After a quick round of descriptions of the amazing blessings God will bestow upon everyone who follows the law, He continues with a much longer section outlining the terrible wrath you incur for not following the law. Good little Israelites will get bounteous harvests and leisure time, land and children to continue their line. Bad Israelites will be conquered and enslaved, way worse than they had it in Egypt. They’ll crawl back to Egypt to try to sell themselves as slaves just to survive but the Egyptians won’t buy them. You buy a house and watch it be destroyed. You become engaged to a nice girl and she’s raped. Your animals are stolen and slaughtered by your enemies; you don’t get any of the meat. Even the gentlest and noblest will be so desperate they will eat their own children.
In 28:49 God describes a nation swooping down like an eagle and taking over everything with no sympathy for anyone. The description it gives sounds to me like the kind of officious, impersonal conquest the Roman Empire was known for. The symbol of the emperor himself was an eagle. That’s not necessarily connected, but it’s kind of interesting to speculate on isn’t it?
Moses rounds up all the Israelites and gives them a little pep talk reminding them of some of the things God has done over the past fifty years as well as His covenant with Abraham and all of their responsibilities to God under their covenants. Don’t screw this up guys.
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