This morning, the KJV reading schedule…

…directed me to Deuteronomy 28, and I noticed something I don’t recall ever paying attention to before. The chapter, of course, records the blessings and the curses that will follow either from Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant or her faithlessness. And right there in verse 26, we read:

Deuteronomy 28:26-26 (KJV) And thy carcase shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray [them] away.

The words evoke, in a way, the covenant that God made with Abram in Genesis 15:11 and how he drove away the birds of prey from the sacrificial animals. But then also consider this verse a bit later in the same chapter:

Deuteronomy 28:49-49 (KJV) The LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand. 

So, in consequence of Israel’s unfaithfulness to the covenant, Yahweh foretells through Moses the country will be like a dead corpse on which “the birds” will feed, and then that there will come a nation to Israel flying like an eagle. I think then that Deuteronomy 28 gives you the key to understanding Jesus’ mysterious words in Luke 17:37-37 (KJV) And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body [is], thither will the eagles be gathered together. Faithless Israel, the Lord was saying, would be left as food for the eagles. And what exactly was upon the top of the Roman standards? Ah, yes. The eagle. Check it out here.