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.
Verse 40
They would have many olive-trees in the land, but not anoint themselves with oil, because the olive-tree would be rooted out or plundered (ישּׁל, Niphal of שׁלל, as in Deu 19:5, not the Kal of נשׁל, which cannot be shown to have the intransitive meaning elabi).
Verse 41
Sons and daughters would they beget, but not keep, because they would have to go into captivity.
Verse 42
All the trees and fruits of the land would the buzzer take possession of. צלצל, from צלל to buzz, a rhetorical epithet applied to locusts, not the grasshopper, which does not injure the fruits of the tree or ground sufficiently for the term ירשׁ, “to take possession of,” to be applicable to it.
Verse 43
Israel would be utterly impoverished, and would sink lower and lower, whilst the stranger in the midst of it would, on the contrary, get above it very high; not indeed “because he had no possession, but was dependent upon resources of other kinds” (Schultz), but rather because he would be exempted with all his possessions from the curse of God, just as the Israelites had been exempted from the plagues which came upon the Egyptians (Exo 9:6-7, Exo 9:26).
verses 44-46
The opposite of Deu 28:12 and Deu 28:13 would come to pass. - In Deu 28:46 the address returns to its commencement in Deu 28:15, with the terrible threat, “These curses shall be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever,” for the purpose of making a pause, if not of bringing the whole to a close. The curses were for a sign and wonder (מופת, that which excites astonishment and terror), inasmuch as their magnitude and terrible character manifested most clearly the supernatural interposition of God (vid., Deu 29:23). “For ever” applies to the generation smitten by the curse, which would remain for ever rejected, though without involving the perpetual rejection of the whole nation, or the impossibility of the conversion and restoration of a remnant, or of a holy seed (Isa 10:22; Isa 6:13; Rom 9:27; Rom 11:5).
verses 47-57
The fourth view. - Although in what precedes every side of the national life has been brought under the curse, yet love to his people, and the desire to preserve them from the curse, by holding up before them the dreadful severity of the wrath of God, impel the faithful servant of the Lord to go still further, and depict more minutely still the dreadful horrors consequent upon
