Deuteronomy 28:32

32 Your sons and daughters will be given as slaves to foreigners while you look on. Every day you will strain your eyes, looking in vain for your children to return.

Deuteronomy 28:32 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 28:32

Thy sons and thy daughters [shall be] given unto another
people
This also was not true in the Babylonish captivity; for then their sons and daughters went with them, and continued with them, and returned again; but has been oftentimes verified since their captivity by the Romans; frequently their sons and daughters have been taken from them by force, to be brought up in another religion, by the edicts of kings and popes, and by the canons of councils, and particularly of the fourth council of Toledo:

and thine eyes shall look and fail;
with longing:

for them all the day long;
expecting every day their children would be returned to them, at least wishing and hoping they would; their hearts yearning after them, but all in vain:

and [there shall be] no might in thy hand;
to recover them out of the hands of those who had the possession of them, or fetch them back from distant countries, whither they were carried. By an edict of the Portuguese, the children of the Jews were ordered to be carried to the uninhabited islands; and when, by the king's command, they were had to the ships in which they were to be transported, it is incredible, the Jewish historian says ^F12, what howlings and lamentations were made by the women; and there wore none pitied them and comforted them, or could help them.

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FOOTNOTES:

F12 Shebet Judah, sive Hist. Jud. sect. 59. p. 332.

Deuteronomy 28:32 In-Context

30 "You will be engaged to a young woman - but someone else will marry her. You will build a house - but never live in it. You will plant a vineyard - but never eat its grapes.

31 Your cattle will be butchered before your very eyes, but you will not eat any of the meat. Your donkeys will be dragged away while you look on, and they will not be given back to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and there will be no one to help you.

32 Your sons and daughters will be given as slaves to foreigners while you look on. Every day you will strain your eyes, looking in vain for your children to return.

33 A foreign nation will take all the crops that you have worked so hard to grow, while you receive nothing but constant oppression and harsh treatment.

34 Your sufferings will make you lose your mind.