The Curses Fulfilled: African American Slavery and America's Unfinished Exodus

 

The story of the Exodus is one of miraculous deliverance from slavery, plague, and systemic oppression. But what if the ultimate threat to a covenant people was not Pharaoh, but the failure of their own heart? Moses warned Israel on the plains of Moab: choose life, and blessing will pursue you; choose death, and the curses will hunt you down.

Among the most chilling of these warnings in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 is the prophetic horror of the Full Inversion (Reversal) of the Exodus: that the delivered nation would, by its own choices, become the very thing they fled. The curse is not merely punishment; it is the judicial undoing of the miracle of deliverance.

Let’s unpack how these ancient prophecies found a devastating, literal fulfillment in the historical experience of African American slavery in the USA, and how their echoes still shape our present.

Key Point 1: The Literal Curse – Bondage in Ships (Deuteronomy 28:68)

The most haunting prophecy is found in Deuteronomy 28:68: "YAH will bring you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again’; and there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you."

This was not figurative language. The Transatlantic Slave Trade and the horrors of the Middle Passage were the literal fulfillment. The sea, once the instrument of deliverance, became the vehicle of re-enslavement. Millions were brought by ship, stripped of their humanity, identity, culture, land, spirituality, and offered for sale on auction blocks. The phrase "no one will buy you" spoke to the ultimate dehumanization – where the old, the frail, the sick became liabilities, deemed worthless by the very system that exploited them.

Key Point 2: The Six Diseases of Egypt Manifested in American Slavery

The curses detailed in Deuteronomy 28 act as a spiritual and physical diagnosis, manifesting as "diseases" that afflicted ancient Israel and were tragically re-applied to enslaved Hebrews in America.

• Slavery (Physical/Political Disease): Chattel Slavery stripped individuals of personhood, citizenship, and the ownership of their own labor. Laws like partus sequitur ventrem (children followed the mother's condition) systematically destroyed the patriarchal line and the very concept of inheritance, fulfilling Deuteronomy 28:48 ("You shall serve your enemies... in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of all things”).

• Oppression (Systemic Disease): From Black Codes to Jim Crow, a "haughty nation" (Deuteronomy 28:50) used law, policing, and terror (like lynching) to crush the spirit. Sharecropping became the "locust" (Deuteronomy 28:38), consuming the fruit of labor and trapping families in perpetual debt, ensuring "he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail" (Deuteronomy 28:44).

• Fear (Psychological Disease): The systemic use of family separation was slavery's most potent psychological weapon. The constant threat of children, wives, or husbands being sold created a "trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul" (Deuteronomy 28:65-67), making life a cycle of dread and trauma.

• Plagues (Physical Curses): The high rates of disease and malnutrition in slave quarters—infant mortality, dysentery, fevers—were a direct reversal of YAH’S promise to keep the "diseases of Egypt" from His people (Exodus 15:26). These were the "diseases of Egypt" returning with vengeance (Deuteronomy 28:60), amplified by systemic neglect.

• The Physical Afflictions: The sudden, widespread prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, strokes, sexually transmitted diseases, and various cancers. Insight: These chronic illnesses attack the internal health of people, mirroring the loss of the physical immunity YAH guaranteed in Exodus 15:26.
• The Systemic Affliction of Health: The existence of food deserts, where healthy food is systematically denied, leading directly to the new physical plagues. This shows the oppression is now baked into the infrastructure.
• Gross Spiritual Darkness (Epistemological Disease): Illiteracy laws actively prevented slaves from reading, cutting them off from the written Word of GOD. This enforced spiritual blindness fulfilled Deuteronomy 28:29: "You shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness," forcing reliance on the distorted theology preached by their oppressors.

• Distorted Theology: Since the slaves could not read the scriptures for themselves, they were forced to rely on the "captive theology" preached by the oppressor. This distorted version emphasized obedience, subservience, and the divine sanction of slavery, effectively using the sacred Word as an instrument of the curse. The light of the Law was twisted into a shadow of darkness.
• The Loss of the "Noonday" Witness: The phrase "grope at noonday" is profound. It means the people were blind even when the sun (divine truth) was at its zenith. The reality of their enslavement, the cruelty, and the suffering contradicted the promises of YAH, yet they were forbidden the literacy required to reconcile their experience with the true prophetic promises of justice and deliverance found in the scriptures. This led to deep spiritual darkness.
• Gross Darkness: The prophecy of gross darkness (Isaiah 60:2) perfectly describes the current age: "For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people." This is the epistemological disease where truth is obscured, and people willingly "grope at noonday" (Deuteronomy 28:29) because they reject YAH’S Law as their light.
• Idolatry (Spiritual Disease): The enslaved were forced to serve the idols of their masters—the god of material wealth, the god of cotton, the god of racism, the god of Jesus, and the New Testament. Their very bodies were compelled to generate wealth for a system built on false gods, fulfilling Deuteronomy 28:64: "There you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.”
• The fulfillment of the Gross Spiritual Darkness (Epistemological Disease), focuses on the systemic denial of truth and its spiritual consequences during African American slavery, but Idolatry (Spiritual Disease) focuses on the adoption of the religion (Jesus and the New Testament) of our slavemasters. This disease is the spiritual affliction where the light of divine truth is extinguished, leading to spiritual blindness and intellectual disorientation. The curse attacks the mind and the soul's ability to discern reality and the covenant path.
• Syncretism and Blending: While the core of the initial slave community held firmly to a powerful faith in YAH (often hidden or coded), the scattering and constant exposure to the culture of the oppressor led, in many cases today, to the unintentional and intentional adoption of the enemy's gods, worldview, ideologies, and priorities.

Key Point 3: The Mandate for Autonomy and the Call to Cure (Jeremiah 29:1-7)

Even in exile and scattering, YAH provides a blueprint for healing the divided heart and escaping the curse's grip. Jeremiah's message to the exiles in Babylon offers a radical path to autonomy and choosing life:

• Build and Plant: Defy the curse of instability and hunger. "Build houses and dwell in them; plant gardens and eat their fruit" (Jeremiah 29:5). The antithesis of this is perpetual renting, homelessness, and consuming poisoned, engineered food—like the "high fat, high sodium, high preservative, bioengineered, and 3D printed meats" that former Campbell Soup executive Martin Bally controversially stated were designed for "poor people."
• Bear Sons and Daughters: "Take wives and beget sons and daughters... that you may be increased there, and not diminished" (Jeremiah 29:6). This is a direct command to choose life and generational continuity. The antithesis? Abortion, which tragically diminishes our people and forfeits the generational promise.
• Seek the Peace of the City: "Seek the peace of the city... for in its peace you will have peace" (Jeremiah 29:7). This mandates communal responsibility and internal order. The antithesis is violence, murder, and theft within the community, which destroys trust, families, property, our nation, and prevents true shalom, perpetuating the fear and chaos of the curse.

America's Unfinished Exodus

The history of African American slavery is a stark, prophetic warning. The curses of Deuteronomy 28 are not distant history; they diagnose present-day spiritual, physical, and systemic ailments. The solution remains what it has always been: a return to undivided devotion to YAH.

The call remains the same: Choose Life, Choose Blessing, Choose Undivided Devotion. Repent, Return, and be free from the shadows of sin.

I hope this blog post has been helpful. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below. Shalom qodesh qadasheem - the “set apart ones.”