Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 28:16
You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses addresses the Israelites on the plains of Moab, outlining the consequences of covenant disobedience immediately before they cross the Jordan.
The words — The Hebrew אָרוּר ('a.Rur) denotes a state of being cursed or under divine judgment, applied twice to emphasize total exposure. The pronoun אַתָּה ('a.Tah) targets the collective nation, while בָּעִיר (ba.'Ir) and בַּשָּׂדֶה (ba.sa.Deh) specify urban and rural locations.
The thread — This pattern of comprehensive cursing echoes in Malachi 3:9, where the nation faces a curse for robbing God, and Proverbs 3:33, which contrasts the curse on the wicked with blessing on the righteous. Isaiah 24:6 similarly describes a curse consuming the earth and its inhabitants bearing guilt.
Why it lands — The text states that covenant failure removes protection from all spheres of life, leaving no place of refuge. It requires a reader to recognize that spiritual fidelity dictates communal security and that disobedience leaves no area of life untouched by judgment.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.
Cross-references
- Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, yet you—the whole nation—are still robbing Me.
- Proverbs 3:33 The curse of the LORD is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the righteous.
- Isaiah 24:6 Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants must bear the guilt; the earth’s dwellers have been burned, and only a few survive.
- Jeremiah 14:2 “Judah mourns and her gates languish. Her people wail for the land, and a cry goes up from Jerusalem.
- Jeremiah 14:18 If I go out to the country, I see those slain by the sword; if I enter the city, I see those ravaged by famine! For both prophet and priest travel to a land they do not know.’”
- Jeremiah 44:22 So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed, and your land became a desolation, a horror, and an object of cursing, without inhabitant, as it is this day.
- Lamentations 2:11 My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.
- Joel 1:4 What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.
- Joel 1:8 Wail like a virgin dressed in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth.
- Joel 2:3 Before them a fire devours, and behind them a flame scorches. The land before them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them, it is like a desert wasteland—surely nothing will escape them.