Bless, and Curse Not

Conditional curses

All curses and some blessings come with a condition that must be met in order for the blessing or curse to be fulfilled. Consider the earliest curse from Genesis 2:17: “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” The curse, “thou shalt surely die,” came with a stated condition, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof.”

Curses made by the Lord are of this type. Consider the curse made by the Lord upon Cain.

Genesis 4:6,7,10-12

6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. 10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. 11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; 12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

God spoke a conditional blessing and curse to Cain. “If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.” Later Cain killed his brother, Abel. God said to him, “What hast thou done?…And now thou art cursed from the earth…” The curse did not come to pass until the condition had been met.

When God pronounced his first blessing upon Abram he also pronounced a conditional curse on others. Anyone who cursed Abram would be cursed by God.

Genesis 12:3

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

God explained the conditions of another curse very clearly in the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 11:26-28

26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse; 27 A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you this day: 28 And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods, which ye have not known.

In this passage the condition of the curse was disobedience to God’s command. The blessing had a condition as well: obedience to the commandments of God. It is important to understand that the curse does not come if its condition is not met. The book of Proverbs explains.

All causative curses are conditional

Proverbs 26:2

2 As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.

This passage stipulates the necessity of a condition for a curse to come about. That is to say, all causative curses are conditional: no condition, no curse.

An example of the workings of this is given in Numbers. If a husband was struck with jealousy and the suspicion that his wife had committed adultery, the Lord explained to Moses a test for the priests to use to determine whether the wife had committed adultery. The test involved a conditional curse.

Numbers 5:18-22,27,28

18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: 19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse: 20 But if thou hast gone aside to another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: 21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; 22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. 27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. 28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

Sometimes the condition of the curse is not obvious, because it is not stated at the time of and as a part of the curse. Consider again the curse that Noah made upon Canaan.

Genesis 9:20-25

20 And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father’s nakedness. 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. 25 And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.