Blessings and Curses at Mount Sinai

This chapter sets the terms of the covenant between the Lord and Israel at Mount Sinai. It opens with a prohibition: no idols, no graven images, no pillars, no figured stones for worship. The Lord alone is God. The people are to keep His sabbaths and reverence His sanctuary. These are not suggestions but the foundation of the relationship.

The Lord then lays out the blessings for obedience. If Israel walks in His statutes and keeps His commandments, He promises rain in its season, the land yielding its increase, and the trees giving fruit. The threshing season will stretch to the vintage, and the vintage to the sowing time. The people will eat bread to the full and dwell securely in the land.

Peace is part of the promise: no one will make them afraid. The Lord will remove evil beasts from the land and stop the sword from passing through it. When enemies rise, Israel will chase them, and five will chase a hundred, a hundred will chase ten thousand. The Lord will have respect for them, make them fruitful, multiply them, and establish His covenant. They will eat old store long kept and bring out the old because of the new.

The Lord will set His tabernacle among them. He will walk among them, be their God, and they will be His people. This is anchored in the exodus: the Lord brought them out of Egypt, broke the bars of their yoke, and made them walk upright.

But the chapter turns sharply. If Israel will not listen, will not do all these commandments, if they reject His statutes and abhor His ordinances, breaking the covenant, then the Lord will appoint terror over them. Consumption and fever will consume the eyes and make the soul pine away. They will sow seed in vain, for enemies will eat it. The Lord will set His face against them, and they will be smitten before their enemies. Those who hate them will rule over them, and they will flee when no one pursues.

If they still do not listen, the Lord will chastise them seven times more for their sins. He will break the pride of their power, make the heaven like iron and the earth like brass. Their strength will be spent in vain; the land will not yield, and the trees will not bear fruit. If they walk contrary to Him, He will bring seven times more plagues. Wild beasts will rob them of their children, destroy their cattle, and make them few. Their ways will become desolate.

If they remain unreformed, the Lord will walk contrary to them and smite them seven times for their sins. He will bring a sword to execute the vengeance of the covenant. They will be gathered into their cities, but pestilence will come, and they will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When the staff of bread is broken, ten women will bake bread in one oven and deliver it by weight, and they will eat but not be satisfied.

If they still do not listen, the Lord will walk contrary to them in wrath and chastise them seven times. The language becomes stark: they will eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. The Lord will destroy their high places, cut down their sun-images, and cast their dead bodies upon the bodies of their idols. His soul will abhor them. He will make their cities a waste, bring their sanctuaries to desolation, and refuse their sweet odors. The land itself will become desolate, and their enemies will be astonished.

The Lord will scatter them among the nations and draw out the sword after them. The land will then enjoy its sabbaths, lying desolate while they are in enemy lands. For those left, the Lord will send faintness into their hearts. The sound of a driven leaf will chase them; they will flee as from the sword and fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another and have no power to stand before their enemies. They will perish among the nations, and the land of their enemies will eat them up. Those left will pine away in their iniquity and the iniquities of their fathers.

Yet the chapter does not end in total destruction. If they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers, if their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they accept the punishment of their iniquity, then the Lord will remember His covenant with Jacob, with Isaac, and with Abraham. He will remember the land. The land will be left by them and enjoy its sabbaths, and they will accept their punishment because they rejected His ordinances and abhorred His statutes.

Even in the land of their enemies, the Lord will not reject them utterly or break His covenant with them. He is the Lord their God. He will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom He brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that He might be their God. The chapter closes with a note: these are the statutes, ordinances, and laws the Lord made between Himself and the children of Israel at Mount Sinai by Moses.