The Fine Print of Rebellion Text: Deuteronomy 28:15-68
Introduction: The Cosmic Operating System
We live in a world that desperately wants the fruit of Christianity without the root of Christ. Our secular culture is like a man who has unplugged his computer from the wall and is now furiously hammering on the keyboard, demanding to know why the screen is dark and the machine is silent. He wants the benefits of the operating system, things like order, productivity, and communication, but he denies the existence of the electricity that makes it all possible.
Modern man wants a world of blessings without a Blesser. He wants peace, but not the Prince of Peace. He wants prosperity, but not the God who gives the power to get wealth. He wants justice, but not the ultimate Lawgiver and Judge. He has taken the long list of covenantal blessings found in the first part of this chapter, torn it out of the Bible, and has attempted to staple it into his own humanist manifesto. But it does not work that way. The universe has a grain, a structure, a divinely-coded operating system. And when you defy that system, it is not the system that breaks; it is you.
This passage, the second half of Deuteronomy 28, is the fine print on the covenant contract. It is the part that our therapeutic, self-esteem-addled generation wants to skip over. These are the curses for disobedience. And we must understand that these are not arbitrary, vindictive punishments, like a petty tyrant throwing a tantrum. No, this is the simple, organic, and inescapable consequence of rebellion against the living God. This is what happens when a creature tells the Creator to get lost. This is the law of spiritual gravity. If you step off the roof, you do not break the law of gravity; you demonstrate it. In the same way, when a nation rejects God's law, it does not invalidate His law; it validates the curses attached to it.
This is not just a historical document about ancient Israel. This is a detailed diagnostic manual for the ruin of any people, any nation, any family, at any time in history. It is a roadmap of de-creation, the systematic undoing of blessing. And unless we understand the terrifying logic of the curse, we will never be able to grasp the breathtaking glory of the One who became a curse for us.
The Text
"But it will be, if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep and to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I am commanding you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field... Yahweh will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way about which I spoke to you, 'You will never see it again!' And there you will offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer."
(Deuteronomy 28:15-16, 68 LSB)
The Great Reversal (vv. 15-19)
The entire chapter pivots on a single, massive condition in verse 15:
"But it will be, if you do not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep and to do all His commandments and His statutes..." (Deuteronomy 28:15)
The issue is fundamentally auditory. "If you do not listen." The foundational sin is a refusal to hear. All the subsequent sins, all the idolatry and injustice, flow from this single source: plugging the ears to the voice of God. Faith comes by hearing, and so does rebellion. They are two sides of the same coin. To obey is to hear and submit. To disobey is to hear and refuse, or to refuse to hear at all. This is why the first and great commandment is "Hear, O Israel."
What follows is a direct, point-for-point inversion of the blessings promised earlier. The blessings were total, covering every aspect of life. Consequently, the curses are just as comprehensive. "Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field... Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out." There is no escape. There is no neutral ground in God's world where you can hide from either His blessing or His curse. If you are not under the waterfall of His grace, you are under the waterfall of His judgment. The curse will "overtake you." It is pictured as a relentless pursuer that you cannot outrun.
The Deconstruction of Dominion (vv. 20-24, 38-42)
The first area the curse attacks is the foundation of a society's life: its productivity. God had given man the dominion mandate in the garden, to be fruitful and fill the earth. The blessings were an affirmation of this mandate. The curses are a systematic deconstruction of it.
"Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground..." (Deuteronomy 28:17-18)
The curse gets into the food supply. It affects the womb and the soil. It touches the herds and the flocks. All the work of their hands will come to nothing. Yahweh will send "confusion, and rebuke, in all that you send forth your hand to do." The very elements of creation are turned against them. The heavens over their head become bronze, refusing to give rain, and the earth beneath them becomes iron, refusing to receive seed. The rain that does come is not water, but powder and dust. It is a picture of total agricultural collapse.
They will sow much seed but gather little, for the locust will eat it. They will plant vineyards but get no wine, for the worm will devour them. They will have olive trees but no oil. This is not just a string of bad luck. This is the Creator turning His own creation against a rebellious covenant people. When man refuses to serve God, the creation itself refuses to serve man. This is what Paul is talking about in Romans 8 when he says the creation was subjected to futility. It is groaning under the weight of human sin.
The Dissolution of a Nation (vv. 25-37, 43-44)
From the ruin of the economy, the curse moves to the dissolution of the social and political fabric.
"Yahweh shall cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you will go out one way against them, but you will flee seven ways before them..." (Deuteronomy 28:25)
National security evaporates. Their carcasses will be food for birds, a sign of ultimate shame and desecration. Their bodies are afflicted with the boils of Egypt, tumors, madness, and blindness. This is a spiritual condition manifesting physically. A nation that is spiritually blind begins to grope at noon as though it were dark. They cannot succeed in their ways. Look at our own nation. We have more information, more technology, more wealth than any society in history, and yet we are characterized by "bewilderment of heart," groping in the darkness of moral confusion.
The curse then invades the most basic unit of society: the family. A man will betroth a wife, and another will take her. He will build a house, and another will live in it. His sons and daughters will be given to another people. This is the essence of slavery and exile. The social order is then turned completely upside-down. "The sojourner who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail." A nation that rejects God as its head will find itself the tail, serving other masters.
The Heart of the Matter (vv. 47-48)
In the middle of this litany of horror, Moses gives us the central reason, the spiritual diagnosis for this national collapse.
"Because you did not serve Yahweh your God with gladness and a merry heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom Yahweh will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things..." (Deuteronomy 28:47-48)
This is one of the most important passages in all of Scripture for understanding the nature of sin. The root of their rebellion was not misery, but abundance. God had showered them with blessings, and it made them sullen, entitled, and ungrateful. Their service to God became a joyless, perfunctory chore. And so God, in perfect justice, says, "If you will not serve Me with joy in a time of feasting, then you will serve your enemies with sorrow in a time of famine."
The punishment is tailored to fit the crime precisely. God is a God of righteous retribution. He will put an iron yoke on their neck. They refused the light and easy yoke of His law, so they will receive the heavy and cruel yoke of a pagan tyrant. This is a permanent principle. A people that will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants. A man who will not serve God with gladness will become a slave to his lusts, his fears, and his enemies.
The End of the Line (vv. 49-57, 68)
The curses spiral down into the ultimate darkness. God will bring a fierce nation from afar, and the siege will be so terrible that the bonds of nature and affection will completely dissolve. It culminates in the most horrific act imaginable: cannibalism.
"Then you shall eat the offspring of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters... during the siege and the distress by which your enemy will oppress you." (Deuteronomy 28:53)
This is the final logic of sin. When you reject the Creator, the Giver of life, you inevitably become a consumer of life. A culture that turns from God will begin to devour its own children. We should not read this and pridefully think how barbaric they were. We live in a nation that has sanitized this very horror and declared it a constitutional right. Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death. It is cannibalistic. It eats its own future.
And the final curse brings the story full circle. "And Yahweh will bring you back to Egypt in ships... and there you will offer yourselves for sale... but there will be no buyer." The entire story of redemption, the Exodus, is undone. God brought them out of slavery in Egypt. Their rebellion will lead them right back into slavery, but this time it is a slavery so pathetic and worthless that no one will even purchase them. This is the ultimate ruin. This is what it means to be forsaken by God.
The Curse-Bearer
How are we to hear these words today? This is a description of the wrath of God against sin, and it is absolutely terrifying. For anyone who stands before God on the basis of his own righteousness, this is your future. This is what sin deserves. The wages of sin is this.
But for the Christian, this entire chapter should drive us to the cross with staggering gratitude. Because on that cross, one man absorbed this entire list of curses. The apostle Paul tells us, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).
Think of it. Jesus was cursed in the city, Jerusalem. He was cursed in the field, at Golgotha. He was cursed in His offspring, for He was cut off with no descendants. He was hungry and thirsty. He was stripped naked. He was defeated by His enemies, handed over to a pagan nation. His own people, His brothers, turned on Him. He was afflicted with madness and bewilderment of heart, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He was brought down to the dust of death. He was made a horror and a byword. He bore the full, undiluted, terrifying force of every single curse in this chapter.
Why? So that the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles. He drank the cup of God's wrath down to the dregs so that it could be filled with the wine of God's blessing for us. He took the curse so that we could receive the blessing. He became the tail so we could be the head. He went into the ultimate exile so that we could be brought home.
The choice set before Israel is the same choice set before us today. It is the choice between blessing and curse, life and death. But the choice is not, "Try harder to obey." The choice is, "Will you trust the one who obeyed for you and who bore the curse for you?" The choice is Christ. And in Him, and only in Him, can we learn to serve the Lord our God with gladness and a merry heart, because of the abundance of all things He has given us in the gospel.