*

not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daugh57 ter, And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear for she shall eat them for want of all [things] secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy shall dis58 tress thee in thy gates. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD 59 THY GOD; Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful, uncommon and surprising to all the world, and the plagues of thy seed, [even] great plagues and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance; accordingly, they and their seed have been plagued in almost every na60 tion under heaven. Moreover, he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of; and they shall 61 cleave unto thee. Also every sickness, and every plague, which [is] not written in the book of this law, them will the 62 LORD bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And ye

shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldst not obey the 63 voice of the LORD' thy God. And it shall come to pass, [that] as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. God takes no pleasure in the death of sinners, but he delights to glorify his justice, takes pleas ure in asserting the honour of his government, and in securing` 64 the designs of it; therefore he plucked them off the land.

And the LORD shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other ;* and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have 65 known, [even] wood and stone. And among these nations

Accordingly, Josephus tells us, that after eating dogs, horses, cats, &c. they ate their own children privately, and let none share with them. He particularly mentions a noble matron, who boiled part of her child during the siege, but the mob, smelling the meat, broke in, and to them she offered the rest.

+ This also is a fact, for in almost every nation they have been tortured and destroyed in various ways, and exposed to all the sicknesses that hunger, nakedness, and wandering about, could bring upon them.

This was remarkably the case when Jerusalem was taken; some say a million perished in the city by famine and the sword, and many hundred thousands in other parts of the kingdom.

Titus carried away ninety thousand captives: Adrian, soon after, slew five hundred thousand; and the senate joined with him in a decree, that no Jew should ever come with in Judea, on pain of death; this he did out of policy, but he was fulfilling this word of the Lord.

This was the natural effect of the decree abovementioned. Some were carried to Spain, multitudes fled to Babylon, and the East; they were scattered over all the earth, but still continued distinct from all other nations; which is a standing miracle to this day.

I make no doubt, but that this refers to their being obliged to turn christians in popish countries, and to worship their idols; this they were obliged to do in Spain and Por tugal.

shalt thou find no ease, no settlement, but be continually removed from place to place, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the LORD shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind, ye shall always be in dread 66 of some new mischief. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have 67 none assurance of thy life: In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see on account of dreadful apprehensions in the night, and 68 lamentable sights by day. And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again, to be slaves again there,† with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy [you.]

1.

REFLECTIONS.

E should consider the prophecy in this chapter, as a ings, and a proof that Moses was a divinely inspired prophet. The words are fulfilled through every succeeding age to this day, in all the calamities of the Jews. The contempt they suffer in every nation, the marks of infamy that are put upon them, and the blindness of their hearts are unanswerable arguments for the truth of christianity. Every Jew we see, is a kind of miraculous attestation that Jesus is the true Messiah, and that the scriptures were given by divine inspiration.

2. We find here many important branches of duty pointed out. Let us hearken to God's voice, observe his commands, his whole law, not turning aside to the right hand or to the left. Let us serve God with cheerfulness and gladness; serve him with all our good things. The more we have, the more cheerfully we should serve him; not with reluctance, but with pleasure and delight. Let us fear that awful name, JEHOVAH, the selfexistent, unchangeable, eternal, and covenant keeping God; that so his blessing may continually overtake us.

• Hence Juvenal calls them, in contempt, trembling Jews; their eyes failed in looking for relief, and they had sorrow of mind on account of their sufferings.

+ So it came to pass at the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, when multitudes of them were carried into Egypt and sold there for slaves.

Titus commanded all under seventeen years of age to be sold, and in such numbers, that thirty of them were sold for a small piece of money. Adrian sold them in a fair, like horses, and for the same price. Such multitudes were often exposed to sale, that there were not persons enough to buy them; and they were sent into confinement, and that so strict and severe, till they died by hundreds and thousands together; and in general they were looked upon in so contemptible a light, that men would not have them even for slaves; in so remarkable a manner have these awful denunciations been fulfilled.

3. Let us stand in awe, and sin not; for the whole chapter assures us, that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Mr. HENRY relates an account of a wicked man, who, upon reading the threatenings in this chapter, was so enraged, that he tore the leaf out of his bible. But to what purpose is it to deface the copy, while the original remains upon record in the divine council? By that it is unalterably determined, that the wages of sin is death, whether we hear, or whether we forbear. When we hear these words, justly may our flesh tremble for fear of God's righteous judgments. May we be thankful that the miseries here threatened have not fallen to the lot of our own country. May we also dread the curse of God, that follows wicked men wherever they go, that mixes with all their enjoyments, imbitters all their comforts, and obscures all their hopes. What various terrible judgments has God in store for the wicked! Divers arrows are in his quiver; but the worst of all is, that astonishment, that sorrow of mind, a guilty conscience, a trembling heart, which he here declares will reach the sinner every where. Alas! whose heart can endure, whose hand be strong, in that day? May we be careful then, not to provoke the Lord to anger. Oh that we might this day, kiss the Son, lest he be angry! Oh that these curses of the law may now be as a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ! that being justified by him, we may be delivered from the curses of the law, have peace and security, and maintain his friendship; for happy is the man that is in such a case, yea, happy the people whose God is the Lord.

CHAP. XXIX.

We have here the renewal of the covenant between God and Israel ; the persons who were to enter into it; and the terrible consequences of breaking it.

1

'T

HESE [are] the words of the covenant, which the LORD Commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. Moses was just about to die, and Israel to enter into Canaan; therefore, to secure their obedience, he enters them into another covenant, of the same nature, but something different from the former. The greater part of them were a new generation, and therefore it was fit the cove2 nant should be renewed. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all the wonderful works that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land, 3 The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the trials

God had made whether Israel would serve him or not, the signs, 4 and those great miracles: Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear unto this day; though you have seen those things, yet you have not duly considered and improved them. God would have given you grace to do this but you were not disposed to observe and learn : 5 it is a just punishment for your sin. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot, they are the 6 same you put on when ye came out of Egypt. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink, but have had manna from heaven, and water from the rock, without your own care and labour: that ye might know that I [am] 7 the LORD your God. And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came 8 out against us unto battle, and we smote them: And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh. In this 9 you see the power, faithfulness, and goodness of God; Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

10

Ye stand this day all of you before the LORD your God, to enter into covenant with him, your captains of your tribes, your 11 elders, and your officers, [with] all the men of Israel, Your little ones,* your wives, and thy stranger that [is] in thy camp, from the hewer of thy wood, unto the drawer of thy water; all that came out of Egypt with thee, (Exodus xii. 38.) and such as have since joined themselves to the congregation, 12 (Josh. ix. 21. 27.) That thou shouldst enter into covenant with the LORD thy God, and into his oath, the covenant confirmed with an oath, which the LORD thy God maketh with thee 13 this day: That he may establish thee today for a people unto himself, and [that] he may be unto thee a God, as he hath said unto thee, and as he hath sworn unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; that he may confirm thy 14 privileges, and abundantly bless thee. Neither with you only 15 do I make this covenant and this oath; But with [him] that

standeth here with us this day before the LORD our God, and also with [him] that [is] not here with us this day, with all who are necessarily absent, with all your posterity, and with 16 all who may hereafter join themselves to you: (For ye know how we have dwelt in the land of Egypt; and how we came through the nations which ye passed by, what difficulties we 17 encountered there; And ye have seen their abominations and their idols, wood and stone, silver and gold, which [were] among them; ye have seen how unable these were to help them,

These were capable of being taken into the covenant, and admitted with their pa rents; so it is under the New Testament, as well as the Old.

and how some of us have been remarkably punished for being led away by them; we have need therefore to be cautious, and bind 18 ourselves firmly to Jehovah :) Lest there should be among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe, whose heart turneth away this day from the LORD our God, to go [and] serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be among you a 19 root that beareth gall and wormwood ;* And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, I shall be prosperous, let me worship what god I will, though I walk in the imagination, or stubbornness, of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst, that is, one sin to another. Yet, 20 whatever he may think or say, The LORD will not spare him: but then the anger of the LORD and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, the highest degree of anger, the just displeas ure of incensed majesty, shall break forth with fury and terror against him, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, not only fall, but continue upon him; and the LORD shall blot out his name from under heaven, neither 21 he nor his children shall be known any more. And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law; if there is but one such sinner in a tribe, God will find him out, separate him and make him a public example; he shall be marked out for misery, according to all the dreadful curses of this book; and if this root of bitterness spreads through the nation, it will bring destruction upon them all. 22 So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the 23 sicknesses which the LORD hath laid upon it; [And that] the whole land thereof [is] brimstone and salt, [and] burning, become barren and desolate, like Sodom of old, [that] it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger and in his wrath : 24 Even all nations shall say, neighbours, travellers, succeeding generations, shall inquire, Wherefore hath the LORD done thus unto this good, this fruitful, populous, and holy land? what 25 [meaneth] the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, the pious Jews who remain, and others, shall reply, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their

• These words have a reference to v. 15. The covenant was made with all persons, lest there should be any, who, concealing themselves like a root under ground, should spring up and poison others, like some baneful herb among corn, and thus draw them to idolatry, which is displeasing to God, and will prove bitterness in the end.

+ Some refer these words to the revellings and debauchery that attended their idol feasts.

This was true of Judea, when laid waste by Titus and Adrian.