Daily Chumash Bechukosaiy Tuesday – The curses received for disobeying G-d’s commands

Shelishi 

• You will still be able to eat from the old fruit when the new harvest arrives.
• I will place my Tabernacle amongst you and will not become disgusted of you. I will walk amongst you and will become a G-d for you and you will become for Me a nation. I am Hashem who took you out of Egypt from being slaves. I broke the pegs of your yoke and I led you erect.

2. The curses received for disobeying G-d’s commands:

• If you do not listen to Me, do not obey all these commands, despise My statutes, and are repulsed by My laws to break My covenant, then I will do the following to you:
  • I will make you panic and make you waste away.
  • You will get fever, causing your eyes to sting.
  • Your sowing of the seed will be in vain as your enemies will eat your produce.
  • You will fall before your enemies and they will rule over you.
  • You will flee even though no one is chasing you.

• If you still do not listen to me, I will increase tormenting you in seven ways for your sins:
  • I will break your pride.
  • I will turn your heavens into iron and your land like copper.
  • You will exert your energy in vain as your land will not give off produce and its trees will not give off fruit.

• If you still do not listen to me, I will increase tormenting you in seven ways for your sins:
  • I will send wild animals to attack you and bereave you.
  • I will exterminate your cattle and diminish you.
  • Your roads will be destroyed.

• If despite these you still do not listen to me, I will increase tormenting you in seven ways for your sins:
  • I will bring upon you an attack by the sword to avenge my covenant.
  • You will gather in your cities and have a plague sent against you.
  • You will be delivered to the hands of the enemies.
  • I will break for you the staff of your sustenance.
  • Ten women will bake bread in one oven and bring the bread back by weight.
  • You will eat but not be satiated.

• If despite this you still do not listen to me, I will increase tormenting you in seven ways for your sins:
  • You will eat the flesh of your children, the flesh of your sons and daughters.
  • Your towers and idols will be destroyed.
  • I will pile your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols, and I will despise you.
  • I will destroy your cities and Temple.
  • I will not smell the scent of your offerings.
  • I will make your land desolate from you and your enemies.
  • I will disperse you amongst all the nations and empty the sword after you.
  • Your cities will be put to ruin.
• Appeasing the Shemitah years: Through the above, the land will become appeased from its Shemitah years, from all its years of desolation. All its days of it being desolate it will rest for whatever it did not rest during the years you dwelled on it.
  • The survivors, I will make them paranoid in the lands of their exile. They will flee from the sound of the rustling of a leaf and they will fall without anyone chasing them.
  • You will die from the sword of a friend without anyone chasing you.
  • You will be unable to overcome your enemies. You will become lost amongst the nations and will be consumed by them.
• You will suffer due to the sins of your forefathers. Then you will confess your sins and the sins of your ancestors due to ignoring my commands. I therefore also treated you with ignorance and brought you to the land of your enemies so that the hardness of your heart become humbled and you will then receive appeasement for your sins.

3. The salvation after the suffering:

• I will remember the covenant with Yaakov and Yitzchak and Avraham and remember the land. The land will be bereaved of you and receive appeasement.
• Even when you are amongst the enemies, I will not abhor you or reject you, to destroy you and the covenant I made with you, as I am Hashem Your G-d. I will remember that I took you out of Egypt and to be a G-d onto you.
• These are the laws that Hashem gave the Jewish people on Har Sinai through Moshe.