Deuteronomy 28:36 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The Lord shall bring thee and thy king The calamity shall be universal; even thy king shall not be able to avoid it, much less his subjects, who have far less advantage and opportunity for escape; he who should protect or rescue them shall be lost with them. This was partly fulfilled when Jehoiachin was carried captive to Babylon, with his mother, wives, officers, and the mighty of the land, 2 Kings 24:15; and afterward Zedekiah, 2 Kings 25:7; Jeremiah 52:11. For the Assyrians were a people, though not quite unknown to the Jews, in Moses's time, yet with whom they had but little intercourse. But it was more especially accomplished in their last dispersion by the Romans, a nation which neither they nor their fathers knew. There thou shalt serve other gods, wood and stone So that what formerly was their choice and delight should now become their plague and misery. And this, doubtless, was the condition of many Israelites under the Assyrian and Babylonish captivities, being either influenced by the example and counsels of their conquerors, or compelled by their tyranny to practise this idolatry. And Bishop Newton on this passage proves, by authentic testimonies, that “it has been common for Jews in Popish countries to comply with the idolatrous worship of the Church of Rome, and to bow down to stocks and stones, rather than that their effects should be seized and confiscated.”