The first view, in which the bursting of the threatened curse upon the disobedient people is proclaimed in all its forms. First of all, quite generally in Deuteronomy 28:20. "The Lord will send the curse against thee, consternation and threatening in every undertaking of thy hand which thou carriest out (see Deuteronomy 12:7), till thou be destroyed, till thou perish quickly, because of the wickedness of thy doings, because thou hast forsaken Me." The three words, מארה, מהוּמה, and מגערת, are synonymous, and are connected together to strengthen the thought. מארה, curse or malediction; המּהוּמה, the consternation produced by the curse of God, namely, the confusion with which God smites His foes (see at Deuteronomy 7:23); המּגערה is the threatening word of the divine wrath. - Then Deuteronomy 28:21. in detail. "The Lord will make the pestilence fasten upon (cleave to) thee, till He hath destroyed thee out of the land...to smite thee with giddiness and fever (cf. Leviticus 26:16), inflammation, burning, and sword, blasting of corn, and mildew (of the seed);" seven diseases therefore (seven as the stamp of the words of God), whilst pestilence in particular is mentioned first, as the most terrible enemy of life. דּלּקת, from דּלק to burn, and חרחר, from חרר to glow, signify inflammatory diseases, burning fevers; the distinction between these and קדּחת cannot be determined. Instead of חרב, the sword as the instrument of death, used to designate slaughter and death, the Vulgate, Arabic, and Samaritan have adopted the reading חרב, aestus, heat (Genesis 31:40), or drought, according to which there would be four evils mentioned by which human life is attacked, and three which are injurious to the corn. But as the lxx, Jon., Syr., and others read חרב, this alteration is very questionable, especially as the reading can be fully defended in this connection; and one objection to the alteration is, that drought is threatened for the first time in Deuteronomy 28:23, Deuteronomy 28:24. שׁדּפון, from שׁדף to singe or blacken, and ירקון, from ירק to be yellowish, refer to two diseases which attack the corn: the former to the withering or burning of the ears, caused by the east wind (Genesis 41:23); the other to the effect produced by a warm wind in Arabia, by which the green ears are turned yellow, so that they bear no grains of corn.

Deuteronomy 28:26 Parallel Commentaries

1 Samuel 17:44-46 And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field...

Psalm 79:1-3 O God, the heathen are come into your inheritance; your holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps...

Isaiah 34:3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcasses...

Jeremiah 7:33 And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth...

Jeremiah 8:1 At that time, said the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes...

Jeremiah 16:4 They shall die of grievous deaths; they shall not be lamented; neither shall they be buried...

Jeremiah 19:7 And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies...

Jeremiah 34:20 I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life...

Ezekiel 39:17-20 And, you son of man, thus said the Lord GOD; Speak to every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves...