24 (They shall be) wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
They shall be burnt with hunger. He now descends to some particular modes of punishment, not, indeed, to enumerate them all, but only to adduce such specimens of them as to inspire the people with greater terror, inasmuch as mere generalities would not have sufficiently affected them. He mentions three especial scourges, pestilence, famine, and the sword, on which the prophets constantly dilate, when their object was to apply the Law to the actual use of the people, from whence it arose that they familiarly employ many of the expressions used by Moses. He introduces indeed other punishments, which the prophets also mention; but the sum of what he says is this, that the Israelites should feel that God was armed with all the punishments which were only too well known by experience, and by them would utterly destroy them. First., he says, that they should be dried up, or rather roasted with hunger. [1] Instead of pestilence he uses the words burning (uredinem,) and bitter destruction: and before he speaks of the sword, declares that He would send forth beasts and serpents, so that on the one hand, open violence should assail them, and, on the other, secret wiles. Amos has also imitated this figure: "The day of the Lord (he says) is darkness and not light: as if a man did flee from a lion and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him." (Amos 5:18, 19.) To war, and the cruelty of enemies he adds another evil, viz., terror: and this is, indeed, an aggravation worse than death itself, when we tremble within with terror, for it would be better to be slain ten times over bravely fighting in battle, than to be consumed with constant fear, as by a lingering death. Let us learn, then, from this passage, that, whatever perils surround us, and whatever adversities, they are God's weapons, and that they do not occur by chance to this or that person, but are directed by His hand. Thus it is the case that He not; only stirs up enemies against us, but fierce and noisome beasts also; that He shuts up the heaven and the earth; that He infects the atmosphere with deadly disease; that, in a word, he draws forth from all the elements manifold means of destruction. But if it be the fact, that the godly are involved in similar punishments, since they suffer from hunger and want, and are not exempt from any evil; for even Paul acknowledges that he had himself experienced what God here denounces against those that wickedly despise Him, for he says that he was troubled without with fightings, and within with fears, (2-Corinthians 7:5;) we must bear in mind that all adversities are in themselves signs of God's wrath, since they derive their origin from sin; but that through God's marvelous provision it comes to pass, that to believers they are exercises of their faith and proofs of their patience. Hence we often see God's children afflicted in common with the ungodly, but to a different end; though nevertheless all adversities are proofs of God's wrath against the reprobate. On this point I have spoken at greater length in treating of the curses of the Law.
1 - Professor Liebig has pointed out the dreadful fact, in singular confirmation of the expression here employed by Moses, that "when a person is starved to death, he is, in fact, slowly burnt, as, during the process of starvation, a slow combustion of the body takes place."
Burning heat - i. e., the fear of a pestilential disease. On the "four sore judgments," famine, plague, noisome beasts, the sword, compare Leviticus 26:22; Jeremiah 15:2; Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 14:21.
They shall be burnt with hunger - Their land shall be cursed, and famine shall prevail. This is one of the arrows.
Burning heat - No showers to cool the atmosphere; or rather boils, blains, and pestilential fevers; this was a second.
Bitter destruction - The plague; this was a third.
Teeth of beasts - with the poison of serpents - The beast of the field should multiply upon and destroy them; this was a fourth: and poisonous serpents, infesting all their steps, and whose mortal bite should produce the utmost anguish, were to be a fifth arrow. Added to all these, the sword of their enemies - terror among themselves, Deuteronomy 32:25, and captivity were to complete their ruin, and thus the arrows of God were to be spent upon them. There is a beautiful saying in the Toozuki Teemour, which will serve to illustrate this point, while it exhibits one of the finest metaphors that occurs in any writer, the sacred writers excepted.
"It was once demanded of the fourth Khaleefeh, (Aaly), on whom be the mercy of the Creator, 'If the canopy of heaven were a Bow; and if the earth were the cord thereof; and if calamities were Arrows; if mankind were the mark for those arrows; and if Almighty God, the tremendous and the glorious, were the unerring Archer; to whom could the sons of Adam flee for protection?' The Khaleefeh answered, saying, 'The sons of Adam must flee unto the Lord.'"
They shall be burnt with hunger,.... This is the arrow of famine, Ezekiel 5:16; the force of which is such that it makes the skin black as if burnt, Lamentations 5:10; Onkelos paraphrases it,"inflated or swelled with famine,''which is a phrase Josephus (b) makes use of in describing the famine at the siege of Jerusalem. Jarchi observes, that one of their writers (c) interprets the words "hairs of hunger", because he says that a man that is famishing and pining, his hair grows, and he becomes hairy: this judgment was notorious among the Jews, at the siege of Jerusalem, and was very sore and dreadful: See Gill on Deuteronomy 28:53,
and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; with burning fevers, pestilential ones, with the plague, the arrow of the Lord that flies by day, the pestilence that walks in darkness, and the destruction that wastes at noonday, Psalm 91:5; and which also raged at the siege of Jerusalem, arising from the stench of dead bodies, which lay in all parts of the city, and is one of the signs of the destruction of it given by our Lord, Matthew 24:7,
I will also send the teeth, of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust; another of the arrows in the quiver of the Lord of hosts, or of his four judgments, and which he used to threaten the people of the Jews with in case of disobedience, Leviticus 26:22. And such of the Jews who fled to deserts, and caves and dens of the earth, for shelter, could not escape falling into the hands of wild beasts, and of meeting with poisonous serpents that go upon their bellies, and feed on the dust of the earth; and besides, when Titus had taken Jerusalem, he disposed of his captives some one way and some another; and, among the rest, many were cast to the wild beasts in the theatre, as Josephus relates (d); add to this, that both Rome Pagan, and Roman Papal, are called beasts, Revelation 13:1; into both whose hands the Jews fell, and from whom they have suffered much; with which in part agrees the Targum of Jerusalem,
"the teeth of the four monarchies, which are like to wild beasts, I will send upon them;''and particularly the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,"and the Greeks, who bite with their teeth like wild beasts, I will send upon them;''but it would have been much better to have interpreted it of the Romans.
(b) , de Bello Jude. l. 5. c. 23. sect. 4. (c) R. Moses Hadarsan. (d) De Bello Jude. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 2. & l. 7. c. 3. sect. 1.
With hunger - With famine, which burns and parches the inward parts, and make the face black as a coal, Lamentations 4:8. Burning heat - From fevers or carbuncles, or other inflaming distempers.
*More commentary available at chapter level.