Deuteronomy 28:28

King James Version

The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and mental confusion,

Hebrew Names Version
The LORD will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

Lexham English Bible
Yahweh shall afflict you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart.

English Standard Version
The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind,

New Century Version
The Lord will give you madness, blindness, and a confused mind.

New English Translation
The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.

Amplified Bible
"The LORD will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart and mind;

New American Standard Bible
"The LORD will strike you with insanity, blindness, and with confusion of mind;

Geneva Bible (1587)
And ye Lorde shal smite thee with madnes, and with blindnes, and with astonying of heart.

Legacy Standard Bible
Yahweh will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart;

Contemporary English Version
You will become insane and go blind. The Lord will make you so confused,

Complete Jewish Bible
Adonai will strike you with insanity, blindness and utter confusion.

Darby Translation
Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

Easy-to-Read Version
The Lord will punish you by making you crazy. He will make you blind and confused.

George Lamsa Translation
The LORD shall smite you with madness and blindness and dumbness of heart;

Good News Translation
The Lord will make you lose your mind; he will strike you with blindness and confusion.

Literal Translation
Jehovah shall strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The LORDE shall smyte the with madnesse, blyndnesse and dasynge of hert.

American Standard Version
Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

Bible in Basic English
He will make your minds diseased, and your eyes blind, and your hearts wasted with fear:

Bishop's Bible (1568)
And the Lorde shall smyte thee with madnesse, and blyndnesse, and dasing of heart.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
The LORD will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.

King James Version (1611)
The Lord shall smite thee with madnesse, and blindnesse, and astonishment of heart.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
The Lord smite thee with insanity, and blindness, and astonishment of mind.

English Revised Version
The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart:

Berean Standard Bible
The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind,

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
The Lord smyte thee with madnesse, and blyndnesse, and woodnesse of thouyt;

Young's Literal Translation
`Jehovah doth smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

Update Bible Version
Yahweh will smite you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

Webster's Bible Translation
The LORD shall smite thee with the madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

World English Bible
Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;

New King James Version
The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart.

New Living Translation
The Lord will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.

New Life Bible
The Lord will punish you by making you crazy, and blind, and troubled in your mind.

New Revised Standard
The Lord will afflict you with madness, blindness, and confusion of mind;

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Yahweh, will smite thee, with madness and with blindness, - and with terror of heart;

Douay-Rheims Bible
The Lord strike thee with madness and blindness and fury of mind.

Revised Standard Version
The LORD will smite you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind;

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"The LORD will smite you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart;

Contextual Overview

¹⁵ But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: ¹⁶ Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. ¹⁷ Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. ¹⁸ Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. ¹⁹ Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. ²⁰ The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. ²¹ The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it. ²² The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish. ²³ And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. ²⁴ The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

1 Samuel 16:14, Psalms 60:3, Isaiah 6:9, Isaiah 6:10, Isaiah 19:11-17, Isaiah 43:19, Jeremiah 4:9, Ezekiel 4:17, Luke 21:25, Luke 21:26, Acts 13:41, 2 Thessalonians 2:9-11

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 28:34 - General Deuteronomy 28:37 - become 1 Samuel 25:37 - his heart 2 Kings 6:18 - Smite this people Isaiah 51:17 - which hast Lamentations 4:14 - have wandered Zephaniah 1:17 - they shall Zechariah 12:4 - I will smite

Gill's Notes on the Bible

The Lord shall smite thee with madness,.... At the calamities befallen them, and through the force of diseases on them:

and blindness; not of body, but of mind; with judicial blindness and hardness of heart:

and astonishment of heart; at the miserable condition they and their families should be in.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The curses correspond in form and number Deuteronomy 28:15-19 to the blessings Deuteronomy 28:3-6, and the special modes in which these threats should be executed are described in five groups of denunciations Deuteronomy 28:20-68.

Deuteronomy 28:20-26

First series of judgments. The curse of God should rest on all they did, and should issue in manifold forms of disease, in famine, and in defeat in war.

Deuteronomy 28:20

Vexation - Rather, confusion: the word in the original is used Deuteronomy 7:23; 1 Samuel 14:20 for the panic and disorder with which the curse of God smites His foes.

Deuteronomy 28:22

“Blasting” denotes (compare Genesis 41:23) the result of the scorching east wind; “mildew” that of an untimely blight falling on the green ear, withering it and marring its produce.

Deuteronomy 28:24

When the heat is very great the atmosphere in Palestine is often filled with dust and sand; the wind is a burning sirocco, and the air comparable to the glowing heat at the mouth of a furnace.

Deuteronomy 28:25

Shalt be removed - See the margin. The threat differs from that in Leviticus 26:33, which refers to a dispersion of the people among the pagan. Here it is meant that they should be tossed to and fro at the will of others, driven from one country to another without any certain settlement.

Deuteronomy 28:27-37

Second series of judgments on the body, mind, and outward circumstances of the sinners.

Deuteronomy 28:27

The “botch” (rather “boil;” see Exodus 9:9), the “emerods” or tumors 1Sa 5:6, 1 Samuel 5:9, the “scab” and “itch” represent the various forms of the loathsome skin diseases which are common in Syria and Egypt.

Deuteronomy 28:28

Mental maladies shah be added to those sore bodily plagues, and should Deuteronomy 28:29-34 reduce the sufferers to powerlessness before their enemies and oppressors.

Blindness - Most probably mental blindness; compare Lamentations 4:14; Zep 1:17; 2 Corinthians 3:14 ff.

Deuteronomy 28:30-33

See the marginal references for the fulfillment of these judgments.

Deuteronomy 28:38-48

Third series of judgments, affecting every kind of labor and enterprise until it had accomplished the total ruin of the nation, and its subjection to its enemies.

Deuteronomy 28:39

Worms - i. e. the vine-weevil. Naturalists prescribed elaborate precautions against its ravages.

Deuteronomy 28:40

Cast ... - Some prefer “shall be spoiled” or “plundered.”

Deuteronomy 28:43, Deuteronomy 28:44

Contrast Deuteronomy 28:12 and Deuteronomy 28:13.

Deuteronomy 28:46

Forever - Yet “the remnant” Romans 9:27; Romans 11:5 would by faith and obedience become a holy seed.

Deuteronomy 28:49-58

Fourth series of judgments, descriptive of the calamities and horrors which should ensue when Israel should be subjugated by its foreign foes.

Deuteronomy 28:49

The description (compare the marginal references) applies undoubtedly to the Chaldeans, and in a degree to other nations also whom God raised up as ministers of vengeance upon apostate Israel (e. g. the Medes). But it only needs to read this part of the denunciation, and to compare it with the narrative of Josephus, to see that its full and exact accomplishment took place in the wars of Vespasian and Titus against the Jews, as indeed the Jews themselves generally admit.

The eagle - The Roman ensign; compare Matthew 24:28; and consult throughout this passage the marginal references.

Deuteronomy 28:54

Evil - i. e. grudging; compare Deuteronomy 15:9.

Deuteronomy 28:57

Young one - The “afterbirth” (see the margin). The Hebrew text in fact suggests an extremity of horror which the King James Version fails to exhibit. Compare 2 Kings 6:29.

Deuteronomy 28:58-68

Fifth series of judgments. The uprooting of Israel from the promised land, and its dispersion among other nations. Examine the marginal references.

Deuteronomy 28:58

In this book - i. e. in the book of the Law, or the Pentateuch in so far as it contains commands of God to Israel. Deuteronomy is included, but not exclusively intended. So Deuteronomy 28:61; compare Deuteronomy 27:3 and note, Deuteronomy 31:9.

Deuteronomy 28:66

Thy life shall hang in doubt before thee - i. e. shall be hanging as it were on a thread, and that before thine own eyes. The fathers regard this passage as suggesting in a secondary or mystical sense Christ hanging on the cross, as the life of the Jews who would not believe in Him.

Deuteronomy 28:68

This is the climax. As the Exodus from Egypt was as it were the birth of the nation into its covenant relationship with God, so the return to the house of bondage is in like manner the death of it. The mode of conveyance, “in ships,” is added to heighten the contrast. They crossed the sea from Egypt with a high hand. the waves being parted before them. They should go back again cooped up in slaveships.

There ye shall be sold - Rather, “there shall ye offer yourselves, or be offered for sale.” This denunciation was literally fulfilled on more than one occasion: most signally when many thousand Jews were sold into slavery and sent into Egypt by Titus; but also under Hadrian, when numbers were sold at Rachel’s grave Genesis 35:19.

No man shall buy you - i. e. no one shall venture even to employ you as slaves, regarding you as accursed of God, and to be shunned in everything.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Deuteronomy 28:28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness — שגעון shiggaon, distraction, so that thou shalt not know what to do.

And blindness — ivvaron, blindness, both physical and mental; the גרב garab, (Deuteronomy 28:27), destroying their eyes, and the judgments of God confounding their understandings.

Astonishment — תמהון timmahon, stupidity and amazement. By the just judgments of God they were so completely confounded, as not to discern the means by which they might prevent or remove their calamities, and to adopt those which led directly to their ruin. How true is the ancient saying, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat! "Those whom God is determined to destroy, he first infatuates." But this applies not exclusively to the poor Jews: how miserably infatuated have the powers of the continent of Europe been, in all their councils and measures, for several years past! And what is the result? They have fallen - most deplorably fallen!