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From Eternity Past
the blessings that would be theirs on condition of obedience, and the
curses that would follow upon transgression:
“If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy
God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command
thee this day,” “blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou
be in the field,” in “the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground,
and the fruit of thy cattle... . Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store...
. The Lord shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be
smitten before thy face... . The Lord shall command the blessing upon
thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto.”
“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not ... observe to do all
His commandments and His statutes which I command thee this day;
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that all these curses shall come upon thee,” “and thou shalt become
an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither
the Lord shall lead thee.” “And the Lord shall scatter thee among all
people, from one end of the earth even unto the other... . And among
these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot
have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and
failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt
before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none
assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were
even! And at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning!”
By the Spirit of Inspiration, looking far down the ages, Moses
pictured the terrible scenes of Israel’s final overthrow as a nation and
the destruction of Jerusalem by the armies of Rome. The horrible
sufferings of the people during the siege of Jerusalem under Titus
centuries later were vividly portrayed: “He shall besiege thee in all
thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou
trustedst, throughout all thy land... . Thou shalt eat the fruit of thine
own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters ... in the siege, and
in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee.” “The
tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to
set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness,
her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, ... and toward
her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of
all things secretly in the siege and straitness, wherewith thine enemy
shall distress thee in thy gates.”