The LORD will make the rain of your land powder. From heaven dust shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
Having viewed the bright side of the cloud, which is towards the obedient, we have now presented to us the dark side, which is towards the disobedient. If we do not keep God's commandments, we not only come short of the blessing promised, but we lay ourselves under the curse, which is as comprehensive of all misery as the blessing is of all happiness. Observe, I.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 28:15-44
The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt,.... Which some understand of the leprosy, Of that sort of it called "elephantiasis", frequent among the Egyptians; See Gill on Lev 13:2. Thevenot (i) relates, that when the time of the increase of the Nile expires, the Egyptians are attended with sharp prickings in their skin like needles.
the rain of thy land powder and dust--an allusion probably to the dreadful effects of tornadoes in the East, which, raising the sands in immense twisted pillars, drive them along with the fury of a tempest. These shifting sands are most destructive to cultivated lands; and in consequence of their encroachments, many once fertile regions of the East are now barren deserts.