Deuteronomy 28:1

This incredible chapter is the marvel of three millenniums! One may read in these tragic pronouncements the history of the nation of Israel, a history written by the great prophet who loved them enough to die for them, a history written 3,400 years before the events related! Where on earth is there anything else to compare with Deuteronomy? Furthermore, it is a history still being unfolded, day by day, decade by decade, century by century in every particular true to the pattern Moses outlined here. In this fantastic prophecy there is dissolved and expelled every shadow of doubt as to the author of these phenomenally dramatic lines. God Himself is the Author! None except Almighty God could have written such a circumstantial and accurate account of a whole nation of people, millenniums before it happened. Such a heart-breaking history could never have been written by a priesthood in Israel, regardless of when! No mere man, nor any group of mere men would have consented to lay out a projection such as this which drowned every legitimate hope of Israel in shame and tears. Not even Moses could have done it, or would have done it, unless it had been upon the express command and compulsion of the Almighty God.

There is another factor here. At the time when the Pentateuch was written by Moses, approximately 1400 B.C., we find it difficult to believe that Moses himself could have brought himself to write these curses, unless it had been true that when he wrote, the issue was not yet decided. The die was not yet cast; it still remained a hope in the heart of the Great Type of Jesus that Israel would avoid such curses by faithful adherence to the Word of God.

But "in the seventh century B.C.,"[1] some seven hundred years later, when Israel had already been rejected and disinherited as the Chosen People, could any Jew have brought himself to call down such imprecations upon Israel as those in this chapter, and which any discerning priest could not fail to have recognized as being fully deserved by Israel? The answer is absolutely NO! The ridiculous critical theories about a post-Mosaic date for the Pentateuch are blasted into oblivion by this single chapter! Thus, there is within the sacred text itself, as we have so frequently noted, the inherent, built-in proof of its integrity and authenticity.

The first fourteen verses of this lengthy chapter detail the blessings Israel will inherit from God, provided they continue in his ways.

"And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of Jehovah thy God, to observe to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that Jehovah thy God will set thee on high above all the nations of the earth: and all these blessings shall come upon thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of Jehovah thy God. Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy beasts, the increase of thy cattle, and the young of thy flock. Blessed shall be thy basket and thy kneading-trough. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out."

Throughout the whole chapter, it appears that language itself breaks down as an adequate vehicle for enumerating all the blessings that God will give Israel. Among these blessings are prosperity in city, in field, in posterity, in wealth, and in the exaltation of Israel "high above all nations!" Israel, however failed to understand the two biggest words in this paragraph, namely, the mountain-high IF in Deuteronomy 28:1, and there is another IF just like it in Deuteronomy 28:2.