the Week of Proper 23 / Ordinary 28
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Green's Literal Translation
Deuteronomy 28:50
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- CondensedParallel Translations
a hard-faced nation who shall not respect the old or show mercy to the young.
a nation of fierce countenance, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young,
a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
and they will look mean. They will not respect old people or feel sorry for the young.
a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young.
A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young:
a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young,
a defiant nation who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young,
a folk moost greedi axere, that schal not yyue reuerence to an elde man, nethir haue mercy on a litil child.
a nation -- fierce of countenance -- which accepteth not the face of the aged, and the young doth not favour;
a ruthless nation with no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
They won't show any mercy, and they will have no respect for old people or pity for children.
a nation of fierce countenance, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young,
A hard-faced nation, who will have no respect for the old or mercy for the young:
A nation of a shamelesse and cruell countenaunce, whiche shall not regarde the person of the olde, nor haue compassion on the young:
a nation grim in appearance, whose people neither respect the old nor pity the young.
a nation of fierce countenance, which regardeth not the person of the old, nor is kind to the young;
These people will be cruel. They will not care about old people or show mercy to young children.
a nation of fierce countenance, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young.
A nation of fierce countenance, which shal not regard the person of the old, nor shew fauour to the yong:
a nation that shows a hard face. It will have no respect for the old, or show favor to the young.
a grim-faced nation showing no respect to the old or favor to the young.
a nation of fierce countenance, - who wilt not respect an elder nor to the young, show favour;
A nation of a fierce countenance, which will not regarde the person of the olde, nor haue compassion of the yong.
A people of fierce countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old, nor show mercy to the young:
They will be ruthless and show no mercy to anyone, young or old.
A most insolent nation, that will shew no regard to the ancients, nor have pity on the infant,
a nation of stern countenance, who shall not regard the person of the old or show favor to the young,
a nation bold in countenance, which shall not respect the person of the aged and shall not pity the young.
a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young.
a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young,
A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:
a grim-faced nation who does not show respect to the old and the young and does not show pity.
an harde fauoured people, which regarde not the personne of the olde, ner haue compassion on the yonge.
If you listen obediently to the Voice of God , your God, and heartily obey all his commandments that I command you today, God , your God, will place you on high, high above all the nations of the world. All these blessings will come down on you and spread out beyond you because you have responded to the Voice of God , your God: God 's blessing inside the city, God 's blessing in the country; God 's blessing on your children, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of your flocks. God 's blessing on your basket and bread bowl; God 's blessing in your coming in, God 's blessing in your going out. God will defeat your enemies who attack you. They'll come at you on one road and run away on seven roads. God will order a blessing on your barns and workplaces; he'll bless you in the land that God , your God, is giving you. God will form you as a people holy to him, just as he promised you, if you keep the commandments of God , your God, and live the way he has shown you. All the peoples on Earth will see you living under the Name of God and hold you in respectful awe. God will lavish you with good things: children from your womb, offspring from your animals, and crops from your land, the land that God promised your ancestors that he would give you. God will throw open the doors of his sky vaults and pour rain on your land on schedule and bless the work you take in hand. You will lend to many nations but you yourself won't have to take out a loan. God will make you the head, not the tail; you'll always be the top dog, never the bottom dog, as you obediently listen to and diligently keep the commands of God , your God, that I am commanding you today. Don't swerve an inch to the right or left from the words that I command you today by going off following and worshiping other gods. Here's what will happen if you don't obediently listen to the Voice of God , your God, and diligently keep all the commandments and guidelines that I'm commanding you today. All these curses will come down hard on you: God 's curse in the city, God 's curse in the country; God 's curse on your basket and bread bowl; God 's curse on your children, the crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds, the lambs of your flocks. God 's curse in your coming in, God 's curse in your going out. God will send The Curse, The Confusion, The Contrariness down on everything you try to do until you've been destroyed and there's nothing left of you—all because of your evil pursuits that led you to abandon me. God will infect you with The Disease, wiping you right off the land that you're going in to possess. God will set consumption and fever and rash and seizures and dehydration and blight and jaundice on you. They'll hunt you down until they kill you. The sky over your head will become an iron roof, the ground under your feet, a slab of concrete. From out of the skies God will rain ash and dust down on you until you suffocate. God will defeat you by enemy attack. You'll come at your enemies on one road and run away on seven roads. All the kingdoms of Earth will see you as a horror. Carrion birds and animals will boldly feast on your dead body with no one to chase them away. God will hit you hard with the boils of Egypt, hemorrhoids, scabs, and an incurable itch. He'll make you go crazy and blind and senile. You'll grope around in the middle of the day like a blind person feeling his way through a lifetime of darkness; you'll never get to where you're going. Not a day will go by that you're not abused and robbed. And no one is going to help you. You'll get engaged to a woman and another man will take her for his mistress; you'll build a house and never live in it; you'll plant a garden and never eat so much as a carrot; you'll watch your ox get butchered and not get a single steak from it; your donkey will be stolen from in front of you and you'll never see it again; your sheep will be sent off to your enemies and no one will lift a hand to help you. Your sons and daughters will be shipped off to foreigners; you'll wear your eyes out looking vainly for them, helpless to do a thing. Your crops and everything you work for will be eaten and used by foreigners; you'll spend the rest of your lives abused and knocked around. What you see will drive you crazy. God will hit you with painful boils on your knees and legs and no healing or relief from head to foot. God will lead you and the king you set over you to a country neither you nor your ancestors have heard of; there you'll worship other gods, no-gods of wood and stone. Among all the peoples where God will take you, you'll be treated as a lesson or a proverb—a horror! You'll plant sacks and sacks of seed in the field but get almost nothing—the grasshoppers will devour it. You'll plant and hoe and prune vineyards but won't drink or put up any wine—the worms will devour them. You'll have groves of olive trees everywhere, but you'll have no oil to rub on your face or hands—the olives will have fallen off. You'll have sons and daughters but they won't be yours for long—they'll go off to captivity. Locusts will take over all your trees and crops. The foreigner who lives among you will climb the ladder, higher and higher, while you go deeper and deeper into the hole. He'll lend to you; you won't lend to him. He'll be the head; you'll be the tail. All these curses are going to come on you. They're going to hunt you down and get you until there's nothing left of you because you didn't obediently listen to the Voice of God , your God, and diligently keep his commandments and guidelines that I commanded you. The curses will serve as signposts, warnings to your children ever after. Because you didn't serve God , your God, out of the joy and goodness of your heart in the great abundance, you'll have to serve your enemies whom God will send against you. Life will be famine and drought, rags and wretchedness; then he'll put an iron yoke on your neck until he's destroyed you. Yes, God will raise up a faraway nation against you, swooping down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you can't understand, a mean-faced people, cruel to grandmothers and babies alike. They'll ravage the young of your animals and the crops from your fields until you're destroyed. They'll leave nothing behind: no grain, no wine, no oil, no calves, no lambs—and finally, no you. They'll lay siege to you while you're huddled behind your town gates. They'll knock those high, proud walls flat, those walls behind which you felt so safe. They'll lay siege to your fortified cities all over the country, this country that God , your God, has given you. And you'll end up cannibalizing your own sons and daughters that God , your God, has given you. When the suffering from the siege gets extreme, you're going to eat your own babies. The most gentle and caring man among you will turn hard, his eye evil, against his own brother, his cherished wife, and even the rest of his children who are still alive, refusing to share with them a scrap of meat from the cannibal child-stew he is eating. He's lost everything, even his humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns. And the most gentle and caring woman among you, a woman who wouldn't step on a wildflower, will turn hard, her eye evil, against her cherished husband, against her son, against her daughter, against even the afterbirth of her newborn infants; she plans to eat them in secret—she does eat them!—because she has lost everything, even her humanity, in the suffering of the siege that your enemy mounts against your fortified towns. If you don't diligently keep all the words of this Revelation written in this book, living in holy awe before This Name glorious and terrible, God , your God, then God will pound you with catastrophes, you and your children, huge interminable catastrophes, hideous interminable illnesses. He'll bring back and stick you with every old Egyptian malady that once terrorized you. And yes, every disease and catastrophe imaginable—things not even written in the Book of this Revelation— God will bring on you until you're destroyed. Because you didn't listen obediently to the Voice of God , your God, you'll be left with a few pitiful stragglers in place of the dazzling stars-in-the-heavens multitude you had become. And this is how things will end up: Just as God once enjoyed you, took pleasure in making life good for you, giving you many children, so God will enjoy getting rid of you, clearing you off the Earth. He'll weed you out of the very soil that you are entering in to possess. He'll scatter you to the four winds, from one end of the Earth to the other. You'll worship all kinds of other gods, gods neither you nor your parents ever heard of, wood and stone no-gods. But you won't find a home there, you'll not be able to settle down. God will give you a restless heart, longing eyes, a homesick soul. You will live in constant jeopardy, terrified of every shadow, never knowing what you'll meet around the next corner. In the morning you'll say, "I wish it were evening." In the evening you'll say, "I wish it were morning." Afraid, terrorized at what's coming next, afraid of the unknown, because of the sights you've witnessed. God will ship you back to Egypt by a road I promised you'd never see again. There you'll offer yourselves for sale, both men and women, as slaves to your enemies. And not a buyer to be found.
a nation with a defiant attitude, who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.
a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young.
a fierce and heartless nation that shows no respect for the old and no pity for the young.
a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.
a nation of fierce countenance who will have no respect for the old, nor show favor to the young.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
of fierce countenance: Heb. strong of face, Proverbs 7:13, Ecclesiastes 8:1, *marg. Daniel 7:7, Daniel 8:23
shall not: 2 Chronicles 36:17, Isaiah 47:6, Hosea 13:16, Luke 19:44, Luke 21:23, Luke 21:24
Reciprocal: 2 Kings 24:2 - the Lord Psalms 109:11 - strangers Isaiah 33:19 - shalt not Jeremiah 21:7 - he shall Lamentations 2:21 - young Ezekiel 11:9 - and deliver Ezekiel 28:7 - the terrible Ezekiel 30:11 - the terrible Ezekiel 32:12 - the terrible John 11:48 - and the
Gill's Notes on the Bible
A nation of fierce countenance,.... Or, "strong of face" y; which aptly describes the old Romans, who are always represented as such; and whereas it is said of the Chaldeans, that they were a nation dreadful and terrible, Habakkuk 1:7; the same is said of the fourth beast, or Roman empire, Daniel 7:7; who were a terror to all the world:
which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young: cruel, unmerciful, and uncompassionate, to persons of whatsoever age or sex; which, as it was the character of the Chaldeans, 2 Chronicles 36:17; so of the Romans, who especially showed no mercy to the Jews, as Josephus z, who was an eyewitness, testifies.
"The Romans (says he) showed no mercy to any age, out of hatred to the nation (of the Jews), and in remembrance of the injuries done to Cestius;''
one of their governors, when among them. And in another place he says a,
"the Romans, remembering what they suffered in the siege, spared none, and showed no mercy.''
y עז פנים "fortem faciebus", Montanus; "robustam facie", Vatablus. z De Bello Jud. l. 3. c. 7. sect. 1. a Ibid. sect. 34.
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.
