Deuteronomy 28:43 – 57 “The foreigner living among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink down lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.
All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commandments and statutes He gave you. These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.
Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance, you will serve your enemies the LORD will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.
The LORD will bring a nation from afar, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down upon you like an eagle—a nation whose language you will not understand, a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young. They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish. They will besiege all the cities throughout your land, until the high and fortified walls in which you trust have fallen. They will besiege all your cities throughout the land that the LORD your God has given you.
During the siege and hardship that your enemy will impose on you, you will eat the fruit of your womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you. The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived, refusing to share with any of them the flesh of his children that he will eat because he has nothing left in the siege and hardship your enemy will impose on all your cities.
The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter the afterbirth that comes from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else in the siege and dire straits your enemy will impose on you in all your cities.”
Reading these verses requires a strong stomach! Once we realize the full import of these words, we wonder why anybody anywhere could possibly want to suffer such horrors. Here God is describing an invasion of the whole country by ruthless killers who will set sieges around all the cities. As those in the cities begin to starve, parents will butcher their children and mothers will secretly eat their newborn babies along with the afterbirth. Eventually, these things actually will come to pass, and the Israelites will go into exile. (2 Kings 6 for the description of one of the sieges.)
No matter how many horror movies you watch, you can always tell yourself that you are safe. But here God is warning the Israelites that nobody will be safe, and He is giving as many appalling details as possible.
APPLICATION: Why should we bother reading this horrible gory stuff? We must read these things here so that when we study later parts of the Old Testament, we will realize that God isn’t kidding.
There’s a non – Biblical saying that “What goes around, comes around.” Actions have consequences, whether or not we like those consequences when they appear. God doesn’t want any of these terrible things to happen to the Israelites; it is the Israelites themselves who will keep making wrong choices until they suffer the consequences. It is the Israelites who will insist on going after other gods and who will rebel anytime God sends prophets.
God does not send anybody to hell; people choose to go there by turning away from God. There is a blood line drawn between the Old and New Testaments, and the blood is the blood of Jesus Christ. In Moses’ day, sins were paid for with animal sacrifices, but when Jesus died on the cross at Calvary, He paid the ultimate price in blood for the sins of the world. That payment is available for anyone who will confess that he or she is a sinner and who will believe in what Jesus has done. But if we tell ourselves that we are fine and that we have no problems, we are lying to ourselves and removing ourselves from the reach of God’s mercy.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, open our eyes to see the depths of Your love and our need for Your forgiveness. Help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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