and this is an extreme lie; for as there is no affliction, so there is no outward blessing that can change the heart or bring it about to God. "They did not serve the Lord in the abundance of all things" (Deuteronomy 28:47). Abundance does not…

In his health, his food is poisoned with this curse; and in his sickness, his physic. He is cursed in every place where he comes; and the place cursed for his sake: cursed in the city, and cursed in the field; cursed in his basket and store; cursed in the fruit of his body, and…

The preface carries an equal respect and reverence to all the commandments, and contains a strong argument in it to enforce the obedience of them. And as kings and princes do usually prefix their names and titles before those laws and edicts which are set forth by them, to gain…

Take not his name, who made your mouth, in vain; It gets you nothing, and has no excuse: Lust and Wine plead a pleasure, Avarice gain: But the cheap Swearer through his open sluice Lets his soul run for nought, as little fearing: Were I an Epicure, I could hate swearing. Look in…

OBSERVATION. It is deservedly accounted a sad judgment, when God shuts up the heavens over our heads, and makes the earth as brass under our feet (Deuteronomy 28:23). Then the husbandmen are called to mourning (Joel 1:11).

The earth after that it is plowed and sowed, must be watered and warmed with the dews and influences of heaven, or no fruit can be expected. If God does not open to you his good treasure, the heavens to give rain to the land in its season, and bless all the work of your hands, a…

The name of God is thus abused not only by those that belch out bloody oaths and curses which make the ears of every good man to tingle, but by those that mention the name of God slightly and irreverently, in their common conversation; in whose mouths he is near when he is far f…

His treasure, his peculiar treasure, Exod. 19:5 Ye shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine: that is called peculium, which the son and heir of the house has of his own, besides the right of his fathers inheritance, which he may dispose of a…

Fear you God. Deuteronomy 28:58. That you maist fear this Glorious and fearful name the Lord your God.

The book of the law is full of curses, and all together they show you what is the portion of an impenitent sinner. In another place it is said, Every curse and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, will the Lord bring upon you (Deuteronomy 28:61). Mark, thou…

Though David here says, Mine eyes fail with waiting, for that salvation and mercy which you have promised in the Word, yet it is the usual judgment of the wicked, one of the curses of the law. It is said, (Deuteronomy 28:32) Your sons and daughters shall be given to another peop…

He was the light of the world, which without him is a dark dungeon. More particularly it appears that man is dark: 1 By his groping, which is constantly attributed to blindness and darkness in the Scripture: Be pleased to peruse (Deuteronomy 28:29, Job 5:14, and 12:25, Isaiah 59…

Two ways they show their displeasure (and his, whose creatures they are) against sin, in punishing sinners. 1. By withdrawing their influences (Deuteronomy 28:23): the heaven shall be brass, and the earth iron, that shall not rain nor drop dew, this shall not bring forth fruit.…

[illegible], as Hierocles, to be banished from God, and the divine life, is the worst of deaths. 2 'Tis a curse, an accursed state, to be under the curse of God; as (Matthew 25:41) not only depart from me, but depart you cursed: There's not the least dram of blessing or blessedn…

Heart.] It properly signifies that chief part in a man's body, wherein the fountain of the vital spirits lies; that which lives first (as they say) and dies last; that's the natural signification. But here it's spiritually understood, and it's put for the will and affections, wh…

Let a wicked man have the candle of God shining on him (Job 29:3), let his way be so smooth that he meets with no rubs, let him have success — yet still there is a curse entailed upon him. You may read the sinner's inventory: Deuteronomy 28:16–18. He is not more full of sin than…

Is there any comfort in having the bones out of joint? Does not sin breed a palpitation and trembling of heart (Deuteronomy 28:66)? Is it any joy for a man to be a terror to himself?

All kind of blessings are poured upon the head of obedience, as the precious oil was poured on Aaron's head. Temporal blessings (Deuteronomy 28:3-4, 9): blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground; blessed shall be your basket and your store, etc. — if…

So they expound (Exodus 20:20) the other Covenant was to restrain from all sin. Indeed and so was that on Mount Sinai, to do all that are written in the Book of the Law (Deuteronomy 27:26; Deuteronomy 28:1-4, etc.) to that same end, to love God with all the heart, and with all t…

Quest. Whether are there fewer threats of temporal evils under the New Covenant than under the Old? Answ. It cannot be denied, except the threats of the Sword, Famine, Pestilence on Jerusalem, and the desolation upon the Jews (Matthew 23; Matthew 24) but in place of all the dise…

Far less has it any truth that a real mercy can be removed in wrath from Infants in Jesus Christ, in whom the Nations are blessed. And we see in Deuteronomy 28, the blessing of an observed Covenant and the curses of a broken Covenant are extended to the fruit of the body, to the…

(5.) Infants are debarred from Covenant-calling and gathering in under the wings of Christ: contrary to Matthew 28:19-20, Matthew 23:37, Psalm 147:19-20, and excluded from God's Covenant-choice: contrary to Deuteronomy 7:6-9, 13-14, Deuteronomy 10:15, and left being heirs of wra…

The servant is smitten and sickened, for the master's sake, and God may take from them what he gave them, their lives without sense of pain and dolor, for all beings, yea defects and privations are debtors to the glory declarative of God (Proverbs 16:4; Romans 11:36), yea and no…

2. But the life he lived, and the creatures for his service, seems not to belong to this life, for the creatures were given to Adam, he not working for them. Yet I should not oppose, if any say that earthly blessings were given to Adam, as a reward of an actual obedience, as the…

And he that has his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, writes this up as a covenant-mercy, that he will not suffer them to perish with the world. Hence, the rods of the wicked stand booked in the Covenant of Works among the curses of the book of the Law (Leviticus 26) (…

14. And upon this account there is required a deadening of our hearts to shipping and trading with diverse mighty nations, as we see in the case of Tyre (Ezekiel 27), of Babylon (Revelation 18:11-13; Jeremiah 51). So are we to be mortified to fair houses (Isaiah 5:8), stately ci…

Now every puny adversary would insult over him, as the Hare will tread upon a dead Lion. Among the many threatenings against sin, this was one, Deuteronomy 28:43. Thou shalt come down very low; and in the Text this threatening is exemplified and made good, They were brought low…