Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 28:59
He will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary disasters, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Moses delivers this warning to Israel on the plains of Moab as part of the covenant curse section for violating the law. The verse directly follows the command to fear Yahweh’s name and precedes the promise of repeated affliction.
The words — The verb הִפְלָא (hifla) denotes "he will make extraordinary," with Yahweh as the subject acting upon the people and their offspring. The noun מַכּוֹת (makot) appears three times in the phrase to stress repeated, severe afflictions.
The thread — The text describes unprecedented disasters that align with the historical disaster in Daniel 9:12 and the unique tribulation in Mark 13:19. The enduring nature of these punishments matches the perpetual sign described in Deuteronomy 28:46.
Why it lands — The text states that covenant violation triggers direct, multi-generational affliction administered by Yahweh. It requires readers to treat the written law as the binding standard for communal survival.
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
Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance.
Cross-references
- Daniel 9:12 You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.
- Mark 13:19 For those will be days of tribulation unseen from the beginning of God’s creation until now, and never to be seen again.
- Deuteronomy 28:46 These curses will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your descendants forever.
- Deuteronomy 29:20 The LORD will never be willing to forgive him. Instead, His anger and jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse written in this book will fall upon him. The LORD will blot out his name from under heaven
- Deuteronomy 31:17 On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’
- Deuteronomy 32:22 For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.
- Deuteronomy 32:26 I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,
- 1 Kings 9:7 then I will cut off Israel from the land that I have given them, and I will banish from My presence this temple I have sanctified for My Name. Then Israel will become an object of scorn and ridicule among all peoples.
- 1 Kings 16:3 So now I will consume Baasha and his house, and I will make your house like that of Jeroboam son of Nebat:
- Lamentations 1:9 Her uncleanness stains her skirts; she did not consider her end. Her downfall was astounding; there was no one to comfort her. Look, O LORD, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!