ובאו עליך כל הברכות האלה, “and all these blessings will come upon you;” you will not have to strive to secure them.

ברוך אתה בעיר, “you will be blessed in the city;” all kinds of merchandise will be available there. An alternate interpretation of this phrase: you will be able to bring your harvests from the field safely into your barns in the city.

בשדה, “in the field;” both at the time of seeding and of planting.

ברוך אתה בבואך...ובצאתך, ”you will be blessed when you are coming in ...and when you are going out.” This refers to coming home from war and going out to do battle. The expressions בא and צאת, are used in this sense in Numbers 27,17: אשר יצא לפניהם ואשר יבא לפניהם , “who will go out in front of you when going to war and before you when returning from battle.”

יקימך, same as יעמידך, “He will establish you.”

וראו כל עמי הארץ, “and all the peoples of the earth will see, etc.” concerning Israel it had been said in Yoel 3,5: כל אשר יקרא בשם ה׳ ימלט; “but everyone who will invoke the name of the Lord will be saved.”

כי שם ה׳ נקרא עליך, “that the name of the Lord is proclaimed over you.” When G-d has blessed you visibly to all the nations, you are perceived as being the favorite of the G-d of Israel.

וראו, “they will understand” (i.e. see with their mind’seye) Compare Ecclesiastes 1,16: ולבי ראה הרבה חכמה ודעת, “and my mind has absorbed much wisdom and learning.”

והלוית גוים רבים, “and you will lend to many nations;” to nations who were plagued with crop failures or storage problems in their barns.

ארור, just as the meaning of ברוך commonly translated as “blessed,” means enjoying the abundance of success and good things, so the word ארור, its opposite, means loss of valuable things and dearth of many essential things.

ואת המגערת, “curse;” the root of the word is גער to be angry;” G-d will express His anger by letting your crops fail. Proof that this is the correct interpretation of the word מגערת, can be found in Malachi 2,3: הנני גוער לכם את הזרע, “I will put your seed under a curse;”

ובחרב, “and with fiery heat;” here the word חרב is not used in the literal sense meaning “sword,” but as something derived from חורב and יובש, “dried out by excessive heart of the sun.” (Compare Ibn Ezra)

נחושת, “copper;” not literally turning the sky into copper, but delivering moisture only like copper when its “sweats.” The same euphemism is used also for the word ברזל, “iron,” describing the earth beneath. In the commentary by Torat Kohanim, these euphemisms are understood in the reverse sense, i.e. the earth being like copper and the sky like iron. This is the way it had been described in Leviticus 27,19, where the chastisement has been authored by G-d Himself.

אבק ועפר, “powder and dust;” the strong winds which normally bring rain from the sky, will instead be sandstorms originating in the tops of the mountains so strong that they turn the trees’ roots upside down.

אבק ועפר, the letter א has the vowel kametz under it.

ואין מחריד, “and there is no one to frighten them away.” No one will bother to bury these carcasses as the survivors have so many other problems to deal with. An alternate interpretation: no one will chase the vultures away.

ובטחורים, and incurable hemorrhoids. Seeing that these ailments originate in hidden regions of the body they cannot be treated medically, and are described in the written text as עפולין, “from a dark place.”

Since these ailments have been inflicted by G-d and are not phenomena known in nature, it is evident that physicians cannot deal with this.

כאשר ימשש העור באפלה, “as the blind gropes in the darkness.” He does so out of fear. If he felt that he was in an area that was lit up, there would be people who would assist him, or at least warn him of obstacles in his way. (Talmud Megillah, 24)

אשה תארש; ”you shall betroth a woman to become your wife, seeing that normal people first build themselves a house wherein he and his wife can live, before he offers to marry a woman, something we know already from Deuteronomy 20,5: “who is the man that has built ahouse and has not consecrated it, .... and has planted avineyard,...or has become engaged to a woman?” here the Torah illustrates the foolishness of the person who did not do this in the accepted order, and how his plans therefore will not be realised. He only has his own foolishness to blame for this, not fate.

בניך ובנותיך נתנים לעם אחר, “your sons and your daughters will be given to another nation.” According to the Talmud, tractate Yevamot folio 63, here the Torah speaks of the second wife of a father who maltreats his children from his first wife.

וכלות, an expression describing longing for something in vain. Compare Psalms 84,3, וגם כלתה נפשי, “and my soul almost perished from longing.” (Ibn Ezra)

יאכל עם אשר לא ידעת, “a nation which you do not know will consume it.” They do not do you any favours as they do not even know you.

הוא יהיה לראש, “he shall become the head;” this is based on Proverbs 22,7, עבד לוה לאיש מלוה, “the borrower is a slave to the lender.”

כאשר יראה הנשר, “as the eagle sweeps down,” this is a reference to the Babylonian Empire concerning which it has been written in Daniel 7,4: “like a lion with eagles’ wings.”

גוי אשר לא תשמע לשונו, “a people whose language you do not understand.” This is why you cannot even plead with them and come to terms with them. Apart from that, you can tell from their facial expressions that they are cruel and tough.

גוי עז פנים, “a nation of fierce countenance;” this is a reference to the Roman Empire, as we know from Daniel 8,23: ובאחרית מלכותם הימים ככלות הפושעים יעמוד מלך עז פנים, “and at the end of their kingdom when the sinners have met their end, a brazenfaced king shall arise;”

אשר יותיב, “whom he has remaining;” a reference to the enemy, or: the remnant in hiding. (Ibn Ezra)

והפלא, “He will make wonderful, in the sense of the plague being extraordinary long lasting.” The last letter of the word is an א, (not a .(ה

רעים ונאמנים, “painful and of long duration;” compare Samuel II 7,16: ונאמן ביתך וממלכתך עד עולם, “and your house and your dynasty will endure for a long time.” Compare also Isaiah 22,3 which both the Targum and Rash’bam understand in the same sense.

את כל מדוה מצרים, “all the diseases current in Egypt;”

אשר לא כתוב, “which have not been recorded (in the Torah);” the Chaldeans used to tie good looking male Jews to their bedposts during the time they engaged in sexual relations with their wives, in order that their wives at the time by looking at these good looking males would become aroused and their babies would resemble what they had seen at that time. It happened once that one of them told his colleague that this is what has been written here, i.e. what is meant by “perversions which have not been recorded in the Torah.” (Talmud, tractate Gittin folio 58.)

והשיבך ה' מצרים באניות, ”and the Lord will ship you back to Egypt in ships;” there is a river separating the Land of Canaan from Egypt as explained by Rashi on Numbers 34,3.

באניות, “in ships;” this is a severe punishment, as all kinds of people of both sexes and ages, sick and healthy, were thrown together into the holds of these boats.

אשר צוה ה' את משה, ”that G-d had commanded Moses. Theses chastisements were also told him as a form of revelation.

מלבד הברית, Rashi explains the reference is to all the curses recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy which have been authored by Moses, but approved by G-d to be said to the people publicly. In some instances he even repeated commandments that had already been recorded in one of the other four Books of Moses. Rashi calls these curses as having been revealed to Moses already while he stood on Mount Sinai.

אשר כרת אתם. “which He concluded as a covenant with them at Mount Chorev” (Sinai). This is a reference to chapter 26 in the Book of Leviticus which Moses wrote down at the end of that Book, before the people had left for their journey after staying around Mount Chorev for about a year, after having been given the Ten Commandments.