Deuteronomy 28:39

Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

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

Worms - i. e. the vine-weevil. Naturalists prescribed elaborate precautions against its ravages.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

37. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee, &c.—The annals of almost every nation, for eighteen hundred years, afford abundant proofs that this has been, as it still is, the case—the very name of Jew being a universally recognized term for extreme degradation and wretchedness.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them,.... Plant them and prune them, in expectation of much fruit from them:

but shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; so far from drinking of the wine of them, that they should not be able to gather any grapes from them:

for the worms shall eat them; a sort of worms pernicious to vines, which the Greeks call "ipes", or "ikes" (o); and the Latins "convolvuli" and "volvoces", as Pliny (p).

(o) See Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 4. c. 27. col. 622, 623. (p) Nat. Hist. l. 17. c. 28.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou shalt plant vineyards, and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 39. - Worms; probably the vine weevil, the convolvulus or involvulus of the Latin writers (Pliny, 'Nat. Hist.,' 17:47; Care, ' De Re Rust.,' c. 95; Plaut., 'Cistell.,' 4:2), the ἴξ er ἴψ of the Greeks (Bochart, 'Hieroz.,' pt. it. bk. 4. e. 27). Deuteronomy 28:39

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Even in their own land the curse would fall upon every kind of labour and enterprise. Much seed would give little to reap, because the locust would devour the seed; the planting and dressing of the vineyard would furnish no wine to drink, because the worm would devour the vine. תּולעת is probably the ἴψ or ἴξ of the Greeks, the convolvulus of the Romans, our vine-weevil.