Deuteronomy 28:26, commentary and pictures

Moses read the curses aloud to all Israel assembled before him from the book he had written, together with the events of their past history and the promises for obedience. The curses stand opposite those promises, which were given upon condition of obedience. That obedience required doing His judgments and keeping His ordinances and statutes to live in them.

The verse threatens the dead left as food for birds of the air and beasts of the earth, with no one to drive them away. It belongs to the curses set before Israel as the consequence of refusing to obey and as a fearful result of disobeying God's law and commands. Together with the first chapter of Deuteronomy, the chapter explains why the adults of the army that left Egypt were refused entrance into the promised land. That judgment and exclusion fell because the men from twenty years old and upward did not wholly follow the Lord but murmured, discouraged others from entering, and did evil in His sight, while Caleb and Joshua, who wholly followed Him, were spared.

The chapter presents a covenant of mercy that if Israel will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord their God and do what is right in His sight and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, God as the Lord who heals them will put none of the Egyptian diseases upon them. Disease and suffering come because people transgress God's law and break down the barriers He erected to preserve them in health and holiness and to teach them obedience. The evils met in the wilderness were part of His plan to test them under Christ's special direction and sheltering care as Deliverer, Protector, and mighty Healer who alone can cure the evils of the human heart.

The curse threatens that the land and its creatures suffer, and the curse grows heavier as people continue to forget God and break His commandments. The curses of the chapter thus explain Israel's adversity, which came according to whether they obeyed or transgressed God's law.