I spotted this on Facebook, shared with the heading, ‘THE BIBLE SAID IT ALL’. and then the post includes a snapshot of a quote from one of the many bibles. The quote is red-underlined and then further highlighted with a great purple border that was added digitally.
The image and post don’t include a source other than to indicate, ‘the bible’ but it appears to be from the, ‘Good News Bible (British Version) 2017‘.
The quote is from Deuteronomy 28:43 and reads:
“Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours. They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.”
Deuteronomy, meaning “second law,” is the fifth book in the Bible and the final book of the Torah. It reputedly recounts Moses’s final words to the Israelites before their entry into the Promised Land. It’s essentially a series of speeches delivered by Moses, reviewing the Israelites history, reiterating the laws given at Mount Sinai, and emphasizing the importance of obedience to god’s covenant. The book highlights the consequences of faithfulness and unfaithfulness, and prepares the Israelites for their new life in Canaan.
This Deuteronomy 28:15 GNBUK quote is derived from the section that outlines the consequences of disobedience to god:
“But if you disobey the LORD your God and do not faithfully keep all his commands and laws that I am giving you today, all these evil things will happen to you.”
Besides the warning of foreigners, ‘gaining more and more power’ over the disobedient, the section enumerates many other curses and punishments including the following:
16“The LORD will curse your towns and your fields.
17“The LORD will curse your corn crops and the food you prepare from them.
18“The LORD will curse you by giving you only a few children, poor crops, and few cattle and sheep.
God doesn’t really specify how the towns will be cursed but god is clearly gunning for the crops and he’s especially got his eye on the corn crops. (Although the threat seems softened by the specificity of “poor crops”, and “few cattle and sheep”. – So maybe this just amounts to a little belt tightening on the part of the disobeying… )
God goes on:
19“The LORD will curse everything you do.
20“If you do evil and reject the LORD, he will bring on you disaster, confusion, and trouble in everything you do, until you are quickly and completely destroyed.
21“He will send disease after disease on you until there is not one of you left in the land that you are about to occupy.
22“The LORD will strike you with infectious diseases, with swelling and fever; he will send drought and scorching winds to destroy your crops. These disasters will be with you until you die.
23“No rain will fall, and your ground will become as hard as iron.
24“Instead of rain, the LORD will send down duststorms and sandstorms until you are destroyed.
It seems now that god is rethinking his earlier statement about ‘poor crops’ and ‘few cattles and sheep’. Now he’s really laying the smack-down. Now the people will be, ‘quickly and completely destroyed’. God is feeling more cranky and spicy. Because if you don’t do exactly what he says, this loving father of a god definitely intends to take you out with disease, starvation, dehydration and windstorms.
God further elaborates:
25“The LORD will give your enemies victory over you. You will attack them from one direction, but you will run from them in all directions, and all the people on earth will be terrified when they see what happens to you.
26“When you die, birds and wild animals will come and eat your bodies, and there will be no one to scare them off.
27“The LORD will send boils on you, as he did on the Egyptians. He will make your bodies break out with sores. You will be covered with scabs, and you will itch, but there will be no cure.
28“The LORD will make you lose your mind; he will strike you with blindness and confusion.
29“You will grope about in broad daylight like a blind person, and you will not be able to find your way. You will not prosper in anything you do. You will be constantly oppressed and robbed, and there will be no one to help you.
God is kind of jumping around here. He could use a better editor… Odd that he specifies that when attacked that the disobedient will run in all directions. Mmmm… Okay… And then when you’re dead, your bodies will be eaten by birds and wild animals with no one to shoo them away… He provides some more clarification to the diseases you’re going to get. – It’s not just fevers, its scabs! And itching! You’re going to itch! Gold Bond Maximum Strength Medicated Anti-Itch Cream is not going to help you sinner with this deity inflicted itch!
And you’ll be blind and confused… He says that you’ll ‘grope about in broad daylight like a blind person…’ I wouldn’t say, ‘like a blind person’ because you are going to be a blind person… But I don’t have the infinite and divine brain of god so who am I to wordsmith?
Oh: and you’re going to be robbed while you are itching and starving!
The benevolent, all knowing god’s warnings go on:
30“You will be engaged to a young woman — but someone else will marry her. You will build a house — but never live in it. You will plant a vineyard — but never eat its grapes.
Hmmm… Okay… I guess all this time that he’s just talking to heteronormative men here… (Are women getting a pass on this?! – Good for them because normally women get pretty abused in the bible!)
Still, I’m trying to figure out where all of this engaging, house building and vineyard planting is happening in the timeline of quick destruction by drought, windstorms, attacks by enemies, fever and, itching scab disease fits in…
31“Your cattle will be butchered before your very eyes, but you will not eat any of the meat. Your donkeys will be dragged away while you look on, and they will not be given back to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.
Not the donkey!
32“Your sons and daughters will be given as slaves to foreigners while you look on. Every day you will strain your eyes, looking in vain for your children to return.
God isn’t very consistent with what you can and can’t see. Are people blind or not blind?
I’m also curious if the sons and daughters also have to be disobedient to god to be sold to slavery or if they are scapegoated by way of association. The bible certainly likes its scapegoats – livestock and human alike!
33“A foreign nation will take all the crops that you have worked so hard to grow, while you receive nothing but constant oppression and harsh treatment.
I guess these are the sandstorm and drought resistant non-corn crops that are being taken by an unnamed, ‘foreign nation’.
34“Your sufferings will make you lose your mind.
35“The LORD will cover your legs with incurable, painful sores; boils will cover you from head to foot.
Back to the confusion and incurable itching. Seems like he’s emphasizing the boils and scabs much more than the fever portion of the illness he’d firsted mentioned.
36“The LORD will take you and your king away to a foreign land, where neither you nor your ancestors ever lived before; there you will serve gods made of wood and stone.
37“In the countries to which the LORD will scatter you, the people will be shocked at what has happened to you; they will make fun of you and ridicule you.
I guess not everyone is being killed by the plague and bad weather. – Some are getting toted way where they’re going to get teased. I think I’d prefer to be in this group.
38“You will sow plenty of seed, but reap only a small harvest, because the locusts will eat your crops.
39“You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you will not gather their grapes or drink wine from them, because worms will eat the vines.
40“Olive trees will grow everywhere in your land, but you will not have any olive oil, because the olives will drop off.
41“You will have sons and daughters, but you will lose them, because they will be taken away as prisoners of war.
42“All your trees and crops will be devoured by insects.
I’m scratching my head here… We’re back to small harvests and now bugs seem to be the chief instrument of wrath. And like a drunk he’s repeating himself… I can almost hear god, cocktail in one hand hand, slurring his speech as he sways and wags his finger in your face. Not sure how god created the entirety of the universe with this kind of poor focus and attention to detail nor how many of his pronouncements were done while he was sloppy drunk.
And only now do we come to the passage where the quote is derived:
43“Foreigners who live in your land will gain more and more power, while you gradually lose yours.
44“They will have money to lend you, but you will have none to lend them. In the end they will be your rulers.
Whew… Ok, the foreigner stuff and money lending really doesn’t sound so bad compared to the boils, starvation, slavery and donkey deprivation…
45“All these disasters will come on you, and they will be with you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and keep all the laws that he gave you.
46“They will be the evidence of God’s judgement on you and your descendants forever.
Of course, everyone knows that the only true form of justice is when the sinner’s innocent descendants are punished forever for your mistakes! Hallelujah! Praise the one and true, all-good god!
Oy… God goes on from there with some more tedious repetitive ramblings about how he’s really going to REALLY fix your wagon for not obeying. – More dreadful diseases, more bad bugs, more ‘scattering’, a little cannibalism, a lot of contradictions and plenty of vindictiveness…
But wait, we should probably know what the laws are that are going to get us into all of this trouble with the lord almighty. Everything noted above are the curses for disobedience. The laws we are to obey are cited in the preceding Deuteronomy 27. The many fiats listed they include the following laws:
15 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who makes an idol of stone, wood, or metal and secretly worships it; the LORD hates idolatry.’
16 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who dishonours his father or mother.’
17 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who moves a neighbour’s boundary mark.’
18 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who leads a blind person in the wrong direction.’
20 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who disgraces his father by having intercourse with any of his father’s wives.’
Note the plural, ‘wives’… Traditional marriage indeed….
24“ ‘God’s curse on anyone who secretly commits murder.’
I guess non-secret murder is ok?
– But the real ironic kicker to this mean-spirited, stupid, xenophobic meme that is supposedly warning of ‘foreigners’? One of the laws that you must obey to avoid all of god’s wrath is:
19 “ ‘God’s curse on anyone who deprives foreigners, orphans, and widows of their rights.’
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