Deuteronomy 28:64-68
Verse 64 The Lord shall scatter thee among all people - How literally has this been fulfilled! The people of the Jews are scattered over every nation under heaven. Verse 65 No ease - a trembling heart, and failing of eyes - The trembling of heart may refer to their state of continual insecurity, being, under every kind of government, proscribed, and, even under the most mild, uncertain of toleration and protection; and the failing of eyes, to their vain and ever-disappointed expectation of the Messiah. Verse 68 And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again - That is, into another state of slavery and bondage similar to that of Egypt, out of which they had been lately brought. And there ye shall be sold, that is, be exposed to sale, or expose yourself to sale as the word התמכרתם hithmaccartem may be rendered; they were vagrants, and wished to become slaves that they might be provided with the necessaries of life. And no man shall buy you; even the Romans thought it a reproach to have a Jew for a slave, they had become so despicable to all mankind. When Jerusalem was taken by Titus, many of the captives, which were above seventeen years of age, were sent into the works in Egypt. See Josephus, Antiq., b. xii, 100:1, 2, War b. vi., c. 9, s. 2; and above all, see Bp. Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies. The first verse of the next chapter, in some of the most correct Hebrew Bibles, makes the 69th of this; and very properly, as the second verse of the following chapter begins a new subject. This is an astonishing chapter: in it are prophecies delivered more than 3,000 years ago, and now fulfilling. O God, how immense is thy wisdom, and how profound thy counsels! To thee alone are known all thy works from the beginning to the end. What an irrefragable proof does this chapter, compared with the past and present state of the Jewish people, afford of the truth and Divine origin of the Pentateuch!
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