Botch

Botch is an archaic English word used in Deuteronomy 28:27, 35 (King James Version) for a severe skin disease listed among the covenant curses: “The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, and with tumors and the scab and the itch, of which you cannot be healed” (Deut. 28:27). The same Hebrew word is rendered “boil” in the account of the sixth Egyptian plague (Ex. 9:9–11), making the threatened disease explicitly a reversal of the Exodus: the plagues that afflicted Egypt will now afflict a disobedient Israel.

The Revised Version replaces “botch” with “boil” throughout, reflecting the word's obsolescence in modern English. The covenant curse structure of Deuteronomy 28 presents disease not merely as natural misfortune but as a direct consequence of covenant violation, an extension of the principle that blessing flows from obedience and judgment from apostasy. The explicit reference to the “boils of Egypt” ties the curse to the memory of the Exodus, warning that God who once struck Egypt's oppressors is capable of striking his own people if they become similarly defiant.