Blessings and Curses: It is not hard to understand why this is perhaps the most difficult chapter in Deuteronomy for a modern reader to cope with. And yet the fact is that in its ancient context this list of blessings and the even longer list of curses would have been expected at this point. Deuteronomy is structurally modeled on the secular treaty format, and a consistent feature of those treaties is the section of blessings and curses that follows the detailed stipulations of the treaty in order to give them a solemn and binding force. Since the vassal state had to be made unmistakably aware of the inevitable consequences that would follow if the treaty was broken, the curses tend to dominate. Indeed, many of the curses recorded in Deuteronomy 28 were identical to those in secular treati…