Ulangan 28:1-14

The Covenant Blessings

28:1 “If you indeed ¹  obey the Lord your God and are careful to observe all his commandments I am giving ²  you today, the Lord your God will elevate you above all the nations of the earth. 28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ³  if you obey the Lord your God: 28:3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the field. ⁴  28:4 Your children ⁵  will be blessed, as well as the produce of your soil, the offspring of your livestock, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:5 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be blessed. 28:6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. ⁶  28:7 The Lord will cause your enemies who attack ⁷  you to be struck down before you; they will attack you from one direction ⁸  but flee from you in seven different directions. 28:8 The Lord will decree blessing for you with respect to your barns and in everything you do – yes, he will bless you in the land he ⁹  is giving you. 28:9 The Lord will designate you as his holy people just as he promised you, if you keep his commandments ¹⁰  and obey him. ¹¹  28:10 Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you belong to the Lord, ¹²  and they will respect you. 28:11 The Lord will greatly multiply your children, ¹³  the offspring of your livestock, and the produce of your soil in the land which he ¹⁴  promised your ancestors ¹⁵  he would give you. 28:12 The Lord will open for you his good treasure house, the heavens, to give you rain for the land in its season and to bless all you do; ¹⁶  you will lend to many nations but you will not borrow from any. 28:13 The Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always end up at the top and not at the bottom, if you obey his ¹⁷  commandments which I am urging ¹⁸  you today to be careful to do. 28:14 But you must not turn away from all the commandments I am giving ¹⁹  you today, to either the right or left, nor pursue other gods and worship ²⁰  them.

Yosua 23:15

23:15 But in the same way every faithful promise the Lord your God made to you has been realized, ²¹  it is just as certain, if you disobey, that the Lord will bring on you every judgment ²²  until he destroys you from this good land which the Lord your God gave you.

Yeremia 29:10

29:10 “For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ²³  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²⁴  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ²⁵  you to your homeland. ²⁶ 

[28:1]  ¹ tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with “indeed.”

[28:1]  ² tn Heb “commanding”; NAB “which I enjoin on you today” (likewise in v. 15).

[28:2]  ³ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[28:3]  ⁴ tn Or “in the country” (so NAB, NIV, NLT). This expression also occurs in v. 15.

[28:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[28:6]  ⁶ sn Come in…go out. To “come in” and “go out” is a figure of speech (merism) indicating all of life and its activities.

[28:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “who rise up against” (so NIV).

[28:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “way” (also later in this verse and in v. 25).

[28:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” Because English would not typically reintroduce the proper name following a relative pronoun (“he will bless…the Lord your God is giving”), the pronoun (“he”) has been employed here in the translation.

[28:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in the previous verse.

[28:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and walk in his ways” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[28:10]  ¹² tn Heb “the name of the Lord is called over you.” The Hebrew idiom indicates ownership; see 2 Sam 12:28; Isa 4:1, as well as BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph. 2.d.(4).

[28:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); CEV “will give you a lot of children.”

[28:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the Lord.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 36, 64).

[28:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “all the work of your hands.”

[28:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God’s.” See note on “he” in 28:8.

[28:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “commanding” (so NRSV); NASB “which I charge you today.”

[28:14]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “from all the words which I am commanding.”

[28:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in order to serve.”

[23:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “and it will be as every good word which the Lord your God spoke to you has come to pass.”

[23:15]  ²² tn Heb “so the Lord will bring every injurious [or “evil”] word [or “thing”] upon you.”

[29:10]  ²³ sn See the study note on Jer 25:11 for the reckoning of the seventy years.

[29:10]  ²⁴ tn See the translator’s note on Jer 27:22 for this term.

[29:10]  ²⁵ tn Verse 10 is all one long sentence in the Hebrew original: “According to the fullness of Babylon seventy years I will take thought of you and I will establish my gracious word to you by bringing you back to this place.” The sentence has been broken up to conform better to contemporary English style.

[29:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “this place.” The text has probably been influenced by the parallel passage in 27:22. The term appears fifteen times in Jeremiah and is invariably a reference to Jerusalem or Judah.

[29:10]  sn See Jer 27:22 for this promise.