Deuteronomy 32:23

Verse 23. I will spend mine arrows upon them.] The judgments of God in general are termed the arrows of God, Job 6:4; Ps 38:2-3; Ps 91:5; see also Eze 5:16; Jer 50:14; 2Sa 22:14-15. In this and the following verses, to the 28th inclusive (De 32:23-28), God threatens this people with every species of calamity that could possibly fall upon man. How strange it is that, having this law continually in their hands, they should not discern those threatened judgments, and cleave to the Lord that they might be averted!

It was customary among the heathens to represent any judgment from their gods under the notion of arrows, especially a pestilence; and one of their greatest deities, Apollo, is ever represented as bearing a bow and quiver full of deadly arrows; so Homer, Il. i., ver. 43, where he represents him, in answer to the prayer of his priest Chryses, coming to smite the Greeks with the pestilence: -

Ὡς εφατ' ευχομενος· του δ' εκλυε Φοιβος Απολλων·

Βη δε κατ' Ουλυμποιο καρηνων χωομενος κηρ,

Τοξ' ωμοισιν εχων αμφηρεφεα τε φαρετρην. -

Ἑζετ' επειτ' απανευθε νεων· μετα δ' ιον ἑηκε·

Δεινη δε κλαγγη γενετ' αργυρεοιο βιοιο. κ. τ. λ.

"Thus Chryses pray'd; the favouring power attends,

And from Olympus' lofty tops descends.

Bent was his bow the Grecian hearts to wound;

Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound;---

The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly' bow,

And hissing fly the feather'd fates below.

On mules and dogs the infection first began;

And last the vengeful arrows fix'd in man."

How frequently the same figure is employed in the sacred writings, every careful reader knows; and quotations need not be multiplied.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. heap] According as we point the consonants of this vb., it may mean add, or gather, or sweep up; evils, Deu_31:17.

24, 25 define the arrows of Deu_32:23—famine, fever, plague, wild beasts and poisonous, and war.

24 a. The rhythm is irregular whether for a line or couplet, and the text uncertain, the first and last words are only found here and their sense is conjectural.

From Sam. it is possible to read the first word mizzĕh, on this side, and to reconstruct the whole as a regular couplet yielding the kind of antithesis beloved by the writer (Deu_32:21; Deu_32:25) and free of the ἄπαξ λεγόμενα

mizzeh rá‘ab yilhamOn this side famine devours,mizzeh rĕshĕph We kétĕlOn this side fever and plague.Wasted is a meaning drawn from a doubtful Ar. analogy; burning heat, Heb. resheph, fire-bolt or flame as God’s instrument of fever, in Hab_3:5 parallel to pestilence.

24 b. beasts] Heb. Behemôth. For this natural curse of the East cp. Deu_7:22, Hos_2:12. The contrast in Isa_11:6-9.

crawling things] Mic_7:17, cp. Isa_11:8, Jer_8:17.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu 32:23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

Ver. 23. I will spend mine arrows.] Which yet cannot be all spent up, as he feared of his Jupiter, Si quoties peccent heroines, &c.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Deu 32:23-25. I will spend mine arrows upon them — Even empty my quiver, and send upon them all my plagues, which, like arrows shot by a skilful and strong hand, shall speedily reach, and certainly hit and mortally wound them. The judgments of God are often compared to arrows, Job 6:4; Psa 38:2; Psa 91:5. They shall be burnt with hunger — Here these arrows or plagues are enumerated; the first of them is famine, with which they are therefore said to be burnt; because it burns and parches the inward parts of the body. This threatening was awfully fulfilled in their destruction by the Chaldeans, when, according to Jeremiah, their visages became black as a coal, through famine; and their skin withered like a stick, Lam 4:8. And devoured with burning heat — From fevers, or carbuncles, or other inflaming distempers. Destruction by wild beasts and poisonous serpents is threatened in the next clause, and Deu 32:25, by the sword. So that all God’s four sore judgments were to be employed against them. Serpents of the dust — That creep upon and eat the dust, (Gen 3:14,) and lurk in it, that they may surprise unwary passengers, Gen 49:17. The sword without, and terror within — In the field they shall be exposed to the sword of their enemies, and at home shall die with fear, or shall destroy their own lives lest they should fall into the hands of their destroyers.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will spend mine arrows upon them--War, famine, pestilence (Psa 77:17) are called in Scripture the arrows of the Almighty.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

(23) Mischiefs.—Literally, ills. Comp. Eze_5:16 : “I will send upon them the evil arrows of famine . . . I will increase the famine upon them.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They shall be burnt with hunger,.... This is the arrow of famine, Eze 5:16; the force of which is such that it makes the skin black as if burnt, Lam 5:10; Onkelos paraphrases it,"inflated or swelled with famine,''which is a phrase Josephus (b) makes use of in describing the famine at the siege of Jerusalem. Jarchi observes, that one of their writers (c) interprets the words "hairs of hunger", because he says that a man that is famishing and pining, his hair grows, and he becomes hairy: this judgment was notorious among the Jews, at the siege of Jerusalem, and was very sore and dreadful: See Gill on Deu 28:53,

and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; with burning fevers, pestilential ones, with the plague, the arrow of the Lord that flies by day, the pestilence that walks in darkness, and the destruction that wastes at noonday, Psa 91:5; and which also raged at the siege of Jerusalem, arising from the stench of dead bodies, which lay in all parts of the city, and is one of the signs of the destruction of it given by our Lord, Mat 24:7,

I will also send the teeth, of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust; another of the arrows in the quiver of the Lord of hosts, or of his four judgments, and which he used to threaten the people of the Jews with in case of disobedience, Lev 26:22. And such of the Jews who fled to deserts, and caves and dens of the earth, for shelter, could not escape falling into the hands of wild beasts, and of meeting with poisonous serpents that go upon their bellies, and feed on the dust of the earth; and besides, when Titus had taken Jerusalem, he disposed of his captives some one way and some another; and, among the rest, many were cast to the wild beasts in the theatre, as Josephus relates (d); add to this, that both Rome Pagan, and Roman Papal, are called beasts, Rev 13:1; into both whose hands the Jews fell, and from whom they have suffered much; with which in part agrees the Targum of Jerusalem,

"the teeth of the four monarchies, which are like to wild beasts, I will send upon them;''and particularly the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,"and the Greeks, who bite with their teeth like wild beasts, I will send upon them;''but it would have been much better to have interpreted it of the Romans.

(b) , de Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 23. sect. 4. (c) R. Moses Hadarsan. (d) De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 2. & l. 7. c. 3. sect. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Arrows. Pestilence, famine, war, sickness, and death, are termed the arrows of God.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

i.e. Even empty my quiver, and send upon them all my plagues, which, like arrows shot by a skilful and strong hand, shall speedily reach, and certainly hit, and mortally wound them. Compare Zec 9:14.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

23. I will heap mischiefs upon them — Here follows a dread array of disasters and judgments that will come upon the rebellious nation. Hunger, pestilence, plague, wild beasts, poisonous serpents, and war are to afflict them.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will spend mine arrows upon them; I will inflict on them so many calamities that none shall remain. The evils sent on men by God are represented as arrows shot on them from above. (Cf. ver. 42; Job_6:4; Psa_7:13 Psa_38:2 Psa_45:5 Psa_58:7; Zec_9:14; Homer, "Iliad," 1:45, etc.)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Spend mine arrows - Even empty my quiver, and send upon them all my plagues, which, like arrows shot by a skilful and strong hand, shall speedily reach and certainly hit and mortally wound them.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

General Information:

Moses speaks a poetic song to the people of Israel. He continues to quote Yahweh's words. (See: Parallelism)

I will heap disasters on them

Yahweh speaks of bad things that would happen to the Israelites as if they were something like dirt that he could pile up on top of the Israelites. AT: "I will make sure that many bad things happen to them" (See: Metaphor)

I will shoot all my arrows at them

Here Yahweh compares the bad things he will make sure happen to the Israelites to someone shooting arrows from a bow. AT: "I will do all I can do to kill them" (See: Metaphor)

They will be wasted by hunger

This can be stated in active form. The abstract noun "hunger" can be translated as the verb "be hungry." AT: "They will grow weak and die because they are hungry" (See: Active or Passive and Abstract Nouns)

They will ... hunger and devoured by burning heat and bitter destruction

Possible meanings of "burning heat" are 1) the Israelites will suffer from fevers or 2) the weather will be unusually hot during a drought or famine. This can be stated in active form. AT: "They will ... hunger, and burning heat and terrible disasters will devour them" or "They will ... hunger, and they will die from burning heat and terrible disasters" (See: Active or Passive)

I will send on them the teeth of wild animals, with the poison of things that crawl in the dust

The teeth and the poison are synecdoches for the animals that use these things to kill. AT: "I will send wild animals to bite them, and things that crawl in the dust to bite and poison them" (See: Synecdoche)

translationWords

bow and arrow

waste

devour

send

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

אספה עלימו רעות — This means, I will join evil to evil, אספה having the same meaning as in (Isaiah 29:1) “add ye (ספו) year to year”; (Deuteronomy 29:18) “in order to add (ספות) the drunkenness to the thirst”; (Jeremiah 7:21) “Add (ספו) your burnt offerings to your sacrifices”. — Another explanation of אספה: it means, “I will expend” (bring to an end so that there will be no more evils to bring upon them); similar to (Genesis 19:15) “lest thou be brought to an end (תספה).

חצי אכלה בם means all my arrows I will use to the full against them (i.e., there will be no arrows left). This curse according to the wording in which the punishment is expressed, implies a blessing: My arrows will come to an end, but they themselves will not come to an end (i.e. they will never be exterminated) (Sifrei Devarim 321:2; Sotah 9a).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.