22 Yahweh will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blight, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 Your sky that is over your head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron. 24 Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust: from the sky shall it come down on you, until you are destroyed. 25 Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away. 27 Yahweh will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. 28 Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; 29 and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you. 30 You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell therein: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not use its fruit. 31 Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it: your donkey shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to save you. 32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand. 33 The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you don’t know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always; 34 so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. 35 Yahweh will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. 36 Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone. 37 You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh shall lead you away. 38 You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. 39 You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worm shall eat them. 40 You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast its fruit. 41 You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. 42 All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:22-42
Commentary on Deuteronomy 28:15-44
(Read Deuteronomy 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.