The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.
A consumption, х bashachepet (H7829), from shaachap (H7828), to become lean, to consume away] - a wasting disorder; but the European phthisis is almost unknown in Asia [The Septuagint has: en aporia, distress (cf. Luke 21:25).]
Fever ... inflammation ... extreme burning. Fever is rendered burning ague, Leviticus 26:16; and the others mentioned along with it evidently point to those febrile affections which are of malignant character and great frequency in the East.
The sword - rather, 'dryness,' the effect on the human body of such violent disorders; or 'drought' on the land, grass х chereb (H2719)] (Gesenius).
Blasting ... mildew - two atmospheric influences fatal to grain. 'The mildew, which committed such dreadful ravages in the barley, wheat, and millet fields, and often reduced the people to the extremity of famine, was never once suspected to be of vegetable origin-different species of parasitic fungi of the Predo and Puccinia families-but looked upon entirely as a meteorological product-a special form of pestilence sent directly from the hand of God' ('British and Foreign Evangelical Review,' art. 'Bib. Bot.,' No. 47:, p. 166). A hot or scorching wind, before the harvest is ripe, is one of the most disastrous occurrences that can take place in Palestine.