Deuteronomy 28:25

The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) The contrary to Deuteronomy 28:7.

Removed.—Literally, a removing. The LXX. in this place has διασπορά, or dispersion, the word used for the dispersed Israelites in the New Testament. (See Revised Version, John 7:35; 1Peter 1:1.) The threat is repeated in Jeremiah 15:4 for the sins of king Manaseeh.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:15-44 If we do not keep God's commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which includes all misery, as the blessing all happiness. Observe the justice of this curse. It is not a curse causeless, or for some light cause. The extent and power of this curse. Wherever the sinner goes, the curse of God follows; wherever he is, it rests upon him. Whatever he has is under a curse. All his enjoyments are made bitter; he cannot take any true comfort in them, for the wrath of God mixes itself with them. Many judgments are here stated, which would be the fruits of the curse, and with which God would punish the people of the Jews, for their apostacy and disobedience. We may observe the fulfilling of these threatenings in their present state. To complete their misery, it is threatened that by these troubles they should be bereaved of all comfort and hope, and left to utter despair. Those who walk by sight, and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when every thing about them looks frightful.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. the rain of thy land powder and dust—an allusion probably to the dreadful effects of tornadoes in the East, which, raising the sands in immense twisted pillars, drive them along with the fury of a tempest. These shifting sands are most destructive to cultivated lands; and in consequence of their encroachments, many once fertile regions of the East are now barren deserts.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Removed. Heb. for a removing; to be tossed like a football from place to place, and from people to people.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten fore thine enemies,.... And by them, as they sometimes were by the Philistines and others, before their utter destruction, when they sinned against the Lord; and by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Romans:

thou shall go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; march out against them in a body, promising themselves victory, but be utterly routed; so that they shall flee every way they can for their safety; see Deuteronomy 28:7,

and shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth; this shows that Manasseh's case 2 Kings 21:1, observed Deuteronomy 28:15; will not strictly and entirely hold good, nor is there any necessity to adhere closely to it; it is enough that the things threatened and prophesied of were at one time or another fulfilled in these people; for neither the ten tribes, when taken captive by Shalmaneser, were carried into all the kingdoms of the earth, only to some particular places mentioned in 2 Kings 17:6; nor the two tribes by Nebuchadnezzar, who were carried by him to Babylon, and returned from thence again at the end of seventy years; but this was exactly fulfilled at their last destruction by the Romans, when they were sent by them into various countries, and have been ever since scattered about in each of the nations of the world. And yet it must be owned that Strabo (g), who wrote before the last destruction of them, affirms, that it was not easy to find any place in the world which had not received them, and was not occupied by them.

(g) Apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 14. c. 7. sect. 2.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be {l} removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

(i) Some read, you shall be a terror and fear, when they hear how God has plagued you.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. See on Deuteronomy 28:7; Deuteronomy 28:20 a.

tossed to and fro] Rather, for a trembling or a horror (Heb. leza‘avah). So the v. does not necessarily imply exile. Cp. Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 29:18; Jeremiah 34:17.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 25, 26. - Utter defeat in battle (the opposite of the blessing promised, ver. 7) and dispersion among the nations are threatened, with the utmost indignity to those who were slain, in their bodies being left unburied to be devoured by birds of prey and wild beasts (cf. 1 Kings 14:11; Psalm 79:2; Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 16:4, etc.). Shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth; literally, shalt be a tossing to and fro to all the kingdoms, etc.; "a ball for all the kingdoms to play with" (Schultz; cf. 2 Chronicles 29:8; Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 29:18, etc.). Deuteronomy 28:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Defeat in battle, the very opposite of the blessing promised in Deuteronomy 28:7. Israel should become לזעוה, "a moving to and fro," i.e., so to speak, "a ball for all the kingdoms of the earth to play with" (Schultz). זעוה, here and at Ezekiel 23:46, is not a transposed and later form of זועה, which has a different meaning in Isaiah 28:19, but the original uncontracted form, which was afterwards condensed into זועה; for this, and not זועה, is the way in which the Chethib should be read in Jeremiah 15:4; Jeremiah 24:9; Jeremiah 29:18; Jeremiah 34:17, and 2 Chronicles 29:8, where this threat is repeated (vid., Ewald, 53, b.). The corpses of those who were slain by the foe should serve as food for the birds of prey and wild beasts - the greatest ignominy that could fall upon the dead, and therefore frequently held out as a threat against the ungodly (Jeremiah 7:33; Jeremiah 16:4; 1 Kings 14:11, etc.).