Deuteronomy 28:35

The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(35) A sore botch.—A boil, as in Deuteronomy 28:27.

In the knees.—Comp. Ezekiel 7:17; Ezekiel 21:7, “All knees shall be weak as water.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:15-44 If we do not keep God's commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which includes all misery, as the blessing all happiness. Observe the justice of this curse. It is not a curse causeless, or for some light cause. The extent and power of this curse. Wherever the sinner goes, the curse of God follows; wherever he is, it rests upon him. Whatever he has is under a curse. All his enjoyments are made bitter; he cannot take any true comfort in them, for the wrath of God mixes itself with them. Many judgments are here stated, which would be the fruits of the curse, and with which God would punish the people of the Jews, for their apostacy and disobedience. We may observe the fulfilling of these threatenings in their present state. To complete their misery, it is threatened that by these troubles they should be bereaved of all comfort and hope, and left to utter despair. Those who walk by sight, and not by faith, are in danger of losing reason itself, when every thing about them looks frightful.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the marginal references for the fulfillment of these judgments.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35. the Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs—This is an exact description of elephantiasis, a horrible disease, something like leprosy, which attacks particularly the lower extremities.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch, that cannot be healed,.... Which in those parts as it is very painful, so is not easily cured; and this which is threatened was incurable by the art of man, as others in Deuteronomy 28:27; and which should not stop there in the lower parts of the body, but proceed and spread:

from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head; and so be filled with them, as Job was with his boils and ulcers.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 35-46. - Third group. Moses reverts to the calamities already threatened (ver. 27), for the purpose of leading on the thought that, as such diseases separated the sufferer from the society of his fellows, so Israel should be separated from God and brought under the dominion of strangers as a punishment for rebellion and apostasy. Verse 35. - A sore botch; an incurable leprosy, affecting not merely the joints and extremities, but the whole body. Such an affliction would exclude a man from all fellowship and from all covenant privileges of the nation. So Israel, rendered unclean by their sin, should be cut off from covenant union with God. Deuteronomy 28:35

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The third view. - With the words, "the Lord will smite thee," Moses resumes in Deuteronomy 28:35 the threat of Deuteronomy 28:27, to set forth the calamities already threatened under a new aspect, namely, as signs of the rejection of Israel from covenant fellowship with the Lord.

Deuteronomy 28:35

The Lord would smite the people with grievous abscesses in the knees and thighs, that should be incurable, even from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head. רע שׁחין ר is the so-called joint-leprosy, a form of the lepra tuberosa (vid., Pruner, p. 167). From the clause, however, "from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head," it is evident that the threat is not to be restricted to this species of leprosy, since "the upper parts of the body often remain in a perfectly normal state in cases of leprosy in the joints; and after the diseased parts have fallen off, the patients recover their previous health to a certain degree" (Pruner). Moses mentions this as being a disease of such a nature, that it would render it utterly impossible for those who were afflicted with it either to stand or walk, and then heightens the threat by adding the words, "from the sole of the foot to the top of the head." Leprosy excluded from fellowship with the Lord, and deprived the nation of the character of a nation of God.