Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 8:1

All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore unto your fathers.

1. The change from Sg. to Pl. is confirmed by Sam. LXX has Pl. throughout the v. Is the Heb. and Sam. Sg. in the first clause due to the attraction of the Sg. in the previous verses? Or is the LXX Pl. due to a harmonising purpose? It is impossible to say. The suspicion of the originality of the v., which is raised by the Pl. address, is strengthened by the character of the clauses, all of them frequently recurrent formulas, dear to editorial scribes, and none of them necessary just here. On all the commandment, see Deu 5:31; observe to do, Deu 5:1; multiply, Deu 6:3; go in and possess, Deu 6:1.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Deu 8:1-2

Remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee.

Remembering and forgetting

(with Php 3:13):–Thou shalt remember, and thou shalt forget. We need a good memory and a good forgettery.

I. First, then, the past; we are to remember it. The old lawgiver sought to make the nations great history sacramental. Much might well be forgotten. The old rebellions, the old murmurings, their lapses from loyalty, and the heavy, hard work they had made for their great spiritual leader–they had better break with much of this unsavoury record. But they must remember the lessons of history. Unfortunate is the man or the nation without the memories of great providences, that has never known the discipline of heaven. We are never to forget the past: the fact that we are the product of the past, that the ground on which we stand is made soil; that if you sink your pick into it you cut into the layer of forty or fifty centuries; that all our sowing is upon the prepared ground and top dressing contributed by all the older periods. God has been working and good men have been building at all the substructures that are the foundations on which we start the work we have in hand. Providence is not the mintage of yesterday, and God has not been waiting for us to appear on the scene before He set His plough in the furrow. We had better not be too ready to quit with the past. Foundations have been made for us; we are ourselves the creations of the past, and most of the instruments with which we work are contributions from the past. We may easily exaggerate our abilities and resources, especially our originality. We are a little inflated just now with our physical resources. The greatest moulders of men, the greatest teachers of the world are not any of them above ground, when we come to think of it. The mightiest forces that reach forth their transforming energies to mould human life come to us from sources back of all contemporary history. For our greatest literature, for the most truly constructive, forces for shaping history, and for our religion we must go to the past. The history of the great peoples of the world is a veritable mine of wealth if we could better afford to throw all our gold into the sea than to lose our past and the past of the divinely led nations among whom God has been so visibly working. We had better remember all the way the Lord hath led us,–remember it because it has made us what we are, and because Gods footprints are visible upon it. God has been here before us; has been forehanded with us; has wrought at the basis of all our individual and national life.

II. The first word is remember, the second is forget. We are to remember the past and we are to forget it. The made soil on which we sow is an inheritance from the past, but we are to add a new layer of soil on which others are to sow. Our best use of the past, Phillips Brooks tells us, is to get a great future out of it. Many people and many nations overwork their past, give themselves in excess to retrospection, build the sepulchres of the fathers, and give themselves to criticism of their own age and time. They behold God and nature through older eyes alone, forgetting the individual relation of each personal soul. Why, asks Emerson, should we not enjoy our original relation to the universe and demand our own works, laws, and worship? The past is for us, but the sole terms on which it can become ours are its subordination to the present. And so one way of forgetting the past and leaving the things that are behind is to go and do better things. Good precedents are good, but we ought to improve on them. We ought to swing clear of the mistakes of predecessors, and do a better work than they did. We need in the interests of personal growth to forget many things which we insist on loading ourselves with. It is very human to blunder, but it is a Divine thing in imperfect people not to repeat blunders. Past sins too, if repented of, are good things to forget. And old sorrows we had better leave with the dead yesterdays: the tomorrow of hope is already kindling in the east. Even old successes had better be left with the past, if we are making them the limit of responsibility and the end of duty. The future should be reserved in all eases for constructive work: for new undertakings, for larger tasks, for better fidelities. Learn new things; do new things every week you live. Our life stagnates when poised on the older standards of duty or achievement. (S. H. Howe, D. D.)

Looking backward

I. The divinely governed life. Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness. Now, it is not difficult for us to believe in the Divine government when we look up into the midnight sky. Ten thousand times ten thousand stars moving in their orbits, and pursuing from age to age their march of light, compel us to believe that this is a divinely governed cosmos. It is also easy to believe in the government of God when we look upon this world in which we live. This planet is evidently a rational and ordered sphere. The form of the argument for design may change, but the conviction of design persists in the consciousness of mankind. They feel that at the back of earth and sea is an Architect building with a plan; an Artist working out a distinct ideal and purpose; a Dramatist fitting perfectly each act of the drama. Looking on the beautiful world, it is easy to believe this, it is almost impossible to disbelieve it. Again, it is not difficult to believe in the Divine government when you consider the history of the human race. It is as difficult to resist the idea of order, progress, purpose in contemplating the course of human history as it is to resist that idea in surveying nature. There is a doctrine known as the doctrine of purposelessness, a doctrine that maintains the inconsequence and irrationality of nature and history, but it has found few defenders. And, once more, it is not difficult to believe in a Divine government when we mark the career of extraordinary men. When we consider Cyrus and Caesar, St. Paul and Luther, it is easy to believe in the divinity that shapes mens ends. The real difficulty of believing in a supernatural order arises when we begin to think of a Divine government ordering the individual lives of such obscure and mediocre beings as we are. Any unbelief here is fatal indeed. We must believe that the same infinite knowledge and power which shape the destinies of orbs, races, and heroes, shape the life history of the lowliest man and woman on the face of the earth. What did our Lord teach us on this very matter? If God so clothe the grass of the field, shall He not much more clothe you? And certainly the science of the day helps us to the same conclusion. The world is built upon the atom; the microbe in many ways teaches the grandeur of insignificance. We may be very obscure and ordinary people, but it is our joy to remember that we are certainly embraced by the government of God, and that He ever seeks to lead us and guide us as a shepherd guides his sheep. And have we not many of us a very vivid consciousness of this overshadowing Providence? Do you say, I am the architect of my own fortune? If you are, you are the architect of a precious jerry building. If your life is really rich and successful, ye are Gods husbandry, ye are Gods building. And if God has blessed us marvellously, has He not also wonderfully kept us amid the temptations and perils of the pilgrimage? The man who congratulates himself upon his character and standing, and imputes all to his own strength, and caution, and skill, is strangely blind and forgetful. What would you think if an ocean liner were to flatter itself because it had found its way from New York to Liverpool? How cautiously I crept through that fog; how skilfully I kept clear of those icebergs; how cleverly I piloted myself past those sandbanks; what a wide berth I gave those rocks; how delicately I threaded my way along the Mersey! Forgetting all the time the captain on the bridge. We must not forget the Captain on the bridge, the Captain of our salvation. How wonderfully God has disappointed our fears and misgivings! We have often looked forward with solicitude and even anguish to impending, threatening trials, and yet God has brought us safely through. God has been with us through all the years, filling us with good things, delivering us in the evil day, scattering our fears, bringing us onward to the appointed rest.

II. The Divine purpose in our life. To humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. The moral idea is the grand end to which God governs the race, the nation, and governs us. God seeks to bring men to the knowledge of Himself, to purify them from false love and lusts, to teach them obedience, to make them fit for their great and holy inheritance. The Egyptian historian, the Greek historian, the Roman historian simply gave a series of grand pictures of kings, cities, marches, battles won and lost, and ended with such pictures; but the Jewish lawgivers and prophets grasped the fact of the moral character and aim of the Divine government. The aim of Gods government is not the material enrichment of men. The great symbols of His final purpose are not L.S.D. He does not rule the world to create rich nations or individuals. He has not led you for forty years that you might make a big pile, and get at length an embroidered shroud. And the final idea of God is not intellectual. He is not satisfied with genius, scholarship, taste. Some seem to think that the ultimate purpose of the governing Power of the universe is to produce a sensual race with a magnificent environment of palaces and pictures, like Victor Hugos devil fish in the enchanted cave. The great end of Gods government is stated in the text. For forty years God disciplined Israel in the wilderness, that they might pass from being a nation of coarse slaves into a nation of saints, losing their sensuality and wilfulness, being weaned from idols, growing into righteousness and spirituality; and it is precisely for the same great end that God disciplines us today. He anticipates, disposes, adjusts, rules, and overrules, so that we may taste His love, keep His law, reflect His beauty, and be prepared to see His face. How far has this great end been answered in us? God has greatly blessed us, humbled us; what is the result? How do we bear the moral test? Some of us are in many worldly respects far worse off than we were forty years ago. Life is a wonderful process for spoiling dreams and frustrating hopes, and some of you feel that your life has not been the success you expected, that you have been sorely disappointed, that life ends in frustration, if not in a general breakdown. Are you at last humble, spiritual, godly, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life? Then glorify God with all your ransomed powers. Blessed humiliation! You are no failure. You are a splendid, Divine, eternal success. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Looking backward

Memory is said to be sometimes quickened to an unusual activity at the end of life. The dying, and especially the drowning, are said to have set before them in swift panorama view the varied experiences of the life which is hurrying to a close. Son, remember–is the thrilling admonition–that thou, in thy lifetime, receivedst thy good things. It is in a more merciful and hopeful way that we are called upon to exercise our memory today. While we still live and the result of our life may be influenced, we are required to pass it in review. Occasionally circumstances arise which seem to set us upon this duty in an altogether special way. You pass along a road where you have not been for fifteen or twenty years. You see a face that you have not seen since you were a child, or you meet a man that was your friend in youth. Or perhaps it is some particular crisis in life, or the return of some birthday, that sets the past in review. Life is here regarded as a discipline, and we have set before us first of all–

I. The agent of this discipline. The Lord thy God. Think of the multitude of influences to which these Israelites were exposed in their great migration. Moses to lead them, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to mislead them, Aaron to do sometimes the one and sometimes the other; the Red Sea to bar their way at the beginning of their journey, and the Jordan at the end; famine and pestilence, quails and manna; Caleb and Joshua to encourage, the unfaithful spies to discourage, the Egyptians to drive them, Moabites, Amorites, and the rest to harass and hinder them. Yet as they look back they are taught to see One Hand at work, and that the hand of the Lord their God. The great lesson which this old Hebrew history has to teach us is the clear recognition of God in everything. There is no lesson, surely, which our strained and worried modern life more urgently requires than this. If our lives, and lives dearer to us than our own, are to be the sport of every malign influence, and every wilful or foolish person; if we are at the mercy of all those varied calamities and deaths which ride upon the breeze and lurk in the dust and lie in wait at every point, we may well be driven to distraction.

II. The sphere of this discipline. In the wilderness. The place in which the discipline was conducted was not without its bearing on the result. It was a place in which the influence of things seen was as weak almost as it could be upon the earth. If you wish to teach a child a specially important lesson you will take him into some quiet room, where he shall not be interrupted, and where in the room itself there shall be as little as possible to distract attention. Such a school room was this desert place, where God took the nation to Himself, and taught them the great lessons in regard to His nature and character which, through them, in after ages have been taught to the world. Our life, as a whole, is not a wilderness; it is rather a garden, which ever tends to become richer and more fruitful as generation after generation toils upon it. Yet there is in many of our lives what may be termed a wilderness experience–a time of affliction, bereavement, disappointment, perplexity; in which God is doing for us in a briefer period what He did for the Israelites during this long forty years. If God does give us a taste of the wilderness life, let us remember that He is not doing it without a purpose.

III. The definite term of this discipline. These forty years. The Israelites were not to be on trial forever. At the end of forty years a result had been arrived at and ascertained which would not now be materially altered. There is a loose idea, only too common nowadays, that probation is to be extended indefinitely into the future. People allow themselves to think that if a man does not come right at first he is to be kept on with till he does come right, so that the drunkard, the Pharisee, and the miser, though they grow worse and worse, and pass out of this life drunken, pharisaic, or miserly, are yet by some unexplained process in the indefinite future to become saints. Now, such an idea not only sets itself squarely against the main body of Scripture teaching, but altogether fails to commend itself to common sense. Indeed, a wide observation will lead us to this, that even within this life character tends to final permanence, so that forty years, for example, do not pass without leaving a mark, and setting character into a form. Professor Drummond has said that a man cannot alter his collar after he is forty, much less his character.

IV. The purpose of this discipline To humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. It was to humble them, that is, to bring them by means of privation and distress to feel their need of His help, and their dependence upon Him. To prove them, to put them, that is, in such positions as would drive them to show what was in them. Times come to us also when we are obliged to speak out, and to take our stand, and to do distinctly either right or wrong. Young people at the beginning commonly regard life mainly or chiefly as a sphere or opportunity of enjoyment. And we must not be unsympathetic. It is natural, and perhaps unavoidable, that they should take this view at first. This aspect of life, however, very soon turns out to be utterly unsatisfactory. Then, after the thought of enjoyment there often comes with earnest young people the higher and better thought of achievement. They say: I will accomplish something; I will make a mark; I will get to the top of the tree. But the top of the tree is so hard to reach, so few can reach it, those who do reach it have to pay such a heavy price, and find it, after all, such a barren and comfortless elevation, that this view of life frequently ends in disappointment too. Then it is that the Divine view of life comes to our rescue. Enjoyment is not left out of the account. It comes in, not as the object of life, but as the divinely given accompaniment of service. Achievement also finds its proper place. The faithful servant shall have the Well done. But above the thought either of enjoyment or achievement there rises the thought of discipline. In forming our estimate of a man we ask, What has he done? God asks, What has he become? There is no subject on which greater mistakes are made than in the matter of getting on in the world. We all want to get on, and for our children to get on, but few have the right idea of what getting on really is. A man thinks he is getting on when his business prospers, and everything turns to gold in his hands. Not necessarily. He may be losing ground all that time. No! When he can stand in the presence of temptation without yielding to it; when he can bear humiliation and disappointment without murmuring; when he can see the unscrupulous competitor go in front of him, and yet refuse to be unscrupulous himself, and let the best bargain he ever saw in his life go past him, rather than secure it by doing or saying that which is unworthy; when he can toil all day and accomplish very little, and go home at night and neither scold the wife nor be angry with the children, thats when he is getting on. When we get into such a position that our word is always listened to with respect and deference, and when we ope our lips no dog durst bark, we think we are getting on. No! When we can bear hard and cruel speech, and not resent or retaliate; when we can give the soft answer that turneth away wrath, or even be reviled and not revile again, thats when we are getting on. A woman thinks she is getting on when she is moving into a bigger house, when her drawing room is splendid and crowded, and she a gay and brilliant queen in the midst of it. But it is quite possible that she may be suffering loss at such a time as that. No! When she can move into a smaller house, and make every corner of it radiant with her smile; when she can work in narrowed circumstances without becoming soured, or meet affliction and distress and bear it like a heroine, that is when shes getting on. (Sidney Pitt.)

The power of memory

I. The agency of memory and its attendant faculty recollection in the work of spiritual advancement.

1. Among the faculties with which God has beneficently endowed man, memory ranks with the most important. It is a gallery lined with the pictures of past events, and with scenes on which we have gazed–a gallery sometimes vocal with sounds that fill the heart with gladness, or pierce it with keenest pain. It is memory that makes the record to which conscience points when it speaks in tones of menace. It is in memory that there is stored up the treasures knowledge has patiently amassed, and it is with memory we take counsel when we would investigate, or must decide.

(1) If the record is so perfect, how necessary to avoid sin! One of the greatest blessings a man can possess is an unspotted memory. How many of us are humbled at the record of our memory!

(2) The indestructibility suggests one pain of perdition. He who passes into hell with a record of sin, and of opportunities wasted, will carry with him his own chamber of torture. There is an attendant faculty called recollection. The curator at a museum or library searches for the object you want. So recollection.

2. Illustrate the influence on spiritual work. These are not merely intellectual faculties. These have a moral work to do. It may be illustrated in the aid given to convince Josephs brethren (Gen 42:21). It ever presents to us the teachings of Gods dealings with us. To lead to avoid past errors, and to show that the purpose was to do us good at our latter end.

II. The Israelite who thus remembered would perceive that Gods purpose had been to humble.

III. To prove thee, to know what was in thine heart. Not to show God, but to show us our faults. The great gun is taken to a proof house, and tried with the great charge, and if some crack is revealed men say it was well it did not burst and spread dismay at some crisis of the fight. The anchor and chain is tested link by link, to see if any flaw should be revealed. If it had gone untested, how great the peril! (J. R. Hargreaves.)

The advantages of a devout review of the Divine dispensations

I. Explain the solemn charge.

1. The object of remembrance is extensive: the way–all the way which the Lord our God has led us; that is, the whole tenor of the Divine dispensations toward us–their nature, means, seasons, relatives, tendencies, and actual effects.

2. It supposes that this exercise, interesting and beneficial as it is, we are prone to neglect

II. enforce obedience to the charge.

1. An enlightened and devout retrospect of the dispensations of God to you will present you with many impressive displays of His glory.

2. This devout retrospection will supply us with many affecting displays of our own corruption.

3. This remembrance will supply the saints with pleasing discoveries of the sanctified tendencies of their souls.

4. This remembrance will confirm our faith in the Scriptures as the Word of God, and improve all our practical views both of things seen and unseen. (James Stark.)

Remembrance of Gods dealings

I. On the duty of remembering the dealings of God towards us. Look back to the earliest period of your history–the time and place of your birth–the varied circumstances of your education–the business or the profession in which you have been engaged–the measure of prosperity or adversity you have experienced–the various connections and engagements you have formed–the sicknesses, accidents, and dangers you have encountered, and the merciful deliverances which you have received;–all these come under the general idea of the dealings of God with you, which it becomes you to remember. But this review of the providential dispensations of Almighty God should lead us to contemplate also that grace and mercy with which we have been favoured. Ever let us remember that we were not born in Egyptian darkness, or consigned from our birth to a waste, howling wilderness. We were born in a highly favoured land, brought by Christian parents and pious friends to the house of God; early baptized in the Saviours name; accustomed to worship God in His house. And has not God graciously vouchsafed to meet with and bless us in His house, and under those ordinances which through His mercy have been administered among us?

II. The means to be adopted in order to remember the Divine dealings towards us. We are prone to forget the God of our mercies, to lose sight of His dispensations, to sink into carelessness and neglect, to regard passing events as matters of course, not calling for any special recollection or acknowledgment. Now, to guard against this forgetful disposition it becomes us ofttimes to stir up ourselves, and all with whom we are connected, to record and remember Gods mercies; and especially to improve those times and seasons which He hath set apart for this purpose. And while we carefully observe seasons which are especially set apart in commemoration of the Divine dispensations, we should also diligently improve the ordinances which are appointed for the same important end.

III. The end which this remembrance of the Divine dispensations is calculated to produce:–Namely, to humble us, to prove us, to show what is in our hearts. When we observe the conduct of Israel in the wilderness we are compelled to feel how foolish, perverse, and ungrateful that people were; but when we review our own conduct, must we not too often pronounce the same sentence upon ourselves? The remembrance, therefore, of the dealings of God with us should deeply humble us under a sense of our unprofitableness and ingratitude. When duly considered, it will show us what has been in our hearts, how foolish, how vain, how deceitful they are, and how often our own conduct has been inconsistent with our profession, and what need we therefore have of pardon. It will teach us the fallacy of many of those excuses which we have made for the neglect of duty, and evince that God has been merciful and gracious to us all our journey through. This remembrance of Gods dealings with us is especially calculated to bring us afresh, as sinners, to our gracious and merciful Saviour. (T. Webster, B. D.)

A protecting providence

This is emphatically a day of remembrance. Parted families meet, and recount the course of providence since they were last together. The monuments of Divine love are crowded so closely together that we are prone to pass them by unnoticed. The experience of all of us is so much alike that we cease to marvel at it.

I. In helping you in the performance of this duty, I would first ask you to reflect on the amount of happiness which you as an assembly represent. There is probably not one of you to whom, in the sight of God, this is not a happy day; not one whose glad do not outnumber his regretful thoughts. How many sources of happiness flow for us! In a thousand ways must an incessant providence watch, guard, and guide, avert peril, and bestow aid, in each of our households, with every new day, to make health the rule, disease and death the rare exception,–joy the current, grief the transient ripple on its surface. I have spoken of common blessings. Have we not each special mercies which we would own with devout gratitude,–mercies adapted to our peculiar wants, as distinctly marked, so to speak, with our names, as keepsakes from a friend might be? How often have we received the very favours which we most needed, and dared not anticipate, sent in at the only moment and in the only mode in which they could have been availing! In this connection it is well for us to consider how little we can do for ourselves. We are too prone to feel as if our own industry, energy, and forethought could accomplish much. But think how many sources of joy must all flow together, how many departments of nature and of being must all be brought into harmony, in order for us to pass a single hour in comfort.

II. What are the duties to which this review calls us? Does it not make the gratitude of the most thankful seem cold? What but unceasing praise can worthily respond to this incessant flow of mercy? And yet, do not some of us live without thanksgiving? Oh, that every soul might feel the love in which it is embosomed, and might send heavenward the blended anthem of all its powers and affections, Bless the Lord, and forget not all His benefits! In these mercies, hear we not also the voice of religious exhortation, My son, give Me thy heart? (A. P. Peabody.)

The common levels of life

The forty years wanderings! What remains of them? A list of unknown names, no more. The dust of time has settled on the stations; and the events, big at the time with interests to millions, are without a note in history. What weary years of plodding marches through a dark, unheavenly country; what dreads and dangers, what wants and distresses, what keen agonies and fierce complaints, that oblivious silence covers! They are all there, days of fighting, nights of weeping, years of trudging. They seemed at the moment as if they were burning an indelible mark deep into life records; but they are already behind us, dim in the distance, a softening veil has fallen over the whole pilgrimage; a broad sense of pain conquered, shame endured, duty done; the consciousness that we have come out of the wanderings richer, braver, stronger, more earnest, but sadder, than when we entered the desert, is all that is left to us. In order that we may better understand the method of God in ordering our wilderness marches let us consider–

I. The reason of the wanderings. Why is so large a portion of our years spent under the yoke of undistinguished duties, leaving no record but the wanderings behind? Briefly, because a few critical experiences do not make a character; a few impassioned, enthusiastic moments do not make a life. The inevitable falling off of the common hours and experiences seems to me to be the great teaching of this passage of Israels history. It is a broad fact in the history of every life; in a measure, of every days life, for the great cycles repeat themselves in little, as the organs of the body are present potentially in every part. But these narratives gather up the scattered incidents of our moral life into one grand incident, and show us with a large dramatic point and emphasis what we are daily doing under the eye of the great Leader, which makes these long, dry, unnoted wanderings inevitable; what it is which compels Him to impose what I have called the yoke of undistinguished duty, and to lead us up and down in the wilderness, that we may, if we will yield ourselves to His hand, work the sublime lessons, which we cannot learn and practise in a moment, into the common daily texture of life, that is, of eternity.

II. The purpose of the wanderings. Briefly, again, to work godly principles of action into the common texture of our daily lives. To make it a matter of perpetual, quiet choice and habit to square every action by the rule of the mind of God.

III. The wanderings, in view of their eternal results. They, obscure and unprofitable as they may seem are the builders for eternity. The quiet, undistinguished years decide the matter for the moments when the election is finally and openly made. It takes years to give a form and bent to a character. Temperament we are born with, character we have to make; and that not in the grand moments, when the eyes of men or of angels are visibly upon us, but in the daily quiet paths of pilgrimage, when the work is being done within in secret, which will be revealed in the daylight of eternity. Habits, like paths, are the result of constant actions. It is the multitude of daily footsteps which go to and fro which shapes them. Let it light up your daily wanderings to know that there–in the quiet bracing of the soul to uncongenial duty, the patient bearing of unwelcome burdens, the loving acceptance of unlovely companionship–and not on the grand occasions, you are making your eternal future. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

The journey of life

I. Life is a journey. All the way.

1. Intricate. Perplexities and difficulties in every stage and turn.

2. Eventful. Changes in every step. All is shifting.

3. Unretraceable.

4. Perilous. Poisonous streams, noxious herbs, venomous serpents.

5. Solemn. Leads body to grave and spirit to heaven or hell.

II. Lifes journey has a guide. The Lord thy God led thee.

1. The guide thoroughly understands the way.

2. The guide has resources equal to all possible emergencies.

III. Lifes journey can never be forgotten. Thou shalt remember.

1. Some memory of it is a matter of necessity.

2. A right memory is a matter of obligation.

Remember it so as to awaken contrition for past sins, gratitude for past mercies, resolutions for improved conduct. (Homilist.)

Human life

I. A Divine superintendence of human life.

1. The fact of this superintendence. The way of man is not in himself.

2. The purpose of this superintendence. Moral discipline.

II. A symbolic representation of human life. Morally, we are all in a wilderness, intricate, perilous, privational. It is only as we get the true manna from heaven that we can live spiritually in the wilderness of our present life.

III. A solemn obligation of human life. Remember.

1. Man does remember the past. Cannot help it; linked to it by a necessity of his nature.

2. Man does not always remember God in the past. This is the duty here commanded–to see God in the past, to see Him in all, in the tempest and the calm, the darkness and the sunshine.

IV. An eternal necessity of human life. Bread is not more necessary to support material life than the Word of God to sustain spiritual. The soul can only live as it receives communications from the Great Father of spirits. (Homilist.)

The Christian called to review the dealings of God with him

I. The way in which we are led.

1. The way of providence.

2. The way of grace.

II. The end for which we are led in this way.

1. To humble thee. Consider the vast importance of this in order to our obtaining, retaining, and increasing in grace (Mat 5:3-4; Isa 57:15; 1Pe 5:5-6; Jam 4:6; Jam 4:10).

2. To prove thee. God tries the genuineness of our repentance when He permits temptations to assault us, and suffers sin to wear a pleasing dress. Of our faith, when difficulties seem to arise in the way of His fulfilling His declarations and promises. Of our trust in Him when dangers, wants, enemies, distresses, assault us. Of our resignation to His will, in reproach and affliction, and in the death of those we love. Of our patience, in long-continued pain, or in a succession of calamities. Of our contentment with our lot in poverty. Of our meekness, gentleness, and forgiving spirit amidst provocations and injuries. Of our long suffering amidst the follies and sins of those round about us. Of our love to mankind, and to our enemies, amidst the hatred and ill-will of others. Of our love to God, when the world courts us, and we must of necessity abandon one or the other. Of our obedience when difficult duties are enjoined, and we are called to deny ourselves and take up our cross. Of our hope of everlasting life, when both the wind of temptation and the tide of our corruption are strongly against us.

3. To know what was in thy heart. God, who searches the heart and knows what is in man, infallibly knows what is in thine heart; but thou must know thyself, and discover to others what is in the heart.

4. Whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. Whether thou wouldest be brought to love Him with all thy heart, as thou art commanded; to serve Him with all thy strength; to make His will thy rule in all thy actions; to make His glory thy end, and not thy own honour, or interest, or pleasure. (J. Benson.)

The way of the past

I. The way of providence.

1. This we have experienced nationally.

2. Socially.

3. Personally.

II. The way of privilege.

1. We have possessed the Word of God.

2. All have been welcome to the house of God.

3. As Christians we have enjoyed fellowship with the people of God.

III. The way of experience.

1. Each of us has had his share of conflict.

2. To each has come deliverance in times of perplexity.

3. Even in the midst of trial we have, through faith in Christ, realised a measure of peace.

4. To every believer there has been vouchsafed spiritual joy.

Application: The past should thus be remembered

(1) with humility;

(2) with gratitude;

(3) with confidence. (Lay Preacher.)

Remembrance of past trials

I. The duty of remembrance. The world likes to forget. There is so much that is self-humiliating in the past, so much that is disagreeable, that men would like to get it out of their thoughts. But not so the Christian. He is taught that it is his duty to bear in mind all the incidents of his past. It is an important duty. The way has been rough and varied, but it has been fraught with momentous issues. Have all the varied experiences been given us in order that they might at once pass from our ken? Some forget from indifference; they never can remember. Go through what they may, they never learn experience. Some forget from loose habits of mind; from long indolence. Others forget because they want to avoid the pain of remembrance. But none of them realise that remembrance is an important duty, an absolute command of God. It is important in worldly things, for it does much to form our human character. But it is still more important in spiritual things, for it does still more to form our spiritual character.

II. The profit to be derived. Our past lives have been directed for two ends–

1. To humble us. How insignificant we appear to ourselves in the light of the past! How our plans have been thwarted, our ambition damped, our desires crushed! Where is our pride at the end of the journey of life?

2. To prove us. There is much alloy in the best of our services, much sin even in holy things.

III. The comfort to be imparted. At first sight it seems that no affliction for the present seemeth light. It is always painful. Nevertheless it worketh out an abundant weight of glory. Persecutors mean evil, but God causes it to be good. Consider–

1. The future good more than counterbalances the present evil. When the rod is removed the purified soul will rejoice in the eternal presence of God.

2. Trials by the way are proofs of Divine love. Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. God sees better and further than we do. (Preachers Analyst.)

To bring to remembrance

I. Why we are to remember the beginning. It was almost the first business of Moses, in giving this long address which we have in Deuteronomy, to show that the Israelites, for want of remembering all the way the Lord had led them, lost the promised land. Let us, then, take a three-fold view of the beginning, as applicable to us spiritually.

1. What is the first thing that we shall call the beginning? That which the people of God as a general rule come to last, and that which is almost everywhere despised. The beginning was a manifestation of the pure sovereignty of God. In Exo 11:1-10, the Lord said that He would put a difference–as the margin reads it, a redemption–between the Egyptians and Israel; referring to the paschal lamb. Now, how did the Lord begin with you? Why, by making a difference, not only between you and others, but by making us something very different from what we had been before.

2. Then the second thing in the beginning was that beautiful circumstance as a type of the Saviour. When I see the blood I will pass by the house, and the sword shall not come near to hurt you. Oh, let us remember that the original way of escape was by Jesus Christ; if we were left of the sword, it was by the blood of the Lamb.

3. Then the third thing in the beginning was the victory which was wrought. Look at the victory the Lord gave to the Israelites; see how He divided the sea. God did in that case what none but God could do. Now apply this closer home. Who but the God-man Mediator could have divided a greater sea? Who but the God-man Mediator could bring in such a victory as Jesus Christ hath brought in? Who but Jesus Christ could penally bear our sins?

II. Why we are to remember the present. How much wilderness experience the people of God have! what solitude! Like an owl of the desert, like a sparrow alone upon the house top; and that He will hear the prayer of the destitute, and not despise their prayer; and they wandered in a solitary way, and found no city to dwell in. I dare say some good Christians think that ministers have not much of this wilderness experience; but I can tell you this, if they have not, they will not be of much use to the people. They may pretend to weep with the people, but they cannot feel as they would if they had these experiences. The doctor may be very sympathising over the dying patient, but the doctor cannot feel what the parent feels, the doctor cannot feel what near and dear relatives feel. The apostle saith, We have ten thousand instructors, but not many fathers. For a minister, therefore, to be of that sympathising nature that he shall strengthen file diseased, heal the sick, bring again that which is driven away, he must from time to time know what this wilderness experience is; and then he will think when he comes into the pulpit, and say to himself, I am a poor, dark, helpless creature, no more fit to preach the Gospel than to create a world; and thus the man is humbled down like a little child, and the Lord knows that is just the time for Him to come; so in the Lord steps, the mans heart is warmed, his soul is enlarged, Satan flies off, and the man is astounded how it is he is so strong; and one thought comes, and another; and the man that one half his time perhaps is little more than a stammerer, all at once becomes eloquent, and pours forth torrents of thoughts, and blessing after blessing, until the people lose their troubles and their sorrows, and he loses his.

III. How we are to look at the future. With confidence in Him who has been so gracious to us up to the present. (J. Wells.)

The retrospect

I. The call to remembrance. If knowledge is important, memory is important in precisely the same degree; for knowledge is nothing unless it be applied, and it cannot be applied unless it be remembered. But there are many who resemble the workmen in the days of Haggai, who received wages to put them into a bag of holes. And therefore says the apostle to the Hebrews, Give the more earnest heed to the things you have heard, lest at any time you should let them slip; for we are now considering memory not in reference to the scholar, or the man of business, but with regard to religion; and it is remarkable that the whole of religion is expressed by the word, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. One thing, however, is worthy of consideration–that in all these instances the remembrance is to be considered, not as a speculation, but as experimental and practical. The sacred winters never regard remembrance as an end, but as an instrument; to call forth such feelings, and to produce such actions as will correspond to the things we are required to remember. As they consider knowledge without practice to be no better than ignorance, so they consider remembrance without influence and efficiency as no better than forgetfulness.

II. The subject to be reviewed.

1. The place–the wilderness.

2. Their conductor–the Lord thy God. God guides the people with His eye, He leads them by His word and His Spirit and His providence. He is a very present help to them in every time of trouble, and He will never leave them nor forsake them till they have entered the promised land.

3. The passages–all the way. Not that everything in their journey was equally important and interesting; this could not be; but all had been under the appointment and discipline of God, and all would be rendered profitable.

4. The period–these forty years. (W. Jay.)

The advantages of a frequent retrospect of life

I. The way which we are here called on to remember, is, all the way which the Lord our God has led us; the whole course of His dispensations towards us from the day of our birth to the present hour. Even the most minute occurrences in our history have had some influence on our condition and character; they are affecting us now, and will continue to affect us through an endless eternity. But while all the events of our life ought to be preserved in our memories, those events ought especially to be treasured up there which are more immediately connected with the way that is leading us to heaven.

1. And among these the means by which we were first brought into this way should hold a chief place.

2. We are called on to remember also the afflictions with which we have been visited since we have been walking in the path of life.

3. Neither must our mercies be forgotten in the retrospect of our lives.

4. The sins we have committed in the midst of our afflictions and blessings must also be often retraced; not merely viewed in a mass, but, like our mercies, contemplated one by one with all their aggravations.

II. The remembrance of these things, however, in order to be beneficial to us, must be accompanied with a lively conviction of the overruling providence of God in all that has happened to us, and as lively a sense of His close connection with us. The text points out to us the ends which God had in view in afflicting the Jews, and it consequently affords us the means of ascertaining the reasons of His diversified dispensations towards ourselves.

1. They are intended to humble us. All is humility in that kingdom where God dwells. Here, in this fallen world, the meanest sinner lifts up himself against Him; but there the loftiest archangels cast down their crowns before His footstool. Before we can enter that glorious world we also must learn to abase ourselves.

2. The various changes in our condition have been designed also to prove us.

3. They have a tendency to teach us the insufficiency of all worldly things to make us happy, and the all-sufficiency of God to bless us.

III. These, then, are the immediate purposes for which the Lord has led us through so many trials and mercies in our way to heaven. There are, however, other ends which they have been designed to answer; and that these may be accomplished He commands us to look back on the course in which we have walked, and has connected with the retrospect many spiritual benefits.

1. A review of the past is calculated to confirm our faith in the Bible. Our lives are practical illustrations of this blessed book. Indeed the whole world and all that is passing therein is one continued commentary on it, and confirmation of its truth.

2. A retrospect of the past has a tendency also to increase our knowledge of ourselves.

3. The remembrance enjoined in the text is calculated also to strengthen our confidence in God. It brings before our mind the help we have received in our difficulties, the supplies in our wants, the consolations in our troubles; and reasoning from the past to the future, we are naturally led to infer that He who never has forsaken us never will forsake us; that the goodness and mercy which have followed us all the days of our life will follow us still; that no vicissitudes in our condition, no tribulation, no distress, no persecution, no peril, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The lesson of memory

I. What we should be mainly occupied with as we look back. Memory, like all other faculties, may either help or hinder us. As is the man, so will be his remembrance. The tastes which rule his present will determine the things that he likes best to think about in the past. There are many ways of going wrong in our retrospect. Some of us, for instance, prefer to think with pleasure about things that ought never to have been done, and to give a wicked immortality to thoughts that ought never to have had a being. Such a use of the great faculty of memory is like the folly of the Egyptians who embalmed cats and vermin. Then there are some of us who abuse memory just as much by picking out, with perverse ingenuity, every black bit that lies in the distance behind us, all the disappointments, all the losses, all the pains, all the sorrows. And there are some of us who, in like manner, spoil all the good that we could get out of a wise retrospect by only looking back in such a fashion as to feed a sentimental melancholy, which is, perhaps, the most profitless of all the ways of looking backwards. Now here are the two points in this verse of my text which would put all these blunders and all others right, telling us what we should chiefly think about when we look back. Thou shalt remember all the way by which the Lord thy God hath led thee. Let memory work under the distinct recognition of Divine guidance in every part of the past. That is the first condition of making the retrospect blessed. Another purpose for which the whole panorama of life is made to pass before us, and for which all the gymnastics of life exercise us, is that we may be made submissive to His great will, and may keep His commandments.

II. And now turn to the other consideration which may help to make remembrance a good, namely, the issues to which our retrospect must tend if it is to be anything more than sentimental recollections.

1. Remember and be thankful. If it be the case that the main fact about things is their power to mould persons and to make character, then there follows, very dearly, that all things, that come within the sweep of our memory may equally attribute to our highest good.

2. Remember, and let the memory lead to contrition.

3. Let us remember in order that from the retrospect we may get practical wisdom.

4. The last thing that I would say is, Let us remember that we may hope. The forward look and the backward look are really but the exercise of the same faculty in two different directions. Memory does not always imply hope; we remember sometimes because we do not hope, and try to gather round ourselves the vanished past because we know it never can be a present or a future. But when we are occupied with an unchanging Friend, whose love is inexhaustible, and whose arm is unwearied, it is good logic to say, It has been, therefore it shall be. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

A call to remembrance

When Charles I was executed, January 30, 1649, the last word he was heard to utter was Remember. Memory is a power that may be vivid to the last moment on earth; it may echo its terrors in hell, or carry its blessed lessons and reviews to the heavenly world. It is a mighty faculty of the human mind. It is meant to be useful as a storehouse of information and a granary of knowledge. Again, it is intended to remind us of the lessons gathered by experience and observation. These lessons may have been dearly learnt, but may be all the more precious as they serve to correct our pride, and to reveal our sinfulness and weakness.

I. Mark the stages of Israels journey.

1. Border of Red Sea.

2. March.

3. Elim.

4. Wilderness of sin.

5. Rephidim.

6. At foot of Mount Sinai.

II. Mark the suggestiveness of that journey to us. It is a parable of the journey taken by Gods children by faith in Jesus Christ.

1. They also leave the slavery and sin of Egypt.

2. They too must go forward in the way of repentance and faith, in discharge of Christian duty, in cultivation of Christian graces, and in the path Providence and grace has ordained.

3. They often drink the bitter waters of sorrow and trial; but these waters are sweetened by Christ.

4. They drink of the waters of Elim, where they find joy and refreshment.

5. They also have to learn lessons of Divine care and Divine trust.

6. What rich supplies of the water of life flow around the camp of the spiritual Israel.

7. Where Israel encamps before Sinai, it reminds us that the law written on tables of stone is by the covenant of grace written on the tables of our hearts, and we are to remember those commandments of Jehovah that are a rule of life for all time, even the Ten Commandments.

III. Great facts Israel would remember.

1. Surely Israel remembered they had a glorious Guide.

2. Surely they would remember their full supplies. No good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly.

3. Israel would remember with sorrow their sins, and so must we.

4. They were to remember their rebukes and chastisements.

5. They were to remember their conflicts.

6. Surely they would remember the devious way they took.

7. Surely Israel might say, Mercy has ever been mingled with judgment.

8. Would not Israel remember all the way in the light of the glorious end then in view?

IV. The purpose to be served by the way that Israel journeyed.

1. To humble the people.

2. To prove the heart.

3. To lead to God and heaven. (F. A. Warmington.)

Divine leading

I. The way in which the Lord led His people.

1. A way not chosen by themselves. Grace–freely bestowed (Joh 5:16).

2. A trying way. Walking by faith, not sight (1Pe 1:7).

3. A mysterious way.

(1) To the unregenerate world, who know nothing of the secret dealings of God with the quickened soul.

(2) To the Christian. How dark sometimes!

4. A discouraging way (Num 21:4-5). So the Christian is often discouraged. He wants to feel that he is going on spiritually; but he feels, more and more, his own helplessness. Some days he has most cheering and delightful thoughts of God; on others he feels bereft of faith, love, joy, hope, comfort, and every spiritual gift.

5. A way of tribulation (Joh 16:33).

6. A way in which God went before them (Exo 13:21-22). He is with every one of His people every moment, to keep them by His Almighty power, in the way of grace.

II. The place in which the Lord led His people His people into the wilderness.

1. To humble. In order that He may magnify Christ in them.

2. To prove. That He may convince them of their own weakness.

3. That He may know what is in his heart–its secret corruptions, etc. (J. J. Eastmead.)

Human life a pilgrimage

I. The wandering of the Israelites through the wilderness to Canaan is a lively image and representation of a Christians passage through this world to heaven.

1. The passage of the Israelites through the wilderness was a very unsettled state; so is ours through this world. If we do not continually wander about from place to place as the Israelites did, yet we are far from having any fixed and constant abode. The perpetual alterations we see about us, either in our friends, our neighbours, or ourselves, our persons, tempers, estates, families, or circumstances, and in short, the vast change which the compass of a few years makes in almost everything around us, is sufficient to convince us that we are in no settled condition here.

2. The travel of the Israelites through the wilderness was a troublesome and dangerous state. Now, here is another fit emblem of a Christians pilgrimage through this world which to him is not only a barren but a hostile land. From the very nature of things, and the circumstances of his present state, he meets with many inconveniences and sufferings, and from the malice of his enemies more. Setting aside the natural evils which he bears in common with others, sickness, pains, crosses, disappointments, personal and family afflictions, he is exposed to many spiritual evils and dangers as a Christian which create him no small concern; particularly frequent instigations to sin, from a depraved nature, from an ensnaring and delusive world, and from a wily and watchful enemy going about indefatigably seeking whom he may devour.

3. In the wilderness through which the Israelites travelled to Canaan, there were many by-paths or devious tracts by which they might be in danger of going astray. And how much this resembles a Christians walk through this world is very apparent.

4. Notwithstanding all the by-paths and windings in the wilderness, the Israelites had an infallible Guide to lead them in the way they should go.

5. Though the Israelites travelled forty years in the wilderness, yet they were all that while not far from the promised land. We have here another circumstance of similitude to a Christians state in this world. If he be in the right way to heaven, he is never far from it; he lives on the borders of it. A very little and unexpected incident may let him suddenly into the eternal world, which should every day therefore be in his thoughts.

6. The reason why the children of Israel wandered so long in the wilderness before they reached the promised land is given us in the text. Now, whether it be not sometimes by way of punishment that God is pleased to detain some of his people from their state of rest and happiness for a long time, as He did the Israelites from the land of Canaan, I will not take upon me to say. But without all doubt, this world is a state of trial and temptation to them all; in which they are detained the longer that they may be more fit for and more ardently desirous of the heavenly Canaan when they are well wearied with the labours and difficulties of this their earthly pilgrimage. And there are three graces which the trials of life are very proper to cultivate, and to the exercise of which the Israelites were more especially called during their passage through the wilderness. And they are faith, hope, and patience: all proper to a state of suffering and mutually subservient to each other. Faith keeps its eye on God in all we suffer; looks beyond the agency of second causes; views the direction of the Divine band and adores it. Patience, under the influence of faith, submits to the hand of God in all. And hope, enlivened by faith and confirmed by patience, looks beyond all to that future and better state of things where we shall meet with an unspeakable recompence for all we can go through to obtain it.

7. In order to keep up the faith, patience, and hope of the Israelites, full and frequent descriptions were given them of the goodness of that land to which they were travelling. Nor are our faith and patience and hope without the like supports in respect to the heavenly Canaan. Oh, what great and glorious things are told us of the city of the living God, the metropolis of the universal King!

8. When the Israelites were come to the end of their pilgrimage, before they could enter the promised land, they were obliged to pass over the river Jordan which separated the wilderness from Canaan. Here lay their greatest difficulty at the very end of their journey. Now to apply this part of the history to the Christians life and pilgrimage. The last enemy he is to overcome is death. And as it is the last, so to some Christians it is the most terrible of all their trials; and all their faith and hope and patience is little enough to support them under it. But there is no arriving at the heavenly Canaan without first passing through the fatal Jordan. And as the Israelites by the long and frequent exercise of their faith and hope and trust in God were better prepared for this last difficulty of passing over Jordan, so the more these graces are wrought into a lively habit, the more composed will the soul be under the apprehensions of approaching death.

I shall now conclude this with a few reflections:

1. Let these thoughts, then, be improved to abate our desires after the pleasures of the present life and excite them after those of a better.

2. What reason have we to be thankful that we have so sure a Guide through this dangerous desert! The Israelites themselves had not one more safe.

3. Though our state and condition in this world be much the same as that of the Israelites was in the wilderness, let us however take care that our temper and disposition be not the same. They are set up as our warning, not as our pattern.

4. Whilst we are in this wilderness let us keep the heavenly Canaan always in our eye. The frequent thoughts of it will speed our progress towards it, quicken our preparations for it, and be a sovereign support under all the trials we may meet with in our way to it; will soften our sorrows, and reconcile us to all our earthly disappointments. And indeed, what is there which a man need call a disappointment whose heaven is secure? (John Mason, M. A.)

The way to improve past providences

I. I am to specify some of those providential dispensations which we ought in a more especial manner to recollect and consider. And this review ought to be universal. We should not willingly let pass any of the ways and dispensations of Providence towards us without a serious remark. But as we cannot remember them all, we should take the more care to retain the impression of those that are more remarkable, as a testimony of our dutiful acknowledgment of God and our dependence upon Him in all our ways.

1. Then we should often call to mind Gods afflicting and humbling providences. Have we been afflicted in our bodies? let us remember how it was with us in our low estate; what thoughts we then had of our souls and another world; what serious impressions were made upon our minds which we should endeavour to renew and retain. Again, have we been afflicted in our spirits? By sore temptations, grievous dejections, severe conflicts with sin and Satan, little hopes, great fears, dreadful doubts, and terrifying apprehensions concerning the state of our souls, and what is like to become of them hereafter. These kinds of troubles ought by no means to be forgotten. And when they are remembered, our proper inquiry is, How we got rid of them? For there is a very wrong and dangerous way of getting rid of such spiritual concern of mind. If stupidity and indolence, neglect or worldly-mindedness, carnal security or prevailing vanity, have contributed to overbear and drown those convictions, and banish that serious thoughtfulness and religious sorrow we once had, our state is really worse than it was then; and we have more reason now to be concerned than we had before. Again, have we been afflicted in our family or friends by the death of some, or the sickness and distress of others, let us not soon forget these kinds of afflictions when they are past. It is possible we may know very well from what immediate cause they flowed, yet let us not overlook the sovereign hand of God therein. And if they have in any degree been owing to some neglect or fault in us, they should especially be remembered, to humble us and make us more wise and cautious for the future.

2. We should likewise remember the merciful providences of God towards us. For instance, our temporal mercies should be frequently remembered–the health, the peace, the prosperity, and the worldly advantages we enjoy above so many others. Again, our spiritual mercies and religious advantages should be thankfully recorded by us, and especially that invaluable one of a good and pious education. Again, family mercies should be often remembered by us–family health, peace and prosperity, the comfort of relations, the blessing of children, especially if they be found walking in the way of truth. And so should public mercies; especially the signal interpositions of Providence in preserving us from our enemies and restoring to us the blessings of national prosperity and peace.

II. Let us now consider in what manner the past providences of God are to be recollected and considered by us.

1. We should review them very intently and seriously, call to mind as many particulars as we can, reflect upon them, dwell upon the reflection till the heart be deeply impressed with it.

2. We should review past providences with thankfulness (Eph 5:20). What! are we to give thanks for afflictions, pains, and crosses; for those humbling providences under which we mourn? Yes; there is no providence, though ever so adverse, in which a Christian may not see much of the Divine goodness, and for which, upon the whole, he will not see abundant cause to be thankful. He hath reason to be thankful that his afflictions are not greater; that when some of his comforts are gone he hath so many others left; that some honey is thrown into his bitter cup; that there is such a mixture of mercy with judgment; that his supports are so seasonable and effectual; that under these strokes he can eye the Fathers hand and look upon them as the effect of His love, for He chasteneth every son He loves. But especially are kind favourable providences to be gratefully recorded. It is not to be supposed but that every one of us may call to mind many a merciful providence which has contributed greatly to the comfort of our lives, and laid the foundation of our present happiness and future hopes.

3. Our remembrance of the past providences of God should be improved for the confirmation of our hope and trust in Him. By what God hath done for us we see what He is able to do. Our experience, then, should support our hope, and past mercies establish our trust in God for future.

4. When we call to mind the past ways of God towards us, we should seriously reconsider in what manner we behaved under them and what good we have gained from them. Every providence hath a voice, some a very loud one calling us in a more especial manner to practise some particular duty, or forsake some particular sin. Have merciful providences made us more active, diligent, and steadfast in the service of God? and together with greater power given us a better heart to do good? Again, what effect have providential afflictions had upon us? And all afflictions are to be deemed such excepting those that are the genuine effects of our own sin and folly. Have they humbled us? mortified our worldly-mindedness? checked our false ambition? or subdued any secret lust that before too much prevailed? Have they fixed our hope and dependence on God? and made us think more seriously of death and another world? and, in a word, been the means of making us more circumspect and better Christians?

III. I am now to lay before you some of those considerations that are most proper to induce us hereunto.

1. The express command of God should be a sovereign motive to this duty.

2. The duty recommended in the text is necessary as subservient to the great end for which such providences are intended–namely, to do us good in the latter end. So that if we seldom or superficially reflect upon them, we frustrate the chief design of them, and lose the benefit intended thereby.

3. This is a very pleasant as well as useful employment of the mind; and a very happy way of filling up those leisure minutes which, through the vagrancy and dissipation of thought, do so frequently run to waste.

4. Such a serious reflection on past providences may be of use to direct us in our future conduct.

5. The shortness and uncertainty of life makes this duty more especially necessary. What is past we know, what is to come we know not. For anything that we know, by far the most important periods and occurrences of life may be past with us. If the hand of Providence therein hath not yet been properly attended to and improved by us, it is high time it were. (John Mason, M. A.)

Remember the way

I. What it was that God did.

1. God kept the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness ten times longer than would be necessary for a mans passing through it. We hasten because we are impatient, distrustful, and uncertain. He that believeth shall not make haste. We do not believe, and therefore we are in a hurry. We see only brief time before us as our day in which to work. God does not hasten, for eternity is before Him as His working day, and He has no misgiving about accomplishing His purposes: for He saith to Himself and of Himself continually, I am that I am–I am the Almighty God. The great question with our God is not our getting through so much of our course as quickly as possible, but our so passing through it as that all things shall work together for our good. A man is in a hurry to secure a certain object and to get to a certain position; and God hedges his way with thorns and there he stops, and a voice from heaven saith to him, Be still, and he is obliged to be still.

2. God exposed the people to much difficulty and hardship, but He did not suffer them to sink under their troubles. They were long kept back from Canaan, but God did not forsake His people. The glory, the pillar of cloud and fire, and every Divine ordinance were as so many tokens and symbols of His presence.

II. What did God mean by dealing thus with the people? God has a meaning in everything. You know one great design embraces our whole life, from the beginning to the end; and then a still larger design takes in the lives of all living things: so that God is not only dealing with me in His dispensations toward me, but He is dealing with all His creatures in dealing with me. There is an end to which everything that happens is subjected. What did God mean by dealing as He did with the people before us?

1. He treated them in this way to humble them. They thought of themselves more highly than they ought to think. They had been accustomed, some of them, to stand by Him as though they were on a level with Him, and to ask Him what He did this for, and what He did that for–not, mark, as an obedient and trustful child, but as a rebel would inquire of some ruler against whom he had risen up. Well, the people had been accustomed in this way to ask God, Why? and God brought them down from this. And we say that this is a sublime spiritual spectacle, a man injuring himself by pride, and God lowering that mans estimate of himself. There is something sublime in this–in the great God occupying Himself with one of us men, having our abasement for His object, and so ordering all things as that our pride shall be laid low.

2. God dealt with the people thus to show them what material they were made of. He knew them, but they did not know themselves, and He would have them know themselves. Is the eye evil? Is the ear deaf? Is the tongue fired by hell? Is the neck an iron sinew? Is the heart stone? God knew: they did not–and He dealt with them as He did to show them what they were.

3. God dealt thus with them to show them further what He could do. That He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.

4. Gods end in His dealings with Israel was instruction and correction, and all the spiritual advantages to be derived from that instruction and correction.

III. What God requires in respect of this instruction and correction. What a mighty effect upon life memory has! It adds the past to the present. Now among the several moral and religious advantages of memory is your being spared the toil of learning the same lesson over and over again. (S. Martin, D. D.)

The duty, benefits, and blessings of remembering Gods commandments

I. The duty of remembrance. Thou shalt remember, etc. Here we have the same form as in the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt have none other God but Me; thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath, etc. It is, therefore, a positive duty, an obligation insisted on, to remember Gods dealings with us and those before us. But now what is the general course of the world about this important duty? Altogether opposed to it. Some persons we see and know never do remember. Go through what they will, suffer what they may, they never learn experience, or what is called common sense. They continue the same thoughtless, headstrong, violent people they ever were. They never remember. Some there be, however, whose habit of mind is so loose from long indolence, that they really find it difficult so to do; others because it is painful–the thoughts of past years have so much pain in them. There are the false steps that we wilfully made, the neglected opportunities of both doing and getting good, old instances of influence abused, courses of sin persevered in, misgivings of conscience disregarded. To look back on all these is contrary to that peace which we strive to say to ourselves when there is no peace. Instead of meditating and examining themselves, and praying for Gods grace to become altered characters, these men shut out all such reasonings as far as they can, and go on with self-willed eagerness in their old plans: sometimes, if driven from them, they go on only in other courses of the same character, and these, too, with their old eagerness. But if this duty of remembrance is important in a worldly point of view, as it regards our mutual relations on earth, it is of far greater consequence in heavenly things. It is possible to get through our earthly career, though never happily, without remembering; but heaven, the city of our God, we never shall attain unless we do remember all the way the Lord our God hath led us. We must remember Him in our ways, bear in our minds our old sins, and what led us into them. Thence we shall think of what befell us in consequence; and, calmly weighing these over in our minds, we shall pray to God for grace in the future, and will avoid those occasions of sin which previously tried us.

II. In remembering all the way which we have been led, we shall find it highly profitable; because each of our lives is so directed, sooner or later, for two ends–to humble us, and to prove us whether we will serve God or no.

1. Here we see, first, that all events are ordered for our humiliation. Is it not so? Have you had no remarkable turns in your lives, when, yourself or your friends intending one thing, another has come to pass? Have you had no answers to prayer, when, in your helplessness or agony, you besought God and He hearkened? Look back to your youth; how He controlled your self-wickedness, overruled your ignorance, directed your forwardness. It may be, He answered your prayers and punished your inventions; or that what you were so eager for and prayed to obtain so earnestly, as thinking it would without fail make you happy, He refused, and you now find greatly to your comfort. You must bear these in mind; they were so ordained to humble you. We hear men say of their troubles that they are humbling; how they will try in consequence to remove them, to fling themselves out of them. They are thwarted: this causes irritation; it shows them a glimpse of what they really are, poor and weak, blind and naked, and humbles them. God sends these troubles for this purpose–to humble you. Let no Christian therefore try, for it is a vain work, to shake them off; God sends them to humble him. Let the prayer of this man rather be, Let me be humbled. God exalteth the humble, but casteth away the proud.

2. But in discussing this branch of our subject we have another end also laid open to us; this is to prove us. Christ, by Malachi, says, that His coming will have the same effect on the world as the fire of the refiner on silver. And as all the multiplied complications of our chequered lives are ordered to fit us for Christs kingdom, we may well suppose they are calculated to produce this same effect–that of refining or proving. We are told that God will do this in several passages: I will refine them as silver is refined: the Lord your God proveth you. Now there is so much alloy, even in our best services, that all this is necessary.

III. Do these things seem hard? Listen to the great comfort to be derived from our subject. It is all–if you turn to verse 16–to do thee good at the latter end. It is true, enemies mean mischief; false friends wish confusion of face: but, as Joseph said to his brethren who had sold him, and instrumentally had brought on him the miseries he suffered in Egypt, Ye meant it for evil; but lo, God hath brought it to good, so with Christians; the different tribulations and unevenness on their road, are the spurs which should quicken their pace to Jerusalem above, the mother of us all. (J. D. Day, M. A.)

Past recollections

I. Those words were addressed by God Himself to the Israelites. God has a right to call on each one of us to remember His guidance. Observe–

II. These words were spoken to a people, the great majority of whom were ungodly, wicked people. God has been leading them. They do not think so.

III. In calling us to remember, God has the most important practical purposes to answer. There is a moral purpose to every mans life.

1. Humility.

2. Experience.

3. Freedom.

IV. There are many things we ought to remember. Infancy. Childhood. Opportunities of receiving truth. Trifling with religious impressions.

V. There must come a time when we shall be obliged to remember.

VI. Remembrance now will save us from all this. VII. The first effort to remember will be owned and blessed by a gracious Saviour. I will arise, etc. (W. G. Barrett, M. A.)

A New Years meditation

I. Let us emphasise the all, for on that word the emphasis of the sentence truly lies. Survey one part, and then not only the whole, but even that particular portion will inevitably be misunderstood. Take it all together. The very principle of it implies a wholeness, a continuity of purpose, which can only be fully comprehended in the result. It is a way somewhither. No way explains itself at every step. And believe that a Being of unerring wisdom laid the plan of your life course, the nature and conditions of your journey, and the certainty that that was the straightest way to your home. Believe that a Fathers wise and loving eye has surveyed the whole of it; and that not a quagmire, not a perilous passage, not a torrent, not a mountain gorge, not a steep, rocky path, not a bare, sandy plain, has been ordained that could have been spared. Thou shalt consider all the way. Consider–

1. That it is a way. That the character of the path is to be estimated not by the present difficulty or danger, but by the importance of the end. God says to you, as you would say to every traveller along a difficult path, Look up; leave caring for the track at thy feet; look on to the end that is already in sight. Full little cares the weary pilgrim for the roughness of the path or its peril; his heart strains on–Rome, Jerusalem, will reward it all. Is the end worth the toil? That is always the one question.

2. Consider the infinite variety of the way, the many rich elements and influences which it combines to educate your life. A dead and dreary monotony is no part of the plan of God in the education of His sons. If you want to see vast monotones, broad sand tracks, boundless plains, go to Asia and Africa, the continents of slaves and tyrants. If you want to see rich variety, hill and valley, tableland and plain, lakes, rivers, inland seas, and broken coastlines, come to Europe, the home of civilisation, the continent of freeborn and free-living men. And manifold in beauty, in variety, in alternations of scenes and experiences, is this wilderness way by which God is leading His sons. The valley, remember, is part of the mountain. If you will have the height of the one with its exhilaration, you must have the depth of the other with its depression. It is the memory of the depths that makes the heights so grand and inspiring.

II. Thou shalt consider the beauty of the way. I believe the wilderness to have been only less beautiful than Canaan. In many points, if not more beautiful, more striking and grand. It was a bright contrast to the dismal monotony and fatness of Egypt. And through the forty years journey that people had spread round them all the pomp and splendour of Nature, her grandest aspects, her most winning, witching smiles: And thou shalt consider all the way by which the Lord thy God hath led thee. Lift up thine eyes and take in all the beauty and goodness of the world. O Lord, how manifold are Thy works, how beautiful; in wisdom and in goodness hast Thou made them all. We none of us take half joy enough, the joy we have a right to take, in the goodly world which our God hath built. Poor we may be and struggling, and all the higher interests and joys of life, art, literature, music, may be tasted but rarely, and in drops. But the Great Artist has taken thought for the poor. He wills that their joys shall not be Song of Solomon. The beauty, the glory, which art at its highest faintly adumbrates, is theirs in profusion Thou shalt consider the good world through which the Lord thy God hath led thee.

III. Thou shalt consider the bread of the wilderness (Exo 16:11-15). This miracle of the manna is a very wonderful miracle, repeated every day before our eyes. The God who made the manna their food makes bread of corn your food. It is good sometimes to get behind all the apparatus of laws which hide the hand of the living God from us, and take our daily bread, our daily breath, as the sparrows and the lilies take their food and their beauty, direct from the hand of our Father in heaven.

IV. Thou shalt remember the perils of the wilderness. It is distinctly by a perilous path God leads us, that we may see as well as dimly guess at our dependence, and ascribe our deliverances to the hand from which they spring. Life is one long peril. Physiologists say that if we could but see the delicate tissues which are strained almost to bursting by every motion, every breath, we should be afraid to stir a step or draw a breath lest we should rupture the frail vessels and perish. Strange that a harp of thousand strings should keep in tune so long. But it does keep in tune; it is in full tune this day. Remember the perils of the way. Remember the moments of sickness and agony, when death seemed to stand over you. There are deadlier perils than death around us each moment, perils which threaten the second death. Temptations of no common strain. Some of you, by a wonderful chain of providential agencies, have been delivered from positions which you felt to be full of peril, in which, had you continued, you must have fallen; but the net was broken and you have escaped. Thou shalt remember the sins of the wilderness.

VI. Thou shalt remember the chastisements of the way, and consider that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.

VII. Thou shalt remember the Elims of the way, the sunny spots, the living verdure, the murmuring fountains, the rustling, shadowing palms, where not seldom you have been permitted to lie down and rest. The wilderness had nooks as fertile, as beautiful as Canaan. Earth has joys, though rare, pure and deep as the joys of heaven. We are ever moaning over our sorrows. We take our mercies as a thing of course. The people came down to Elim, where were springs and palms. I do not catch the notes of a song of praise. Remember the way and count the Elims by which it has been gladdened, the moments of rapture in which the full heart, swollen almost to bursting, has murmured out its thanksgiving, and realised that it is a blessed thing to be.

VIII. Thou shalt consider the end of the way. Forget that, and it is all a mystery. Be patient, brethren, and see the end of the Lord (7-11). The Lord doth bring thee in. Every sorrow, toil, pain, chastisement He sends is to bring thee in with joy, with glory; to make thee rich for eternity. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)

Retrospect exhilarating

The face which the sculptor chisels or the artist paints as looking backwards is usually expressive of the extreme of sadness. Yet the recollection of the past which such a countenance suggests need not be full of gloom. There is a retrospect which only adds to the keenness of enjoyment. A few years ago a party crossed the backbone of Europe by one of the most picturesque of the passes that cleave the Alps. It was a steep pathway. Reflected by the rocky walls, the sun flung into his glances a heat like a tropic day. But at last they reached the summit. Before descending the other side they stopped and looked back upon the way they had already climbed. Winding far below, the difficult road was mapped out upon the shaggy slope. There were the cliffs they had scaled, the precipices along the edge of which their path had led, the dizzy chasms spanned by bridges seemingly as fragile as that the spider builds. And to stand upon that breezy elevation, to look back on such a pathway, and to know that over such obstacles they had triumphantly gained the very summit, was to drink the wine-cup of mental exhilaration. So do men generally look back from the summit of success. Such a retrospect is the ripest sheaf in the harvest of life. (Bishop Cheney.)

Memory a scribe

Aristotle calls it the scribe of the soul. (T. Watson.)

Gods leading

However quiet your life may have been, I am sure there, has been much in it that has tenderly illustrated the Lords providence, the Lords deliverance, the Lords upholding and sustaining you. You have been, perhaps, in poverty, and just when the barrel of meal was empty, then were you supplied. You have gone, perhaps, through fire and water, but in it all Gods help has been very wonderful. Perhaps you are like the Welsh woman, who said that the Ebenezers which she had set up at the places where God had helped her were so thick that they made a wall from the very spot she began with Christ to that she had then reached. Is it so with you? Then tell how God has led you, fed you, and brought you out of all your troubles. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

To humble thee and to prove thee.

The stages of probation

I. There has ever been a struggle between good and evil proceeding in the world–a struggle in which some have arrayed themselves on one side, some on another.

II. Again, the world grows in experience, increases its stores of knowledge, and its power over matter.

III. But now to come to a more definite illustration of the truth, that the individual is but the species in miniature. Ever since the creation of man, God has been proving His rational creatures by various dispensations.

1. Man, when ejected from Paradise, had a certain limited degree of light and help.

2. Man was next put under the restraints of human law–the warrant for the whole compass of human law being contained in that sentence, Whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed. This was a new help, a new light. Did man recover himself under it from the ruins of the fall? Alas, no! Consider that one saying to Abraham, The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. It shows that mighty nations had sprung up upon the earths surface who were forgetful of God, and among whom stalked oppression and lust, such as called down vengeance from heaven.

3. So a law was henceforth to be revealed from heaven, and to be made plain upon tables of stone, so that he who ran might read it. Surely when it was so explicit, when it had so manifestly the attestation of heaven, mans evil propensities would not dare to break through its restraints. But the third dispensation failed, as the two preceding ones had done.

4. Subsequently the precepts of the law were expanded and spiritualised by the prophets, those inspired preachers raised up in orderly succession to bear their testimony for God in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Still, man was unreclaimed: walked, as ever, in the way of his heart, and in the sight of his eyes. The servants who were sent to receive of the fruits of the vineyard were sent away empty, beaten, stoned, slain.

5. A pause, during which the voice of prophecy was hushed, and then full of augury and hope, the new dispensation, with its covenant of pardoning mercy and sanctifying grace, broke upon a world, which had as yet been stricken down and foiled in its every conflict with evil. A revealed Saviour, joining, in His mysterious Person, man with God–this was the new Light. A revealed forgiveness through His blood, of every transgression–this was the new encouragement. A revealed Sanctifier, who should take up His abode in the abyss of the human will, and there meet evil in its earliest germ–this was the new strength. In the long-suffering of God this dispensation is still running its course. (Dean Goulburn.)

Divine providence a moral discipline

I. Let us regard the text as indicating an enlarged experiment upon human nature, and illustrating the morality of Divine providence. The moral ends of providence are manifested–

1. In overruling the curse pronounced at the fall of man. Affliction, pain, and all the various ills that flesh is heir to are the means of bringing men to their right mind, of showing them the vanity of earthly things, and of maturing moral virtues and Christian graces. How few would regard their spiritual destitution but for this discipline! Even death itself is made a moral blessing. Its terrors lead men to seek Christ and a preparation for heaven; its uncertainty induces watchfulness.

2. There is a moral lesson in the present usual consequences of vice and virtue. The vices which are most injurious to society being poverty and shame, the virtues which are most conducive to the welfare of society are most favourable to the temporal welfare of individuals. Filthiness of the flesh usually has its fit punishment in the diseases of the flesh; filthiness of the spirit, its appropriate penal visitation in the disappointments and vexations of the spirit. The largest amount of temporal misery may be traced to idleness, indecision, improvidence, and transgression. And neglects from inconsiderateness, not looking about us to see what we have to do, are often attended with consequences altogether as dreadful, as from any active misbehaviour from the most extravagant passion. The consequences tread upon the heels of the fault; and indeed, vice generally becomes its own punishment.

3. Observe, also, the encouragements which providence furnishes to seek pardon at the hand of God. We are sinners, and have forfeited every blessing and enjoyment but such things as are essential to us as accountable beings–necessary to endow us with that responsibility in which the law of God contemplates us. Nevertheless, God continues to us innumerable forfeited blessings; and the continued bestowment, notwithstanding that they are abused, and converted into occasions of unthankfulness, or weapons of rebellion, marks a forbearance admirably calculated to lead men to repentance.

II. The particular ends of Gods providential dispensations towards the Church.

1. Since humility is the proper counter working of the fall, the first design named by Moses is to humble thee.

2. A second great object of the discipline of providence over the Church is here specified: To prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. Not that the principles and fluctuating feelings of the heart are not fully known to God, but that we know not our own hearts. It belongs essentially to probation that we should be proved. Something must ever be left as a test of the loyalty of the heart. Every day offers a test to some part of our character. Some duty is required which is painful or disadvantageous to our temporal interests; or we are placed in such circumstances that our precise duty is involved in considerable obscurity, and requires patient thought and a conscientious balancing of reasons and scrutiny of motives. Thus God proves what value we set on acts of disobedience as such, and shows us that our virtue is to be estimated by the amount of temptation and the difficulties of obedience. (F. A. West.)

The blessing of temptation

It is the privilege of Gods people that all things work together for their good. St. Paul, when speaking of this, speaks of it as a certain and well-known truth. He does not say, We know that all things are good; but, that all things work together for good. Pain and sickness, poverty, contempt, provocations, wrongs and injustice, these are evils to the believer as much as to the unbeliever. But though evil in themselves, they work together for his good; like the storms and tempests, the cold frosts and piercing winds–they are often as necessary and useful to the harvest as the warm dews and gentle sunshine. It was so with Gods Israel of old. The words of the text show us this. It may seem strange to the carnal ear to affirm that temptation may be a great blessing; and even the believer, when hardly tried, may scarcely think it can be so; yet it is certainly true that temptation is a source of blessing to the real Christian. And thus, through the goodness and mercy of Almighty God, even Satan himself is made an instrument of good to His believing people.

1. We will consider how God proves us, and what we are to understand by this part of our subject. We at once see that by proving us the Lord must mean, not the finding out what we are, but the showing it. Mans heart is not like a boxed mainspring of a watch, all but wound up from Gods sight, as it is from ours, and of which only a part of the chain, a few links now and then, may be seen moving across and over it, as the chain works round; but there is no covering over the mainspring of our hearts to Gods eye: glass is transparent, and hearts are glass to God. When God is said to have led His people forty years in the wilderness, to prove them and know what was in their heart, it was to show them and others what was in their heart, and not to know and find out for Himself. During these forty years He suffered them to pass through a variety of trials and temptations, all calculated to prove and show which among them would keep His commandments and which would not. So is it still with the professing Church of Christ. We must be proved as Israel was; for only they that are proved shall enter the heavenly rest. And temptations alone can prove us. Our honesty is proved when we were tempted to be dishonest, and through Gods grace resisted the temptation. Our truth is proved when we might have gained by untruth, and yet were enabled to overcome the temptation. Our chastity is proved when the allurements to sinful lusts were thrown in our way, and we shrank from the snare. Our trust in God is proved when we were in want or difficulties. But further, They also help to make known what is in our hearts. When Gods grace first comes into the Christians soul it is as when the windows of some old ruined house, long shut up in dust and neglect, are opened, the light is let in upon the rooms. It is as when those who have undertaken thoroughly to repair it, take up the floor, and take down the skirtings, and examine the timbers, and lay bare the drains. No one could have thought, even from the outward appearance, that such a mass of rotten timber, such a heap of dust and filth, and so many vermin, could have got together. And it is not till the work of repairing begins in our hearts that we begin to know anything of their real condition. While there is no light of Gods Spirit shining in us, we know nothing of our inward corruptions. We are like persons long used to the close, foul, and unhealthy air of some sick room; it, is not till we have left it, and felt the freshness and sweetness of the air of heaven, that we know what the other was. We cannot know what our heart is till we know what is in our heart; and we cannot know what is in our heart till that which is in is drawn out; and temptation alone can draw it out. It is temptation which shows us what is in our hearts–that brings out in various ways the miserable pride and self-conceit, the hypocrisy and dissimulation, the vain self-confidence, the impurity and uncleanness, the fear of mans shame and love of mans praise, the envy and jealousy, and all those other evil tempers and dispositions which are in every soul of man by nature, but which man only learns to know and feel by grace; and the great object of all the various trials and circumstances through which the believer is made to pass, as Israel through the wilderness, is to show him what is in his heart.

II. The effect of all this is to humble him. The self-righteous sinner is always a proud man: he has, indeed, nothing to be proud of, and everything to be ashamed of; but because he is blind to his sins and faults, blind to the real character of his heart, and ignorant of himself, he is proud, Now, no proud man ever came to Christ–no man that thinks himself righteous ever came to Christ. He may call himself a miserable sinner; but he does not feel or really believe what he says. The Christian wishes to be humble; but he is not what he wishes to be. He wishes to learn of Him who is meek and lowly of heart, and he is a learner in Christs school; but he is often humbled for his want of humility. Still, the growing experience of his heart is humbling him: he is becoming daily better acquainted with himself, and likes himself every day less and less. He once thought that, excepting a few faults (and those very few and very excusable and natural), there dwelt in him many good things. Now he can say, even from what he already knows, that in him (that is, in his flesh) there dwelleth no good thing. (W. W. Champneys, M. A.)

The moral discipline of man

I. It is a humbling work. To bring the soul down from all its proud conceits, vain imaginations, and ambitious aims, and to inspire it with the profoundest sense of its own moral unworthiness.

II. It is a self revealing work. The evil principle sleeps in the spirit as the evil monster in the placid waters of the Nile; and it is only the hot sun, or the sweep of the fierce tempest, that can draw or drive it forth in its malignant manifestations.

III. It is a divine work God alone is the true moral schoolmaster; He alone can effectually discipline the soul.

1. By the dispensation of events.

2. By the realities of the Gospel.

3. By His influence on conscience.

IV. It is a slow work. Goodness is not an impression, an act, or even a habit; it is a character, and characters are of slow growth. It is a growth, and requires cultivation–planting, nourishing, and seasonal changes. (Homilist.)

God proves His children

The suffering you see around you hurts God more than it hurts you, or the man upon whom it fails. But He hates things that most men think little of, and will send any suffering upon them rather than have men continue indifferent to them. Men may say, We dont want suffering: we dont want to be good. But God says, I know My own obligations, and you shall not be contemptible wretches if there be any resource in the Godhead. The God who strikes is the God whose Son wept over Jerusalem. (George Macdonald.)

The discipline of life

A touching story was told of a young man whose mother and father died, leaving him in the care of a guardian. He was put to work at a trade, and worked faithfully for years. When he was eighteen a companion said to him, Why do you work so hard? Your father was rich, worth $500,000 and your guardian is keeping the money. The young man then began to entertain hard feelings towards his guardian, and stopped calling upon him. But he kept on working. The day before he was twenty-one he was invited to take tea with his guardian and his wife. Just before supper his guardian called him aside and said to him, Before your father died he asked me to be your guardian, and to withhold from you a knowledge of his circumstances. He wished you to learn a trade and to earn your own subsistence. I was only to assist you when you were in real need. He wished you to acquire industrious habits. The young man was broken down. He wanted to explain. But the guardian would not permit it; no explanation or forgiveness was needed. So we are to pass through the discipline of life patiently, faithfully, industriously, until we enter into the inheritance above.

That He might humble thee.—

Afflictive dispensations of providence

I. The afflictive dispensations of providence are intended to humble believers by teaching them absolute and constant dependence on God for everything that they enjoy.

II. The afflictive dispensations of providence are intended to prove the sincerity and to increase the strength of religion in the heart of the godly. Tis the battle that tries the soldier, and the storm the pilot. How would it appear that Christians can be not only patient, but cheerful in poverty, in disgrace, and temptations, and persecutions, if it were not often their lot to meet with these? He that formed the heart knows it to be deceitful, and He that gives grace knows the weakness and strength of it exactly. The Word of God speaks to men; therefore it speaks the language of men. Now, said the Lord to Abraham, I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from Me. In the wisdom of God, believers are thus put in possession of an undeniable evidence of their own sincerity, and which goes further to assure them of their final salvation than a thousand inward feelings, which are often the effect of imagination alone. It is of importance, besides, to observe that every such trial is a means not only of proving the reality of their religious principles, but of confirming and increasing them. It is with the mind as with the body. Exercise and exertion increase its vigour and strength.

III. Consider the ultimate desire and effect of all these dispensations. To do thee good at thy latter end. When entered into heaven, their knowledge will be enlarged and perfected; and what is at present concealed from them will burst on their view as a necessary part of the discipline of grace in conducting and completing their everlasting salvation. They will then perceive that by poverty they were guarded from the dangers to which wealth would have exposed them, or that the meanness of their station preserved them from the snares of ambition, or that sickness was the means of correcting their tendency to the pursuit of sensual pleasures and worldly joys. Penetrating into the counsels of the Lord, they will see the mercy even of His heaviest judgments, and the wisdom of His most unsearchable ways. At present they may be in heaviness through many tribulations, but the trial of their faith being much more precious than that of gold which perisheth, though it be tried with fire, shall be found to praise and honour and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (D. Dickinson, D. D.)

The design of affliction

There is a two-fold design of chastening. The first is self-revelation, to know what was in thine heart. Some things can only be got at by fire. There are depths in our consciousness that nothing can sound but pain, anguish, bitterness, sorrow. And these are not all bad; sometimes pain works its way down to our better nature, touches into gracious activity our noblest impulses, and evokes from our heretofore dumb lips the noblest prayer. Sometimes we see further through our tears than through our laughter. Many a man owes all that he knows about himself, in its reality and in its best suggestiveness, not to prosperity, but to adversity; not to light, but to darkness. The angel of trouble has spoken to him, in whispers that have found their way into the inmost hearing of the heart. The next design of affliction given in this quotation is whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. Obedience is the purpose which God has in view. There can be no grand life until we have learned to obey. It is good for a man to have to obey. It is a continual lesson, a daily discipline. He gathers from it a true consciousness of his own capacity and his own strength, and he begins to ask questions of the most serious intent. From the beginning Gods purpose was that we should obey. You cannot obey in any good and useful sense the spirit of evil. You only get good from the exercise of obedience when that exercise goes against your own will and chastens it into gracious submission. Self-revelation and filial obedience–these are part of Gods design in sending afflictions upon us. Take another explanation: I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us? Sometimes Gods withdrawments evolve from the heart, conscious of His absence the most poignant and eager prayers. He says, I will go away that they may miss Me. He says, I will withdraw and cause the walls of their security to tremble and the roof of their defence to let the storm pour down through it, in order that they may begin to ask great questions. He will not have us fretting the mind with little inquiries and petty interrogations. He will force us to vital questionings: Are not these things come upon us because our God is not among us? Why deal with symptoms and not with real diseases? Take another answer: They shall bear the punishment of their iniquity . . . that the house of Israel may no more go astray from Me. Punishment–meant to bring men home again. That is Gods weapon, and you cannot steal it. You do wrong, and the scorpion stings you. You cannot bribe the scorpion, or tame it, or please it. Do what you will, it is a scorpion still. You say you will eat and drink abundantly, and grow your joys in your body, and the blood saith, No! And every bone says, No! And the head and the heart say, No! we are Gods, and not in us shall you grow any joy that is not of the nature of His own purpose and will. The bones, the joints, the sinews, the nerves, the whole scheme of the physical constitution of man, all fight for God. What is Gods purpose in this? To bring you home again, and nothing else. Take another statement of the cause and purpose of God in this matter of afflicting men: I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant,. . .there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. There, again, is the internal mystery. It is not the heart that needs must be revealed. You cannot argue with a man who is running down to hell with the consent of all his powers. Argue with him! Your argument and eloquence would be thrown away upon him. You must so show the evil of his doings as to work in the man self-loathing. You may show him pictures of evil, and he will gaze upon them–nay, he will buy them and hang them up in his rooms at home and point them out to his friends as works of vigour and power and wondrous artistic skill. He will not regard them as mirrors reflecting his own image. The work must be done in his soul He must so see evil as to hate himself–self-disgust is the beginning of penitence and amendment. We all have affliction. Yours seems to be greater than mine; mine may seem to be greater than yours. But let us know that there cannot be any affliction in our life without its being under Gods control, and He will not suffer us to be tried above that we are able to bear, and with every trial He will make a way of escape. He does not willingly grieve the children of men. He is pruning us, cutting us, nursing us, purifying us by divers processes to the end that He may set us in His heavens–princes that shall go out no more forever. Let us next consider how variously, as to spirit and interpretation, affliction may be received at the hands of God. By affliction do not narrowly understand mere bodily, suffering, but trial of every kind, yea, the whole burden and discipline of life. We must go to history for our illustration, and, turning to history for my first illustration, I find that the discipline of life may be received impenitently. Hear these words in solemn and decisive proof: If ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary unto Me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins. I warn you, God will not give way–God cannot give way. The one thing God can do is to multiply your affliction seven times, and to cover up the arch of the sky with a night denser than has yet blackened the firmament. Turning to history again, I find that affliction may be received self-approvingly or self-excusingly, and so may fail of its benign purpose. The proof is in these words: In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction Thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely His anger shall turn from me. The correction has been administered, but has not been received. It has been misunderstood. It has been taken in hardness. It has been resented as an injustice. It has been treated as if it came from an enemy, and not from a friend. The deadly sophism of your innocence must be rooted out before you can be cured. The Pharisee must be destroyed before the man can be saved. Will you understand that? Turning again to history for illustration and argument, I find that affliction may be received self-deceivingly. The proof is in these words: They have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. Heart crying is one thing, and mere howling is another. Men come to us with sad stories of distress, and they make long moans about pain and fear, about poverty and uselessness. They use the words which penitents might use, but not in a contrite spirit. It is the flesh that complains; it is not the spirit that repents. When a bad man complains of his head, is he complaining of his sin? Is he not only waiting till he can gather himself together again that he may renew the contest against heaven, and endeavour to find on earth a root that was never planted there? One more point there is which I dare scarcely touch. How few know that the passage is in the Bible. It is a passage that proves that affliction may be received, in the fourth place, despairingly. Are there in any poems made by men such words as these? Tell me if any poet dare write such words: They gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. My soul, come not thou into their secret. Some man wrote these words who had seen hell. Do not trifle with the idea of future punishment. Whatever it be, it is the last answer of Omnipotence to rebellious man. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. This is not a question to be argued. When logician and speculist have accomplished their task there remains the unexplained word–hell! How are we receiving our afflictions? Come now, let us reason together. Ephraim of old was described as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. In some countries the bullock is used for ploughing and for drawing vehicles. The poor ox is yoked, and, being unaccustomed to the yoke, it chafes under it. Its great shoulders protest against the violation of liberty. By and by the bullock becomes accustomed to the treatment, and submits itself to the service to losses. It is not natural that we should do so; but, seeing that we have incurred them, we must receive them at Gods hand, and become accustomed to the discipline, and eventually submit ourselves to the service of God, which is the true liberty. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Development and discipline

The point of comparison brought to view in the text is between Gods treatment of the Israelites in the wilderness and His treatment of His peculiar people–or, if you please, of all mankind–in this world of probation.

I. We have here Gods providential treatment of men in this world set forth as a process of discovery. God led them forty years in the wilderness, to prove them, and to know what was in their heart. Under Gods providential economy earthly and practical life is but practical development. Mans business on this sublunary platform is to work out his hidden character in the face of the universe–to make manifest his secret thoughts even in forms of materialism. The fashion of the mans garments, the furniture of his dwelling, the pictures he hangs upon his walls, the volumes he places in his library, the places of his favourite recreation, the style of men with whom be delights to associate; yea, his very bearing as he mingles with men and walks in the market place–are all but the visible expression of the quality of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And this practical manifestation of character in life is with a great Divine purpose. In the case of the Israelites it was to show who, of the wanderers in the Exodus, were proper men to go over to Canaan; and in our case it is to show who, of these dwellers upon earth, are becoming meet for the heavenly inheritance. Not that God needs to learn this, but that He would have His universe know that He is just when He judges and clear when He condemns. And this, this is life! The development in actual forms of the hidden things of the spirit! This making known to a universe what there is in the heart! Oh, then, how awfully solemn a thing it is to live–just to live!

II. And it brings us to consider this other providential design–a process of discipline. The Lord God led them forty years in the wilderness to humble them. Here, by a common scriptural figure, the great grace of humility is put metonymically for all the distinguishing graces of Christian character. And the meaning is, that God led them about in the wilderness as in a state of pupilage and preparation for the civil and ecclesiastical immunities of Canaan. And in illustrating this thought we only ask you to observe how earthly trials and affliction are the finest means of sanctification. You perceive at once, in the case of the Israelites, that if God had allowed them to pitch a permanent encampment in some fair oasis of the desert, then, instead of becoming more humble, they would have waxed worse and worse in arrogance and carnality. And it needed the burning sun, and the hot sand, and the fiery serpents, and the constant assaults of the fierce men of Amalek and Moab to humble them before God, and make them meet for a citizenship in the theocracy of Canaan. And so of Christians on earth–a moments consideration will show you how afflictions are, after all, the finest discipline of sanctification. Yes, yes, it is thus God sanctifies–He takes away the earthly, that the heart may rise to the heavenly; He tears the bark from its mortal moorings, that it may launch forth toward the eternal haven; He stirs up the nest of the slumberous eagle, that, with exulting pinion, it may soar to the sun! (C. Wadsworth.)

Gods training of men

This is the lesson of our lives. This is Gods training, not only for the Jews, but for us. We read these verses to teach us that Gods ways with man do not change; that His fatherly hand is over us, as well as over the people of Israel; that their blessings are our blessings, their dangers are our dangers; that, as St. Paul says, all these things are written for our example.

I. He humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger. How true to life that is! How often there comes to a man, at his setting out in life, a time which humbles him, when his fine plans fail him, and he has to go through a time of want and struggle! His very want and struggles and anxiety may be Gods help to him. If he be earnest and honest, patient and God-fearing, he prospers–God brings him through; God holds him up, strengthens and refreshes him, and so the man learns that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

II. There is another danger which awaits us, as it awaited those old Jews–the danger of prosperity in old age. It is easy for a man who has fought the battle with the world, and conquered more or less, to say in his heart, as Moses feared that those old Jews would say, My might and the power of my wit hath gotten me this wealth, and to forget the Lord his God, who guided him and trained him through all the struggles and storms of early life, and so to become vainly confident, worldly and hard-hearted, undevoted and ungodly, even though he may keep himself respectable enough, and fall into no open sin.

III. Old age itself is a most wholesome and blessed medicine for the soul of man. Anything is good which humbles us, makes us feel our own ignorance, weakness, nothingness, and cast ourselves on that God in whom we live, and move, and have our being, and on the mercy of that Saviour who died for us on the Cross, and on that Spirit of God from whose holy inspiration alone all good desires and good actions come. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

CHAPTER VIII

An exhortation to obedience from a consideration of God’s past

mercies, 1, 2.

Man is not to live by bread only, but by every word of God, 3.

How God provided for them in the wilderness, 4.

The Lord chastened them that they might be obedient, 5, 6.

A description of the land into which they were going, 7-9.

Cautions lest they should forget God in their prosperity, 10-16,

and lest they should attribute that prosperity to themselves,

and not to God, 17,18.

The terrible judgments that shall fall upon them, should they

prove unfaithful, 19, 20.

NOTES ON CHAP. VIII

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

That ye may live, i.e. live comfortably and happily, as life is oft taken, as Gen 17:18; Pro 3:2; as, on the contrary, troubles or afflictions are called death, Exo 10:17; 2Co 11:23.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

1. All the commandments which Icommand thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may liveInall the wise arrangements of our Creator duty has been madeinseparably connected with happiness; and the earnest enforcement ofthe divine law which Moses was making to the Israelites was in orderto secure their being a happy (because a moral and religious) people:a course of prosperity is often called “life” (Gen 17:18;Pro 3:2).

live, and multiplyThisreference to the future increase of their population proves that theywere too few to occupy the land fully at first.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do,…. It is repeated over and over again, to impress it on their minds, and to show the importance and necessity of it, how greatly it was expected from them, and how much it was incumbent on them:

that ye may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers; for their temporal life, and the mercies and comforts of it, the multiplication of their offspring, and of their substance, their entrance into the land of Canaan, possession of it, and continuance in it, all depended on their obedience to the commands of God; see De 19:20.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

In addition to the danger of being drawn aside to transgress the covenant, by sparing the Canaanites and their idols out of pusillanimous compassion and false tolerance, the Israelites would be especially in danger, after their settlement in Canaan, of falling into pride and forgetfulness of God, when enjoying the abundant productions of that land. To guard against this danger, Moses set before them how the Lord had sought to lead and train them to obedience by temptations and humiliations during their journey through the desert. In order that his purpose in doing this might be clearly seen, he commenced (Deu 8:1) with the renewed admonition to keep the whole law which he commanded them that day, that they might live and multiply and attain to the possession of the promised land (cf. Deu 4:1; Deu 6:3).

Deu 8:2

To this end they were to remember the forty years’ guidance through the wilderness (Deu 1:31; Deu 2:7), by which God desired to humble them, and to prove the state of their heart and their obedience. Humiliation was the way to prove their attitude towards God. , to humble, i.e., to bring them by means of distress and privations to feel their need of help and their dependence upon God. , to prove, by placing them in such positions in life as would drive them to reveal what was in their heart, viz., whether they believed in the omnipotence, love, and righteousness of God, or not.

Deu 8:3

The humiliation in the desert consisted not merely in the fact that God let the people hunger, i.e., be in want of bread and their ordinary food, but also in the fact that He fed them with manna, which was unknown to them and their fathers (cf. Exo 16:16.). Feeding with manna is called a humiliation, inasmuch as God intended to show to the people through this food, which had previously been altogether unknown to them, that man does not live by bread alone, that the power to sustain life does not rest upon bread only (Isa 38:16; Gen 27:40), or belong simply to it, but to all that goeth forth out of the mouth of Jehovah. That which “ proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah ” is not the word of the law, as the Rabbins suppose, but, as the word (all, every) shows, “ the word ” generally, the revealed will of God to preserve the life of man in whatever way ( Schultz): hence all means designed and appointed by the Lord for the sustenance of life. In this sense Christ quotes these words in reply to the tempter (Mat 4:4), not to say to him, The Messiah lives not by (material) bread only, but by the fulfilment of the will of God ( Usteri, Ullmann), or by trusting in the sustaining word of God ( Olshausen); but that He left it to God to care for the sustenance of His life, as God could sustain His life in extraordinary ways, even without the common supplies of food, by the power of His almighty word and will.

Deu 8:4

As the Lord provided for their nourishment, so did He also in a marvellous way for the clothing of His people during these forty years. “ Thy garment did not fall of thee through age, and thy foot did not swell.” with , to fall off from age. only occurs again in Neh 9:21, where this passage is repeated. The meaning is doubtful. The word is certainly connected with (dough), and probably signifies to become soft or to swell, although is also used for unleavened dough. The Septuagint rendering here is , to get hard skin; on the other hand, in Neh 9:21, we find the rendering ‘ , “their sandals were not worn out,” from the parallel passage in Deu 29:5. These words affirm something more than “clothes and shoes never failed you,” inasmuch as ye always had wool, hides, leather, and other kinds of material in sufficient quantities for clothes and shoes, as not only J. D. Michaelis and others suppose, but Calmet, and even Kurtz. Knobel is quite correct in observing, that “this would be altogether too trivial a matter by the side of the miraculous supply of manna, and moreover that it is not involved in the expression itself, which rather affirms that their clothes did not wear out upon them, or fall in tatters from their backs, because God gave them a miraculous durability” ( Luther, Calvin, Baumgarten, Schultz, etc.). At the same time, there is no necessity to follow some of the Rabbins and Justin Martyr ( dial. c. Tryph. c. 131), who so magnify the miracle of divine providence, as to maintain not only that the clothes of the Israelites did not get old, but that as the younger generation grew up their clothes also grew upon their backs, like the shells of snails. Nor is it necessary to shut out the different natural resources which the people had at their command for providing clothes and sandals, any more than the gift of manna precluded the use of such ordinary provisions as they were able to procure.

Deu 8:5

In this way Jehovah humbled and tempted His people, that they might learn in their heart, i.e., convince themselves by experience, that their God was educating them as a father does his son. , to admonish, chasten, educate; like . “It includes everything belonging to a proper education” ( Calvin).

Deu 8:6

The design of this education was to train them to keep His commandments, that they might walk in His ways and fear Him ( Deu 6:24).

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

A Charge to Israel; Israel’s Retrospect.

B. C. 1451.

      1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.   2 And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.   3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.   4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.   5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.   6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.   7 For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;   8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;   9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

      The charge here given them is the same as before, to keep and do all God’s commandments. Their obedience must be, 1. Careful: Observe to do. 2. Universal: To do all the commandments, v. 1. And, 3. From a good principle, with a regard to God as the Lord, and their God, and particularly with a holy fear of him (v. 6), from a reverence of his majesty, a submission to his authority, and a dread of his wrath. To engage them to this obedience, besides the great advantages of it, which he sets before them (that they should live and multiply, and all should be well with them, v. 1), he directs them,

      I. To look back upon the wilderness through which God had now brought them: Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, v. 2. Now that they had come of age, and were entering upon their inheritance, they must be reminded of the discipline they had been under during their minority and the method God had taken to train them up for himself. The wilderness was the school in which they had been for forty years boarded and taught, under tutors and governors; and this was a time to bring it all to remembrance. The occurrences of these last forty years were very memorable and well worthy to be remembered, very useful and profitable to be remembered, as yielding a complication of arguments for obedience; and they were recorded on purpose that they might be remembered. As the feast of the passover was a memorial of their deliverance out of Egypt, so was the feast of tabernacles of their passage through the wilderness. Note, It is very good for us to remember all the ways both of God’s providence and grace, by which he has led us hitherto through this wilderness, that we may be prevailed with cheerfully to serve him and trust in him. Here let us set up our Ebenezer.

      1. They must remember the straits they were sometimes brought into, (1.) For the mortifying of their pride; it was to humble them, that they might not be exalted above measure with the abundance of miracles that were wrought in their favor, and that they might not be secure, and confident of being in Canaan immediately. (2.) For the manifesting of their perverseness: to prove them, that they and others might know (for God himself perfectly knew it before) all that was in their heart, and might see that God chose them not for any thing in them that might recommend them to his favour, for their whole carriage was untoward and provoking. Many commandments God gave them which there would have been no occasion for if they had not been led through the wilderness, as those relating to the manna (Exod. xvi. 28); and God thereby tried them, as our first parents were tried by the trees of the garden, whether they would keep God’s commandments or not. Or God thereby proved them whether they would trust his promises, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations, and, in dependence on his promises, obey his precepts.

      2. They must remember the supplies which were always granted them.

      (1.) God himself took particular care of their food, raiment, and health; and what would they have more? [1.] They had manna for food (v. 3): God suffered them to hunger, and the fed them with manna, that the extremity of their want might make the supply the more acceptable, and God’s goodness to them therein the more remarkable. God often brings his people low, that he may have the honour of helping them. And thus the manna of heavenly comforts is given to those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, Matt. v. 6. To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. It is said of the manna that it was a sort of food which neither they nor their fathers knew. And again, v. 16. If they knew there was such a thing that fell sometimes with the dew in those countries, as some think they did, yet it was never known to fall in such vast quantities, so constantly, and at all seasons of the year, so long, and only about a certain place. These things were altogether miraculous, and without precedent; the Lord created a new thing for their supply. And hereby he taught them the man liveth not by bread alone. Though God has appointed bread for the strengthening of man’s heart, and that is ordinarily made the staff of life, yet God can, when he pleases, command support and nourishment without it, and make something else, very unlikely, to answer the intention as well. We might live upon air if it were sanctified for that use by the word of God; for the means God ordinarily uses he is not tied to, but can perform his kind purposes to his people without them. Our Saviour quotes this scripture in answer to that temptation of Satan, Command that these stones be made bread. “What need of that?” says Christ; “my heavenly Father can keep me alive without bread,” Mat 4:3; Mat 4:4. Let none of God’s children distrust their Father, nor take any sinful indirect course for the supply of their own necessities; some way or other, God will provide for them in the way of duty and honest diligence, and verily they shall be fed. It may be applied spiritually; the word of God, as it is the revelation of God’s will and grace duly received and entertained by faith, is the food of the soul, the life which is supported by that is the life of the man, and not only that life which is supported by bread. The manna typified Christ, the bread of life. He is the Word of God; by him we live. The Lord evermore give us that bread which endures to eternal life, and let us not be put off with the meat that perisheth! [2.] The same clothes served them from Egypt to Canaan, at least the generality of them. Though they had no change of raiment, yet it was always new, and waxed not old upon them, v. 4. This was a standing miracle, and the greater if, as the Jews say, they grew with them, so as to be always fit for them. But it is plain that they brought out of Egypt bundles of clothes on their shoulders (Exod. xii. 34), which they might barter with each other as there was occasion; and these, with what they wore, sufficed till they came into a country where they could furnish themselves with new clothes.

      (2.) By the method God took of providing food and raiment for them [1.] He humbled them. It was a mortification to them to be tied for forty years together to the same meat, without any varieties, and to the same clothes, in the same fashion. Thus he taught them that the good things he designed for them were figures of better things, and that the happiness of man consists not in being clothed in purple or fine linen, and in faring sumptuously every day, but in being taken into covenant and communion with God, and in learning his righteous judgements. God’s law, which was given to Israel in the wilderness, must be to them instead of food and raiment. [2.] He proved them, whether they could trust him to provide for them when means and second causes failed. Thus he taught them to live in a dependence upon Providence, and not to perplex themselves with care what they should eat and drink, and wherewithal they should be clothed. Christ would have his disciples learn the same lesson (Matt. vi. 25), and took a like method to teach it to them, when he sent them out without purse or scrip, and yet took care that they lacked nothing, Luke xxii. 35. [3.] God took care of their health and ease. Though they travelled on foot in a dry country, the way rough and untrodden, yet their feet swelled not. God preserved them from taking hurt by the inconveniences of their journey; and mercies of this kind we ought to acknowledge. Note, Those that follow God’s conduct are not only safe but easy. Our feet swell not while we keep in the way of duty; it is the way of transgression that is hard, Prov. xiii. 15. God had promised to keep the feet of his saints, 1 Sam. ii. 9.

      3. They must also remember the rebukes they had been under, v. 5. During these years of their education they had been kept under a strict discipline, and not without need. As a man chasteneth his son, for his good, and because he loves him, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. God is a loving tender Father to all his children, yet when there is occasion they shall feel the smart of the rod. Israel did so: they were chastened that they might not be condemned, chastened with the rod of men. Not as a man wounds and slays his enemies whose destruction he aims at, but as a man chastens his son whose happiness and welfare he designs: so did their God chasten them; he chastened and taught them, Ps. xciv. 12. This they must consider in their heart, that is, they must own it from their own experience that God had corrected them with a fatherly love, for which they must return to him a filial reverence and compliance. Because God has chastened thee as a father, therefore (v. 6) thou shalt keep his commandments. This use we should make of all our afflictions; by them let us be engaged and quickened to our duty. Thus they are directed to look back upon the wilderness.

      II. He directs them to look forward to Canaan, into which God was now bringing them. Look which way we will, both our reviews and our prospects will furnish us with arguments for obedience. Observe,

      1. The land which they were now going to take possession of is here described to be a very good land, having every thing in it that was desirable, v. 7-9. (1.) It was well-watered, like Eden, the garden of the Lord. It was a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths, which contributed to the fruitfulness of the soil. Perhaps there was a greater plenty of water there now than in Abraham’s time, the Canaanites having found and digged wells; so that Israel reaped the fruit of their industry as well as of God’s bounty. (2.) The ground produced great plenty of all good things, not only for the necessary support, but for the convenience and comfort of human life. In their fathers’ land they had bread enough; it was corn land, a land of wheat and barley, where, with the common care and labour of the husbandman, they might eat bread without scarceness. It was a fruitful land, that was never turned into barrenness but for the iniquity of those that dwelt therein. They had not only water enough to quench their thirst, but vines, the fruit whereof was ordained to make glad the heart. And, if they were desirous of dainties, they needed not to send to far countries for them, when their own was so well stocked with fig-trees, and pomegranates, olives of the best kind, and honey, or date-trees, as some think it should be read. (3.) Even the bowels of its earth were very rich, though it should seem that silver and gold they had none; of these the princes of Sheba should bring presents (Psa 72:10; Psa 72:15); yet they had plenty of those more serviceable metals, iron and brass. Iron-stone and mines of brass were found in their hills. See Job xxviii. 2.

      2. These things are mentioned, (1.) To show the great difference between that wilderness through which God had led them and the good land into which he was bringing them. Note, Those that bear the inconveniences of an afflicted state with patience and submission, are humbled by them and prove well under them, are best prepared for better circumstances. (2.) To show what obligations they lay under to keep God’s commandments, both in gratitude for his favours to them and from a regard to their own interest, that the favours might be continued. The only way to keep possession of this good land would be to keep in the way of their duty. (3.) To show what a figure it was of good things to come. Whatever others saw, it is probable that Moses in it saw a type of the better country: The gospel church is the New-Testament Canaan, watered with the Spirit in his gifts and graces, planted with the trees of righteousness, bearing the fruits of righteousness. Heaven is the good land, in which there is nothing wanting, and where there is a fulness of joy.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

DEUTERONOMY – CHAPTER EIGHT

Verses 1-4:

Again Moses reminds Israel of the relation between obedience to the commands of Jehovah Elohim, and prosperity. As an incentive to obedience, he calls to remembrance God’s dealings with them in the wilderness. The wilderness experiences, as well as God’s commandments, were for the purpose of testing. These testings were three-fold:

(1) “To humble thee.” God reserves His blessings and grace for the humble, 2Ch 7:14; Mat 18:4; Mat 23:12; Psa 10:17; Pro 16:19; Pro 29:23; Isa 57:15; Jas 4:6; 1Pe 5:5.

(2) “To prove thee.” Trials are tests, to reveal Godly character.

(3) “To know what is in thine heart.” God did not need to send trials in order that He might know Israel’s heart: He already knew. He sent trials in order that Israel might know their own hearts.

This illustrates the principle of trials today, for God’s people. Trials do not come in order for God to know the faith and character of His child. They come in order for God’s child to know his own needs, and the extent of God’s grace to meet these needs, 1Pe 5:5; Job 23:10.

Life for God’s child is a classroom. God gives the lesson, then He gives a test so His child may see how well he has learned the lesson as it applies to his own life, 1Pe 1:7-9.

Moses refers specifically to the giving of the Manna, Exodus chapter 16. He permitted Israel to hunger, not to punish them but to demonstrate to them the sufficiency of His grace to provide for them in an impossible situation. This is an application of a principle relevant for today, 2Co 12:9.

Another dramatic example of God’s grace and provision was that the clothes Israel wore did not wear out, nor did their feet swell from the long marches. God provided miraculously for their needs, the entire forty years’ of wilderness wandering.

Jesus quoted from verse 3, in His encounter with Satan in the Wilderness of Temptation, Mat 4:1-11. This was in response to Satan’s attempt to have Jesus supply His physical needs independently of the Father’s will. When one puts God’s will first in his life, God obligates Himself to supply his physical needs, Mat 6:33.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. All the commandments. Although the first verse might have been included among the promises, whereby, as we shall hereafter see, the Law was ratified by Moses, because he here exhorts and incites the Israelites to obedience by proposing to them the hope of reward; still it appeared to me that I might conveniently insert it here, since the design of Moses was simply this, to attract them by the sweetness of the promised inheritance to receive the doctrines of the Law. This sentence, then, may be justly counted among those whereby their minds were prepared to submit themselves to God with the gentleness and docility that became them; as though he had said, because the land of Canaan is now not far from you, its very nearness ought to encourage you to take upon you God’s yoke more cheerfully; for the same God, who this day declares to you His law, invites you to the enjoyment of that land, which He promised with an oath to your fathers. And certainly it is evident from this latter clause of the verse, that Moses did not simply promise them a reward if they should keep the law; but rather set before them the previous favor, wherewith God had gratuitously prevented them, in order that they might, on their part, shew themselves grateful for it Moses calls the commandments his, not (as we have already seen) because he had invented them himself, but because he faithfully handed them down from the dictation of God’s own mouth. And this we may also more fully gather from the following verse, wherein he recounts the mercies of the time past, and at the same time calls to their recollection by how many proofs God had instructed them, to form and accustom them to obedience. In the first place, he bids them remember generally the dealings of God, which they had seen for forty years, and then descends to particulars, viz., that God had proved them by afflictions, “to know what was in their heart;” for thus may the expressions be paraphrased, “to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart;” in which words he admonishes them, that they were painfully tried by many troubles and difficulties not without very good reason, viz., because they had need of such trial. Yet, at the same time, he indirectly reproves their obstinacy, which was then detected; since otherwise, if all things had gone prosperously with them, it would have been easy for them to pretend great fear of God, though, as was actually discovered, it did not really exist.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE RECAPITULATION OF THE LAW

Deu 5:1 to Deu 26:19 record for us a recapitulation of the Law. The study of this section sets out clearly certain fundamental truths.

The Decalog is repeated with significant variations. Chapter 5, fundamental to all the laws of God is the Decalog. In Exodus, Moses delivered the same as he brought it from the tip of the fingers Divine. In Deuteronomy, the Law is given again. From the first to the tenth commandment, the very language of Exodus is employed, save in the instance of the fourth. Here, the reason assigned to the Jew for keeping the Sabbath, is strangely and significantly changed, namely, from because the Lord in six days made heaven and earth and rested on the seventh day, to Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm; therefore, the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day (Deu 5:15).

This change is so strange and so unexpected that it arrests immediate attention and demands adequate explanation. Why did God shift the reason for keeping the Sabbath from the finished creation to a completed redemption? The answer is not difficult. In the Divine plan, redemption is a far greater event than creation; the soul of man exceeds the weight of the world; for that matter, of all worlds. The Law was given by Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ. The Law was given for Jews; the Gentiles were never in bondage to it, and above all, believing Gentiles are not bound by it. To them, the Law is not a great external or outside force created for practices of restraint. Its spirit is transcribed to their souls rather; they walk at liberty while seeking Divine precepts. This is not to inveigh against the Law. The Law is just, and true and good, but by Law no man has ever been redeemed. It is to exalt Grace, which God hath revealed through Jesus Christ, in whom men have redemption from sin. If I only love my father and mother because the Law commands it, I do not love them at all; if I refrain from making images and bowing down before them because this is the demand of the Law, my heart may yet be as full of idolatry as a heathen temple. Redemption is not by the Law; it is by Grace in Jesus Christ!

The early Church was shortly called upon to settle this question of salvation by Law or Grace, and in the Jerusalem Conference Peter rose up and said unto them,

Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the Word of the Gospel, and believe.

And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as He did unto us;

And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.

Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? (Act 15:7-10).

Later he said, We believe that through the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (not by Law) we shall be saved, even as they (Act 15:7-11). Mark you, in that very sentence, Peter, the Apostle, proves his realization of the fact that the Law had failed as a savior and the very Jew himself had hope alone in grace. How strange, then, for men of the Twentieth Century to turn back to Law and proclaim the Law as though it were a redeemer, and protest that men who ignore the Jewish Saturday as the Sabbath will plunge themselves into the pit thereby, when the Law never saved! The keeping of the Sabbath was the one Law that contained in itself no ethical demand. The Law to worship, the Law to honor father and mother, the Law against killing, stealing and covetousnessthese are all questions of right and wrong; but to tithe time by the keeping of the Sabbath was a command solely in the interest of mans physical life. When, therefore, by the pen of inspiration the reason for it was shifted from a finished creation to a finished redemption, the act was lifted at once to a high spiritual level and became a symbol of the day when Christ, risen from the grave, should have completed redemptions plan. That great fortune to mankind fell out on the first day of the week, creating not so much a Christian Sabbath as making forever a memorial day for redemption itself, for the eighth day, or the first day of the week, clearly indicated the new order of things, or the new creation through Christ.

We have no sympathy whatever with secularizing each one of the seven days; but we would have the first day of the week kept in the spirit of rejoicing as redemptions memorial. On that day our Lord rose from the dead; on that day He met his disciples again and again; on that day the brethren at Troas assembled with the Apostles and broke bread; on that day the Christians laid aside their offerings; on that day they met for prayer and breaking of breadthe fellowship of the saints; on that day John was caught up in the spirit and witnessed the marvels recorded in his apocalyptic vision. Oh, what a day! No legal bondage, for what have we to do with holy days, sabbaths and new moons; but salvations memorial, a day of special service to the Son of God, our Saviour, a day for the souls rejoicing in Jesus. Christ is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

But as we pass on in the study of this section of Scripture, we find Moses defends the Decalog in character and consequence. He reminds them of the glory out of which the voice spake (Deu 5:24). He reminds them of the obligation in the words themselves (Deu 5:32). He reminds them of the relationship of the possession of the land to obedience of the precepts. He pleads with them as a father, Hear, therefore, O Israel (Deu 6:4). He anticipates the day of prophecy and begs that these words have place in their hearts (Deu 6:6), to be diligently taught to their children (Deu 6:7); bound for a sign upon their hands and frontlets between their eyes, lest they be forgotten (Deu 6:8); written upon the posts of the house and on the gates, where they could not be unobserved (Deu 6:9). Moses knew the relationship of law-keeping to national living. It is doubtful if modernists now have or will ever again entertain the same sacred reverence for Law that characterized the ancients, even the heathen of far-off days.

We cannot forget how Socrates, when he was sentenced to death and, after an imprisonment of thirty days, was to drink the juice of the hemlock, spent his time preparing for the end; friends conceived and executed plans for his escape and earnestly endeavored to prevail upon him to avail himself of the opportunity, but he answered, That would be a crime to violate the law even when the sentence is unjust. I would rather die than do evil. If a heathen philosopher could treat unjust laws with such reverence, Moses was justified in pleading with his people to regard the laws that were true and just and good, and such were the mandates of Deuteronomy.

It is easy enough for one to pick out some one of these precepts and, by detaching it from its context, create the impression that it was foolish or superficial or even utterly unjust; but when one reads the whole Book, he sees the effectual relationship of laws, general and particular, to the life Israel was leading, and for that matter, catches the supreme spiritual significance of the same as they interpret themselves in the light of New Testament teaching. There is not a warning that was not needed, nor an exhortation which, if heeded, would have failed to profit the people. It all came to one conclusion for Israel.

What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul (Deu 10:12)?

And as there was not a law in the Old Testament but was fitted for the profit of Israel, so there is not a command in the New Testament but looks to the conquest of the Christian soul.

Among these enactments were personal and significant suggestions. They gave dietary and sanitary suggestions (Deuteronomy 14); they established the Sabbatic year (Deuteronomy 13); they fixed the time of the Passover (Deuteronomy 16); they set forth the character of the offerings (Deuteronomy 17); they determined the duties of the Levites (Deuteronomy 18); they gave direction concerning the cities of refuge (Deuteronomy 19); they determined the way of righteous warfare (chap. 20); they established a court of inquest (Deuteronomy 21); they announced the law of brotherhood (Deuteronomy 22); they descended to the minute instances of social life and regulations of the same (Deuteronomy 23); they dealt with the great and difficult question of divorce (Deuteronomy 24); they ended (Deuteronomy 23) in an almost unlimited series of regulations concerning the social life of the people knowing a wilderness experience, including the law of the first fruits (Deuteronomy 26).

It is interesting to study not alone the laws enacted here, but the penalties declared, including the blessings and curses from Ebal to Gerizim. There is about them all an innate righteousness that has been unknown to those purely human codes for which God never assumed responsibility. From the curse against bribery to the curse against brutal murder to this day the sentences are justified in the judgment of the worlds most thoughtful men.

In all they contrast the injustice and inordinately severe punishments often afflicted by godless governments. Plutarch, in writing about Solon, tells us that he repealed the laws of Draco except those concerning murder. Such was the severity of their punishments in proportion to the offense that we are amazed as we read them. If one was convicted of idleness, death was the penalty. If one stole a few apples or potherbs, he must surely die, and by as ignominious a method as did the murderer. And out of that grew the saying of Demades that Draco wrote his laws, not with ink but with blood. And when Draco was asked why such severe penalties, he answered, Small ones deserve it, and I can find no greater for the most heinous. Such were human laws in contrast to these laws Divine.

But a further study of these laws involves a third lesson.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.In addition to the danger of being ensnared by idolatry, after their settlement in Canaan, Israel might fall into pride and forget God in the enjoyment of its products. To guard against this, Moses reviews the past and indicates the Divine purpose in the 40 years wanderings.

Deu. 8:1. Renewed admonition to keep the law.

Deu. 8:2. Remember that Gods designs may be realised and right effects produced (Deu. 13:3; 2Ch. 32:31). Humble, i.e., to bring them by means of distress and privations to depend upon God. Prove, i.e., to test in positions which would reveal their thoughts and hearts.

Deu. 8:3. Manna (Exo. 16:14-15), previously unknown to them and their fathers; not only to sustain natural life, but to show that man lives not by bread only, but by every word, lit., every outgoing of the mouth of the Lord; not by material bread, but by the fulfilment of Gods will (cf. Mat. 4:4). God sustains life by extraordinary as well as ordinary means.

Deu. 8:4. God provided for clothing as well as nourishment. Waxed, lit., did not fall off, waste away, foot swell, become soft (Deut. 70, got callous; Neh. 9:21), which would have been the case if their sandals had not been preserved from wearing out.

Deu. 8:5 Thus did God chasten, lit., admonish, educate them as a father his son.

Deu. 8:7-9. Israel were to be mindful of this paternal discipline when they entered the good land. We have a contrast between Palestine and Egypt. Brooks, streams, mountain torrents, and water-courses in valleys; water the chief source of fertility. Wheat, cereal fruits specially promised to faithful allegiance (Psa. 81:16; Psa. 104:15). Vines covering limestone rocks. Honey, a great delicacy.

Deu. 8:9. Stones are iron, i.e., ferruginous. Brass, not the alloy brass, but the ore of copper. Mines now exhausted or neglected were worked anciently (Job. 28:1-11 Isa. 60:17; 1Ch. 22:3).

Deu. 8:10-18. Israel in the midst of plenty were to beware of forgetting God.

Deu. 8:12. Goodly houses would be strange after moveable tents.

Deu. 8:14. Lifted up, like the Pharisee in the temple.

In Deu. 8:14-16 Moses again gives a summary of the dangers of the desert; snakes, scorpions, and drought. Yet Divine goodness brought water out of the hardest stone, and gave manna to humble them, and ultimately to do good at latter end, i.e. the settlement of Israel in Canaanthe end and climax of the Mosaic dispensation, to which the sojourn in Egypt, the wandering in the desert, and the arrangements of the law, all led up (Speak. Com.).

Deu. 8:18. Wealth. God gave power to get wealth, to create property (Num. 24:18), not on account of Israels merit, but to fulfil His promise this day; the oath was confirmed, and Israel had come through the desert to the border of Canaan.

Deu. 8:19-20. To strengthen his admonition, Moses pointed again in conclusion, as in Deu. 6:14 (cf. Deu. 4:25 sqq.), to the destruction which would come upon Israel through ostacy from God (Keil.)

THE RETROSPECT OP LIFE.Deu. 8:1-6

The long wandering in the wilderness was designed to teach self-distrust, humility and reliance on God for the necessities of life. Gods special providence had blessed them, and without this they could not prosper in Canaan. Hence they are urged to remember the experience of the past to secure obedience in the future.

REMEMBERING THE WAY.Deu. 8:2

I. The way we are called to remember is all the way, etc. But those things are to be most remembered which are more immediately connected with heaven, as

1. The means which brought us into the way:
2. The afflictions with which we have been visited since we have been walking in the path of life:
3. Our mercies:
4. Our sins.

II. To be beneficial the remembrance must be accompanied by a lively conviction of the overruling providences of God in all that has happened to us.

1. They are intended to humble us:
2. To prove us:
3. To teach the in sufficiency of earthly things to make us happy.

III. Besides these immediate ends they answer

1. To confirm our faith in the Bible:
2. To increase our knowledge of ourselves:
3. To strengthen our confidence in God.C. Bradley.

THE RETROSPECT OF LIFE.Deu. 8:1-6

1. Life is a journey. All the way. It is a most solemn and eventful way. We are strangers and pilgrims on earth as our fathers were. You have not passed this way before.

1. Under Divine guidance. The Lord thy God led thee. Moses and Aaron, priests and counsellors, were with Israel, but they prayed let thy presence go with us (Exo. 33:14; Exo. 33:17). Many looked upon Moses alone, Gods guidance was needful. The Christian has a divine and omnipotent leader. So I am with you, Sad for those who journey without God.

2. Displaying divine goodness. From beginning to end life is filled with tokens of divine favours. (a) In redeeming it from destruction as Israel were delivered from Egypt. Dangers seen and unseen, enemies in every period and stageperils, personal, social, and peculiar, have been overcome. (b) In sustaining it in time of need. Food, clothing, and shelter have been given. Manna never ceased; supplies came every day. Decay made no progress, and God provided for every emergency. God will pay all our expenses to heaven, says an old writer.

3. Under divine discipline. To prove thee. Hardships, trials, and changes, are ways by which God discovers what is in our hearts. The bitter and sweet are mixed together in heavenly discipline, give life a moral value and test faith, disposition and character.

4. Directed to a special end. There is direction, dark and perplexing as events may be. We train and educate our children for ultimate ends. God disciplines his people for special work, special enjoyment, and good at the latter end. The moral end to prove us, and the real end eternal rest.

II. The journey of life should be remembered. Thou shalt remember all the way. Lifes meaning can only be understood by its retrospect and remembrance. We cannot discern Gods purpose in the midst of its movement and events. But when raised to some mount, or brought to some crisis, then we calmly review the past and learn its lessons.

1. In its marked duration. These forty years in the wilderness. Long or short our days are limited. The longest life brief regarded in the light of eternity. Brief contrasted with the age of the world and the duration of God 1 But filled with human folly and divine mercy!

2. In its special dangers. In the wilderness, a land of dearth, scorpions and fiery serpents, Deu. 8:15. A land of deserts and of pits; through a land of drought and of the shadow of death; through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt (Jer. 2:6; Hos. 13:5).

3. In its peculiar trials. The Red Sea with its triumphs, Marah with its bitterness, Rephidim with its murmurs, Sinai with its thunders and the wilderness with its supplies, contests and incidents must never be forgotten. The past records, the wonders of God; memory must treasure them up to aid faith. Memory is a fit handmaid for faith. When faith has its seven years of famine, memory like Joseph in Egypt opens her granaries.(Spurgeon.)

4. In its moral nature. Life is more than meat which sustains it, greater than natural existence. Man doth not live by bread alone, but by the word, the will of God or what is pleasing to God. God sustained Israel forty years with manna, and Moses forty days and forty nights without bread to show that our well-being depends not upon material things. Our life is nourished by Gods will, we should therefore be more anxious to do that will, than become impatient, fretful, and selfish in helping ourselves (cf. Mat. 4:4; Joh. 6:52-55).

III. The habit of remembering life will be helpful to us. As an exercise of memory it is useful. Memory may help or hinder according to our tastes and moral condition. We should review the past.

1. To acquaint us with ourselves. Know thyself is a difficult lesson. We blame the Jews and are guilty ourselves. We measure ourselves with ourselves or others, and think too highly of ourselves. But God knows what is in man, puts us into circumstances which test our character, and which bring out what we have in us, what we have in our hearts, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no.

2. To teach us dependence upon God. To humble thee, and uproot all pride and self-sufficiency. He suffered thee to hunger, that God might be recognised and trusted. What could Israel, what can we do in the wilderness without God. Supplies came not from earth but from heaven.

3. To excite gratitude to God. Gratitude cures bad memories. If we forget Gods works we have need to learn the art of remembering. Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Nothing so soon grows stale as a favour (Trapp). Memory quickens the heart and supplies fuel to grateful feeling.

4. To prompt obedience to God. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments, etc. (Deu. 8:6). Without a sense of obligation there can be no real obedience. Those who forget Gods works, says Spurgeon, are sure to fail in their own. Thanksgiving is good, observes Matthew Henry, but thanksliving is better. We should make grateful acknowledgment of Gods goodness by unreserved dedication to His service. All the commandments shall ye observe to do.

DIVINE DISCIPLINE.Deu. 8:5-6

The sufferings of Israel were not only chastisements for sin, but trials of obedience; methods of discovering their unbelief, inconstancy and rebellion. Thus God trained or disciplined them, that they might obey Him.

I. The nature of this discipline. In earthly families there must be correction, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not! Among Gods people there is a needs be for this discipline.

1. It is often severe. No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievious. Some are heavily afflicted. They suffer in body and mind, in family and business. Dark, indeed are their days, most intense are the flames in which they are put, until their flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen (Job. 33:21; Job. 14:22.

2. It is always affectionate. As a man chasteneth his sonGod never suffers His children to be ruined for want of correction; whom He loves He chastens, and chastens because He loves. He rejoiceth over His child to do Him good (Jer. 32:41). Not as a master beating his slaves, nor a judge condemning criminal; God deals with His servants, says an old writer, not as a passionate master, but as a compassionate father. The principle which prompts him is not judicial nor retributive, but parental. Hence cried Luther, Strike on, Lord, strike on, for now I know I am Thy child.

II. The design of this discipline. God has a purpose in view. His strokes are not random strokes. Earthly fathers chastise foolishly, often for their own pleasure and err in their method of discipline (Heb. 12:5-6.) They err at one time in severity, at another in indulgence (1Sa. 3:12; Eph. 6:4), and do not so much chasten as think they chasten (Bengel.) But God trains for our well-being and never errs in the means to accomplish it. 1 To give instruction. Consider in thine heart. Afflictions are not to be despised, but thought of and felt. Seneca could say it is inhuman not to feel thine afflictions, and unmanly not to bear them. In this school we are taught the folly of pride, the need of purity and the mercy of God. It throws light into our character and leads to moral decision. God taught the men of Succoth (made them to know) with thorns of the wilderness and briars (Jdg. 8:16). We are made to know much of sin, of Christ, of God, and of the world, through affliction. Luther said there were many of the Psalms that he could never understand till he had been afflicted. Rutherford declared that he had gained a new Bible through the furnace.

2. To produce obedience. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments. Children are wayward, self-willed, and must be preserved from disobedience. Jesus had to learn obedience by the things which he suffered. Sufferings, disciplinings (trainings) is the Greek adage. God melts in the furnace that he may stamp with His image; corrects that we may partake of His holiness. The rod is sent to wean from sin, train to obedience and discipline for heaven. Blessed is the man whom Thou chasteneth, O Lord, and teachest him out of Thy law.

Among the choicest of my blessings here,
Stands this the foremost, that my heart has bled.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 8:1. I. Duty to be rightly performed.

1. Right in its method. Observe to do.

2. Right in its motive. From the fear of God.

3. Right in its scope. All the commandments. II. Duty rightly performed brings enjoyment. Physical exercise gives health, vigour, and pleasure. Obedience to God gives satisfaction of heart and mind. Israel would (a) live, (b) multiply, and (c) gain the inheritance. Employment is true enjoyment, says Shakespeare.

All the commandments. All is but a little word, but of large extent. There are magnalia legis and minutula legis. Look to both the greater and the lesser things of the law (Mat. 23:23).Trapp.

Deu. 8:2-4. Practical religion. Know yourselves thoroughlystore memory wiselylive obediently. Remembrance of Gods commandments. Consider: I. The duty of remembrance. A positive duty, an obligation upon us, with regard to

1. Earthly things;
2. Heavenly things. II. The benefit resulting from it. These events, which we should remember, were intended to
1. Humble us;
2. Prove us. III. Its comfort: it is all to do thee good at thy latter end (J. J. Day, M.A.). The Retrospect. I. Let us return to the call to remembrance. II. Observe the subject to be reviewed.

1. The place: the wildernesss;
2. The Conductor: the Lord thy God;
3. The passages: all the way;
4. The period: these forty years.Jay.

Deu. 8:5-6. Chasteneth. This is reckoned here as an high favour. So Job accounts it (Deu. 7:17-18), and Paul describes it (Heb. 12:7-8), and Jeremiah prays for it (Jer. 10:24).Trapp.

Divine chastisement. Afflictions are

1. Divine in their appointment.
2. Paternal in their character. Inflicted with tender reluctance, deliberate wisdom, and with great leniency.
3. Painful in their exercise.
4. Affectionate in their design.

He nothing does, or suffers to be done,

But thou wouldst do thyself, couldst thou but see,
The end of all events as well as he.

Rev. R. Bond.

THE GOOD LAND.Deu. 8:7-9

It is significant that Deuteronomy should abound more than earlier books in praises of the beauty and fertility of Canaan. Such a topic, says Dean Graves, at an earlier period would have increased the murmurings and impatience of the people at being detained in the wilderness; whereas now it encouraged them to encounter with more cheerfulness the opposition they must meet with from the inhabitants of Canaan.

I. A good land displaying Divine bounties. Ancient and modern writers testify to the natural beauty and fertility of Palestine. Most striking features are mentioned first. Water abounds in natural springs, fountains, and in the clouds of heaven. Its cereal fruits yielded sixty and often an hundred fold (Gen. 26:12; Mat. 13:8), and under its hills iron and brass were found. It was a land of plenty and rich variety; displaying Divine goodness in its produce and position a wealthy place (Psa. 66:12). What forethought, wisdom, and affection God displays in causing the earth to furnish us with the necessities of life! Everything to satisfy the eye, promote health, and gratify the taste. But this possession is only a type of spiritual blessings, and a richer inheritance in the land beyond.

II. A good land in contrast to the wilderness. Compared with Egypt from whence they came, and with the desert through which they passed, the land was remarkable. Contrasts in life are many and strikingin its different stages, in its beginning and end. Deserts and fruitful fields, poverty and wealth, light and darkness, are set the one over against the other, in Divine appointment, wise proportion and benevolent design. To the end that man should find nothing after him. Nothing superfluous, defective, or irregular in the review (Ecc. 7:14). If a man should take upon himself to review the work after him, and conceive that a greater or less degree of prosperity or adversity would have been better, or that either would have sufficed, without the balance of the otherhe only stands before us in all the folly and presumption of fancying himself to be wiser than God. What God has done, he has done best.Bridge.

III. A good land for which Israel was prepared. There was, not only a natural preparation in the physical changes and human cultivation of Canaan, but a moral preparation of the people for their position. The earth is prepared for man, and the world to be the theatre of redemption; but man is trained and disciplined for his inheritance. We are not always fit to receive the things we cry for. Blessings would never be appreciated without a sense of need and adaptation. The wealth of the soul is the wealth of experience; faith confirmed after trial and deliverance. The place of the believer is gained through humility, affliction and discipline, and men are always trained and prepared for their lot in life. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. To bring thee into the place which I have prepared.

THE PERILS OF PROSPERITY.Deu. 8:10-18

When Israel entered the good land it would be one of the greatest changes in their history. In the midst of plenty they might forget God, who sustained them in the wilderness, brought them into their possession and lavished his gifts upon them. Beware thou forget not the Lord thy God.

I. Prosperity leads to self-indulgence. When thou hast eaten and art full. Wealth leads to surfeiting. In abundance men indulge sinful appetites. Eating and drinking are themselves religious acts, or, at least, ought to be so, says Feuerback, with every mouthful we should think of the God who gave it. God gives bread for necessities, man craves meat for his lust. (Psa. 78:18.) Self-indulgence is dangerous as a knife to thy throat, (Pro. 23:2) and must be avoided lest ruin ensue. Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

II. Prosperity tends to forgetfulness of God. Forgetfulness of His providence, gifts and commandments. A sense of divine favours dies in the memory. The mercy of God is only remembered when it is taken away. In the order of nature and in the events of life, God is forgotten, and self or second causes are praised. She did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. (Hos. 2:8.)

III. Prosperity begets pride of heart. Then thine heart be lifted up. Adversity may depress, but prosperity elevates to presumption. It lifts up the mind against God. Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar and Herod are fearful examples. It is not mere aversion from God, but direct resistence to God, against which God places himself in battle array; God resisteth the proud. (Jas. 4:6.) They were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. (Hos. 13:6.)

IV. Prosperity genders self-glorification. My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. (Deu. 8:17.) Proud men esteem themselves too highly, demand reverence from their fellow men, and glorify themselves instead of God. Nebuchadnezzar ascribed all the praise to himself in his prosperity. Is not this great Babylon that I have built, etc. (Dan. 4:30-32). It is false, unreasonable, and mischievous to say that we gain our wealth and positions. Do not sacrifice to your own nets (Hab. 1:16), for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth. (Deu. 8:18.)

In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies;
All quit the sphere, and rush into the skies.
Pride still is aiming at the blessed abodes;
Men would be angels, angels would be Gods.Pope.

ARGUMENTS FOR OBEDIENCE.Deu. 8:14-18

Gods purpose was to do Israel good at the latter end. There was no event in their journey separate and independent in itself. There was divine issue in everything. The end in view was to make them humble and obedient. Hence Moses enforces his lesson by a recapitulation of mercies and points out the danger of disobedience.

I. The past mercies of God should lead to present obedience (Deu. 8:15.) These are again specified, and should never be forgotten. Deliverance from bondage; guidance and preservation in danger, want and distress; bountiful supplies and careful training. Our life wonderfully displays power, mercy, and grace; and its review should beget profound sense of gratitude and prompt to consecration. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

II Our dependence upon God should lead to present obedience. God gives power to get wealth and gain success in life (Deu. 8:18.) Israel were perfectly helpless from beginning to end of their history. Supplies in the wilderness came from heaven. The good land was a special gift. We can never cease to be dependent upon God, and should, therefore, not attribute prosperity to the laws of nature, or to our own skill and wisdom. We should seek to please and obey God. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it.

III. Future destiny should lead to present obedience. Moses often puts the condition of blessings upon their obedience. In some respect their future was in their own hands. Apostacy would lead to ruin. As God had destroyed the nations before their face, so they would perish if they would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord. Loyal obedience would secure length of days, and national glory. Our eternal weal or woe depends upon our conduct and character here. As all good things are come upon you, which the Lord your God promised you; so shall the Lord bring upon you all the evil things, etc. (Jos. 23:15.)

A CAUTION AGAINST FORGETFULNESS OF GOD.Deu. 8:11

The text, though delivered by Moses thousands of years ago, is addressed to us now; it contains an assumption, an intimation, and a charge.

I. Men are liable to forget God. This is assumed in the text, and needs but little confirmation. All acknowledge it, but to impress it deeply upon our minds, notice the following considerations:

1. We infer our liability to forget from the mysteriousness of His nature. Things near that we handle and see are not easily forgotten; but things remote, unseen and mysterious, are not generally remembered. No man hath seen God; our ideas of Him are imperfect, and hence we are liable to forget Him.

2. We infer our liability to forget God from the moral dislike we have to Him. We easily remember those to whom we are deeply attached, but forget those whom we dislike. Sinners hate Godare contrary in their nature to Him, and are aliens and enemies in their hearts: hence they often forget Him.

3. We infer our liability to forget God from the facts that fall under our notice. We need not go among pagans, nor penetrate recesses of licentiousness or haunts of vice. Let each individual examine his own heart. How often we forget Gods presence, mercies, and laws.

4. We infer our liability to forget God, from the testimonies of the Scriptures. Read Psa. 10:4; Psa. 14:1-3; Job. 21:14-15; Rom. 1:28.

II. Forgetfulness of God is an evil against which we should be peculiarly on our guard. This is intimated in the text, founded on the following. reasons:

1. They who forget God must necessarily remain ignorant of Him. Ignorance of God is censurable, for man has capacity for knowing God. He is the most worthy object we can know. The Holy Spirit will help us to gain knowledge. But those who forget can never know Him; nothing can be known that is forgotten.

2. They who forget God must necessarily disobey Him Gods commandments are founded in justice, goodness, and truth; bind us to hate sin and love holiness; and in keeping them there is great reward. But they who forget God disobey, and disobedience is a great curse (cf. Deu. 28:15-20).

3. They who forget God must necessarily prove ungrateful to Him. As our Creator, we are indebted to Him for bodies wonderfully made; souls exalted in their nature, and adapted for elevated and eternal enjoyments. As our Benefactor, He feeds, clothes, and defends us. As our Saviour, He gave His Son to die for us, His Spirit to strive with us, and His Gospel to encourage us. This loudly calls for gratitude. But who can be grateful that forgets God? Is not ingratitude a hateful, execrable crime?

4. They who forget God must necessarily be punished by Him. Necessarily, for God has threatened, and it is impossible for Him to lie (cf. Psa. 9:17; Jdg. 3:7-8).

III. Means should be used for the avoidance of this heinous crime. This is the object of the charge;Beware that thou forget not.

1. Serious consideration should be exercised on all things that belong to our peace. How lamentable the extreme thoughtlessness of men concerning their souls, salvation, and God! Avoid the crime of forgetting by giving yourselves up to serious consideration. I thought on my ways. (Psa. 119:59; Deu. 32:29; 2 Timothy 2-4.)

2. Fervent and unremitting prayer should be offered up to God for a change of heart. If not renewed in the spirit of our minds, we shall be habitually liable to forget God. If renewed and a right spirit put within us, we shall love and delight ourselves in God.

3. We should constantly avoid those things which tend to exclude God from our thoughts. The expression of the text is emphatic, Bewarebe wary and suspicious of danger. Shun needless association with sinners who forget God and excite others to forget him. Be not too anxious to increase worldly prosperity, for nothing conduces more to forgetfulness of God than this! What a propensity to forget God when riches increase!

4. Let us use all the means which tend to turn our thoughts towards God. Associate with the godlyfrequent religious ordinancesread Gods holy wordcontemplate death, judgment and eternity! In conclusion.

1. Inquire, do we forget God? This may serve as a discriminating mark of moral character. Christians love to think of Godsinners strive to forget him.
2. Exhort those who forget God to consider their folly, ingratitude, and danger.Beta.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF WORLDLY SUCCESS.Deu. 8:18-20

1. How worldly success is to be obtained. By strict obedience to Gods laws; by this only. Work is what He demands, and work is the only condition under which the prize may be won.

2. The nature of the profit we are to look for. Not merely worldly profit. No life so dreary, so deadly as that of the mere millionaire. The joys of the true mans life he cannot taste; the holy fellowships of spiritual being he cannot enter; God stamps him reprobate. There is a vast wealth of faculty in him, fusting from want of use. And power unused soon gets acrid, and mordant, and gnaws and wears within.
3. Why we should remember the Lord God. Because
1. It will bring us out at once into the glad sunlight, and will make even our toil lightsome;
2. It will spare us all wearing and crushing anxieties;
3. It will save us the shame and anguish of finding ourselves bankrupt at last and for ever.J. B. Brown, B.A.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 8:7. Bringeth thee into a good land. A blessed issue to a mournful story. Canaan was, indeed, a broad and royal domain for the once enslaved tribes. God, who took them into Egypt, also brought them into the land which flowed with milk and honey, and Egypt was in his purposes en route to Canaan. The way to heaven is vi tribulation.

The path of sorrow and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

Spurgeon.

A good landfree from scarceness, void of sorrow, and secure from dangers.

Deu. 8:10. Bless the Lord. Suitable requital, for goodness most constant, for gifts in rich abundance and undeserved.

Deu. 8:11. Forget not. God hates forgetfulness of His blessings. First, because He has commanded that we should not forget them. (Deu. 4:9.) Secondly, because forgetfulness is a sign of contempt. Thirdly, it is the peculiarity of singular carelessness. Fourthly, it springs from unbelief. Fifthly, it is the greatest mark of ingratitude.Thomas le Blanc.

Deu. 8:15. Flint turned into a fountain. Supplies from unlikely sourcesa type of Divine grace in the hardest heart, and an argument for undeserving fidelity. Mighty streams flow to us in the wilderness. Has our return been commensurate?

Deu. 8:15-16. Divine suppliesseasonable, plentiful and miraculous, or Divine interpositions in direction, led thee protection, and necessities of life. Manna in the wilderness. A celebrated event.

1. On account of the excellence of the gift. Angels food. (Psa. 78:25.)

2. On account of the rarity of the gift which thy fathers knew not.

3. On account of the source of the gift from heaven.

4. On account of the place in which it was given in the wilderness. Gods banquets are never stinted; He gives the best diet and plenty of it. Gospel provisions deserve every praise that we can heap upon them; they are free, full, and pre-eminent; they are of Gods preparing, sending and bestowing. Happy pilgrims who in the desert have their meat sent from the Lords own palace above.Spurgeon.

Deu. 8:16. Good at latter end.

1. Life divided into distinct periods which have beginning and end.
2. God has a purpose in view in the whole of life.
3. This purpose is good.
4. This purpose will only be fully realised at lifes end. Canaan and heaven. The latter end of any one is the time which follows some distinct point in his life, particularly an important epoch-making point, and which may be regarded as the end by contrast, the time before that epoch being considered as the beginning.Delitzsch.

Deu. 8:19-20. The danger of forgetting God.

1. It leads to idolatry. If true God forgotten, another will be chosen, for we must have a God.
2. It leads to destruction. Ye shall surely perish.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8

Deu. 8:2. Years. Life is crowded with pleasures. When there is shadow, it is because there is sunshine not far off. Its weeds and thorns are known by contrast with surrounding flowers, and though upon many even of the latter there may be raindrops, those that are without are yet more abounding. There are more smiles in the world than there are tears; there is more love than hate, more constancy than forsaking. Those that murmur the contrary choose not for thy companions.Leo. H. Grindon.

Deu. 8:6-7. Chasteneth. Afflictions are blessings to us when we can bless God for them. Suffering has kept many from sinning. God had one Son without sin, but He never had any without sorrow. Fiery trials make golden Christians; sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions. (Dyer.) O God, I have made an ill use of thy mercies, if I have not learnt to be content with thy correction.Bp. Hall.

Deu. 8:7-8. Good land. O the splendour of this brilliant conclusion to a gloomy history. Glory be unto him who saw in the apparent evil the true way to the real good. With patience we will endure the present gloom, for the morning cometh. Over the hills faith sees the daybreak, in whose light we shall enter into a wealthy place. (Spurgeon.) However long and dreary be the winter, we are always indemnified by the spring; not merely by the enjoyment of it when it comes, but by the anticipation. So with the mists and wintry days of life; while they last they are painful, but their clearing away is glorious, and we find that they are only veils and forerunners of something bright. Nature never forgets her destination, nor Divine love its compensation.Leo. H. Grindon.

Deu. 8:11-15. Eaten and full. An epicure digs his grave with his teeth. Gluttony kills more than the sword. In the day of good be thou in good. When God gives thee prosperity, do thou enjoy it with a cheerful and thankful heart. (Bp. Reynolds.) In all time of our wealth, good Lord deliver us.

Deu. 8:16. Latter end. Works of providence, as works of creation, may begin in chaos, and seem without form and void (Genesis 1, 2😉 but they end in admirable order and beauty. (Bp. Reynolds.)

Deu. 8:17-18. Wealth. When the danger is past God is forgotten. (Rays proverbs.) No sooner does the warm aspect of good fortune shine, than all the plans of virtue, raised like a beautiful frost-work in the winter season of adversity, thaw and disappear. (Warburton.) What shall I come to, Father! said a young man, If I go on prospering in this way? To the grave, replied the father.G. S. Bowes.

Deu. 8:19-20. Other gods. Any opinion which tends to keep out of sight the living and loving God, whether it be to substitute for Him an idol, or an occult agency, or a formal creedcan be nothing better than the portentous shadow projected from the slavish darkness of an ignorant heart. (Hallam.) Perish. All the princes of the earth have not had so many subjects betrayed and made traitors by their enemies, as God hath lost souls by the means of images.Bp. Hooper.

With what unutterable humility
We should bow down, thou blessed cross, to Thee,
Seeing our vanity and foolishness,
When to our own devices left, we frame
A shameful creed of craft and cruelty.

London.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

LESSON EIGHT Deu. 8:1 to Deu. 11:32

7. THE THREAT FROM WITHIN (Deu. 8:1 to Deu. 11:21)

a. THE DANGER OF PROSPERITY (Deu. 8:1-20)

All the commandment which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Jehovah sware unto your fathers. 2 And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not. 3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man does not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live. 4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years. 5 And thou shalt consider in thy heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee. 6 And thou shalt keep the commandments of Jehovah thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him, 7 For Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig-trees and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; 9 a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig copper. 10 And thou shalt eat and be full, and thou shalt bless Jehovah thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. 11 Beware lest thou forget Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: 12 lest, when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; 13 and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; 14 then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; 15 who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; 16 who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not; that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end: 17 and lest thou say in thy heart, My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth. 18 But thou shalt remember Jehovah thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth; that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as at this day. 19 And it shall be, if thou shalt forget Jehovah thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. 20 As the nations that Jehovah maketh to perish before you, so shall ye perish; because ye would not harken unto the voice of Jehovah your God.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 8:120

173.

Wasnt the purpose of the wilderness wanderings to punish Israel for faithlessness? Read Deu. 8:2 and explain.

174.

What is involved in the phrase concerning the manna in Deu. 8:3 : which thou knewest not?

175.

Our Lord cited this verse (Deu. 8:3) to Satan. Israel did live by bread (and almost bread alone when we consider the conditions when the manna or bread was given) what then is meant by saying, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live.?

176.

Are we to understand that there was some supernatural preservation of the garments of Israel? Discuss.

177.

Over and over again we are told to fear the Lord but this is not the fear we know in normal life. Discuss the difference.

178.

If Jehovah had not chastened Israel they would not be ready to enter Canaan. Why?

179.

Why mention iron and copper?

180.

Why is it so easy to forget our God in prosperity?

181.

What is involved in the phrase referring to the lifting up of the heart? Cf. Deu. 8:14.

182.

Are Gods ultimate purposes always for our good? Discuss. Cf. Deu. 8:16.

183.

From mans viewpoint: why is it better to be humble-minded?

184.

For what accomplishments in life should man take credit?

185.

Does God grant to some men special powers of getting wealth? Discuss.

186.

Read Psa. 39:4 and apply to this text and our present life.

AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 8:120

All the commandments which I command you this day you shall be watchful to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers.
2 And you shall (earnestly) remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your (mind and) heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
3 And He humbled you and allowed you to hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you recognize and personally know that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.
4 Your clothing did not become old upon you, nor did your foot swell, these forty years.
5 Know also in your (mind and) heart that, as a man disciplines and instructs his son, so the Lord your God disciplines and instructs you.

6 So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and (reverently) fear Him. [Pro. 8:13.]

7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills;
8 A land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,
9 A land in which you shall eat food without shortage, and lack nothing in it, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
10 When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for all the good land which He has given you.
11 Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God, by not keeping His commandments, His precepts, and His statues, which I command you today,
12 Lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and live in them,
13 And when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all you have is multiplied;
14 Then your (mind and) heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,
15 Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, but Who brought you forth water out of the flinty rock;
16 Who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
17 And beware lest you say in your (mind and) heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.
18 But you shall (earnestly) remember the Lord your God; for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as at this day.
19 And if you forget the Lord your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.
20 Like the nations which the Lord makes perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.

COMMENT 8:120

This chapter points up two grave dangers Israel would face as a result of their prosperity. These dangers, we might add, are faced by every child of God when prosperity and blessings come their way. They are:

(1)

Forgetfulness of past discipline (Deu. 8:1-16)

(2)

Self-deification (Deu. 8:17-20)

OBSERVE TO DO, THAT YE MAY LIVE, AND MULTIPLY (Deu. 8:1)See also Deu. 4:1; Deu. 4:40, Deu. 5:33 and remarks.

THESE FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS, THAT HE MIGHT HUMBLE THEE, TO PROVE THEE, TO KNOW WHAT WAS IN THY HEART, WHETHER THOU WOULDEST KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS, OR NOT (Deu. 8:2)See also Deu. 8:16, where the additional purpose is given: to do thee good at thy latter end. See also Exo. 15:25-26; Exo. 20:18-20. Gods purpose was to put thee to the proof (etc.) (Rotherham). . . . so that he might discover your true disposition and learn whether you will observe His orders or not (Berkeley).

AND FED THEE WITH MANNA, WHICH THOU KNEWEST NOT, NEITHER DID THY FATHERS KNOW (Deu. 8:3)See also Deu. 8:16. In what sense is this to be understood? Exo. 16:13-15 provides the inspired answer. They at first neither understood what the manna was or who had provided it. Hence Moses reply This is the thing which Jehovah hath commanded (Exo. 16:16). But the real purpose of the hunger and the manna was to teach Israel a great lesson of dependence upon God for everything, as these verses go on to say, This lesson neither they nor their fathers understooddid not begin to grasp.

THAT HE MIGHT MAKE THEE KNOW THAT MAN DOTH NOT LIVE BY BREAD ONLY, BUT BY EVERY THING THAT PROCEEDETH OUT OF THE MOUTH OF JEHOVAH DOTH MAN LIVE (Deu. 8:3)For forty years Israel had wandered in one of the bleakest, driest, most foreboding deserts known to man (Geographers often think of the Sinai Peninsula and the Arabian desert as an extension of the Sahara Desert). They were being schooledshown the absolute necessity of heeding and obeying THE WORD OF GOD! (Deu. 8:2).

What kept Israel alive during this period? How did this great horde of people survive all the rigors of desert life? What kept their bodies from being just so many bleached bones drying in the desert sun?

Verse three gives the divine answer. Every move Israel made needed the definite direction and commandment of God! With the movement of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, Israel moved. At the commandment of Jehovah they encamped, and at the commandment of Jehovah they journeyed: they kept the charge of Jehovah, at the commandment of Jehovah by Moses (Num. 9:23), And so it was that in every way they were dependent on Gods direction and help: When to attack an enemy, or when to go around him (as in the case of Edom we have just studied). Practically all their food was miraculously supplied from Godand at times their water. Because God decreed it, their raiment or shoes did not wear out nor did their feet swell (Deu. 8:4, Cf. Deu. 29:5). Again and again God helped themagain and again he chastised them. And what was the purpose of all this? That they might know, and know of a certainty, that a mans life is absolutely and totally dependent upon the will of God and the word of God! Oh how God hoped that his children would come to have a sense of utter and complete dependence upon himand trust him for everything! He hoped they would realize, and think, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that (Jas. 4:15).

It was, of course, a temptation for them to be primarily concerned with their stomachs (Num. 11:4-6; Numbers 18-20). But they should have learned more than this! They should have learned that all of Gods words, instructions, and dealings with them were designed to be heeded. He gives no unnecessary commandshis dealings are all for a purpose.

In his temptation in the wilderness Jesus refers to this passage and enlarges upon its meaning (Mat. 4:1-4). As Israel had been forty years in a desert place, so Christ had been forty days in the wilderness. He, too, would be tempted to think of the physicalespecially after a forty-day fast! Yet his refutation of Satan is, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Reader, do you realize the far-reaching significance and importance of that statement? In Gods eyes (and he knows youhe is your creator!) you are not really living unless you are living under the authority and by the dictates of his holy word!

Israels food and water were miraculously supplied by God. Their stomachs were not really what sustained them. They were supernaturally sustainedalways! For they did all eat the same spiritual food; and did all drink of the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ (1Co. 10:3-4). God, the Spirit, and the Son were involved in the sustenance of the people of Godhave always beenever will be. Surely they could say, much more than the Athenians of Pauls day, he is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being (Act. 17:27-28).

To go through life under the delusion that the material, the tangible, the touchable, and the tasteable are all that we should live for, is to soon starve from hungersoul hunger! We were created in the image of God, and with an inborn capacity to praise, adore, and serve himif we will! Can we say with Jeremiah, Thy words were found, and I did eat them . . . (Jer. 15:16)? Or with Job, I have not gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured up the words of his mouth MORE THAN MY NECESSARY FOOD (Job. 23:12)? Bread, of course, is material. It is a term used throughout the Bible, for food. So our verse becomes the equivalent of saying, Material things are entirely insufficient as a life-sustainer. Such as the teaching of Jesus over and over again: Mat. 5:6; Mat. 6:31-33, Joh. 6:35; Joh. 6:53; Joh. 6:58; Joh. 6:68. Truly, It is the Spirit that giveth life; the flesh profiteth nothing: THE WORDS THAT I HAVE SPOKEN UNTO YOU ARE SPIRIT AND ARE LIFE (Joh. 6:63).

Surely this passage teaches the absolute inadequacy and insufficiency of the material in life. Man shall NOT live by bread alone. Doctors and Nurses have testified that babies have died because they lacked Tender Loving Care (T.L.C.)though they had plenty of physical nourishment. And so is the soul who is not attached to the love of God! He is dead while he lives (1Ti. 5:6, Rev. 3:1). On the other hand, godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come (1Ti. 4:8). Our minds, then, should not be set upon the uncertain things of this fading world, but on God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy (1Ti. 6:17).

The Great Physician, who alone can heal the sin-sick soul, has diagnosed our malady and given us his prescription. He demands that we literally live by his wordshang on them as it were. He who knows us and created us gave these directions. . . . the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps (Jer. 10:23). What is the conclusion?

Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart
And lean not upon thine own understanding:
In all thy ways acknowledge him,
And he will direct thy paths

(Pro. 3:5-6)

THY RAIMENT WAXED NOT OLD UPON THEE, NEITHER DID THY FOOT SWELL, THESE FORTY YEARS (Deu. 8:4)Deu. 29:5 adds thy shoe is not waxed old upon thy foot. Clarke, as well as others, doubts that an actual miracle is involved here. But the inferences he attaches to such a miracle (such as the clothes growing with the children) seem entirely out of order. Lange, along with one of his editors, Dr. A. Gosman, states,

It was a miraculous blessing, Moses says, without once stopping to reason why it should occur. It does not exclude the use of natural supplies to which Kurtz refers, the rich herds supplying abundantly wool and leather, the numerous garments and sandals which every Israelite must have possessed (Exo. 12:34-35) the garments of the Egyptians which were washed ashore (Exo. 14:30) and the booty they would have secured from the Amalekites [Exo. 17:13] sq. We need not hold with some Jewish Rabbis, or some Christian expositors, that the clothes and shoes upon the children grew with their growth, or with a reference to Eze. 16:10 sq., that the Angel was present as a tailor in the wilderness . . . [It is idle, of course, to speculate as to the process by which this result was secured, as it would be to ask how Christ multiplied the loaves and the fishes. But while we need not overlook the natural supplies, nor exclude human agency in part, as that agency was used in collecting and preparing the manna; it is clear that these natural supplies were supplemented by some special and miraculous exercise of the divine powerA.G.]

AS A MAN CHASTENETH HIS SON, SO JEHOVAH THY GOD CHASTENETH THEE (Deu. 8:5)Cf. Pro. 3:11-12; Job. 5:17, Heb. 12:4-13.

A GOOD LAND, etc. (Deu. 8:7-10)See also Deu. 11:8-15. The description is not exaggeratedand it was only the sins of Israel that caused the land to be other than this.

A LAND WHOSE STONES ARE IRON, AND OUT OF WHOSE HILLS THOU MAYEST DIG COPPER (Deu. 8:9)Iron and copper had long been in use (Gen. 4:22) along with other metals (Num. 31:22, Deu. 3:11; Deu. 4:20 and notes, Deu. 33:25, etc.), though the Iron Age in history was only emerging. The oldest pieces of iron known to exist at this writing are Egyptian sickle blades and a crosscut saw, all of a much earlier date than the book of Deuteronomy. Copper has been one of mans most useful metals for over 5,000 years. Both of these are still found in the Negev (Negeb) area of present-day Israel, though not in large amounts.

BEWARE LEST THOU FORGET JEHOVAH THY GOD (Deu. 8:11)Prosperity, the enjoying of the good things of life, and particularly material and temporal blessingsso often lead one away from the very God who gave them! This danger is expressed again and again in Deuteronomy. See also Deu. 6:10-12 and notes, Deu. 11:13-15, etc.

THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE WILDERNESS (Deu. 8:15)See Deu. 1:19, notes. wherein were FIERY SERPENTS AND SCORPIONS AND THIRSTY GROUND WHERE THERE WAS NO WATER (Deu. 8:15)One naturally thinks of Num. 21:4 ff. here, but apparently this is better understood as a more inclusive statement, simply descriptive of the barren and hazardous nature of nearly all the land through which they had just traveled.

There were several kinds of poisonous serpents in this area (Cf. Isa. 30:6). The scorpions of this land, usually two or three inches long, have stings, which, though often exceedingly painful for several hours, are seldom fatal. (I.S.B.E.)

WHO BROUGHT THEE FORTH WATER OUT OF THE ROCK OF FLINT (Deu. 8:15)At least twice, Exo. 17:6, Num. 20:11.

MANNA WHICH THY FATHERS KNEW NOT (Deu. 8:16)See Our discussion of this phrase under Deu. 8:3.

THAT HE MIGHT HUMBLE THEE, AND THAT HE MIGHT PROVE THEE, TO DO THEE GOOD AT THY LATTER END (Deu. 8:16See also Deu. 8:2-3; Deu. 8:5 and notes. Not Gods purpose in all this: to do thee GOOD in thy latter end! Such is always Gods design in the disciplining of his children, But their response to such discipline may be backbiting and backsliding. His designs and purposes are always for our good (Rom. 8:28) but whether this design is effective or not is contingent upon a proper attitude and response from his children. His chastizements, as well as his commands, are for our good always (Deu. 6:24).

AND LEST THOU SAY IN THY HEART, MY POWER AND THE MIGHT OF MY HAND HATH GOTTEN ME THIS WEALTH (Deu. 8:17)Such has always been the temptation of menwhen it is God who has blessed them! Man seems to think that if God should bless him, then it must surely be because of his own greatness and goodness! It must be something he did, and therefore something he for which should be commended. But the next verse serves as a rebuke for all who think in such terms.

BUT THOU SHALT REMEMBER JEHOVAH THY GOD, FOR IT IS HE THAT GIVETH THEE POWER TO GET WEALTH (Deu. 8:18)True, no matter what means or talents one may be able to employ toward the acquiring of wealth. Where is the room for boasting or pride here? By the principle stated, no sensible reason exists for pridefor all we are able to do is only possible if the Lord allows (1Co. 15:10). For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall both live, and do this or that (Jas. 4:15). The blessing of Jehovah, it maketh rich (Pro. 10:22). The Rich Fool had great plans himself, but they were short-lived when God said to him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God (Luk. 12:20-21). Who empowers and enables us to have the good things of life we enjoyspiritual, material, or whatever? The Bible principle is, Except JEHOVAH build the house, they labor in vain that build it: Except JEHOVAH keep the city, The watchman waketh but in vain (Psa. 127:1).

Who gives the power and strength to earn wealth? The power of mind to think and reason and thus increase earning power? The natural ability of voice, hand, eye, etc. which, when developed, often increase earnings? The health and energy with which to work? The air to breathe, the power to breathe it, the 103,680 heartbeats a day to keep us alive? Paul said of God, in him we LIVE and MOVE and HAVE OUR BEING (Act. 17:28), but do we appreciate it?

Some one says, But I am strong, industrious, healthy, intelligent, and have good business judgment. If so, who gave you these basic traits, and who enables you to cultivate them? Who spares your life day by day? Who supplies every breath of air you breathe? Who sustains the body, grants every heartbeat as a gift of his love? O how we need to pray with David.

Jehovah make me to know mine end,
And the measure of my days, what it is;
Let me know how frail I am.

(Psa. 39:4)

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

VIII.

(1) All the commandments.Perhaps this verse should be placed at the conclusion of the preceding paragraph rather than at the commencement of the next. The second verse of this chapter introduces a fresh branch of the subject.

That ye may . . . go in and possess.This does not refer simply to the passage of Jordan and the first conquest under Joshua so much as to that work of possession in detail which Joshua left for Israel to do after their first establishment in the country. On this distinction, see Jos. 13:1; Jos. 13:7 (Note).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. All which I command A renewed admonition to obedience, that they may obtain the land which Jehovah had promised.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Chapter 8 They Must Remember That Yahweh Is Their Provider and Observe His Instruction And Not Forget His Commandments.

In the previous chapters Moses has constantly reminded them of how Yahweh delivered them from Egypt and from bondage (see especially the details in Deu 7:19, compare Deu 4:20; Deu 6:12; Deu 6:21-23), now he calls on them to remember how He had also delivered them in the wilderness (compare Deu 2:7) and the lessons that they learned there. For he has begun to be aware of the danger that when they are comfortably settled in the land, in complete contrast to the wilderness experience, and all their wars were over, they might easily forget Yahweh and settle into the former ways of the land. (‘Thou is used all the way through apart from the first and last verses, in each of which both thou and ye are used).

We should note the parallels between this chapter and Deu 32:10-18 where the same themes are in mind. Some of the actual language of both passages, as well as the ideas, were also used by Hosea in Hos 13:4-8, e.g. ‘from Egypt’, ‘satisfied’, ‘hearts lifted up’, ‘forgetting’. Hosea is full of echoes of Deuteronomy.

Analysis in the words of Moses:

a All the commandment which I command you this day shall you observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers (Deu 8:1).

b You shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments, or not.

c And He did humble you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, nor did you fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every thing (or ‘word’) that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh does man live (Deu 8:2-3).

c Your clothes did not grow old on you, nor did your foot swell, these forty years (Deu 8:4).

b And you shall consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so Yahweh your God chastens you (Deu 8:5).

a And you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in His ways, and to fear him (Deu 8:6).

Note that in ‘a’ They are commanded to observe to do all Yahweh’s commandment, and in the parallel they are to keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, to walk in His ways, and to fear him. In ‘b’ Yahweh had led them in the wilderness in order to prove them and in the parallel He will chasten them as sons. In ‘c’ He humbled them and fed them with manna, and in the parallel He watched over their clothing and their ability to go on trekking.

Deu 8:1

‘ All the commandment which I command you (thee) this day shall you (ye) observe to do, that you (ye) may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your (your) fathers.’

The problem with our chapter divisions is that because of them we can disconnect verses from each other. This verse is to be seen as continuing on from the last, as well as looking forward. Thus it may be seen as including the injunction to avoid graven images and not to take them into their houses, as well as being a general command to observe His other commandments. And this is so that they might live and not die, and so that they might multiply their families, and as they did so, expand and possess the land which Yahweh swore to their fathers. This last emphasis is continually repeated. All was based on the promises to the patriarchs, and therefore was unfailingly sure of performance.

“That you may live.” Constantly before him was the fact that their fathers had perished in the wilderness, excluded from the land. They had died because they were disobedient to Yahweh. If these who now listen to Him wished to live and not die they must now ensure that they were obedient. And it is not just a matter of life, but of having a good life, a life of abounding and flourishing and possessing the land. All these were dependent on obedience to Yahweh’s overall commandment as revealed in His statutes and ordinances.

For those who would enjoy fullness of life must listen to God’s requirement (‘commandment’) as He speaks to them through His word. Only in this way will they come into possession of what He has for His own.

Deu 8:2-3

‘ And you shall remember all the way which Yahweh your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he did humble you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, nor did you fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread only, but by every thing (or ‘word’) that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh does man live.’

Obedience to Yahweh’s commandments would be helped by remembering their time in the wilderness, so as they moved on they were to keep in mind the wilderness experience. In seeking to observe His commandment it was important that they remember all the way in which Yahweh their God had led them in the forty years in the wilderness. They needed to learn its lessons. How He had done this in such a way as to humble them and bring home to them how they were in fact constantly failing. How He had done it in order to test out their hearts, to see if in spite of all they would continue to keep His commandments. How He had done this in order that they might recognise that whatever they received, it would be from His mouth. It would be as a result of His promises and His provision. For God’s testings always have a purpose, even though they might appear bitter at the time. He had tested them because He had wanted to know what was really in their hearts and had wanted them to look to Him, and when necessary He had chastened them (Deu 8:5).

Let them then remember how they had previously been on the very verge of the promised land, and how it had resulted in forty years in the wilderness. That had been a huge disappointment. But they should also remember that in His graciousness He had not totally finished with them then because of their failure. He had stood by them. He had put them on probation, ready for the achieving of maturity of the next generation, so that His purposes for them might still go forward. And He had sought to bring home to them important lessons.

Indeed in their whole experience in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, even before His judgment on them because of their failure to enter the land, He had been humbling them. From the beginning He had allowed them to hunger. And then He had fed them, not with bread, but with something that neither they nor their fathers had previously known, the manna, something for which they had had to depend on Him day by day. They had had to forget what they had done in the past and look to Him for their provision. They had had to depend daily on what He had promised to give them, what came ‘from His mouth’. And He had done this in order that they might recognise that life is not dependent only on bread. They had to learn that bread is not everything. His purpose was that they might learn that they must receive their provision from His mouth. They must recognise that all that they had came from Him and resulted from His promises.

He had wanted them to recognise that it is what Yahweh says and what Yahweh commands and what Yahweh promises that is the basis of life, so that they might recognise that obedience to Him is all. His aim was that they learn the vital lesson of hearing God and trusting Him in all circumstances.

When the manna had been first provided it was said at the time that it would be a test of their willingness to obey Him (Exo 16:4). The test lay in the fact that it was to be a daily provision, so that they were not to hoard it but to wait for it each day from Yahweh’s hand. They had constantly to look to Him and to trust Him. So were they to learn the lesson of the wilderness and now wait each day on God in the same way.

There have been a number of suggestions as to what the Manna consisted of. The sweet juice of the Tarfa which exudes from the tree and forms small white grains has been suggested, but the quantity required is against this, as are the other descriptions. The same applies to the honeydew excretions on tamarisk twigs produced by certain plant lice and scale insects which at night drop from the trees onto the ground where they remain until the heat of the sun brings out the ants which remove them. In favour is the fact that the Arabic word for plant lice is ‘man’, equivalent to the Hebrew for Manna. But these are seasonal and do not fit all the criteria. We are not told whether the Manna was seasonal or not, although many consider it was permanent in all seasons.

More pertinently examples have also been cited of an unidentified white substance which one morning covered a fairly large area of ground in Natal and was eaten by the natives, and also of falls of whitish, odourless, tasteless matter in Southern Algeria which, at a time of unusual weather conditions, covered tents and vegetation each morning. While not being the same as the Manna, or lasting over so long a period, these do indicate the kind of natural phenomena which God may have used to bring about His miracle, for it was clearly a time of extremely unusual weather conditions as demonstrated by the plagues of Egypt. But we must remember that the Manna lasted for forty years (Exo 16:35; Jos 5:12), did not arrive on the seventh day, and continued from the Wilderness of Sin to the entry into Canaan in all manner of environments. It was God arranged.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Deu 8:1-20 A Warning to Remember the Lord in their Prosperity – In Deu 8:1-20 Moses describes the blessings of the Promised Land to the children of Israel. He speaks of “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of mountain springs, a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a land of iron and brass, and a land without lack.” Much of this generation of people were born in the wilderness and had never seen prosperity. They only knew of a wilderness, of manna, and water from a rock. They had never slept in a house or kept beautiful gardens and herded flocks of animals. Therefore, the Lord has Moses take the time to paint for them a mental picture of the prosperity into which He wants to lead them. However, much of this chapter also reminds them of where He brought them from and a clear warning not to forsake Him in the midst of their prosperity.

Deu 8:2  And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

Deu 8:2 “And thou shalt remember” Comments – The Pentateuch was written so that the children of Israel would “remember” the Law, as well as their wilderness journeys.

Deu 8:2 Comments – Joyce Meyer said the Lord spoke to her saying, “The children of Israel spent forty years in the wilderness making an eleven-day trip because they had a ‘wilderness mentality.’” [25]

[25] Joyce Meyer, “Monthly Partnership Letter,” November 2003 (Fenton, Missouri: Joyce Meyer Ministries).

Deu 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

Deu 8:3 Comments – Note these insightful words by Sadhu Sundar Singh.

“I have infused into man’s nature hunger and thirst, that he may not in sheer heedlessness regard himself as God, but that day by day he may be reminded of his needs and that his life is bound up with the life and existence of Someone who created him. Thus being made aware of his defects and necessities, he may abide in Me and I in him, and then he will ever find in Me his happiness and joy.” [26]

[26] Sadhu Sundar Singh, At the Master’s Feet, trans. Arthur Parker (London: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1922) [on-line]; accessed 26 October 2008; available from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/singh/feet.html; Internet, “III Prayer,” section 2, part 10.

Deu 8:3 Old Testament Quotes in the New Testament – Jesus made a reference to Deu 8:3 when rebuking Satan during His temptation in the wilderness.

Mat 4:4, “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Luk 4:4, “And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

Deu 8:9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

Deu 8:9 “a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass” Comments – Israel did not enjoyed the economic benefits of iron and brass until the reign of King David, over fie hundred years after this promise was given. The strength of the nation of Israel was in direct proportion to their ability to use these metals.

For example, the children of Israel were oppressed during the time of the Judges because their enemies were using iron and they were not able to do so (Jdg 1:19; Jdg 4:3).

Jdg 1:19, “And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron .”

Jdg 4:3, “And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron ; and twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.”

During the time of King Saul, the Philistines also oppressed the children of Israel because of the advantage of having iron weapons (1Sa 13:19-22).

1Sa 13:19-22, “ Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel : for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears: But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines, to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock. Yet they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads. So it came to pass in the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people that were with Saul and Jonathan: but with Saul and with Jonathan his son was there found.”

Until King David led the nation of Israel in to obedience to the Laws of God, they lacked the wisdom to exploit these natural resources. Once God gave them the use of these metals, Israel began to rule in power and authority. In the building of the Temple, David had accumulated a tremendous amount of these metals (1Ch 22:16).

1Ch 22:16, “Of the gold, the silver, and the brass, and the iron, there is no number. Arise therefore, and be doing, and the LORD be with thee.”

Thus, we can see how iron represents strength. It is used as a symbol of strength and authority in Scripture in the phrase, “a rod of iron” (Psa 2:9, Rev 2:27; Rev 12:5; Rev 19:15).

Psa 2:9, “Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Rev 2:27, “And he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers: even as I received of my Father.”

Rev 12:5, “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron : and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.”

Rev 19:15, “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron : and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

Deu 8:17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

Deu 8:17 Comments – When the supernatural work of prosperity in our lives becomes the norm, man tends to forget that it is God who is orchestrating his blessings. He is then in danger of giving himself credit for his prosperity and blessings. [27]

[27] Joseph Prince, “Sermon,” Destined to Reign, Lighthouse Television, Kampala, Uganda, 17 September 2009, television program.

Deu 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

Deu 8:18 Comments – Material wealth for God’s children has a redemptive purpose. Deu 8:18 tells us that God empowers His children to get wealth in order to fulfil His plans upon earth. Our primary purpose of obtaining wealth is to propagate the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God’s covenant is a covenant of blessing His children so that we can be a blessing to others (Gen 12:2).

Gen 12:2, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:”

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

A Reference to God’s Goodness

v. 1. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. The constant repetition of the same leading thought serves to impress it upon the minds of the hearers with great force.

v. 2. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord, thy God, led thee these forty years in the wilderness, with all the various attendant miracles, to humble thee under God’s mighty hand, and to prove thee, to teat out their trust in God’s almighty power, love, and justice, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no. It is only when a person despairs of his own strength and is humbled from his self-presumption that he is ready to hear and obey God. The entire wilderness journey had an educational purpose.

v. 3. And he humbled thee and suffered thee to hunger, Exo 16:2-3, and fed thee with manna, Exo 16:12-35, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, and the very fact that God was able to keep them alive without the food ordinarily demanded by men was intended to keep them humble; that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live. For the maintenance of life in His creatures the Lord is not bound to the food upon which men, by His order, must depend, but He has ways and means to sustain life by the direct exercise of His almighty power, if He so chooses. In this sense Jesus quoted this passage when He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, Mat 4:4.

v. 4. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, compelling them to wear torn and insufficient clothes, neither did thy foot swell, become blistered on account of their being compelled to march barefooted for lack of sandals, these forty years. This was a special mark of God’s providence and loving care for His people, a miracle of His goodness.

v. 5. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, ponder that fact continually, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord, thy God, chasteneth thee; everything which He did for them had the object of educating them, of training them for His service. Both His punishments and the manifestations of His goodness served this purpose.

v. 6. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord, thy God, to walk in His ways, as He pointed them out in the Law, and to fear Him; for the fear of the Lord, as the outgrowth of faith, is the source of all good works. The obligation of obedience is now further emphasized by an enumeration of the excellencies of the Land of Promise, where even the highest blessings, because so common, partook of the nature of the ordinary.

v. 7. For the Lord, thy God, bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, springs, and depths, underground watercourses, that spring out of valleys and hills, the land being richly watered both for agriculture and for stock-raising;

v. 8. a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, that is, of olive-orchards from which the best oil was obtained, and honey;

v. 9. a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, not in poverty, misery, and want; thou shalt not lack anything in it, everything being supplied that was needed for comfortable and even luxurious living; a land whose stones are iron, for iron ore was found in various parts of Canaan, especially in the North, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass; traces of former copper works have been found in the Lebanon range.

v. 10. When thou hast eaten and art full, having enjoyed the various blessings as here enumerated, then thou shalt bless the Lord, thy God, for the good land which he hath given thee. It is on the basis of this and similar passages in Scripture that the believers, also in the New Testament, say grace and return thanks at meal-time, Mat 14:19; Mat 15:36; Mat 26:26.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

FURTHER EXHORTATION TO OBEDIENCE, ENFORCED BY A REVIEW OF GOD‘S DEALINGS WITH ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS.

Deu 8:1-6

That they might be induced the more faithfully to observe all the commandments which had been enjoined upon them so as to go on and prosper, they are called to remember the experiences of the forty years in the wilderness, when God guided them and disciplined them for their good. He humbled them that he might test the state of their heart and affections towards him, using the distress and privations to which they were subjected as means of bringing out what was in them, and of leading them to feel their entire dependence on him for help, sustenance, and guidance. Not only by commands difficult to be obeyed laid on men, and by mighty works done in their view, does God prove men (cf. Gen 22:1, etc.; Exo 15:25; Exo 20:20); but also by afflictions and calamities (Jdg 2:22; Jdg 3:4; Psa 17:3; Psa 81:7, etc.), as well as by benefits (Exo 16:4). Humbled so as to see his own weakness, chastised out of all self-conceit by affliction, man is brought to submit to God, to hear and obey him; and along with this the experience of God’s goodness tends to draw men, in grateful acknowledgment of his mercy and bounty, to yield themselves to him and sincerely and lovingly to serve him (cf. Rom 2:4).

Deu 8:1, Deu 8:2

God’s dealings with the Israelites were disciplinary. Both by the afflictions and privations to which they were subjected, and by the provision they received anti the protection afforded to them, God sought to bring them into and keep them in a right state of mind towards hima state of humble dependence, submissive obedience, and hopeful trust. But that this effect should be produced, it was needful that they should mark and remember all his ways towards them.

Deu 8:3

God humbled the Israelites by leaving them to suffer hunger from the want of food, and then supplying them with food in a miraculous manner. They were thus taught that their life depended wholly on God, who could, by his own creative power, without any of the ordinary means, provide for the sustaining of their life. And fed thee with manna (cf. Exo 16:15). It is in vain to seek to identify this with any natural product. It was something entirely new to the Israelitesa thing which neither they nor their fathers knew; truly bread from heaven, and which got from them the name of manna or man, because, in their wondering ignorance, they knew not what to call it, and so they said one to another, Man hoo? ( ), What is it? and thenceforward called it man. That he might make thee know, etc. “Bread,” which the Jews regarded as “the staff of life,” stands here, as in other places, for food generally; and the lesson taught the Israelites was that not in one way or by. one kind of means alone could life be sustained, but in the absence of these God could, by his own fiat, provide for the sustenance of his children. Every wordliterally, all, everything whateverthat proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord, i.e. all means which God has by his word provided, or by his word can provide, for the sustenance of life. So our Lord cites this passage in replying to the tempter, who had suggested that if he was the Son of God he might relieve himself from the pangs of hunger by commanding the stones which lay around to become bread. Our Lord’s reply to this is virtually.” I have this power, and could use it, but I will not; for this would imply impatience and distrust of God, who has engaged to sustain the life of his servants, and who can, by the mere word of his mouth, by his creative will, provide in an extraordinary way for the sustenance of life when the ordinary means of life are wanting.” “Jesus means to say, ‘ I leave it with God to care for the sustaining of my life, and I will not arbitrarily and for selfish ends help myself by a miracle'” (De Wette, note on Mat 4:4; see also Meyer on the place).

Deu 8:4

As the manna furnished by God’s creative power saved them from hunger, so by God’s providence and care their raiment was marvelously kept from decay, and they had not to go barefoot from their sandals being worn out. Waxed not old upon thee; literally, did not fall away, waste away from upon thee. This cannot mean that such was the abundant supply of raiment to the Israelites in the Arabian desert, that there was no need for them to wear garments rent and tattered from long use, as they had large flocks and herds whence a sufficient supply of wool and leather could be obtained, and there were among them skilled artificers, by whom these could be made into articles of clothing (Rosenmller, J. D. Michaelis, etc.). For, as Knobel observes, “This were something too insignificant beside the miraculous manna; and besides, this does not lie in the expression, which rather intimates that the clothes upon them were not worn out nor fell from them in rags, because God gave them a marvelous durability.” At the same time, there is no reason to suppose that the Israelites did not make use of such supplies as were within their reach for purposes of clothing, any more than that they lived only on manna during the forty years of their wandering. Still less need we resort to such fanciful suppositions as that the garments of the Israelitish children expanded as they grew up, like the shells of snailswhich is the notion of some of the Jewish rabbins, and adopted by some of the Christian Fathers. Neither did thy foot swell. The verb here is found in only one other passage (Neh 9:21), where this passage is repeated; and the meaning is doubtful. The LXX. render here by , became callous; but in Nehemiah the rendering they give is , were torn, the object torn being, according to the Cod. Vat; abbey, their feet, according to the Cod. Alex; affray, their sandals. In Deu 29:5, the shoe or sandal is specially mentioned in the same connection as here. The verb, however, cannot mean tear or torn, neither does it mean swell; the idea involved is rather that of softening, or , melting or flowing; and the meaning here seems to be, “Thy foot did not get into a bruised and wounded state”which would have been the case had their sandals not been preserved from breaking or being worn out.

Deu 8:5

Thus God educated, disciplined, and trained his people as a father does his child. Chasteneth. The idea is not so much that of punishment or chastisement, properly so called, as that of severe discipline and training. God made them feel his hand upon them, but ever for their good; the end of the discipline to which they were subjected was that they might keep his commandments and walk in his ways, so as to enjoy his favor (cf. Heb 12:5, etc.).

Deu 8:7-20

The land on which they were about to enter is described as a good laud, fertile and well watered, and yielding abundant produce to its cultivators; and they are cautioned against forgetting, in their enjoyment of the gift, the bounty of the Giver, or congratulating themselves on having achieved the conquest of such a land, instead of gratefully acknowledging the grace which had sustained them during their protracted wandering in the wilderness, and by which alone they had been enabled to take possession of that favored land.

Deu 8:7, Deu 8:8

Brooks of water, running streams, mountain torrents, and watercourses in the narrow valleys or wadys; fountains, perennial springs; depths, “the fathomless pools from which such streams as the Abana (now Barada), near Damascus, spring up full-grown rivers, almost as broad at their sources as at their mouths”, or this may include also the inland seas or lakes, such as the sea of Galileo and Lake Haleh. Palestine is in the present day, on the whole, well supplied with water, though the distribution is very unequal, many parts being almost wholly destitute of supply, except from what may be collected from rain in tanks or cisterns; and there is no reason to suppose it was different in the ancient times. As compared, however, with the desert to which the Israelites had been so long accustomed, and even with Egypt from which they had escaped, the country on which they were about to enter was well watered.

Deu 8:8

“Palestine has been celebrated in all ages for three products: corn, wine, and oil, which still continue to be its most valuable crops”. The principal corn crops were wheat and barley. The vine was largely and carefully cultivated; the olive required little cultivation, being almost a spontaneous growth, and forming one of the most valuable productions of the country; the fig was also indigenous in Palestine, and still grows there, both wild and cultivated, in abundance; that the pomegranate (firemen) also was very abundant may be inferred from the number of places named from this (cf. Jos 15:32; Jos 19:7, Jos 19:13; Jdg 20:45, Jdg 20:47; Jdg 21:13; 1Ch 4:32, etc.). Honey. The word so rendered (d’bash) is used both of the honey of bees (Le Deu 2:11; Deu 32:11; 1Sa 14:26, etc.; Ps 81:17; Pro 16:24, etc.), and of the honey of grapes, a syrup obtained by boiling down the newly expressed juice of the grape to a half or third part of its bulk, and still known among the Arabs by the name of dibs. In the wilderness, the people had murmured that they had been brought into an evil place, no place of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; and where there was no water to drink (Num 20:5). Moses here tells them that the land they were about to occupy was not such a place, but one abounding in all those things of which they had found the wilderness so destitute.

Deu 8:9

A land whose stones are iron. Minerals do not abound in Palestine; the hills are for the most part calcareous; but by the side of the limestone in the north of Canaan ferruginous basalt appears in largo masses, and on Lebanon ironstone abounds. Near Tiberius are springs largely impregnated with iron, as are also those at Has-beija, on the Hermon range, as well as the soil around that place. Traces of extinct copper works are also to be found on Lebanon (cf. art. ‘Metals,’ in Kitto and Smith; Ritter, ‘Geography of Palestine,’ 1.248). The Israelites, however, do not seem to have carried on mining operations themselves, but to have been content to obtain supplies of the useful metals from their neighbors (2Sa 8:8; 1Ch 18:8; 1Ch 22:3, 1Ch 22:14).

Deu 8:10

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God. “From this place the Jews have made it a general rule, or, as they call it, an affirmative precept, that every one bless God at their meals, that is, give him thanks for his benefits; for he blesses us when he bestows good things on us, and we bless him when we thankfully acknowledge his goodness therein” (Patrick).

Deu 8:11-14

Wealth is apt to engender in the possessor of it a spirit of self-gratulation and pride, and abundance of good things to induce men to be luxurious, “to trust in uncertain riches,” and to be forgetful of the bounteous hand from which all that they enjoy has come. Against this the people are hero cautioned and warned.

Deu 8:15

Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, etc. “The fiery serpent” and “the scorpion” (sing.) are in apposition to the “wilderness,” and illustrate its terribleness. Fiery serpents LXX.or burning serpents, so called from the burning pain caused by their bite; probably the cerastes, or one of the naja species (cf. Num 21:6).

Deu 8:16

The grand end of all God’s dealings with the Israelites in the desert, both the trials to which they were subjected and the benefits they received, was that he might do them good ultimately. Thy latter end; not the end of life, as in Num 23:10, but the state ensuing on the termination of their period of discipline and probation in the desert (cf. Job 8:7; Job 42:12; 2Pe 2:20). God thus dealt with the Israelites as he still deals with his people; he afflicts them not for his pleasure but for their profit (Heb 11:12); he subjects them to trial and varied discipline that he may fit them for the rest and joy that in the end are to be theirs.

Deu 8:17, Deu 8:18

The blessing in store for them was God’s free gift to them; and when they came to enjoy it they were not to allow themselves to say in their heart, i.e. to think or imagine, that the prosperous condition in which they were placed was the result of their own exertions; they were to ascribe all to God’s gracious bounty, for from him had come the power by which prosperity had been gained, and this he had given, not on account of any merit in them, but that he might fulfill his covenant engagements to their fathers. Get wealth , to make strength, to gather substance (Gen 12:5), to procure wealth. As it is this day. “As was quite evident then, when the establishment of the covenant had already commenced, and Israel had come through the desert to the border of Canaan (see Deu 4:20)” (Keil).

Deu 8:19, Deu 8:20

Moses enforces his counsel by reminding them again that only destruction awaited them should they forget the Lord their God and apostatize from him (cf. Deu 4:25, etc.; Deu 6:14).

HOMILETICS

Deu 8:1-6

Life’s meaning discerned by the retrospect of it.

The remark has not infrequently been made that incidents closely connected cannot be rightly understood till the time has come for them to be reviewed in their entirety as matters of history. What is true of events generally, applies in all its force to the wonders included in the rescue and wanderings of the people of Israel. And that which may be said of them, holds good, in this respect, of the life-story of God’s children now. Two words would sum up the pith of their experience”redemption,” “training.” Redeemed first, trained afterwards. Redeemed, that they might be trained; trained, that they might become worthy of the redemption. Both the redemption and the training had in Israel’s case a depth of meaning of which the people knew little at the time, but which Israel’s God intended from the first. Afterwards, their varied experiences, when reviewed as a piece of history, became matter for grateful record and adoring praise. The paragraph before us now is “the aged lawgiver reviewing the experiences of Israel in their wanderings.” Four lines of meditation open up

I. THERE ARE MANY LESSONS WHICH GOD‘S CHILDREN NEED TO LEARN.

1. “To humble thee” (Deu 8:2), i.e. to bring them to feel their dependence on God. This, indeed, seems such an obvious truth, that men ought not to need to be taught it. But we must remember that, before we are redeemed, our training for eternity has never begun at all, and that when redemption is with us a realized fact, we then present ourselves to God only in the rough, relying on his love to make us what we should be. And one of the lessons we have thoroughly to learn is that “without Christ we can do nothing.”

2. “To prove thee” (Deu 8:2). A double proof is indicated.

(1) What they were: “To know what was in thine heart.”

(2) What they would do: “Whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.”

There is no subject on which the young convert is so ignorant ashimself; and he never can become what a Christian should be till he sees his own conceit. He must become a sadder man ere he can be a wiser one.

3. “That he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone.” It has been remarked that, as Moses in this clause refers to the manna, the meaning is:

(1) That it is not from nature but from nature’s God that supplies come.

(2) That God is free to adopt any course he pleases in providing food.

Doubtless this is true. But it is not the whole truth, nor do we deem it the truth here intended. We know that with these words our Savior repelled one assault of the tempter. This being so, we are set somewhat on a different track for their interpretation (cf. Mat 4:3, Mat 4:4). Our Savior’s reply is, in effect, “Man has a double life, not only that of the body, but also that of the spirit; you ask me to nourish the lower at the expense of the higherto get food for the body by a negation of the self-sacrifice for which I came. It is not bread alone which sustains the man. He has a higher self, which lives on higher food, and I cannot pamper the lower at the cost of the prostration of the higher.” Now, with such light thrown on the passage by our Lord, we are led to regard the words of Moses as referring not only to the supply of food, but rather to the entire discipline in the wilderness, as intended by God to bring out to the people the reality and worth of the nobler part of man. Our God cares more for growth of soul than for comfort of body. His aim is not only to find us food, but to train us for himself. Nor was it that they only might learn these lessons, but that others in after time might see on what rough and raw material the Great Educator will condescend to work, and with what care he will work upon it.

II. GOD ADOPTS VARIED METHODS OF TEACHING THESE NEEDED LESSONS. The clauses in the paragraph indicate these.

1. There was “the way” by which they were led. It was not given to Israel to choose it. It was not the shortest way. It was “the right” way annointed by God.

2 The method of sending supplies: “Day by day the manna fell.” They were thus taught to live by the day.

3. The disappointments they met: “These forty years.” If they had been told, when they set out from Egypt, that so long a period intervened between them and Canaan, they would scarcely have set out. And if God were to unveil to us the incidents of coming years, we could not bear the sight.

4. The wants they felt: “He suffered thee to hunger.” God sometimes lets his people feel how completely they are shut up to him.

5. Yet there were constant proofs of thoughtful care (Deu 8:4). We do not understand any miracle involved here, still less so odd a one as the rabbis suggested, that the children’s clothes grew upon their backs; The meaning of Moses surely is, “God so provided for their wants that they needed not to wear tattered garments, nor to injure their feet by walking without shoes or sandals.”

6. There was also chastening (Deu 8:5). This word includes not only correction but all that belongs to the training of a child (cf. Heb 12:7; 2Sa 7:14; Psa 89:32; Job 7:17, Job 7:18; Pro 3:11, Pro 3:12; Rev 3:19).

III. THERE IS A REASON INDICATED HERE WHY GOD TAKES SO MUCH PAINS TO TEACH THESE LESSONS. Deu 8:5, “As a man chasteneth his son.” We might well ask, Why should the Great Supreme do so much to educate into shape such raw and rough natures as ours? That he should do so at all is, per se, far harder to believe than any apparent variation of the ordinary course of physical nature. The reason is found in the words, “Ye are sons.” Israel was God’s son, even his firstborn. Believers are the adopted children of God; hence the greatness of their destiny, and the earnestness of their Leader in training them for it. It may be said, indeed, by an unbeliever, “I have all these changes in life, but they are not training me,” etc. No, because the one condition is wanting under which all these come to be a trainingsonship. This order is never reversedrescued, then educated. If men have not known the first, they cannot understand the second.

IV. IF GOD CARES SO MUCH TO TRAIN, WE SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHAT HIS TRAINING MEANS. (Deu 8:2, Deu 8:5.) Let us understand what a high moral and spiritual aim God has in the culture of this life of ours! The life of a man is not a mere material something, on a physical basis; it is the expression of a plan of God. Then let us be as anxious to be rightly educated for eternity, as God is so to educate us. Never let us allow the lower ends of life to master the higher (Deu 8:6). Ever let us keep the end of life in view. For eternity we are meant, and for eternity we should live. Some have life largely in retrospect, even now. Do they not see that the past is explained by the present? Even so the present will be explained by the future (Joh 13:7). Let them rejoice that they have a Father who guides by the way which he sees to be right, and not “according to their mind.” Some have life before them.

1. Let it be the supreme desire to let life become what God wants it to bea continuous advance in preparation for heaven. This is of more consequence than all the ease and comfort in the world.

2. Recognize and praise the kindness of God in giving men these chequered experiences of life, if they do but educate for higher service. Don’t let us wonder if we cannot understand God’s ways at the time. We shall in the end.

3. If we want God to train us for gloryfirst, we must come out of Egypt. The education cannot begin in the land of bondage,we must first be the Lard’s free men; then, let us leave the way and method of the culture entirely to God. If he were to let us choose the way, what mistakes we should make! Our faith in God even in youth should be such as to lead us to say, “Father, my supreme desire is to grow like thee, and to live with thee. I know not by what paths I need to be led, nor through what discipline I need to be brought, to bring about this end. I leave all in thy gracious hands, desiring that thine infinite wisdom and love should order all things for me. Here I am. Take me as I am, all guilty and defiled. Make me what I should be; and if by thy grace I am ripened for and led to Canaan, then will I sing, ‘Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, to him which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!'”

Deu 8:7-10

The duty of thankfulness for the bounty of God in nature.

The people of Israel were being led by the Lord their God to a land beautiful, luxuriant, fruitful. (For an account of the productions of Palestine, of the fertility of its soil, and of the treasures hidden in its hills, see works by Kitto, Stanley, Wilson, Thomson, and others; as well as Bible dictionaries and Cyclopedias, under the several headings.) Evidently, at the time Moses uttered the words before us, the people had not reached that land; though they were expecting shortly to do so. In view thereof, Moses bids them (Deu 8:10) bless the Lord their God for the good land he had given them. Hence our subject: “the duty of recognizing the hand of God in the bounties of nature, and of thankfulness for the use of them.”

I. THERE IS A MARVELLOUS ADAPTATION IN EXTERNAL NATURE TO THE CONSTITUTION AND WARTS OF MAN. (Each of the varied terms used in Deu 8:7-9 will afford vast scope for the expansion of this thought. And the wider the range of knowledge, the greater delight will such expansion afford to one who longs to make others see the variety of the Divine goodness.) What a vast and prolonged preparation must there have been to fit this world for the use of those who should hereafter dwell upon it! And then, when all is ready, man, the crown of God’s earthly creation, comes last upon the scene, with “all things put under his feet.”

II. ALL THE WEALTH OF EARTH IS A GIFT TO MAN. “The good land which he hath given thee” (Deu 8:10). It is but reasonable that we look at the profusion of riches upon and within the earth as a “gift.” “What have we that we have not received?’ Where were we when “the foundations of the earth’ were laid? Yet some would have us adopt a “religion of humanity,” as if humanity were to be praised for the physical basis of its own existence! A Power not in man nor of man hath given us all.

III. THE GIFT COMETH FROM A PERSONAL BEING. “The Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.” The Power from which nature’s wealth cometh, is not a blind non-intelligent force. For man’s own intelligence has to be accounted for; and even if impersonal forces could have wrought out matter, it is axiomatically certain that impersonality could not produce personality. So far natural religion can go. But our text takes us further.

IV. NATURE‘S WEALTH COMETH FROM THE LORD OUR GOD. “Our God.” He is not an “Unknown.” We may not set up an altar, . We know him as a redeeming God, as One who delights to exercise loving-kindness, righteousness, and judgment in the earth. And since God is revealed to us in Christ, we learn thereby that the long preparations of earth have been going on with a view of setting up on it the new creations of redeeming grace. This is “the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory.” Oh, the boundless meaning of the expression, “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world!”

V. ALL THIS SHOULD CALL FORTH SPECIAL THANKFULNESS FROM OUR HEARTS AND LIPS. “Thou shalt bless,” etc. We may go very far beyond the merely personal consideration which Moses suggests here. We know more clearly, therefore we should praise more intelligently, devoutly, and warmly. Israel might include some, we should take in all, the following considerations, to stimulate to intense thankfulness.

1. We were nothing, had nothing, and yet we have all given to us “richly to enjoy.”

2. We are sinful, and have forfeited thereby even our natural claim. Yet all is continued to us, in unwearying kindness and unabated faithfulness.

3. We have not only the actual possessions of earth’s wealth, but are put in possession of the mind and purpose of the Great Framer of all, that ours may be the praise of understanding hearts.

4. We read that God wills to have on this globe a ransomed people, ours, therefore, may well be the jubilant praise of redeemed men.

5. We are not here merely to enjoy this world and then to know no other, but to enjoy this world as a stepping-stone to another. Hence ours should be the triumphant shout of men with a glorious destiny ahead, and of those who use this world so as to help them to a better. Finally:

6. The present form of earth is destined to fall away. God will “make all things new” (Psa 102:26; Heb 1:12; 2Pe 3:13). We for whom this world was made, will then be rejoicing in God, and will be enraptured to see what ever-advancing forms of beauty “he hath prepared for them that love him” Thus ours should be the praise of men on whom even the too oft-repeated dirge, “passing away,” leaves no trace of gloom or of regret. If we are the redeemed of the Lord, our life may be a song of thanksgiving, and our death a shout of victory!

Deu 8:11-18

(See Homiletics: Deu 6:10-19.)

Deu 8:16

(See Homiletics: Deu 8:1-6.)

Deu 8:17, Deu 8:18

Danger of self-glorification.

The enjoyment of God’s mercies, which should be so provocative of thankfulness, may become a snare, if we are not careful to guard against their misuse. Several of the dangers to which prosperity makes us liable are dealt with in the Homily referred to above. Here, there is one specially named, which is perhaps the most common of all, viz. that of attributing success in life to one’s own skill, or wisdom, or might: “And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth” (see Eze 28:4, Eze 28:5; Eze 29:3; Psa 12:3; Jdg 7:2). So strong is the tendency to accredit ourselves with any gains which may be ours, in a vain, self-glorifying spirit, that we cannot be too anxious to guard against it, by exposing the sin and evil of it.

I. IT IS UNTRUE. However much care we may have taken to ensure success, whether we gain our end or no, has been dependent at every moment on a conjunction of circumstances, which we were as powerless to bring about or to avoid, as to create the tides or arrest the moon. And even the ability to take care, and to put forth effort, has been a gift. We are violating the first rudiments of most certain truth, when we take the credit of success in life to ourselves.

II. IT IS DISLOYAL. For it is God who gives us the power to get wealth. We owe all we have to his bounty, and even the very breath we draw, to his unceasing care. The laws on which we have relied to bring prosperity have been of God’s creation. And for a creature to plume himself on the gifts of the Creator, who can adequately set forth such injustice to high Heaven?

III. IT IS UNGRATEFUL. For, as if it were not enough that the Most High should have all our faults to bear with unceasinglyis it not marvelously ungrateful that creatures who would have long ago been cut down except for the long-suffering of God, should pride themselves on the abilities which have been in such forbearance continued to them?

IV. IT IS MOST MISCHIEVOUS IN ITS EFFECTS. For it nurses pride, instead of fostering thankfulness. It genders selfishness, it freezes benevolence, and will surely breed a covetous, tyrannous, haughty disposition, if not fought against and overcome.

V. IT IS OFFENSIVE IN GOD‘S SIGHT, (Pro 6:16, Pro 6:17; Jas 4:6; 1Pe 5:5.) God sets himself in array against pride of heart. How can it be otherwise? “What communion hath light with darkness?” God will dwell with the contrite and humble spirit, but “the proud he knoweth afar off.”

VI. IT IS THE REVERSE OF THAT WHICH GODS DESIGNS. (Deu 8:16.) For the varied experiences of life are an appeal of God to men as moral beings, “to humble them and prove them;” and if, in spite of all, any take the credit to themselves of their own prosperity, God’s own intent in their life-history is being reversed.

VII. IT WILL SOONER OR LATER BRING HUMILIATION AND SUFFERING, (Pro 29:23.) Again and again does our Savior also lay down this principle, that pride exposes to much shame (Mat 23:12; Luk 14:11; Luk 18:14). It is not for us to say, in any individual case, in what form the debasement or disappointment will come. But come it will. It may be in one or more of the following ways:

1. By the removal of the wealth which was gained, and a sudden plunge from prosperity to adversity. It is sad when men have to part with all before they will learn that God gave all!

2. By depriving men of any further power to attend to worldly concerns, they may have to see their utter helplessness without God.

3. By a searching dealing with the spirit in the furnace of tribulation, God may graciously burn up the pride, and purge away corruption. But the process is a terrific one, even here. It is being saved, “yet so as by fire.” Still, it is better to be saved, even thus, cost what it may (1Co 3:18). It is only when God succeeds in “humbling” us, that he can do us good “at the latter end.”

4. If, after all warnings, teachings, and strivings, God’s voice is still unheard, and pride still rears itself up against him, he will reckon the proud one as “the chaff which the wind driveth away.” And oh, how will this self-elation shrivel up then (see Isa 2:10-22)! God will not give his glory to another (1Sa 2:30; Mal 4:1). What reversals of position will that day witness! That which the world reckoned as “great wealth” will come to naught, and the “wealthy” one will be bankrupt for eternity; while those who in lowliness of spirit have received thankfully the least of God’s gifts, shall have him as their “exceeding great Reward.” To such he will say, “Friend, come up higher!”

Deu 8:19, Deu 8:20

(See Homiletics: Deu 28:1-68.)

HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES

Deu 8:1-6

The moral uses of memory.

The memory of man exerts a mighty influence over his history and his destiny. Minus memory, man would be altogether another being. Remembrance of the past is a guidepost, or a beacon, for the future.
The key-word of this passage is “all:” “all the way;” “every word;” “all the commandments.”

I. THE SCOPE OF MEMORY. “All the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee.”

1. Remember thy needshow many, how various, how urgent. Our hourly dependence upon material substance for food, and upon a Power beyond and above ourselves, ought to make us profoundly humble. Is there an occupant of this globe so full of need of many sorts as man?

2. Remember thy special perils. Every man has his particular dangers, as the Hebrews had in the desertperils arising from outward circumstance, moral temptations, evil powers, personal defects and infirmities, distinctive vocation.

3. Remember God‘s suitable supplies. Their needs in the desert were unique and unprecedented; yet God was prepared for every emergency. It was open to him either to diminish the need, or else to institute new methods of supply. What if the sandy soil refused to yield a harvest? He can distil a harvest from the dewy air. What if flax be wanting as a material from which to fabricate raiment! He can stay, by a volition, the progress of decay and wear. What though the journeys tend to injure and blister the feet? He can make the skin durable as iron and brass. There shall be special blessing for special need. Every man’s history is more or less special. Every point of our past history teems with footprints of God. Placed under the microscope of pious memory, every atom yields surprising lessons, sparkling truths.

II. THE MORAL USES OF MEMORY. They may be summed up under one head, viz. to perceive that God was in every eventthat every word of God is a force for giving life.

1. A calm review of the past discovers the moral purpose God has kept in view. As when a man stands in the midst of complicated machinery, he is deafened by the roar, and bewildered by the manifold movements, that he cannot detect the definite end which that machine serves. To gum that knowledge, he must move away, and take in by one glance the effect of the whole. So, amid the whirl and excitement of passing events, we do not discern the definite purpose God has in view. We must get a bird’s-eye view kern a new elevation. To reduce the pride of man’s heart, to persuade him that God rules, are laudable purposes of Divine leadings.

2. The remembrance of the past exhibits the fatherly disciplines of God. Mingled tenderness and severity is conspicuous in God’s dealings. We can see now that we had the sunshine of his favor when we kept the pathway of obedience, and that as often as we became wayward, the rod of his indignation fell. We can see now the likeness between God’s treatment of us, and our fatherly treatment of our children. Faithful discipline is better every way than foolish fondness.

3. Memory revealed to them the fact that God was making in their life a great experiment. The vicissitudes and hardships and surprising deliverances in the wilderness were now seen to be tests, by which God would discover whether the people were worthy of Canaan, competent to be the depository of his truth. The object was to prove them, whether they could be entrusted with this Divine mission. So, every man’s life is God’s experiment. The question to be solved in each of our lives is this,” Are we worthy a place in God’s eternal kingdom?” Every effort is made by God to make this experiment successful.

4. A review of the past serves to show that man has a nobler life than that of the body. The main purpose why the Hebrews had been fed for forty years on manna was this, viz. to demonstrate that our well-being is not dependent on material things. Man lives not by bread, but by the Divine word. Even bread itself is a product of God’s word. All the processes of mastication, digestion, assimilation, are the effects of Divine command. Our entire life is nourished by the word of God. Practical obedience is to the soul’s life what digestion is to the life of the body. “My meat and drink is to do the will of my Father in heaven.”

III. THE BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF A MEMORY DEVOUTLY EXERCISED. If we remember “all the way”its subtle and intricate windings, and the faithful leadership of our Guide; if we appreciate the vital value of “every word” of Jehovah; we shall resolve henceforth to keep “all his commandments.”

1. Remembrance will excite gratitude. Our gratitude is largely deficient, because we do not consider and reflect. if memory will fulfill her office well in supplying fuel for the altar of the heart, the flame of love will burn with a more constant glow.

2. Remembrance of Divine favors will convince us that God‘s interests and ours are identical. It is the natural effect of sin to persuade us that God is our enemy. We say, “Depart from us.” But, when with unbiased mind we ponder the proofs of God’s kindness, we yield to the evidence that he is a true Friend. Experience teaches us that it is our interest to obey.

3. Remembrance of past favors aids the operations of conscience. The conscience becomes hard before it becomes blind. Whatever keeps alive feeling in the conscience benefits the whole man. If there be light and life in a man’s conscience, he will resolutely say, “I must not sin. I will fear God and keep his commandments.”

4. Vivid remembrance of God‘s past goodness is a vigorous incentive to obedience. A sense of obligation for the past cannot fully express itself, except in acts of hearty obedience. When we realize fully that our every step has been under God’s guidance, that every good thing has come from our Father’s hand, and that every word of his is empowered to give us joyous life,then are we constrained to say, “All that the Lord commandeth us will we do.”D.

Deu 8:7-20

Wealth perilous to piety.

God’s policy in the government of men is to win by prodigal kindness. A churlish parsimony has never been found with him; the very opposite. An open eye discovers widespread munificencea royal banquet. The present is only a sample of the future. The full inheritance is always the object of hope. The children of a king have large expectations. This passage contains

I. A NOTABLE INSTANCE OF DIVINE MUNIFICENCE.

1. The heritage of Israel was a “good land.” Both climate and soil were suited to every variety of natural production. The fruits of the North, and the fruits of the Tropics, might alike find a home there. Untold ages had passed, during which God had been slowly preparing that land for Israel, and storing it with elements of fertility, and wealth of minerals.

2. Others had been employed to bring the virgin soil under culture. The harder and more unprofitable toil bad been accomplished. The house of Israel was already well furnished, as when a bridegroom brings home his bride.

3. There was every variety of provision. This betokened thoughtful foresight and tender affection. No needed good had been overlooked. The beneficent Creator had furnished, not only the necessaries of life, but every luxury. Whatever could please the palate, or gratify a taste, or invigorate the health, was there. These were pictures of heavenly good; for as yet the people could not appreciate the imperishable treasures of the spirit-land.

4. This inheritance was unpurchased and unreserved. It made them, body and soul, debtors to God. Had they preferred to purchase it with money, they had naught of their own; they could not create the medium of barter. They had not obtained it by the merit of obedience. They were the recipients of distinguished favorpensioners on the Divine bounty. If it be said that they obtained the land by right of conquest, it must be counter-said that the Lord had given them victory. The battle was the Lord’s. Herein God designed to conquer their proud spirits by the generosity of his love.

5. This inheritance was not the final end. God had ulterior purposes of good yet beyond, towards the realization of which this was a stepping-stone. His next design was to “establish his covenant with them.” At present, they were reaping the fruit of their fathers’ faith. This was a reward for Abraham’s piety. If they should prove faithful, they too should be promoted to higher things. Canaan was not a home, but a school-house.

II. THE PASSAGE CONTAINS VALUABLE COUNSEL. The counsels of clear-eyed, venerable wisdom are more precious than pearls.

1. The counsel prescribes grateful recollection. Having received such measureless kindness, it would be the rankest villany to forget the Giver. Over the sunken rock of ingratitude a triple beacon stands: “Beware!” Give this murderous reef ample sea-room. Here many a gallant ship has gone to pieces.

2. The counsel directs suitable requital. “Thou shalt bless the Lord thy God!” But can man confer any blessing on his Maker? Can we add to God’s wealth or enjoyment? In a sense we can. Dispositions are accepted as deeds. If we are not willing to give to God all we have, our hearts are base. We can bring him the wealth of our love. We can bring him the music of our praise. We can bring him the devotion of our lives. Does his voice whisper to us from heaven, “It is well that it is in thine heart?” Does he smell the sweet savor of our sacrifice?

3. The counsel includes practical obedience. Obedience, if genuine, will be complete. It will embrace every known command. If we observe some commandments, and consciously neglect others, this is not obedience; we are merely doing our own will. Whether we perceive the reason of the command or not, we shall honor it as oar Lord’s willas our Lord himself. No matter what compliance costs, we will give it. Ours not to reason why. True obedience is hearty, complete, perpetual.

III. THIS PASSAGE INDICATES IMMINENT PERILS.

1. Wealth often leads to fleshly indulgence. With abundance in our possession, it is easier to indulge the appetites than to deny them. Yet the higher life can only be developed at the expense of the lower. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom.”

2. Wealth breeds self-sufficient pride. It serves to weaken our sense of dependence upon God. When from our visible stores every felt need can be supplied, we are prone to forget the unseen Giver. Most men may well thank God that the temptations of wealth dwell not under their roofs. “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!” In the hot-bed of riches, the flower of sweet humility does not thrive.

3. Wealth loses sight of its own origin. It has a short memory for obligations. The millionaire soon forgets the days of poverty and struggleforgets the Friend who succored him in his extremitykicks away the ladder by which he rose. Riches naturally encumber and stifle the flame of religious feeling.

4. Riches beget in us false confidence. Like Nebuchadnezzar, we say, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?” We find a delicious pleasure in hearing our own skill and sagacity praised. The tide of natural feeling sets strongly towards self-trust.

5. Riches tend towards idolatry. In the days of poverty we did not object to be accounted singular; but in the time of wealth we aspire to do as others do. It is arduous to have to think for one’s self, to rely upon one’s own judgments, to pursue a course which men will ridicule. If others bow clown to their own net, or rear a popular idol, we too must bow down and worship it. Wealth has given us prominence, set us on high, and we must not risk our new reputation. It is easier to drift with the stream than to stem it.

6. Justice, with her balances and sword, is always nigh. No man can defraud God. If the Amorites were thrust out from the land because they had become flagrant idolaters, so also shall the Israelites if they become votaries of idols. As the Hebrews conquered the Canaanites, so did the Assyrians vanquish the Hebrews. One law shall prevail for all. If we have not been overwhelmed in one disaster, we may be overtaken suddenly by another minister of justice. Sin shall bear its own proper fruit. Every nation and every individual shall “go to his own place.” From the summit of earthly magnificence to the lowest pit of misery, there is often a single step. “I saw,” says Bunyan, “that there was a way to hell, even from the gate of the celestial city.” “Be not highminded, but fear.” Riches make a slippery descent to ruin.D.

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Deu 8:2-6

The uses of adversity.

It is a great matter when in any experience of life we can read the Divine purpose in bringing us through it. The speaker in these verses unfolds the design and lessons of the wilderness discipline. Our Lord, in the temptation, found an application to himself (Mat 4:4). Every believer will find the same in seasons of adversity.

I. ADVERSITY A DIVINE ORDINANCE. (Deu 8:2.)

1. Divinely sent. “The Lord thy God led thee” (cf. Mat 4:1). Jesus led of the Spirit into the wilderness. Adversity may come through natural laws, as the necessary result of sin or folly; even so it is of God’s ordinancethe punitive expression of his will. But adversity is not necessarily punitive. The best man living may be led into straits of affliction, of which his own actions are not in the least the causes (Job 1:1-22; Job 2:1-13). It is God who has “led” him thither for some purpose of his own.

2. The duration of which is divinely determined: “these forty years.” God marks for us the term of our probations. Jesus was “forty days” without bread (Mat 4:2).

II. THE GRACIOUS USES OF ADVERSITY. That of the Israelites was designed:

1. To humble them. It aimed at destroying the spirit of self-dependence, out of which comes pride and haughtiness (Deu 8:17, Deu 8:18). It made them feel how absolutely they depended for everything upon Godtaught them how at every step they hung upon his will.

2. To teach them reliance. Faith is reliance on a Divine Power working for us and in us. “What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” Faith cannot tell, but it waits God’s time and God’s way of providing, confident that in his own way he will provide. This was Christ’s attitude in the wilderness (Mat 4:4).

3. To test obedience. Adversity acts as a test of the disposition. The end of God’s discipline is to bring to light hidden lines of character, and to advance life to a crisis. It threes us to moral determination. Will we obey God or will we not? The younger generation of Israel, whatever their faults, showed by their conduct then and thereafter (Jos 24:31) that the discipline of the wilderness had not been without good results.

III. GOD IS WITH US IN ADVERSITY. Though bread failed, God fed them with manna (Deu 8:3). Their every want was supplied. Jesus teaches us to trust the Father for the supply of all our needs (Mat 3:1-17 :25, 34). His own trust, vindicated in the refusal to make stones into bread, was rewarded by angels ministering unto him (Mat 4:11). He “ate angels food” (Psa 78:25). Our wants are not supplied by miracle, but by providence, which is all-sufficient to provide for us in every ordinary case.J.O.

Deu 8:3

Not bread, but God’s Word.

The lesson of the manna gathered up into one concise sentence. It teaches us

I. TO SEE GOD IN SECONDARY CAUSES. The Word of God is as truly the creative and nourishing principle in ordinary bread as it was in the extraordinary supply of manna. It is not bread, as something subsisting independently, but bread as the product of Divine power, and as possessing properties which the Word of God imparts to it and upholds in it, which is the staff of life and the object of our prayers (Mat 6:11).

II. TO BELIEVE IN GOD ACTING ABOVE NATURE AS WELL AS IN IT. If God wills life to be sustained, he can sustain it in other ways than by bread. He is not tied up to one set of means. He can act, if it pleases him, independently of means altogether, the creative word being sufficient to sustain. This is the direct meaning of the text, and a part of the significance of Christ’s answer to the tempter (Mat 4:4).

III. TO RECOGNIZE IN MAN THE EXISTENCE OF A HIGHER LIFE THAN THE PHYSICAL. The physical is not the highest in us. We do not live by bread alone. A higher life is found in depending on God’s Word, in obeying it, and in abiding by it, whatever the immediate consequences. The lower life may need to be given up that the higher may be saved (Mat 16:25).J.O.

Deu 8:5

God the Chastener.

I. CHASTISEMENT IS A NECESSITY OF OUR MORAL NATURE. He is no wise parent who spares the rod when the good of the child requires that chastisement be administered. Gentler methods failing, the undutiful son ought to be chastised, he deserves it. He needs the discipline. It acts wholesomely upon him, awakening conscience, begetting respect for paternal authority, deterring from evil, leading probably to penitence and submission.

II. CHASTISEMENT IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF GOD‘S TREATMENT OF HIS CHILDREN. His chastisements proceed from love (Heb 12:6). They are wisely meted out, and are always for our profit (Heb 12:10). God can bear to punish. He will not allow our faults to slip. He will make us feel when we do wrong, hedging up our way, and laying stripes upon us. God’s children have the comfort of knowing that they are thus in a Father’s hand, and that in all they suffer they are being chastened by unerring love and wisdom.

III. CHASTISEMENT IS A PART OF GOD‘S DISCIPLINE OF US FOR WHICH WE SHOULD BE GRATEFUL. Not murmuring, but submitting to it. Without this chastisement:

1. How forgetful of God would we soon become!

2. How haughty and self-willed!

3. How dilatory in duty!J.O.

Deu 8:7-10

The good land.

I. A LAND OF GREAT NATURAL ADVANTAGESa wealthy possession. Wood, water, metals, a fertile soil, good pasturage, honey in the clefts of the rocks, etc. (Deu 11:11, Deu 11:12; Deu 33:13-16, Deu 33:19, Deu 33:25). Dr. Dykes remarks on it as uniting, as no other does, the two indispensable conditions of central position and yet of isolation, and points out that few regions offer so few temptations to corrupt the simplicity of their inhabitants, or better facilities for the defense of their liberties (‘Abraham,’ Deu 3:1-29.). A yet richer inheritance awaits the Christian, who is brought through the fire and water of tribulation to “a wealthy place” (Psa 66:12; 2Co 4:17, 2Co 4:18; Heb 11:16; 1Pe 1:4).

II. A LAND OF GREAT OUTWARD PLEASANTNESSa beautiful possession. The speaker dwells in captivating detail on the features of its beautyits hills and valleys, gushing with springs and cleft with innumerable water-courses; picturesque in its scenery, richly cultivated, diversified in its natural productions; blending with its agricultural and pastoral beauties the graces of the vine-clad slope, of the olive garden, of orchards of luscious fruits. A type of the fairer land beyondthe Canaan of the skies.

III. A LAND OF EXHAUSTLESS PLENTYa satisfying possession. “Eat bread without scarceness,” etc. (Deu 8:9). God was not ashamed to be called their God, having provided for them so rich a possession. Yet how poor were its satisfactions as compared with those which await believers (Rev 21:4)!

The land was given them in fulfillment of promise; for the possession of it God had been preparing them in the wilderness; and the sharpness of the desert experience made the rest and delights of it sweeter when they came. “Trials make the promise sweet;” etc.J.O.

Deu 8:10-19

The dangers of wealth.

I. WEALTH IS DANGEROUS WITHOUT THE PREVIOUS TRAINING OF ADVERSITY. Those who, cradled in the lap of luxury, have never known struggle and difficulty are rarely persons of meek, humble, chastened dispositions. As rarely are those whose schemes have been so uniformly prosperous as to give color to the thought, “My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.” The former class lack moral fiber, are seldom competent to grapple with the problems of earnest life, shrink from action, and consequently fall an easy prey to the temptations of their wealth. The others are bold, daring, self-sufficient, and superior to religious considerations. They waive God aside from their plans and schemes”I do not need that hypothesis”and refuse to worship, honor, pray to, or serve him. Adversity, to a certain extent, tends to correct these faults. It teaches humility and dependence, proves the heart, and forms it to habits which enable it to use wealth rightly.

II. WEALTH IS DANGEROUS, EVEN WITH THE TRAINING OF ADVERSITY, UNLESS THE LESSONS OF ADVERSITY HAVE BEEN IMPROVED. Adversity, unhappily, does not always produce in men’s hearts the salutary effects which philosophy assigns to it. It may harden instead of softening and subduing. Multitudes pass through it and are none the better. They are unyielding, unsubmissive, impenitent. They grow bitter in spirit, and accuse the God of heaven. In such a case the return of prosperity, or the gift of it, is no blessing. The heart gets haughtier than ever, and God is defied (Oba 1:3, Oba 1:4). It is a serious question for a nation to put to itself, after passing through a period of adversity, Is it morally the better for its sufferings? For, if not, the revival of prosperity will mean but the revival of the old follies, extravagances, and inflationsthe very things which formerly led God to turn his frown upon it.

III. THERE IS A DANGER, WHEN WEALTH COMES, OF THE LESSONS LEARNED IN ADVERSITY BEING AGAIN FORGOTTEN. This is the peculiar danger apprehended in the text. Wealth has so subtle and ensnaring an influence, it draws the affections so stealthily away from God, that no temptation is to be compared with it in point of insidiousness. A threefold danger:

1. Undue elation of heart.

2. Forgetfulness of God.

3. A spirit of self-sufficiency and self-glorification.

The preventive lies in the cultivation of a thankful spirit (Deu 8:10), and in the recollection that the power to get wealth is not of ourselves, but from God (Deu 8:18). This is the root-error in the matterstopping at second causes, putting nature and nature’s laws, or our own wisdom, energy, and forethought, in place of him without whom we could not think a thought, move a muscle, or carry through to completion one of our purposes. Best preventive of all is the laying up of treasure in heaven; for, “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mat 6:19-22).J.O.

Deu 8:10

The blessing of a thankful spirit.

I. A THANKFUL SPIRIT CONSERVES THE BLESSINGS OF THE FAST. It goes back on God’s dealings with it. It keeps alive the memory of his goodness. It delights in counting over the blessings it has received (Psa 40:5). In it the fountain of gratitude can never get frozen up, for the springs are daily flowing from a warm heart (Psa 103:1-4).

II. A THANKFUL SPIRIT ENABLES US TO USE ARIGHT THE BLESSINGS OF THE PRESENT. It guards against sinful elation, against proud self-sufficiency. It keeps us from forgetting whence our blessings flow. By a sense of God’s goodness daily renewing itself, it makes the heart kind and sympathetic, sensitive to the wants and woes of others. The spirit is softened and sweetened. Under adversity, it conduces to resignation and cheerfulness.

III. A THANKFUL SPIRIT HELPS US TO PRAY FOR BLESSINGS IN THE FUTURE. Hence the rule that prayer is to be accompanied with thanksgivings (Eph 5:20; Col 3:15; Php 4:6). Thanksgiving strengthens faith, gives encouragement, enables us to pray with due submission to God’s will, prepares us for the reception of the blessings that we seek. Without thankfulness for past mercies, it is impossible to pray aright for future ones.J.O.

Deu 8:16

Good at the latter end.

I. GOD‘S DISCIPLINE OF US IS NOT WITHOUT ITS END. No man even, whose action has any meaning in it, but has an end in what he does. It may be alleged that God’s action has regard to men only in the mass; that in that view of it his action has an end; but that a special purpose is not traceable in his dealings with individuals. The truer philosophy sees purpose everywhere. The individual soul is of interest to God. He deems it worthy of being an end in itself. Though subordinately to the general good, he shapes his providence with a view to its individual well-being (Mat 10:29-31). For

II. GOD‘S DISCIPLINE OF US IS MEANT TO TURN TO OUR ULTIMATE ADVANTAGE. “To do thee good at thy latter end.” The immediate object of God’s discipline is to form character; to create and develop love, trust, and obedience; to uproot evil dispositions; to break down self-will and self-dependence. The ultimate end of it is the service and blessedness of heaven. There may be some service which God is preparing us for on earth, some possession he wishes to give us, some trust he is about to repose in us. But heaven is the goal of all (2Co 4:17; 1Pe 1:7; Rev 3:10-13; Rev 7:13-17).

III. THE END OF GOD‘S DISCIPLINE OF US WILL NOT RE FULLY SEEN TILL THE GOAL IS REACHED. Till then our duty is to do present work, and improve by present training.J.O.

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR

Deu 8:1-6

The lessons of the wilderness.

Moses here recalls the leadings of God in the wilderness, for the warning and instruction of the Israelites. And we are taught, surely, such lessons as these

I. THE WAY OF SALVATION IS ONE ALSO OF HUMILIATION‘. This is, indeed, God’s plan, “to hide pride from us.” The way of salvation through Christ is humiliating. We are proved by it and made to see what is in our heart.

II. AT THE SAME TIME, IT IS A WAY OF MARVELLOUS MERCY. For God supplies our wants and sustains us in a truly marvelous way, like the Israelites in the wilderness. Thus

1. The manna was to teach them dependence on his word. It was given when they were hungry and despairing; it was given daily; its only guarantee of continuance was God’s promise;all was, therefore, to keep them depending upon his sure word. And life’s discipline brings us to the same persuasion that man must live upon the promise proceeding out of the mouth of God (cf. Mat 4:4). Our Savior vanquished Satan’s insinuation that he must use his miraculous power or perish, by resolving to continue trusting in God.

2. The raiment did not wax old, to strengthen still further their trust. It was a wonderful arrangement which allowed them forty years’ wear in the wilderness out of the same garments. It must have been good clothing from Egyptian looms. But after starting there it remained, resisting the tooth of time. Each Israelite had evidence on his person of a particular providence.

3. Neither did the pilgrims become footsore. Their feet did not swell. They were made equal to their journey. The wilderness was not too rough for them. Their freedom from bodily inconvenience must have been a great source of satisfaction and comfort to them. In a similar way does God supply all our need and fit us for our pilgrimage.

III. GOD‘S CHASTISEMENTS ARE PATERNAL. So was it with Israel in the wilderness. They suffered at the hands of God, but it was what wayward children might expect from a faithful parent. So is it with ourselves (cf. Psa 103:13; Heb 12:1-14). Pain becomes blessed when we know that love sent it for a gracious purpose. We are all in the hands of a Father in heaven. He deals with us according to his infinite wisdom and love. Let us make more of the lessons of this wilderness journey than ever, and go on in the strength of God towards the everlasting home, profiting by his chastisements on the way.R.M.E.

Deu 8:7-20

God forgotten amid second causes.

The support of the wilderness was manifestly miraculous. They could not doubt their dependence there upon God. They might murmur even amid daily miracle, but they could not doubt it. It would be different in Canaan, and it is in view of this Moses warns them. There they would get sustenance in ordinary ways; and they might say that their own power, and not God’s blessing, made them wealthy.

I. THERE IS A VERY GREAT TENDENCY TO FORGET GOD AMID THE ORDER OF NATURE. It is supposed God has nothing to do, because we get our supplies through steady “second causes.” But God claims recognition when he blesses us through ordinary channels as well as when he blesses us through extraordinary. The natural order is either due to God or arranged itself. We have not credulity sufficient for the latter hypothesis, and must accept the former.

II. WHEN GOD ASKS US TO BE FELLOW–WORKERS WITH HIM, IT IS NOT TO BE ENGROSSED WITH OUR WORK AND TO IGNORE HIS. In the wilderness God fed them out of his own hand, so to speak. But in Canaan he directed them to work for their daily bread. They were raised from being “spoon-fed” to be “fellow-workers.” The temptation in Canaan gas to think that their own hand and power had produced the wealth. It is the same still. From being fellow-workers with God, men, by mere forget fullness, pass into the delusion of being sole workers. Life is workable, they think, without God. Atheism is the principle underlying such a life.

III. THIS UNHOLY INDEPENDENCE OF SPIRIT IS THE SURE PRELUDE OF NATIONAL DECAY. It is not national “self-reliance” which serves a state, but national reliance upon God in the use of the means he has appointed. Nations that think they can get on alone are left at length to do so, and God-deserted they perish. The Canaanites were illustrating this in their own case. They should be a warning to Israel. Living without God in the world, depending on themselves, they were about to be removed violently from their ancestral scats. It was so afterwards with Israel. They were as a nation effaced from the land where they had been placed in probation. The captivity of the ton tribes was terrible, and so was that of Judah and Benjamin. It is this which nations must still guard against. God will not be ignored. If nations attempt it, they only efface themselves. Dying dynasties and scattered nations proclaim the existence and retribution of God.

IV. HOW NEEDFUL, THEN, TO RECOGNIZE GOD‘S HAND IN ALL THINGS! The procession of natureall that is beautiful in second causes, has come from him. The “First Cause” may surely be allowed to work through “second causes” without forfeiting his right to recognition and thanksgiving. Our times are largely atheistic, because our little knowledge of second causes affords such fussy occupation to us, that we have not taste or time to see the First Cause behind all and using all for his glory.R.M.E.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Deu 8:1-20

1All the commandments [commandment] which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, an multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. 2And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee [has caused thee to go] these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments [commandment] or no. 3And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with [suffered thee to eat] manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth [every out-going] out of the mouth of the Lord, doth man live. 4Thy raiment waxed not old [fell not away from] upon thee, neither did thy foot swell1 5[trickle] these forty years. Thou shalt also consider in [with] thine heart, that as 6a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore [and] thou shalt keep the commandments [commandment] of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. 7For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains, and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; 8A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, a land of oil-olive2 [olive trees], and honey; 9A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.3 10When thou hast eaten [And thou eatest] and art full, then thou shalt bless [and blessedst] the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee. 11Beware that thou forget [Keep thee, lest thou forget] not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments [commandment], and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day: 12Lest when thou hast eaten, and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt 13therein; And when thy herds and thy flocks [small cattle] multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; 14Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage [servants]; 15Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were [omit wherein were] fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought [dry land], where there was no water: who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; 16Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end: 17And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. 18But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. 19And it shall be, if thou do at all forget4 [in fact forgettest] the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship [bowest down to] them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. 20As the nations [heathen] which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because [for this; for a reward] ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Deu 8:1-6. As Moses ever keeps in view the purpose of his deuteronomic discourses, it cannot appear strange if he, when the occasion offers, announces it again. Repetition has the tendency rather to strengthen than to weaken this discourse. The emphasis upon the whole law (all the commandments) (Deu 8:1, as Deu 6:24-25; comp. Deu 8:1; Deu 7:11) shows that this occurs not merely for the sake of the repetition, not even alone for the explanation of individual commands from the idea of the whole, hut also for the enlargement, completeness (Deu 5:28), especially through the prominence given to the motives to obedience, and with reference to Canaan (the rationes legi adject). It is less a repeated, than a continuous (this day) enduring (part. ) law-giving. The work cleaves to the person; while Moses lives, he gives the law. So thoroughly is he the bearer of his idea. The expressions are nearly stereotype. Comp. Deu 4:2; Deu 6:1; Deu 5:1; Deu 6:3; Deu 5:30; Deu 6:18; Deu 7:13. Deu 8:2. And thou shalt remember, as Deu 5:15. The recollection of the leading through the wilderness, (Deu 1:31; Deu 2:7) bears here upon the obedience to the commands. God works this obedience only from the self-conscious man, in that He brings him to a true self-consciousness (Luk 15:17), i.e., of his own weakness (as over against the divine omnipotence) of his sin (which the sense of the holiness and righteousness of God produces), of his ingratitude (in view of the love of God). in Piel (Gen 34:2) points out this more and more intimate power exercised over any one. Broken in his own strength, humbled from his self-presumption, the man is referred to God (Gen 32:26-27), to hear and obey Him. With this purpose in the leading through the wilderness, ( confessedly from in the sense to incline, declare his meaning, to aim at, and thus the humiliation of Israel and the design of God coincide) are connected to prove and to know as secondary or incidental designs () which may be distinguished from each other as means and ends, or as subjective and objective: since the knowledge here is only of service to God, as it serves to reveal the people to themselves, as it justifies His ways to them in every case (comp. Doct. and Ethical 2, on Deu 1:1-6). With such a knowledge of Israel, there (what was in thine heart), was naturally sought at the same time the knowledge in what it would result (whether thou wouldst keep) and thus the pedagogical significance of the wilderness agrees well, with the end for which the recollection of the way through the wilderness was here enjoined. Since the humiliation is the means of discipline unto obedience (Psa 119:67; Psa 119:71) so it is not only confirmed, but Deu 8:3 specifically exemplified with respect to food, as in Deu 8:4 with respect to the clothing of Israel in the desert (Isa 3:7). Hunger is not alluded to as a temptation any more than the knowledge of Deu 8:3 is co-extensive with that of Deu 8:2, but as introductory, preparatory, and throwing light upon the feeding with manna. Hunger, the want of bread, and desire for it (Exo 16:3 sq.; Num 21:5). Which thou knowest not qualifies and characterizes this feeding. The more unknown, the more clearly separated from the usual means of life. Not upon bread alone (Gen 27:40; Isa 38:16) as the ordinary food, as if instar omnium, upon which the life of man rests (Lev 26:26; Isa 3:1; Eze 4:16; Eze 5:16). [Wordsworth: As if bread could nourish life irrespective of Gods will, or as if He could not support life without it, or without any means at all. See Mat 4:4, where He who is the living bread quotes these words against the tempter.A. G.]. But by every word, not: but also upon, rather: much more upon, sq. Thus not the bread, but the Lord. Literally, every outgoing of the mouth of Jehovah, word, command, promise, thus not specially the law. But if the life of men rests upon the mouth of God, then men must cleave to the mouth of God and obey Him. Comp. Deu 1:26; Deu 1:43. Obedience is not only better than sacrifice, (1Sa 15:22) but even than bread, (Joh 4:34). The feeding with manna was therefore the most decided, and at the same time to the believer the most blessed humiliation (Psa 73:25). If man lives upon the Lord, so the Lord can nourish and sustain his life, in every way, even miraculously. Mat 4:4; Luk 4:4. God is thus simply indispensable to the life of men in every aspect (Deu 29:5); Joh 6:32 sq [The lesson was thus taught, that it is not nature which nourishes man, but God the Creator, by and through nature; and generally that God is not tied to the particular channels through which He is pleased to work. Bib. Com.A. G.]. As in the manna extraordinary food was miraculously created, the creative power of God remedied the hunger, so Deu 8:4 presents the providence of God to the people, which in so marvellous a way preserves their clothing beyond what could have been expected, Starke: That thou hast not necessarily to wear rent garments and such as could not cover thee). , to become soft, liquid, water blisters upon the feet, because the sandals being worn out they were compelled to march barefoot. It was a miraculous blessing, Moses says, without once stopping to reason why it should occur. It does not exclude the use of the natural supplies to which Kurtz refers, the rich herds supplying abundantly wool and leather, the numerous garments and sandals which every Israelite must have possessed, (Exo 12:34-35) the garments of the Egyptians which were washed ashore (Exo 14:30) and the booty they would have secured from the Amalekites, sq. We need not hold with some Jewish Rabbis, or some Christian expositors, that the clothes and shoes upon the children grew with their growth, or with a reference to Eze 16:10 sq., that the Angel was present as a tailor in the wilderness. Comp. upon Deu 2:7. [It is idle, of course, to speculate as to the process by which this result was secured, as it would be to ask how Christ multiplied the loaves and fishes. But while we need not overlook the natural supplies, nor exclude human agency in part, as that agency was used in collecting and preparing the manna; it is clear that these natural supplies were supplemented by some special and miraculous exercise of the divine power.A. G.]. Deu 8:5. And consider, as and remember, in Deu 8:2. The recollection of the journey through the wilderness should serve to bring Israel to the consideration which that leading had in view, hence the comparison, (Exo 4:22) of a man and his son, as Deu 1:31, and chasteneth (Schroeder instructeth) as in Deu 4:36. Comp. the same. To give such knowledge God is continually teaching. And this instruction is very fitting here, where Moses calls attention to obedience. . Comp. Deu 4:39). Deu 8:6. Announces the practical end (Deu 4:10; Deu 6:24). To walk in his ways, in opposition to Deu 4:3; Deu 6:14, thus to follow Him in the way in which He leads His people, and has pointed out in His law, which is equivalent to walking in His commandments, i.e., to do them, to live according to them, Deu 10:12; Deu 11:22; Deu 19:9; Deu 26:17.

2. Deu 8:7-10. Over against the wilderness with its miraculous leading, Canaan now enters as the goal of this leading, in a comprehensive and gorgeous description; the extraordinary there, becomes here nearly the ordinary, because belonging to the character of the land. Whoever there has, to him shall be given, that he may have abundantly. So much greater is the obligation to obedience. [This description of the land is peculiarly appropriate on the supposition that Moses actually described it, just as the people stood upon its borders, and with a view to encourage them to faithfulness and obedience. It would have been comparatively aimless if the book came from a later author, and out of entirely different circumstances.A. G.]. Deu 8:7. (Deu 3:25; Deu 4:21). usually the waves of the sea, as the sea, but here the masses of water below the earth, which here and there find issue through the surface. We think of the valley streams, as the Arnon, the Jabbok, sq., but especially of the Jordan, with its seas, its different sources in Lebanon and Hermon, fed by the snows and rains upon its lofty summit, and grotto basins, through its icy treasure chambers and caverns, kept in its course through the whole year, while nearly all the other Syrian streams sink away through the dry season. Thus abundance of water. Then fruitfulness, as also Tacitus, Ammian, and others (Winer, II., p. 188), affirm. Wheat in abundance (1Ki 5:11; Eze 27:17) found even now in considerable measures. Barley for the cattle, especially for the horses, but used also for the poorer classes of the people, also largely raised. Vines, the cultivation of which constituted a main branch of agriculture, to which the land and climate are favorable. [The vine is still cultivated in Palestine in those parts in which there is a considerable population. See Stanley, S. and P., and RobinsonsBibl. Res.A. G.]. Vines and fig-trees used proverbially for the peaceful condition in Palestine. The pomegranates, partly wild, partly in gardens, of brilliant color, beautiful form, fruit, fleshy, juicy, and refreshing. the olive of oil (the olive tree which yields oil) in distinction from the wild olive ( ). The olive of Palestine was specially prized. Honey, the favorite food still in Eastern lands, used instead of the unknown sugar. Deu 8:9. A special application of such fruitfulness, with a reference to Gen 3:19, so that a characteristic feature of the lost paradise cleaves to the land. from to humble oneself, to be poor. It is as much as if he said, in which thou shalt not have to stoop to toil, and to pour out the sweat of thy brow in order to eat thy bread. But more generally, as, God is sufficient to Israel instead of the gods of the heathen, so His land affords all that is necessary, so that the people need not to enter into commerce with other people from any want or necessity, and may avoid dangerous alliances with them. Hence also the iron and the brass (copper) the indispensable metals are alluded to. Not only are the warm springs at Tiberias ferruginous, and the soil at Hasbeiya, strongly impregnated with iron, but iron stones are found upon Lebanon, and iron strata are supposed to exist between Jerusalem and Jericho (Eze 27:19). We are to think also of the ferruginous basalt in North Canaan, especially in the East of Jordan, and also in the land of the Amorites. Did Israel engage in mining, or did they neglect it? [See the passage in Job 28:1-11.A. G.]. Traces of former copper works are found on Lebanon. Deu 8:10 gives the result of the description of the land, which could not be deferred. It must be socannot be otherwise. The Jewish tradition of grace at meals, and indeed after meals, founded upon this passage is too narrow and special an explanation. In this respect Christ introduces the thanks and blessing before the meal, Mat 14:19; Mat 15:36; Mat 26:26.

3. Deu 8:10-20. Still how the transition to the warning reminds us of home and the Christian grace; Lord Jesus, let us never forget Thy love in the eating! Deu 8:11. Comp. Deu 4:9; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:23; Deu 6:12. To forget leads to the not keeping. Self-keeping guards against the forgetting, Deu 4:1 sq.; Deu 6:40; Deu 5:1; Deu 6:2-3; Deu 6:17; Deu 7:11; Deu 8:1. That thou forget not is the main thought here, hence Deu 8:12, illustrating practically the thought, resumes after the manner of Deu 6:10, the particulars completed in the next verse (Deu 7:13). Deu 8:14 shows how the want of self-circumspection finds utterance in self-exaltation, which is always with respect to Jehovah, boastfulness. Hence, as a conclusion, the great deeds of Jehovah are still once more succinctly stated; the exodus from Egypt, (Deu 6:12; Deu 6:21 sq.; Deu 7:8; Deu 7:19), and (Deu 8:15) the leading through the wilderness (Deu 8:2 sq.) in the light of which every thought of self-glorying falls away. Comp. Deu 1:19. The fearfulness is portrayed through the (Num 21:6). according to its primary sense, that which draws itself together, thus the coiled, rolled together (hence less easily distinguished and more dangerous) serpents,those peculiarly poisonous; and in its secondary meaning (even without the ) burning, whose bite produced burning inflammation. The Sinaitic peninsula abounds in all kinds of poisonous creeping animals. The following words are simply a rhetorical apposition, thrown together, without (Keil), and therefore the more striking. from to be dry, to thirst, leads fitly to the most wonderful (out of the flinty, hardest rock) water supply, to which the fever produced by the bite of the fiery serpents, even more fitly leads, as also that dryness and thirst were characteristics of the wilderness, in contrast with Canaan abounding in water (Deu 8:7). Exo 17:6; Num 20:11. Since the feeding with manna, Deu 8:16, refers back to Deu 8:3, and therefore must be regarded as a humiliation, so the two-fold () defining the end, appears, at least according to the sense, to be referred to the entire works of Jehovah mentioned, in any case, to those spoken of in Deu 8:15, after Deu 8:2. These deeds cannot be spoken of as favors, since the favors or good deeds are fixed at the end of Israel, i.e., not at the end of life, which is not involved in the connection, but the end of the desert journey. The favor of the promised land was the end of Israel here addressed; as if he had said the final act of kindness. [Wordsworth: The latter end of Israel was not only their entrance into Canaan, but it extends to the last days in which God comforted the true Israel of God by the coming of Christ.A. G.]. Deu 8:17 is a parallel continuation of Deu 8:14. In thine heart, lifting itself up, growing presumptuous. Moses traces the emotion to its source, as if he had said, think in thyself, persuade thyself. This wealth, land, possessions, position, etc. Deu 8:18. But remember (rather), for that would be to forget. That he may (the end, the purpose) establish (cause to stand up, preserve entire, fulfil) his covenant (Deu 4:31), especially the promise of Canaan (Gen 26:3). As it is this day (Deu 2:30; Deu 4:20). If the East Jordan region was conquered, the West Jordan also should be taken (Knobel) Deu 4:37 sq. A solemn testimony closes the warning, as Deu 4:26. Deu 8:19; Deu 6:10; Deu 12:14; Deu 5:9. Deu 8:20. If ye place yourselves by the side of the Canaanites in their apostacy, ye shall perish like them. A counterpart to Deu 7:12.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. Everything in the present life is laid under obligation in the Pentateuch, which aims at a life of ever renewed obedience to God, a life which carries in itself a security for that which lies beyond the present. This inward light serves to explain many of the expressions used, and understood especially of external earthly things, but which thus win a spiritual interpretation reaching to the other life (Deu 8:16). Thus, as Deu 8:18 shows, the legal character of Israel has its deep foundation in grace and faith. The reward excludes all righteousness of works.

2. Humiliation (comp. Exeget. and Crit.), the end of the leading through the wilderness. When thus pride in the possession of Canaan (Deu 8:14; Deu 8:17) was the result, the very opposite to the design of God appears, and hence also God could not at last do good (Deu 8:16) but must destroy, (Deu 8:19 sq). The like position in this case indeed with the Canaanites, shows us that Israel by nature was not different from the other nations. It is all grace, which it appropriates by faith, but must prove through obedience, as the preference of God for Israel approves itself morally through the moral teachings, legally in the ordo salutis. Therefore the whole leading of the people (Deu 8:14) especially in the desert, tends to humiliation. As the experience of our own nothingness is the first condition for grace, so humility, the consciousness that we deserve nothing, can accomplish nothing, remains the constant attendant of grace.

3. While humiliation is the general design, trial, temptation, is the peculiar characteristic of the wilderness. , from the root, to divide, separate, signifies to put to the test, to prove, thus to bring into a position, in which nature reveals itself in haughty confidence or despondency, and grace in man reveals itself in his faith or obedience. Wherefore humiliation, and especially temptation, terminate (Deu 8:16, ) in good (Jam 1:13 sq.). In the individual it works a correct knowledge (Deu 8:2) as to his relations to God; for the Church it serves also to distinguish the true from the false members, in entire accordance with the primary sense of the Hebrew word.

4. The desert and the temptation meet again in the Messiah, in whom the idea of Israel reaches completion (Matthew 4; Luke 4). The wilderness was especially appropriate to the temptation to lust, or to the hasty anticipation of their rest, which has its parallel in the Satanic through want or pain; and this temptation respects the ordinary things in life, that which was usual in Egypt. That it does not concern wealth or power is all the more clear, from the extraordinary character of the gifts, through which the giver represents Himself to His people. These gifts (water out of the flinty rock and manna) form a counterbalance to this temptation of the wilderness, similar to that which the solemn repeated warnings form to the gift of Canaan, the good deed, corresponding generally to the desert (Deu 8:19 sq.; Deu 6:10 sq.). Through these warnings Israel was prepared for the temptation which came with the possession of the promised land, as on the other hand the temptation through the desert was then completed. [It is the very object of this chapter, and this accords with the whole spirit and tone of the book, which is preparatory, provides for the futureto guard the Israelites against the temptation growing out of the possession of the promised land. Hitherto they had been under a peculiar discipline. They had lived at the hand of God, partly upon the supplies directly and miraculously given. It had been an humbling, but salutary process. Now their whole circumstances were to be changed, and the temptation would be to forgetfulness of God and self-dependence, against which Moses here warns them.A.G.]

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Deu 8:2. Luther: We never know our own hearts, which are ever open to God, more certainly than when we are tempted in poverty or other sorrows. Berl. Bib.: Many esteem themselves pious and righteous if they do nothing outwardly wicked, much more when they do what is good. Nothing is more needful for such than to be placed in temptation, and thus learn what is in them. God never constrains any to be good; He simply commands it (Deu 8:1). But as He allures men to the choice of God by all the promises of this life and that to come, and by corresponding threatenings, so He not only reveals what it is in their hearts, the wicked lusts, which prevent the choice, but also humbles men and trains them generally for the possessions to follow (Deu 30:15; Deu 30:19; Rom 12:21; Rom 5:3-5; Heb 12:7-11; 1Co 10:13; Psa 26:2; Psa 139:23 sq.; 1Pe 1:7; Jam 1:12; Mat 25:20 sq., 29). The divine programme of leading (educating, training) His children. Deu 8:3. Luther: He suffered thee to hunger before He gave thee manna, that although the manna never came, He might still support thee through that word in which He promised that He would be thy God, and never leave thee. Faith in the word of God nourishes not only the soul, but the body; although truly the ravens and the woman of Sarepta came at the right time to Elijah, and here also the manna. Thus faith teaches that we have a God, according to the sense of the first command (Psa 37:18; Psa 37:24). Cramer: The ordinary means by which God supports us are not to be despised; but if these fail, we should still trust in God for help. The divine chastisements as the continuous educating of the children of God will be considered in the heart (Deu 8:5) and observed in a divine walk in the fear of God (Deu 8:6). Deu 8:7 sq. The favor (blessing) of a good land: for the satisfying of our necessities, for independence and self-support (Deu 8:9). The spiritual application to the kingdom of God (Mat 6:33). Starke: Does God give so much on the earth, what will be done in heaven? Deu 8:10. Cramer: Are riches yours, fix not your heart upon them, Psa 62:10. Deu 8:16. Berl. Bib.: The end of the children of God is thus ever in blessing, as with Job and Lazarus. [Bib. Com.: The wilderness was to the Jewish Church analogous to the Cross, Canaan to the Crown.A. G.]. Deu 8:17-18. Tub. Bib.: Temporal prosperity is a blessing of God; but if not so regarded, it becomes a curse. Deu 8:19-20. Starke: Behold the goodness and the severity of God, Romans 11.

Footnotes:

[1][Deu 8:4. occurs only here and in Neh 11:21. It is variously rendered, callous, unshod, swell, connected with dough through the swelling in fermentation. Shroeder renders trickle or drop, from the water-blisters which would form upon unshod feet. A. V. seems best.A. G.]

[2][Deu 8:8. Margin: olive trees of oil.]

[3][Deu 8:9. Bib. Com. and Wordsworth render copper.A. G.]

[4][Deu 8:19. Forgetting, thou forgettest. We have no full equivalent. So again in the last clause; perishing, ye shall perish.A. G.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

The subject of Moses’ Sermon is continued through this chapter. The man of GOD makes use of some of the most persuasive arguments to enforce an observance of the holy precepts he had given to Israel.

Deu 8:1

Nothing can be more important to consider, both in a legal and in a gospel sense, than what Moses here mentions; that all GOD’S commands are alike to be regarded, and not with a partial attention. The apostle hath settled the vast consequence of this in a single verse, when he says, Whoever keepeth the whole law, but yet offendeth in one point, is guilty of all. Jas 2:10 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Way in the Wilderness (First Sunday of the Year)

Deu 8:2

(i) Let us emphasize the word all, for on that word the emphasis of the sentence truly lies.

(ii) The character of the path to be estimated not by the present difficulty or danger, but by the importance of the end.

(iii) The infinite variety of the way.

(iv) The beauty of the way. It is a goodly world which our God hath built and adorned for us, a world whose goodliness is ever around us.

(v) The bread of the wilderness. This miracle of the manna is repeated every day before our eyes.

(vi) The perils of the wilderness. Life is one long peril.

(vii) The sins of the wilderness. The past is best buried under a nobler present.

(viii) The chastisements of the way.

(ix) The Elims of the way, the sunny spots, the living verdure, the murmuring fountains, the rustling, shadowing palms.

(x) The end of the way. Each step the path will brighten as it nears the precincts of the Promised Land.

J. Baldwin Brown, Contemporary Pulpit vol. VI. p. 371.

References. VIII. 2. D. Burns, Christian World Pulpit, 1890, p. 88. John Mason, Lord’s Day Entertainments, vol. ii. p. 297. Bradley, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 284. E. M. Goulburn, Sermons, p. 485. Simeon, Works, vol. ii. p. 299. John Venn, Sermons, vol. iii. p. 397. T. Binney, Sermons (1st Series), p. 362. Kingsley, Discipline, p. 40. A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry (1st Series), p. 151. Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv. pp. 397 and 417. F. Bourdillon, Plain Sermons for Family Beading, p. 84. J. Vaughan, Sermons (14th Series), p. 156. A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry (1st Series), p. 151. VIII 2, 3. C. M. Betts, Eight Sermons, p. 61. VIII. 3. J. W. Walker, A Book of Lay Sermons, p. 133. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii. No. 418. VIII. 10, 11. G. A. Sowter, Sowing and Reaping, p. 84. VIII. 11-18. C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 197. VIII. 15. J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (4th Series), p. 175; ibid. Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. ii. p. 336. IX. 1. T. Arnold, Christian Life, vol. v. p. 305. IX. 6. Bishop Goodwin, Parish Sermons (5th Series), p. 78. IX. 26-29. F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 53. IX. 29. Bishop Lightfoot, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii. p. 63. T. Arnold, Christian Life, p. 305.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

The Plan of Life

Deu 8

This chapter may be considered as laying down the sacred and stimulating doctrine that our life is planned and ordered for us as to its divine side and moral obligation. We are not called upon to consider the great questions of moral duty or righteousness or good conduct in any of its vital springs, with a view to conceiving some plan of our own as to the realisation of perfect character. The idea of this chapter is that all moral duties have been defined and all moral limits have been divinely described and imposed, so that all we have to do is to concede the homage of rational and thankful obedience. This is a difficult lesson for the unrenewed human heart to learn; it is, however, the one lesson which runs through the entire scope of revelation from end to end. It would seem to be a tribute to human sagacity, and even a recognition of human responsibility, to have left every man to define right and wrong for himself and to discover on his own account the shortest and safest way to heaven. A conception of this kind represents a profound and fatal mistake; that mistake being that we are in any sense upon equal terms with the Creator and Preserver of our spirits. To begin truly we must begin with the assumption that we are of yesterday and know nothing, and that appearances alone reveal themselves to our imperfect vision, the spiritual and eternal reality of things being of necessity hidden from faculties which could not comprehend it. Thus the Biblical doctrine is one of human dependence upon divine revelation. All our quests after first principles and final issues are in reality expressions of the heart’s desire to find and understand the will of the eternal God. We may shrink from that form of expression as being perhaps almost superstitious to our present incomplete reason, but viewed in its largest issues it comes to this that man is everywhere seeking for the complete word, the divine term, the sure and everlasting rock. Having the spirit of little children, and coming to the Bible tenderly reverent to know definitely what God would have us do, we shall receive from the sacred page light for every day, comfort for every sorrow, and inspiration for every duty. If we appeal to the law and the testimony for the sake of finding materials for argument or abstract philosophy we shall kick against the pricks and involve ourselves in endless vexations. The Bible has nothing to say to such a spirit. It will only speak to the meek and lowly in heart, and to men who ask with reverent earnestness what God would have them do.

The plan of life is happily vindicated by the experience of life. Moses calls upon Israel to “remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years.” This is the happy issue of faith. Faith began without evidence of an external and positive kind, but as life advanced one day after another shaped itself into indisputable testimony, and so fortified the faith with a sacred and unimpeachable experience. We must begin with the faith and end with its verification. God will not allow us to begin at the other end: his plan is to train by trust, and to vindicate himself by the illumination which he vouchsafes to every day, so that the night shall corroborate the morning, and at eventide men shall praise God for the trust with which they began the day. Israel was not called upon so much to remember the literal road, but “the way,” that is the manner or method, or, as we might say, the genius of the whole journey. In the Acts of the Apostles the Christian life is more than once called “the way.” The journey of life is not made up of mere details and separate incidents; all these are strung upon what we may describe as the thread of a divine purpose, and it is to that thread we must constantly look if we would see the unity and the direction of the divine intent. It comes to this then, that every Christian believer must fall back upon his personal experience of “the way.” To personal knowledge the Christian may add the history of the whole Church. Individual experience and universal history concurring in an indivisible testimony, the result is a conviction which no mere argument or intellectual scepticism can either obscure or disturb. When Christian life is thus verified, Christian testimony will assume a lofty and definite tone. No longer will Christianity be found in the attitude of a mere apologist; it will rise to the dignity of a living witness conscious of perfect and even divine veracity. Without such consciousness what is preaching? what is public profession? what are Christian institutions? Everything depends upon the reality of the personal life, the true, deep joy of the renewed heart; to these experiences there is no answer, the attempted reply of mere words being without point and without effect.

In the third verse Moses lays down by inspiration the sublime doctrine that the sustenance of life is not confined to one method. His words are most remarkable: “And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” These words were used by Jesus Christ in reply to the temptation of Satan. The sustenance of human life has ever been a divine mystery on which God has never condescended to cast any light. God will sustain life in his own way. He gives it “manna,” a term which itself requires definition, and which has baffled all the attempts of investigators adequately and finally to solve. It is an utter mistake to suppose that God could not sustain human life or any other life without what is known as bread. We call bread the staff of life, and, as a general expression, the term is sufficiently accurate: but God is not dependent upon the processes of nature; he could support human life as he supports the angels in heaven: if he has made the eating of bread apparently necessary to the sustenance of the bodily frame, it is that he might make the cultivation of bread a practical means of human training and a bond of social union. It is not God who is dependent upon the bread as an instrument; it is man who is dependent upon it as a condition of commerce and the unit of the commonwealths of the world. By allowing the mind to assume that by bread only man can live, we direct our thoughts into a narrow and unworthy channel. We make man a debtor to the earth and a debtor to his own invention. The sublime doctrine of inspiration is that we live and move and have our being in God, and are in no sense, other than is involved in the divine sovereignty, either children of the dust, or debtors to anything which the ground can supply. He who is most conscious of his highest nature is least conscious of his bodily requirements. Now and again we have had happy experiences which at least remotely indicate that a time may come when life will be an expression of thought and feeling and worship, rather than a result of gratified appetite, or the cultivation of meaner things. All this cannot be expressed in words. We are thankful to have now and again a hint of that larger being, that holy consciousness which is best described by the thrilling word Immortality. Wonderful are the words of Christ upon this matter of the sustenance of life: “He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

The seventh verse reminds us that obedience is always associated with reward: “For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills,” and so the promise rolls on in noble eloquence, “A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil, olive, and honey.” This has been the divine method of cultivating and ennobling the human race from the beginning. Men can understand reward, or the coming in to great and abundant possession of such things as can be immediately used in the promotion of human comfort and human security. God has always availed himself of the principle of rewards and punishments in the training of mankind. His delight has been in pointing to an infinite and glorious heaven as the crown and glory of human obedience. It is not to be supposed that any appeal is thus made to the meaner nature, or the baser motives by which conduct is moved. Man needs kindly stimulus, a gracious impulsion on the way towards the city of light. It is possible that Christians may have outgrown the whole idea expressed by terms which ancient Israel could understand, but the very outgrowth is itself a testimony to the reality of the principle which is found in this chapter. A purely spiritual heaven would have had no meaning in the days of the Israelites. Moses and his people could only understand such words as brooks, fountains, wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; God meant all these words to be the beginning of spiritual terms, and the spirituality of the terms never could be realised until human experience had passed through all the consciousness excited and sustained by these practical promises.

Moses does not shrink from propounding the apparent contradiction that even a life of obedience must also be a life of chastening: “Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God to walk in his ways, and to fear him” ( Deu 8:5-6 ). It might be thought that obedience would escape chastening, and no doubt it would if the obedience were perfect; but obedience itself being, under present conditions, partial or imperfect, chastening is needed for the purification of motive and the subjugation of will. The wise man says that a wise parent seeketh chastening for his son. “Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” is a doctrine which the greatest teachers of Christianity have not shrunk from declaring. Chastening does not always mean what is generally understood as punishment. Chastening may mean a trial of patience, so that the will may be taught the habit of waiting, and expectation may become the beginning of prayer. God has always recognised the value of the element of time in the schooling of the human race. He did not give all his revelation at once, he did not send his Son into the world at the beginning: he does not immediately answer all prayers: the mystery of the operation of time has never yet been fully understood; day is to be added to day, and one event is to be linked on to another, periods of rest are to intervene between periods of activity, and the judgment which man may pronounce upon God is to be deferred until the divine way has been perfectly accomplished. The purpose of chastening is to reveal a man unto himself: “To humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart;” we do not know ourselves until after the test cf many days. We are surprises unto ourselves. By the utterance of language, the adoption of policies, the accumulation of companionships and responsibilities we amaze ourselves by the variety, the subtlety, and the persistency of life. We learn in hunger what we could never understand in fulness. To be kept standing throughout the night dews and knocking at inhospitable doors may give us definitions of home and security which the enjoyment of such blessings might never originate. The humble and obedient soul rejoices that life has not one burden too many to carry, or one tear too hot to shed, or one difficulty too severe to encounter; it says, All these things are appointed as gracious necessities in the perfecting of my education; I know that my Redeemer liveth; I know that all things work together for good to them whose love is set upon the living God. This spirit drives away the demon of impatience and blesses and tranquillises the soul with the angel of heavenly confidence. If the children of God suffered nothing but punishment, those who look on from the outside might well wonder as to the rewards and issues of virtue even in this world: but chastening is not punishment, it is training, it is education, it is experience, it is part of an inscrutable but beneficent method. Blessed are they who wait until the end, and who speak not of the judgments of God until they have seen all the glory of heaven.

It would seem that in this direction the thought of Moses steadfastly moved. What was God’s object in bringing out Israel from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and leading the people through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water? Why did God bring forth water out of the rock of flint? Moses gives the tender and noble reply: “That he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end.” That is the sublime purpose! If we exclude the “latter end” from our view of divine methods we shall certainly be entangled in the thicket of details. The latter end is not in our keeping; but it is set before us in order to restrain our passion and attemper our imagination and cultivate our patience. It is something to know that at the end God means to do us good. That should be a steadfast fact in the mind, and may be used in many different relations, but all for the same purpose. What of the difficulties of the way if the end is to be bright and beautiful heaven? What of the battle and storm here and now if according to our steadfastness and loyalty to divine principles is to be the splendour of the divine recognition in the land of glory? Thus we draw ourselves on by the latter end. Again and again we tenderly exclaim: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” The latter end will explain everything. On the last day of life we may see more than we have ever beheld during the whole course of our pilgrimage. Sudden glory may drive away every cloud and shadow, and bring in eternal day. One whisper from the upper spheres spoken to the dying may dissolve every doubt, break down every bound and barrier separating the soul from God, and admit the spirit into celestial liberty. We will not be deterred by today’s difficulties. We shall not be tempted by sneering opponent or bitter sceptic or godless life to regard the providence of heaven as bounded by any one day. Give God whatever time he requires, and when he has accomplished the hours claimed by his purpose and has declared the consummation of his design in our life, we may be permitted to give some opinion as to “the way” by which we have been led and the method by which our best life has been sustained.

But Moses will not stop at this point. He becomes eloquent in lofty religious warning. Towards the close of the chapter he says: “And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God” ( Deu 8:19-20 ). Thus the way of the Lord is equal. Disobedience means penalty as certainly as obedience means reward. The two courses are openly set before us. It is undoubtedly within our liberty to oppose God, to set up an altar of our own, to invent commandments out of our own imagination, and to serve whom we will and as we will; in these matters we have no right, but according to our moral constitution we have the liberty: but God has not hidden from us the consequences of such perverseness and idolatry: nor are those consequences partial in their operation or alterable in their pressure; they are tremendous consequences, too awful to be expressed in words, too appalling to be encompassed by the imagination. This is where I rest in the matter of everlasting punishment. What that term may mean it is impossible for any human mind to conceive. It would seem as if God himself felt the inadequateness of language to express the infinite idea. The prayer of every man should be, My soul, come not thou into this secret. Men should never trifle with the idea of the punishment of sin; it is everlasting punisnment; it is eternal penalty; it is an expression of the horror of God as his infinite holiness looks upon the abomination of sin. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” This is not a one-sided law; it is the impartial law which holds within its ample scope all that is terrible in the idea of perdition and all that is sublime in the promise of heaven.

Prayer

Almighty God, we seek the truth. Jesus Christ said: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” We would see Jesus; we would fix the attention of our love and expectation upon thy Son, and receive from him what he alone can give life, pardon, peace. Without him we can do nothing. We are powerless when cut away from the Vine and the upper life, the divine and eternal; then we fall back into the dust: we are without spirit or force or goodness of will. We can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth us, yea, we can bear much fruit and make the Father glad. May we abide in Christ; may we look to the Son of God; may we fix our whole love upon Jesus, and, studying his law with a complete attention, may we obey it with a consenting will. We thank thee for all the words spoken by the Son of God; they are spirit, they are life, they are full of tenderest love; they lift the cloud from the outlook of the mind and shed eternal glory on things beyond. Never man spake like this Man. We wonder at the gracious words which proceed out of his mouth, how full of wisdom! how tender with heavenly unction! how adapted to our necessity and pain! When he concludes his speech the heart, grateful and enraptured, says, My Lord and my God! May Christ ever speak to us, ever abide with us, walk with us on the evening road, and begin at Moses and all the Prophets and the Psalms, and show unto us the things concerning himself; and as the wondrous speech proceeds our heart shall burn within us, and we shall know that we are near the bush out of which the Lord spake unto Moses. We bless thee for thine house, its security, its quietness, its spirit of holy peace. Be near us, every one. Touch the sad heart, and give it one hour’s release from burdensomeness. Look upon the struggling life, and the glance of thine eye shall be as a guarantee of hope and conquest Bring back the prodigal; he has many a weary mile to return, but if it shall come into his heart that thou art expecting him and longing for him with all the yearning of love his steps may be hastened, and the miles will soon be passed. Comfort us in our sorrow; carry our burdens a while for us. Seal our eyelids in peaceful sleep, and on the morning we shall rise invested with new energy and inspired with new hope.

This prayer we say, every word of it, in the name of him who, once crowned with thorns, is now crowned with all the crowns of heaven Amen.

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).

XII

FIRST AND SECOND ORATION, PART I

Deu 1:6-11:32

FIRST ORATION

The occasion is great and awe inspiring. Death is just ahead of the speaker, about one month off, and yet the old man stands before us in the vigor of youth. He does not die from decay of either mental or physical power but simply because God is going to take him. He has carried these people in his heart eighty years and has borne them in fact for forty marvelous years of eventful history; has suffered unspeakably in their behalf, and now is burdened with the spirit of prophecy which unfolds to his eagle eye their disastrous future for thousands of years, brightened for a time by the coming of the Prophet, like himself but infinitely greater, and the prospect of their final restoration. He starts out with a reference to Horeb where they entered into covenant relations with God, and where he himself sat, with the chiefs of the tribes, of thousands, of hundreds, of tens, to hear all minor causes, appealing to him only in great matters. The qualifications of these judges are set forth in Exo 18:21 , and “they were able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness,” and here, as “wise men, well-known chiefs of the tribes, full of understanding.” He rehearses his original charge to these judges: they must fairly hear all cases, must judge righteously, must be impartial, must fear no face of man, must remember that the judgment is Jehovah’s. The object of the reference is to show that they left Sinai thoroughly organized and equipped; left there in numbers more than the stars shown to Abraham and with their leader praying, “The Lord of your fathers make you a thousand times as many more as ye are, and bless you as he hath promised you.”

They left there at God’s command to go at once to take possession of their long promised country. But alas, on account of their sins they lost thirty-seven days in getting to Kadesh-barnea and then with the imperative command ringing in their ears, the Lord said as before, “Come and take possession”; they again are delayed forty days in order to get a report from spies, and after that report and an awful breach of the covenant they lost thirty-eight years more of weary wandering, then when again assembled at Kadesh-barnea sinned again and caused Moses himself to sin, and so debarred him from the Promised Land. Then, through unbelief in God, through fear of man, through presumption toward God, through fleshly lusts, they had utterly failed to enter in.

Moreover, they had lied in attributing their attitude of rebellion to parental concern for their children, which God rebuked by showing that he could lead those helpless children into the Promised Land without the loss of one, while the bones of the parents whitened in the wilderness. And now, though at Kadesh-barnea again, when entrance was no more than stepping over a line drawn in the sand, they must turn down toward the Red Sea, and by a long, weary and circuitous march approach the country on the other side; a path must compass Mountain Seir, skirt Edom, Moab, and Ammon and bring them into deadly conflict with Sihon, king of the Amorites, Og, king of Bashan, and all the hosts of Midian. That circuitous march was marked by some great sins and made memorable by some great deliverances. Aaron died at Mountain Hor. Moses is about to die, without passing over into the Promised Land.

Now, this oration, having thus briefly reviewed the legislation, makes that survey the basis of his exhortation by way of application. Learn from this model, O preachers, how to revive the lost art of exhortation. That used to be the custom for men that were called to exhort who could not preach. They could not preach a sermon but they could sit down and listen to a preacher preach and then move people mightily by exhortation. I have heard men, ignorant as they were in books, give exhortations that would make the stars sparkle.

Dr. Burleson preached a sermon at Huntsville and at the close of the sermon J. W. D. Creath got up and commenced by slapping his thigh and you could have heard him a hundred yards. He said, “The spirit of God is here, and the devil is fighting hard.” The people were converted by the hundreds and the biggest man was Sam Houston. A Negro boy on the outside was convicted of sin and came to the front, not understanding but feeling the power of God, he knelt at Sam Houston’s feet saying, “Massa Houston, save me.” Sam Houston said to the boy, “Ask the clergy, I am just a poor lost sinner myself.” We bad Deacon Pruitt; he never preached but Judge Baylor never held a meeting but he got Brother Pruitt to help him. He always wanted him to exhort after he preached. Moses determined to exhort these people, and in order to exhort them, he takes up the survery. They keep forgetting the times of his exhortation. The points are stated thus:

(1) Hearken unto God’s word and do it.

(2) Do not add to his law nor diminish it. “Heaven and earth,” says our Lord, “must pass away, but my word shall not pass away.”

(3) Be warned by your own history. History teaches lessons and imposes obligations. Preachers especially should be students of history in order to understand God’s government over nations and the way of his providence.

(4) In view of its impression on other nations obedience will be your highest wisdom. They will thereby recognize your relations with Jehovah and marvel at your prosperity and fear your power.

(5) Do not forget. Teach this law diligently to your children.

(6) Remember that you yourselves and your nation alone heard God’s own awful voice pronounce your Decalogue and that you have his autograph copy preserved as a witness.

(7) Remember that when you heard his voice you saw no likeness of him and beware that you make no graven image of anything that is in heaven above, nor earth below; do not fall down and worship it. We should all become iconoclasts, breakers of images. “Icon,” the image; “Iconoclast,” the breaker of images.

(8) Remember that Jehovah is a jealous God and will look upon sin with no degree of allowance, and be sure that he will find out your sins and be sure that he will punish your sins. Don’t you become so sweetly sentimental that you will think it impolite to say the word “hell.” Let us remember the awful words of our Lord, greater than Moses, who said, “Fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” who said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” So this is the first exhortation of Moses.

SECOND ORATION, PART I

The scripture of this part is Deu 4:44 , to the end of the eleventh chapter. Like the first oration, the second has an introduction giving the time, place, and circumstances of delivery. The closing: paragraph of Deu 4 gives this introduction in verses Deu 4:44-49 . There is nothing in it calling for additional comment beyond the fact that it marks an interval of undetermined time between the two Orations.

This part of the oration consists of a rehearsal of the whole Decalogue, stated in an offhand, oratorical form, without attempting the exact verbal quotations, and of an exposition of the first table, that is, the four commandments embodying our relation to God) and then an earnest exhortation by way of application. Note the verbal differences between this offhand rehearsal of the Decalogue by Moses and the Exodus record of it as spoken in the very words of Jehovah himself, and written by him on tablets of stone. From Revised Version, read Exo 20:2-17 , and then read the corresponding Commandments in the same version from Deu 5:6-21 . You must consider the Exodus form as the true original, and the Deuteronomy form as a substantial restatement by a public speaker, and note that Deu 5:15 , is not an attempt to quote the Fourth Commandment as originally given, but merely a passing exhortation, assigning an additional motive for remembering the sabbath day. The reader will also note that Romanists combine the first and the second according to our division, to make their first, and then divide our tenth to make their ninth and tenth. This does not affect the matter, only the numbering of the parts.

I asked you to read the Decalogue in Exodus and Deuteronomy alternately because enemies of the Bible have made so much of the fact that there is not an exact verbal agreement, and hence they have denied the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. The reply to it is that the divine original in God’s own handwriting is the Commandments as they were delivered; second, in this case there is an inspired substantial restatement of the original in oratorical form and this restatement is just as much inspired as the original. Remember the sabbath because God rested on that day and it is prophetic, in an indirect way, of the New Testament sabbath. As God rested from creation when he had finished the work and the day commemorated an historical fact, so Jesus, having accomplished the great redemption (so that the Jewish sabbath is nailed to the cross of Christ), rested from his work and there remaineth a sabbath-keeping to the people of God. Jesus entered into this rest, as God did his.

Here I pause to commend, first, the exposition of the Decalogue in the Catechism of the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. This catechetical exposition has been taught to more children than perhaps any other in the world. Let us always commend the Presbyterians for their fidelity in family instruction, and always confess and lament Baptist delinquency on this line until we repent and do better. Second, it now gratifies me to be able to commend a Baptist exposition of the Decalogue, which, in my judgment, is the best in all literature. Not very long ago, a venerable man, soon to pass away, was helped upon the platform and introduced at the Southern Baptist Convention, and he received the Chautauqua salute. It was George Dana Boardman of missionary fame. He is the author of University Lectures on the Ten Commandments. The lectures were delivered before the students of Pennsylvania University, and the book was issued by the American Baptist Publication Society. Study it carefully and assimilate it into your very life. On the Fourth Commandment, perhaps without immodesty, I may ask you to read the three sermons on the sabbath in my first published volume of sermons.

My reason for speaking of these books is that Moses himself is now to devote eight chapters to an exposition of the Decalogue in the oration under consideration. You will make special note that Moses emphasizes the fact that the Decalogue was the only part of the covenant actually voiced by Jehovah, and that this divine autograph was then filed away in the ark as an eternal witness. The fact is also emphasized that no other people had even heard God’s voice or possessed his autograph. Thousands of the younger generation now addressed by Moses were present that awful day when Sinai smoked and trembled and was crested with fire, and the loud and ever louder trumpet smote their ears as no other trumpet will smite the ears of men until the great judgment day. They might well recall their terror when from the fires of Sinai this awful penetrating voice solemnly pronounced in thunder tones those Commandments one after another. They themselves could recall how they begged not to hear that voice any more and implored Moses to hear for them as mediator and to repeat to them in human voice any other words of God. I have already sought to impress you that Deuteronomy is an exposition of the law rather than a giving of the law. The orator and expositor not only shows that these Commandments of God are exceedingly broad, but he attempts to show their depths and reveal their heights, yea, to lay bare their very heart and spirit.

This heart and spirit he finds in the word “love.” “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God is one Jehovah, and thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all thy soul, with all thy might.” He compresses the first four Commandments into “Thou shalt love Jehovah,” as later in this book he compresses the last six into “Love thy neighbour as thyself.” When our Lord answers the question, “Which is the first commandment of the law?” He quotes Deuteronomy in his answer: “This is the first and great commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy mind, and all thy strength, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

And as the second is impossible without the first, a New Testament writer may well say, “All the law is fulfilled in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And another says, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Or as Paul to Timothy declares its widest scope, “Now the end of the commandment is love, out of a pure heart, out of a good conscience, out of faith unfeigned.” In one word then, that grandest thing in the world, LOVE, Moses expounds the Decalogue. On this matter he founds his exhortation thus:

(1) “Thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes, and thou shalt write them on the posts of thine house, and on thy gates.” What a course of family instruction! What a theme of family conversation! What a safeguard at home, at the gate, at the door, at the hearth, at the bed! As the Jew awoke in the morning, the Law greeted him; as he passed the door, it saluted him; as he passed through the gate, it hailed him; in all his walking beyond the gate it accompanied him. It governed the words of his tongue; it remained between his eyes to regulate sight; it dwelt in his heart to regulate emotion; and remained in his mind to prescribe and proscribe thought, purpose and scheme. Its hand of authority touched the scales and yardstick and restrained within its bounds all his business. His fruit, his grain, his flock, and all other treasures acknowledged its supremacy. It provoked the questions of children by its object lessons and supplied the answers to the questions.

(2) When prosperity comes with its fulness of blessings) do not forget God, (Deu 6:10-15 ).

(3) When adversity and trial overtake you do not tempt God as you tempted him at Massah, saying, “Is God among us?” (Deu 6:16 ). Just here the psalmist says, “My feet had well nigh slipped, for I was envious of the prosperity of the wicked and said, In vain have I washed my hands in innocency and compassed thine altars, O Lord of Hosts.” How often have we been bitter in heart and counted God our adversary and ourselves the target of his arrows and lightning.

(4) “Remember that the destruction of the Canaanites is essential to your fidelity to this law. They will corrupt you if you spare them. You shall not pity them, for the measure of their iniquity is full.” You are God’s sheriff executing his will, not yours, mercilessly as a pestilence, a cyclone, an earthquake, or a flood, indiscriminatingly obey his will. Make no covenant with these doomed and incorrigible nations. Do not intermarry with them. Covet none of their possessions devoted to God’s curse. Ah, if only Achan later had remembered this and had not brought defeat upon his people and ruin to himself and house!

(5) Remember the bearing of this law on Self:

(a) When walls crumble before you and the sun and moon stand still to complete your victory, beware lest you attribute your victories to your own strength.

(b) Or to your numbers.

(c) And especially beware of self-righteousness. All your history avouches you to be a stiff-necked and rebellious people. There was no good in your origin. “A Syrian ready to perish was your father.” At the Red Sea, at the waters of Marah, when you thirsted, when you hungered, in all the wilderness, and at Kadesh-barnea, through the cunning of Balaam even until now you have sinned and kept sinning, and will continue to sin, existing as monuments of grace and mercy. Who are you, to be puffed up with conceit and pride of selfrighteousness?

(6) Consider how reasonable all of Jehovah’s commandments are: “And now, Israel, what doth Jehovah thy God require of thee but to fear Jehovah thy God, to walk in all his ways and to love him, and to serve Jehovah thy God with all thy soul, with all thy heart, to keep the commandments of Jehovah and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?” (Deu 10:12 ).

A later prophet shall re-echo the thought: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee but to do justly and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God.”

(7) Finally, blessings crown your obedience and curses follow your disobedience. The inexorable alternative is set forth before you. Obey and live; disobey and die. And ye yourselves, over yonder, shall stand on opposing mountains while this law is read in a valley between, and those on Gerizirn shall call out the blessings, and those on Ebal shall pronounce the curses. And you will in one loud Bounding voice say, “Amen, so let it be.”

QUESTIONS

1. What briefly the occasion of the first oration?

2. What the substance, appeal and application of the first oration?

3. What lost art here referred to, and what examples of this art cited?

4. What the several points of his exhortation?

5. Where do you find introduction to the second oration and what the time, place and circumstances of its delivery?

6. Of what does Part 2 of the second oration consist?

7. What are the verbal differences between the Exodus form and the Deuteronomy form of the Decalogue and how account for them?

8. Which is the true, original form?

9. What of Moses’ statement here of the Fourth Commandment?

10. How do the Romanists number the commandments?

11. What charge is sometimes brought against the Bible because of these verbal differences and the reply thereto?

12. What books on the Ten Commandments commended?

13. What facts in connection with the giving of the Ten Commandments especially emphasized by Moses?

14. What was Moses’ summary of the Ten Commandments and what Christ’s use of it?

15. Kame the points of his exhortation.

16. How was the importance of teaching the law emphasized?

17. What exhortation relating to prosperity?

18. What one relating to adversity?

19. What charge concerning the Canaanites, and why?

20. What the bearing of this Law on self?

21. How does he show the reasonableness of God’s law?

22. What alternative set before them, and what prophecy concerning blessings and curses here given by Moses?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Deu 8:1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

Ver. 1. All the commandments. ] “All” is but a little word, but of large extent. There are magnalia legis , and minutula legis; Look to both the greater and the lesser things of the law. Mat 23:23

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 8:1-10

1All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers. 2And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. 4Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his Song of Solomon 6 Therefore, you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. 7For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills; 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; 9a land where you shall eat food without scarcity, in which you shall not lack anything; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. 10When you have eaten and are satisfied, you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.

Deu 8:1 All the commandments that I am commanding you today Notice the NOUN (BDB 846, see Special Topic at Deu 4:1) and VERB (BDB 845, KB 1010, Piel PARTICIPLE) are COGNATE (from the same root).

you shall be careful to do The VERB (BDB 1036, KB 1581, Qal IMPERFECT, see note at Deu 6:12) is used often in Deuteronomy (cf. Qal, Deu 4:2; Deu 4:6; Deu 4:9; Deu 4:40; Deu 5:1; Deu 5:10; Deu 5:12; Deu 5:29; Deu 5:32; Deu 6:2-3; Deu 6:17[twice],25; Deu 7:8-9; Deu 7:11-12[twice]; Deu 8:1-2; Deu 8:6; Deu 8:11; Deu 10:13; Deu 11:1; Deu 11:8; Deu 11:22[twice],32; Niphal Deu 2:4; Deu 4:9; Deu 4:15; Deu 4:23; Deu 6:12; Deu 8:11; Deu 11:16). This verse shows that a loving covenant relationship and obedience are God’s way of blessing humanity and fulfilling His promises (cf. Deu 8:2; Deu 8:6; Deu 8:16; Deu 8:18; Deu 4:1).

possess the land See Special Topic below.

SPECIAL TOPIC: POSSESS THE LAND

Deu 8:2 remember This VERB (BDB 269, KB 269, Qal PERFECT, cf. Deu 5:15; Deu 7:18[twice]; Deu 8:2; Deu 8:18; Deu 9:7; Deu 9:27; Deu 15:15; Deu 16:3; Deu 16:12; Deu 24:9; Deu 24:18; Deu 24:22; Deu 25:17; Deu 32:7), remember, is used in two ways in the OT. It is covenant humanity’s requirement to remember God’s acts and His laws. This was a Hebrew idiom, keep God as priority. It is humanity’s request that God not remember our sins.

in the wilderness Israel (i.e., her rabbis) looked back on the wilderness wandering period as the honeymoon between YHWH and Israel. God was never closer to His people than during this trying time because they had to depend on Him for everything. Now they were going to have abundance and blessings in the Promised Land. God was warning them to continue to depend on Him because He was and is the source of all things (cf. Deu 8:18).

forty years This number was often used in a figurative way to designate a long period of time, longer than a lunar cycle (i.e., 28 days). However, at other times it was literal. It is often difficult to know which to choose without other historical or Scriptural information. The wilderness wandering period lasted about 38 years. See Special Topic: Symbolic Numbers in Scripture

He might humble you, testing you Notice the sequence:

1. CONJUNCTION, in order that (BDB 775)

2. three Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCTS:

a. to humble (BDB 776, KB 853, cf. Deu 8:2-3; Deu 8:16)

b. to test (BDB 650, KB 702, cf. Deu 8:16)

c. to know (BDB 393, KB 390, cf. Deu 8:2[twice],3,[thrice],5,16)

God tests (BDB 650, KB 702, Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT, Deu 8:16; Deu 13:3; Jdg 2:22; Jdg 3:1; Jdg 3:4) us with a view toward strengthening our faith (e.g., Gen 22:1; Exo 15:25; Exo 16:4; Exo 20:20; Deu 8:2; Deu 8:16; Deu 13:3; Jdg 2:22; 2Ch 32:31 and Mat 4:1; Heb 12:5-13). If we are a child of God we will be tested! We are usually tested in the area of our life that is priority to us. Testing is meant to make us more like Christ.

The term humble (BDB 776, KB 853, Piel INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT) is used in Deu 8:2-3; Deu 8:16. The OT only calls Moses humble (cf. Num 12:3; and many times in the Psalms) and the NT calls Jesus humble (cf. Mat 11:29). God desires a humble and trusting attitude in His people (e.g., Deu 10:3; Ezr 8:21).

The term heart is used figuratively of our motives (cf. Deu 8:2; Deu 8:5; Deu 8:14; Deu 8:17). See Special Topic at Deu 2:30.

SPECIAL TOPIC: GOD TESTS HIS PEOPLE

Deu 8:3 manna This (BDB 577 I, the people called it manna [Exo 16:31] from the question of Exo 16:15, What is it? Moses called it bread from heaven, Exo 16:4) was God’s special provision of food during the wilderness wandering period. It is described in Exo 16:4; Exo 16:14-15; Exodus 31; Num 11:7-8, but its exact substance is unknown to us (BDB says it was known to Bedouins in the Sinai and that it was strictly a juice from a certain twig, but this does not fit the biblical description). God provided what they needed for each day, not for a long period of time so the people would learn to trust Him for their daily needs. He does this for new covenant believers also (cf. Mat 6:11).

know This (BDB 393, KB 390, see Special Topic: Know ) root is used three times in this verse (see full note at Deu 4:35):

1. which you did not know – Qal PERFECT

2. nor did your fathers know – Qal PERFECT

3. that He might make you understand – Hiphil INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT

Also notice other places in this chapter:

Deu 8:2 to know – Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT

Deu 8:5 to know – Qal PERFECT

Deu 8:16 repeat of #2

that man does not live by bread alone This is one of the passages Jesus quoted to Satan in His temptation experience (cf. Mat 4:14; Luk 4:4). Humans need a personal, trusting relationship with God more than anything (e.g., Psa 42:1-4; Psa 63:1; Psa 143:6, Augustine said there is a god-shaped hole in every person)! The physical is not enough for authentic life (i.e., by everything that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD).

Deu 8:4 Your clothing did not wear out on you Both Rashi (Jewish commentator of the Middle Ages) and Justin Martyr (early church father) asserted that the children’s clothing grew as they grew and never wore out (cf. Deu 29:5 adds neither did their sandals; Neh 9:21)! What a wonderful expression of God’s care for every need.

nor did your foot swell This is a rare Hebrew VERB (BDB 130, KB 148, Qal PERFECT, cf. Neh 9:21) that means swell. The same root as a NOUN refers to bread rising. This asserts that their physical bodies were also strengthened to withstand the long, hard journey.

Deu 8:5 God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son Here is the specific analogy of YHWH as a loving father (cf. Pro 3:15). He disciplines us for our own good ( Heb 12:5-13).

SPECIAL TOPIC: FATHERHOOD OF GOD

Deu 8:6 to walk in His ways This is a common biblical metaphor for lifestyle (e.g., Deu 5:33; Deu 8:6; Deu 10:12; Deu 11:22; Deu 19:9; Deu 26:17; Deu 28:9; Deu 30:16). God wants us to live for Him every day. Biblical faith is not a creed, nor a sacramental act, nor a memory lesson nor a systematic theology, but a daily relationship with God.

to fear Him This Qal INFINITIVE CONSTRUCT is parallel to to walk. This is the concept of awe and respect (cf. Deu 4:10; Deu 5:29; Deu 6:2; Deu 6:13; Deu 6:24; Deu 7:19; Deu 8:6; Deu 10:12; Deu 10:20; Deu 13:4; Deu 14:23; Deu 17:19; Deu 31:12-13).

Deu 8:7-10 This is an emphasis on the value of water to an agricultural society and the fruitfulness of the soil of the Promised Land. In the ancient documents of Mesopotamia, Palestine was known as the land flowing with milk and honey (cf. Exo 3:8; Exo 3:17; Exo 13:5; Exo 33:3; Deu 6:3; Deu 11:9; Deu 26:9; Deu 27:3; Deu 31:20). It also had tremendous mineral deposits, Deu 8:9. God’s blessings on Israel were meant to create a grateful response (cf. Deu 8:10). God wants us to enjoy His creation but to remember that He gave it to us.

Deu 8:10 The first part of this verse is the source of the rabbinical mandate to pray after one has eaten. This type of non-contextual literalism, though pious, has nothing to do with authorial intent!

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

commandments. Hebrew singular = every commandment.

this day. See note on Deu 4:26.

the LORD = Jehovah. App-4.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 8

And all the commandments which I command thee this day you shall observe to do, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land. And thou shalt remember all the way the LORD thy God led thee for these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not ( Deu 8:1-2 ).

Now, who was the proving for? “All the way through these forty years of wilderness God led thee to humble thee and to prove thee, to see whether or not you keep the commandments.” Not to prove to God; He knew from the beginning, but to prove to themselves. Now many times God puts us through tests not to prove to Him anything about us; He already knows about us, but it is to prove to us. Sometimes we think that we are stronger than we really are. God puts us through a test to show us how weak we are and how we’ve got to depend upon Him. We can’t depend or rely upon ourselves; we’ve got to rely upon the Lord.

And God will oftentimes just put us through tests to prove us, to show to us our areas of weakness that we would not have confidence in our flesh but that our confidence would be in the living God. So God’s purpose was to humble them and to prove to them whether or not they would keep the commandments through the forty years of wandering in the wilderness.

And he humbled thee, and allowed thee to hunger, and he fed thee with manna, that he might know… that ye might know or make you to know; that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds ( Deu 8:3 ).

Oh, another one that Jesus quoted to Satan, as Satan said, “Command the stone to be made bread”. And Jesus quoted this particular verse out of Deuteronomy, “It is written, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.”

And thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did your feet swell, for forty years ( Deu 8:4 ).

Can you imagine that, wearing the same clothes for forty years and your feet not swelling in all of that walking in the wilderness? Boy, that’s a miracle. Through the forty years your clothes didn’t get old and your feet didn’t swell.

Thou shalt also consider in your heart, that, as a man chastens his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee ( Deu 8:5 ).

Now there are some people today who are despising the chastening of the Lord. They’re teaching that you don’t need to be chastened of God, that all you have to do is lay claim, make your positive confessions that God doesn’t chasten. Well, there are certain ones that God doesn’t chasten, according to the scriptures. You read it for yourself because some of you know. I’m on the radio.

For the LORD thy God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of the valleys and the hills; A land of wheat, and barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranate; a land of olive oil, a land of honey; A land wherein thou shalt eat the bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. And when thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he has given thee ( Deu 8:6-10 ).

You’re to have a thanksgiving. Now the warning though,

Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandment, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command you this day: Lest when you have eaten and art full, and have built good houses, and you’re living in them; And when your herds and your flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied. Then in your heart is lifted up, and you forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage ( Deu 8:11-14 );

And so the warning that your peril, the national peril will come not during the conquest, not during the development but in the times of national prosperity, there are the real dangerous periods of the history. When you become strong, when you are possessing the land, when you have eaten and are full, when you have an abundance, when you have a healthy bank account, then you are in great danger, the danger of forgetting God. I’m no longer trusting in God. You no longer have to trust in God, you think, because now you’ve got a bank account, you think. Who knows? You know they could-you could go to the bank tomorrow and they could be locked. What would you do?

We’re not to trust in riches but to trust in the Lord. By the time of prosperity is the time of danger because the danger is that we may forget God and we then are prone to attribute our success to something other than God. Well, it’s because I was so diligent, it was because I was so faithful, it’s because I was so good. And we’re prone to see the cause for the blessings to be something other than the true cause is because God is gracious and merciful and God is given us the power and God is brought us into this place. And we forget that it was God who did it for us and we begin to think that we did it for ourselves or it was something of us. We begin to give glory to something other than God for His wonderful goodness for us.

So beware, lest in the time of prosperity you forget God and begin to attribute the success of the nation to something other than God. And thus, you begin the evil practice of worshipping other gods; the gods of silver and gold, the materialistic gods of the world today.

For it shall be, that if you forget the Lord your God, and you walk after other gods and serve them, and worship them, [God said] I testify against you this day that you will surely perish ( Deu 8:19 ).

God said, “I testify against you, you’re gonna perish.”

And the nations which the LORD destroyed before your face, as they perish, so shall ye perish; because you would not be obedient to the voice of the LORD your God ( Deu 8:20 ).

So the solemn warnings as Moses, as a hundred and twenty-year old man is talking to the people who are about to go in now and conquer the land. “I’m leaving you fellows. My time is limited.” He knew that the time had come. And his time is up, he can’t cross Jordan; God has told him that. So he’s giving them this final charge, final warnings, final instructions before he lays down his mantel and Joshua takes up and leads the people across Jordan in the conquering of the land that God had promised.

So Deuteronomy becomes an important book in the history of the people. All of the warnings are here. As I said, “You can never say that God didn’t warn you”. God is faithful. We, a lot of times, ignore the warnings but God is faithful to warn us and you have never fallen into any trap of what God warned you the trap was there. You’ve never stumbled except God warned you the stumbling stone was there. God is faithful to warn us. He warned them, he laid it out even as he warns us.

So, next week we’ll continue chapter nine through sixteen of the book of Deuteronomy. Shall we stand.

Great is thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father. Faithful to His word, faithful to His people, faithful to His prophets and if you will walk in His path of righteousness, you will know the blessings of the Lord. For they will surround thee and encompass thee like the air that you breathe. Oh, that men would walk with God and follow after him and commit their lives fully, totally, to obey His will; to be pleasing unto Him. May that be our commitment this week.

Oh God, that my life might be pleasing unto Thee in all that I do and all that I say. “Let the words of my mouth, the meditations of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight Oh Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer” ( Psa 19:14 ). When I lie down and when I get up and when I sit and when I am writing or wherever, may there be that conscienceness of God and the talking of God and of His ways and of His goodness and of His righteousness, that we might live in the continual presence, conscienceness of the presence of God, and thus, be pleasing unto Him.

God be with you, bless and keep you in His loving grace through Jesus Christ. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Deu 8:1. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

Every word here seems emphatic. Like the children of Israel, we are to observe all the commandments of the Lord our God; not merely some of them, picking and choosing as we please. It is a very ill conscience, which regards some of Gods statutes, and pays no attention to the others; in fact, the very act of making a selection as to what commands we will observe is gross disobedience. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do. Notice that we are not only to do as we are bidden, but to do it with carefulness: ye shall observe to do. God would not have a thoughtless, careless, blind service; but we must bow our mind and heart as well as our will to his service. Remember also that it is not sufficient to observe the commandments so as to note what they are, but we are to observe to do them. That observation which does not end in right practice is like a promising blossom upon a tree, which never knits, and which therefore produces no fruit. Further notice that, to walk in the ways of God, is for our own benefit as well as for his glory: That ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. There are, doubtless, many good things, which we miss because we are not careful in our walking. I am sure that the happiest life will be found to be that which is most carefully conducted upon the principles of holy obedience to Gods commands. There are certain blessings which God will not give to us while we are disobedient to him. Many a father feels that he cannot indulge his child as he would wish to indulge him when he finds the child negligent as to his fathers will. So, if we please God, God will please us; but, if we walk contrary to him, he will walk contrary to us. Let me read this most instructive verse again, that it may be further impressed upon your memories and your hearts: All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers. To help you in obeying these commands, it is added,-

Deu 8:2. And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

Look back, and derive from your past experience a motive for more careful obedience in the future. He does not read his own life aright who does not see in it abundant causes for gratitude; and how can gratitude express itself better than by a cheerful, hearty obedience in the present and the future?

Deu 8:3. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna,

These two sentences come very closely together: Suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna. I suppose we are not fit to eat heavenly bread till first of all we begin to hunger for it. God loves to give to men who will eat with an appetite: He suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna.

Deu 8:3. Which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know;

It was a new kind of food; and even in the day when they ate it, they did not fully know what it was. They saw that it came by a miracle, and it remained a mystery; and I think we can say that, though we have fed upon the Bread of heaven, some of us, for well-nigh forty years, yet we hardly know, nor dare to think that we know, what it is made of, nor can we tell all the sweetness that is in it. We know the love of Christ, but it still passes our knowledge. It is true of us, as of Israel in the wilderness, He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know.

Deu 8:3. That he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.

It is a grand thing to be delivered from materialism, to be freed from the notion that the outward means are absolutely essential for the accomplishment of the divine purpose. If God had so willed it, we could have lived on air, if the air had been sanctified by the Word of God and prayer for such a use. The Lord has, however, chosen to feed us upon bread; yet our highest life, our real life, does not live on bread, but it lives on the Word which proceeds out of the mouth of God. This is one of the passages with which our Lord fought Satan in the desert, and overcame him. Happy is that servant of God who will arm himself with this same truth, and feel, I am not to be provided for merely by money, or by anything else that is visible. God will provide for me somehow, and I can leave all care about the means if the means fail, and get away to the God of the means, and lean, not on what I see, but on that arm which is invisible. That which you can see may fail you, for it is, like yourself, a shadow; but he whom you cannot see will never fail you. The strongest sinew in an arm of flesh will crack, but the arm eternal never faileth, and never is shortened. Lean on that arm, and you shall never be ashamed, nor confounded, world without end. It takes forty years to teach some people that lesson, and some, alas! have not learned it even at the end of eighty years.

Deu 8:4. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

See how God not only cares for his peoples food, but for their raiment also. We may, therefore, well take heed to Pauls injunction: Having food and raiment let us be therewith content. Whether it was by a miracle that the Israelites raiment did not wear out, or whether it came to pass, in the order of providence, that they were able to get fresh clothing when it did wear out, does not signify at all; it made no difference to them how it was arranged, for it was equal kindness on the part of God who provided for them. Neither did thy foot swell. We call the Arab, sometimes, The pilgrim of the weary foot; but the Israelites feet were not weary. They traversed a stony, wilderness, yet God kept them in such health and strength that their feet swelled not even after forty years of journeying. You and I often get worn out in forty hours; forty days are as long as we can hope to go; but God enabled his ancient people to go on for forty years, and still their feet swelled not. Dr. Watts sweetly sang,-

Mere mortal power shall fade and die,

And youthful vigor cease;

But we that wait upon the Lord Shall feel our strength increase.

The saints shall mount on eagles wings,

And taste the promised bliss,

Till their unwearied feet arrive Where perfect pleasure is.

Deu 8:5. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.

We sometimes think that we could do without the Lords chastening. If he will give us food and raiment, and keep our foot from swelling, we will not crave the rod. No; but though we do not ask for it, the rod is one of the choicest blessings of the covenant; and if we are the Lords children, we shall not go without it. To come under divine discipline, is one of the greatest mercies we can ever have. Many of us, who are now men and women, thank God for earthly parents who have corrected us; we wonder what we should have been if there had been no discipline in our fathers house. So, truly, is it with all of us who are Gods children; in years to come, we shall prize the chastisement which now makes us grieve. Even now, it is well if, by faith, we can apply to our own heart this text: as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.

Deu 8:6-7. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

There are changes in our condition. Israel was not always in the wilderness; the chosen people were brought into a good land, into a place of rest from their weary wanderings. So it may happen to you and to me that, even in temporal circumstances, God may work a great change for us, and especially will he do this in spiritual matters. After a time of wilderness traveling, we who have believed do enter into rest; we come to understand the gospel, and he who understands the gospel is not any longer in the wilderness. In a certain sense, he has come into the land of promise, where he already enjoys covenant mercies. It is true that the Canaanite is still even in that land, and we have to drive him out; but it is a good land to which God has brought us, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. The Lord makes us drink of the river of his good pleasure, he satisfies us with the cooling streams of his covenant love.

Deu 8:8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

I will not go into a spiritualizing of all this; but I know that you, who have come to believe in Christ, and have entered by faith into his rest, know what sweet things God has provided for you; not merely bare necessaries, but choice delights. He gives you to eat of the sweetnesses, he gives you the fatnesses,-the wines on the lees, well-refined, and the fat things full of marrow. I trust that there are many here who know the blessed experience of joy and peace in believing. You have entered into a fair region, you have passed through the belt of storms, you have come where the trade winds blow heavenward, your sails are filled, your vessel skips along before the breeze, you are making good way towards the Fair Havens of eternal felicity.

Deu 8:9. A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

There are deep things hidden away in the gospel treasuries. Silver and gold there may be none; but then, iron and copper are much more useful things, and the most useful things we shall ever want in this life lie hidden beneath the surface of the gospel. If we know how to dig deep, we shall be abundantly rewarded by the treasures, which we shall discover. Well now, if your experience has thus changed, if you have left the fiery serpents and the howling wilderness behind you, and have come into a place of peace and enjoyment, what follows?

Deu 8:10. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

He permits you to eat, not to satiety, but you may eat and be full; only not so full but that you can always bless his name. Do not be afraid of holy joy. Eat and be full of it, only let it never take off your heart from him who gives you the joy. On the contrary, bless thy God for the good land, which he has given thee. It is said that, in the olden time, pious Jews always blessed God before they ate, and always blessed God after they ate. They blessed God for the fragrance of the flower when ever they smelt it. Whenever they drank a cup of water, they blessed the Lord who gave them drink out of the rock in the desert. Oh, that we were always full of praises of God! Then it would not hurt us to be full of meat; but if we get full of meat, and are empty of praises, this is mischievous indeed.

Deu 8:11. Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

That would be practical atheism; not keeping the commandments of God, is one of the most vivid ways of forgetting him.

Deu 8:12-14. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

The other day, a friend asked me this question, Whence does God get his princes? and the answer I gave was, He often picks them off dunghills. Oh, but they sometimes forget the dunghills where they grew, and think themselves wonderfully important individuals! Then there is a time of pulling down for them. We cannot eat and be full without having the temptation of getting our heart lifted up. It is a great blessing to have the heart lifted up in one way, that is, in Gods ways; but to be lifted up by bread, to be lifted up by silver, to be lifted up by flocks and herds, is such a bad way of being lifted up that evil and sorrow must come of it. See, the Lord does not forbid his people to build a house, or to eat and to enjoy what he gives them; but he does charge them not to forget the God who gave them these mercies, nor to forget where they used to be in slavery: Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.

Deu 8:15. Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;

I cannot but pause as I recollect my own passage through that great and terrible wilderness, where there was no water. When a soul is under conviction of sin, fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought are very feeble images of the pains and miseries that come of guilt unforgiven. Where there was no water. Oh! what would we not have given then to have understood a little of that gospel which, perhaps, we now despise? Oh! what would we not have given then just to have moistened our burning lips with the living water of the precious Word in which, possibly, now we see no refreshing? May God have mercy upon us for our forgetfulness of his great mercy! Let us, with deep gratitude, think of him again: Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint. More likely, says one, to bring fire rather than water out of a rock of flint; and it did seem as if the cross of the curse must have cursed us, yet it blessed us. The Lord brought forth living water out of that Rock which was smitten for guilty man.

Deu 8:16-17. Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; and thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

We must not say this either about temporal or spiritual wealth. If we have grown in grace, and have become useful, and are spiritually a blessing to others, we must not take any credit for it to ourselves; or else down we shall go before long. God did not enrich thee that thou mightest set up for a god in opposition to him. Christ did not love thee that thou mightest make thyself a rival to him. Oh, that must not be! We must never say in our heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

Deu 8:18-19. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.

If you live like sinners, you will die like sinners. Where, then, is the perseverance of the saints? asks one. Why, in this, that they shall not live like sinners! Gods grace will not let them go wandering after idols, to worship and to serve them. He will keep us faithful to himself; but if we will wander after idol gods, it proves that we are not the Lords true Israel, and we must expect to be served as others have been who have turned aside to worship idols,

Deu 8:20. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Still continuing this discourse, Moses declared that the land when purified of the corrupt people was to be possessed by the people of God as His chosen nation. He showed that the first condition of possession was that they should remember the past with all it had taught them. They must never forget that God had led them and that the way of His leading was purposeful.

All the experiences of the wilderness were in order that they might learn two lessons: first, that they might know their own heart. It is important that we recognize that the meaning of this passage is not that God might know them, but that they might come to know themselves. God knows man perfectly. The important thing is that man should come to know himself.

Out of the humbling that such knowledge must bring to man, a second lesson would be learned, namely, the fact of his need of God and of God’s guidance and government.

Therefore, all the chastening and discipline of God resulted from His love. God ever treated man as a man treats his son.

The second principle of possession insisted upon was that the people should live by the Word of God, that is, that they must act on the lessons they had learned and keep the commandments of Him from whom they had received the land as a gift.

Solemnly Moses warned the people against the peril of imagining that their possession of the land was the result of personal effort or thinking that it was by their own strength they had entered therein.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Beware of Forgetting God

Deu 8:1-20

Thou shalt remember, Deu 8:2; thou shalt consider, Deu 8:5; thou shalt bless, Deu 8:10.

The lessons of hunger, Deu 8:1-9 : Suffered to hunger. Blessed are they that hunger. Man doth not live by bread only; he hungers for knowledge, opportunity, society, love. How many wan faces around us bear witness to the gnawing within. But the Father suffered His Son to fast; and so he deals with us, to prove us. It is only through the discipline of the soul, in learning to go without, that it can be trusted with spiritual opulence and power. See Deu 8:7-9.

The perils of prosperity, Deu 8:10-20 : It is harder to walk with God in the sunshine of success than in the nipping frosts of failure. When Paul said, I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound, he put the hardest last. The one secret is to give all the glory to God, and to look always to the Cross, where we were crucified to the pride of the flesh, Php 2:7-11; Php 4:12. I lay in dust lifes glory dead!

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Deu 8:2

I. The remembrance of the way. There will be (1) the remembrance of favour, and by consequence of joy. (2) There will be the remembrance of sin, and by consequence of sin the remembrance of sorrow.

II. Notice the purposes of Divine providence in the journey. (1) The first purpose is to induce humility. (2) The second purpose is to prove us. (3) The third purpose is to know what is in our heart.

III. If you have thus travelled in the way, there will be many uses of the memory. You will know more of God at the conclusion of your journey than you did at the commencement. You will behold both the goodness and the severity of God: the severity which punishes sin wherever it is to be found; the goodness which itself provides a Substitute and finds a Saviour.

W. Morley Punshon, Three Popular Discourses, No. 1.

Deu 8:2

The intention of “the way in the wilderness” is twofold: humiliation and probation.

I. All things are humbling. A much shorter period than forty years will be enough to make every one feel the deep humiliation of life, (1) It is a very humbling thing to receive kindness. (2) There are very humbling sorrows: sickness and bereavement; nothing can be more humiliating than these. (3) Sin is the great abaser. Failure is marked upon a thousand things. No thought is more humbling to the Christian man than the remembrance of his sins.

II. With humiliation is probation. “To humble thee, and to prove thee.” It was God’s plan when He made this world to make it a probationary world. Probation is God’s putting a man to the test to see whether He loves Him, and how much he loves Him. That which is a temptation on the part of Satan for the malevolence with which he uses it is a probation on God’s part for the love wherewith He permits it. God always proves His child, and the more He gives him, the more He proves him. Whenever He bestows a grace, He puts that grace to the test.

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 14th series, p. 156.

(1) Emphasise the word all, for on that word the emphasis of the sentence truly lies. (2) Consider that it is a way. The character of the path is to be estimated, not by present difficulty or danger, but by the importance of the end. (3) Consider the infinite variety of the way. (4) Consider the beauty of the way. (5) Consider the bread of the wilderness. The miracle of the manna is repeated every day before our eyes. (6) Remember the perils of the wilderness. (7) Remember the sins of the wilderness. (8) Remember the chastisements of the wilderness. (9) Remember the Elims of the way. (10) Consider the end of the way.

J. Baldwin Brown, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 371.

There are two main considerations suggested by this passage.

I. What we should be chiefly occupied with as we look back. (1) Let memory work under the distinct recognition of Divine guidance in every part of the past. (2) We are to judge of the things that we remember by their tendency to make character, to make us humble, to reveal us to ourselves, and to knit us in glad obedience to our Father God.

II. Turn now to the other consideration which may help to make remembrance a good, viz., the issues to which our retrospect must tend if it is to be anything more than sentimental recollection. (1) Let us remember and be thankful. (2) Let us remember and let the memory lead to contrition. (3) Let us remember in order that from the retrospect we may get practical wisdom. (4) Let us remember that we may hope.

A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 151.

References: Deu 8:2.-Congregationalist, vol. vii., p. 530; T. Binney, Weighhouse Chapel Sermons, 1st series, p. 13; T. Kelly, Pulpit Trees, p. 309.

Deu 8:2-4

I. The text shows us what God did with Israel. (1) He sent them back to wander in the desert through forty years, sent them back from entering the land which He eventually intended to give them. We see only brief time before us as our day in which to work. God does not hasten, for eternity is before Him as His working day. (2) God exposed His people to much difficulty and hardship, but He did not suffer them to sink under their troubles. They were long kept from Canaan, but God did not forsake His people.

II. What did God mean by dealing thus with Israel? (1) He treated them in this way to humble them. (2) He dealt with them thus to show them what material they were made of. (3) He wished to show them further what He could do. (4) His end in His dealings with Israel was instruction and correction, and all the spiritual advantages to be derived from it.

III. Notice what God requires in respect of that instruction and correction. “Thou shalt remember.” What a mighty effect memory has upon life! Through the power of memory man finds in the past and present one continuous life. Remember the way the Lord hath led thee. Every man has a way to himself, and every man of God sees God choosing that way, and leading him in that way.

S. Martin, The Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. ix.

Deu 8:2-5

This is the lesson of our lives. This is God’s training, not only for the Jews, but for us. We read these verses to teach us that God’s ways with man do not change; that His fatherly hand is over us, as well as over the people of Israel; that their blessings are our blessings, their dangers are our dangers; that, as St. Paul says, all these things are written for our example.

I. “He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger.” How true to life that is; how often there comes to a man, at his setting out in life, a time which humbles him, when his fine plans fail him, and he has to go through a time of want and struggle. His very want, and struggles, and anxiety may be God’s help to him. If he be earnest and honest, patient and God-fearing, he prospers; God brings him through. God holds him up, strengthens and refreshes him, and so the man learns that man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

II. There is another danger which awaits us, as it awaited those old Jews: the danger of prosperity in old age. It is easy for a man who has fought the battle with the world, and conquered more or less, to say in his heart, as Moses feared that those old Jews would say, “My might and the power of my wit hath gotten me this wealth,” and to forget the Lord his God, who guided him and trained him through all the struggles and storms of early life, and so to become vainly confident, worldly and hard-hearted, undevoted and ungodly, even though he may keep himself respectable enough, and fall into no open sin.

III. Old age itself is a most wholesome and blessed medicine for the soul of man. Anything is good which humbles us, makes us feel our own ignorance, weakness, nothingness, and cast ourselves on that God in whom we live, and move, and have our being, and on the mercy of that Saviour who died for us on the Cross, and on that Spirit of God from whose holy inspiration alone all good desires and good actions come.

C. Kingsley, Discipline, and Other Sermons, p. 40.

Deu 8:3

If this text be true, what a strange comment on it is the world at the present hour! Turn to whatever class of our countrymen you like, and in every accent of their voices you will hear uttered their practical belief that they can live by bread alone. It is for bread-that is, for material things-that men toil, and strive, and exhaust their finest energies. Now, if ever, it is needful to thunder in the ears of our countrymen, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” And as statesmen, and philosophers, and priests behold these things, each comes forward with his Gospel for mankind.

I. We have the “Gospel of education:” Let us take care that each child learns the elementary principles of knowledge, and we must hope that the coming generation shall have a higher form of national and social life. Education is good, but if men look to it as a panacea for the evils around them, they will assuredly one day find out their terrible mistake. Man doth not live by the fruits of the tree of knowledge alone.

II. We have then the message of the philosophers: Let us eat of the tree of science and live for ever. But science is not the bread for sorrowing, sinning humanity. This is not the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.

III. The only power that can win souls from their selfishness and sin is the preaching of a personal, crucified Christ; the Incarnate Word of God is still and ever the bread by which nations and men must live. It was not a new science, it was not an improved philosophy, it was not the idyllic life of a Galilean peasant, that men preached in the early days, in the purple dawn, of Christianity, and by the preaching of it shook the empire and revolutionised the world. And it is not by a vague, “accommodating theology,” with no doctrinal articulation-which, polype-like, floats on the tides of human thought, rising as they rise, falling as they fall,-that men and nations can be saved now. It is as of old-by the preaching of the Word, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “I am the Bread of life,” said Christ.

I. Teignmouth Shore, The Life of the World to Come, p. 39.

References: Deu 8:3.-A. Macleod, The Gentle Heart, p. 211; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 418. Deu 8:3-6.-Ibid., vol. xvi., No. 939; Parker, Christian Chronicle, June 4th, 1885.

Deu 8:11-18

In the text we have Moses’ answer to the first great question in politics: What makes a nation prosperous?

To that wise men have always answered, as Moses answered, “Good government is government according to the laws of God.” That alone makes a nation prosperous. But the multitude, who are not wise men, give a different answer. They say, “What makes a nation prosperous is its wealth.”

I. Moses does not deny that wealth is a good thing. He takes for granted that the Jews will grow very rich, but he warns them that their riches, like all other earthly things, may be a curse or a blessing to them. When riches multiplied, they might forget God, and say, “My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this wealth.”

II. God gives power to get wealth in two ways: (1) He gives the raw material; (2) He gives the wit to use it. Moses bade the people remember that they owed all to God. What they had, they had of God’s free gift What they were, they were of God’s free grace. Therefore they were not to boast of themselves, their numbers, their wealth, their armies, their fair and fertile land. They were to make their boast of God, of God’s goodness.

III. If we as a nation go on trusting in ourselves rather than God; if we keep within us the hard, self-sufficient spirit, and boast to ourselves, “My power and the strength of my hands have got me this and that,” and, in fact, live under the notion, which too many have, that we could do very well without God’s help if God would let us alone-then we are heaping up ruin and shame for ourselves, and for our children after us. In this sense God is indeed a jealous God, who will not give His honour to another, but will punish those who trust in anything except Himself.

C. Kingsley, Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 197.

References: Deu 8:15.-J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. ii., p. 336. Deu 8:16.-Parker, vol. iv., p. 168. Deu 8:18.-Ibid., p. 188; Hidden Springs, p. 254. Deu 8:19.-W. J. Butler, Sermons for Working Men, p. 353. Deut 8-Parker, vol. iv., p. 160.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

4. Thou Shalt Remember! Provision and Warning

CHAPTER 8

1. Remember the forty years and Jehovahs care (Deu 8:1-6)

2. The gracious provision in the land (Deu 8:7-10)

3. Warning against forgetting Jehovah (Deu 8:11-20)

Admonition to obedience begins this chapter. Disobedience and what will result from it closes it. Between the first and last verses we find extremely precious words. They are called upon to remember the experiences of the wilderness. It was Jehovah, who led them and watched over them. The wilderness experience was made a blessing to them. It taught them the blessed lessons of humility and brought out all that was in their hearts. And this corresponds to our own experiences. Jehovahs care over them had been manifested. They had to learn in the wilderness the lessons of dependence upon God. He supplied their need. They were fed with manna. Their raiment waxed not old. Their feet did not even swell (Deu 29:5; Neh 9:20-21). As a man chasteneth a son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee. And thus He still deals with His people, whom He loves and whom He has redeemed in His Son, the people He is leading home to Himself through the wilderness. Oh, that we may trust Him fully and yield ourselves to Him in obedience!

How wonderful to think of Gods patient grace and painstaking love with His people in the wilderness! What precious instruction for us! With what intense interest and spiritual delight we can hang over the record of the divine dealings with Israel in all their desert-wanderings! How much we can learn from the marvelous history! We, too, have to be humbled and proved, and made to know what is in our hearts. It is very profitable and morally wholesome.

Verse 3 was quoted by our Lord, when Satan asked Him to turn stones into bread. His perfect obedience to God was again revealed, when our Lord defeated Satan by quoting this verse.

He also gives them a glimpse of the good land. There would be abundance of water, no scarcity of food, wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, oil and honey. Then there were the hidden treasures in the mountains. These things speak typically of our blessings, the spiritual blessings, with which we are blessed in Christ Jesus, to which we are fully entitled, but which we can only enjoy if we walk in faith and obedience to His Word. Another solemn warning is given to them by their loving leader. The warning is against highmindedness and forgetting the Lord, who has done all these things. The warning was not heeded and what Moses testified against them overtook them in their national history. May we also remember here the warning God has given to Gentile Christendom, not to be highminded, but to fear (Rom 11:17-24).

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

Deu 4:1, Deu 5:32, Deu 5:33, Deu 6:1-3, Psa 119:4-6, 1Th 4:1, 1Th 4:2

Reciprocal: Lev 19:37 – General Deu 6:24 – he might 2Ch 33:8 – to do all Pro 3:1 – let Jer 32:22 – which

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Deuteronomy 8-15

In the opening verses of chapter 8, Moses confronted the people with certain facts that have a very distinct voice to us today. In the first place emphasis is laid again upon “All the commandments,” that God had given. There was unity stamped upon the demands of the law system, just as there is upon the revelation that we have in the New Testament – the revelation of God in Christ, and of all purposed and established in Him, as the great expression of grace. Israel had no liberty to pick and choose amongst the commandments, neither have we today amongst the many instructions that grace has furnished.

Then again they were to remember, “all the way,” in which God had tested them in the wilderness, to humble them and to reveal what was really in their hearts, and to show them that their real life was not based on material food but on the spiritual instructions and food that is found in the word of God. Here in verse Deu 3:1-29 we have the words quoted by the Lord Jesus to Satan in the wilderness temptation that He endured. Israel’s wilderness temptations revealed their complete failure, whereas the temptation of our Lord was permitted in order to reveal His absolute perfection. He did indeed live by “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord;” in other words, His life was one of perfect obedience to the Father’s will in all things. We are “elect… through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience… of Jesus Christ” (1Pe 1:2). We are to obey as He obeyed.

Further they were reminded that while God tested them in the wilderness He performed a miracle, lasting 40 years on their behalf. We venture to say that no one else has ever had clothes that lasted for so many years without waxing old and wearing out. There was of course the chastening of which verse Deu 5:1-33 speaks, and this may have helped to dull their recognition of the miracle, but even this chastening came upon them because they were a people brought into relationship with God. Men chasten their own sons and not others. This is exactly the principle applied- to ourselves in Heb 12:1-29. So the word is, “If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as sons, for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth not?” We are further told that though no chastening is a joyful matter, it afterwards yields “the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” Israel was to be exercised to keep the commandments, walk in God’s ways and fear Him, as verse Deu 6:1-25 states, and the more so, since they were to be brought into a land of much earthly prosperity, while we are brought into a wealth of spiritual blessing.

In the latter part of this chapter they are warned of the dangers that lie hidden in prosperity. Then would come the temptation to rest in the luxury, forget God’s goodness to them, and be seduced to seek after false gods. So it came to pass in their history, as we know. Again we as Christians have to remind ourselves that for us also, days of outward and worldly prosperity are times of spiritual danger and defeat.

In Deu 9:1-29 Moses reminds the people of the great strength of the people then in the land from a military point of view. Many of the men were giants, and their cities strongly fortified. God being for them, they would have power to destroy them completely; yet that power would be exerted, not because they were so righteous, but because the peoples of the land were so wicked. He virtually says to the people – Don’t imagine God will give you the victory because you have deserved it. Then he proceeded as the rest of this chapter shows to remind the people of their great unbelief and sin in the making of the golden calf, and their refusal to go up to the land when the spies came back. All this proved that they had no righteousness in which to stand before their God.

What then reimained? Well, there was the promse to Abraham, and confirmed to Isaac and Jacob, and to this there were no conditions attached, which they had to fulfil. That remained, and that Moses pleaded before God, as verse Deu 27:1-26 reveals. The patriarchal covenant was one of grace, and will be made good in the “new covenant,” predicted in Jer 31:1-40, when the end of God’s dealings with Israel is reached. The basis of that new covenant lies in the death and resurrection of Christ, and on this basis the Gospel goes forth today, as 2Co 3:6 shows. It is the “everlasting covenant,” as we see in Heb 13:20.

Having uttered this plea, Moses ventured to remind the Lord that He had brought the people out of Egypt because of the patriarchal covenant, before the law was given at Sinai. If now, the law having been given, and they having completely failed under it, they were to be destroyed, the Egyptians and other nations would misunderstand this, as meaning that God was unable to complete His work, and bring them into the land He had purposed.

This plea on the part of Moses prevailed, but it did not alter the fact that they were now under the law, and so Deu 10:1-22 opens with the reminder of how the original stones on which the law was written, and which were broken by Moses, were replaced on his second sojourn on the Mount. This time they were placed in the ark of shittim wood, as a standing witness to God’s holy demands. The appointment of the tribe of Levi at that time to their special service, witnessed to the fact that God still bore with their failure to obey, and to appreciate His kindness on their behalf.

Here again is mentioned what came before us in Deu 6:5; that which our Lord called, “the first and great commandment” (Mat 22:38); for to love God sincerely with heart and soul would carry with it obedience to all the commandments He gave. Hence that word through the Apostle Paul, “Love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom 13:10). What should have moved them was the love that God had shown to their fathers, and in choosing them to be very specially His people above all others. How much greater is the love that has been displayed toward us in Christ.

Now in the first place they were, as verse Deu 16:1-22 says, to “circumcise” their hearts, as the answer to the love shown to them. We again find the Apostle Paul alluding to this in Rom 2:28 , Rom 2:29. The rite of circumcision was established in connection with the patriarchal covenant, as we read in Gen 17:1-27, though confirmed later in connection with the law. The inveterate tendency was to observe the outward ceremony and overlook its significance. Israel was to be a people completely cut off for and to God. Had there been circumcision of “heart,” there would have been the cutting off of self-love, in the knowledge of the love of God.

The same tendency to lay much stress on outward, visible ceremony, while overlooking the inward, spiritual import, is with us today. Take the ordinance of baptism, for instance. We are not furnished with an exact, detailed description of just how it was administered, hence the much discussion and argument as to the outward ceremony. If as much attention had been paid to the spiritual meaning of the ordinance, as stated in the early verses of Rom 6:1-23, we should have gained far more profit. Dead and buried with Christ – our old life, as in Adam, judged – and “newness of life,” now to characterise us.

Had Israel circumcised their hearts, a second thing would have marked them. They would have shown love to the stranger, who might be in their midst. We are to display the love that has reached us by seeking others with the Gospel of the grace of God.

The whole of Deu 11:1-32 is taken up with the record of the exhortations that Moses gave, promising on God’s behalf a wealth of earthly blessing as the result of their obedience, but on the other hand warning them of the curse that would rest on them if they disobeyed. The land to which they were called was specially dependent for its fruitfulness upon rain from heaven in its season, which, if withheld by God, would bring disaster upon them. That they might obey, they are again told to keep all the commandments continually before them – to teach them, to talk of them, to write them, as they had previously been instructed. If obedient, God would be with them in power that none could resist, and every place whereon they trod should be theirs.

But they were equally warned of the curse that would follow disobedience, and that when in the land there should be a mountain marked by the curse, as well as one marked by blessing. How sadly significant it is that the very last word of the Old Testament is the word, “curse.”

Having given this further solemn warning, Deu 12:1-32 is occupied with “statutes and judgments” specially relating to their lives when in the land, to which they were going. It begins with the demand that they should utterly destroy the nations then in the land, and uproot every trace of their idolatrous practices. The chapter ends on the same note, inasmuch as idolatrous evil is very infectious, whereas spiritual good is not. Even in natural things this principle is seen. A good apple placed amongst rotten ones will not remove any rottenness; whereas a rotten apple placed among good ones, will soon spread its rottenness. We must never forget that, though as born of God we have a new nature, yet the old Adamic nature is still in us, and if unjudged it responds at once to all the evil that confronts it.

So all the high places of these nations, their groves, their pillars, their altars, their images, were to be destroyed, and their very names eradicated from memory. We may remember how, when the kingdom was divided, Jeroboam disobeyed this, and the infection of it persisted through all the kings of the ten tribes, and hastened their captivity under the kings of Assyria. All this evil then was to go.

But statutes of a more positive nature follow. When in the land, God Himself would choose a place where His name should be set, and to that place the people were to bring their sacrifices and offerings. There they could eat before God and rejoice, and they are specially warned against what had evidently in large measure characterized them; doing, “every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.” This injunction was soon forgotten, when for several centuries judges ruled them in the land. The book of Judges ends on the sad note, “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Carefully note that what they did was not what they considered wrong, but right, yet it was not what God had ordered, and hence it was not right, according to Him. How sadly this same trouble has been manifested in the history of Christendom. A multitude of things have been done, and introduced into the professed worship and service of God, because they seemed so right, even to pious people; yet they have been far removed from the simplicity laid down in the New Testament, and observed by the early church under the guidance of the apostles.

So, in our chapter, we have laid down not only the instruction as to the place that God would choose, but also as to how they should bring their offerings, of clean animals, and while shedding their blood, taking care not to eat of it themselves. This is repeated twice in this chapter, and they were reminded that “the blood is the life;” and life comes directly from God; so that when killing an animal they were to pour the blood forth as water upon the earth. This was blood “as water.” It is a remarkable fact that when the soldier pierced the side of Jesus, “forthwith came there out blood and water” (Joh 19:34). In his epistle the Apostle John reminds us that our Lord came by blood as well as by water: that is, it not only is the basis of moral and spiritual cleansing but it paid the penalty of sin in the yielding up of His life’s blood. It is just this latter fact that many in our day are unwilling to admit, but which is of all importance. Life comes from God, and the blood being the life of all flesh it is sacred and not to be eaten as a common thing.

It was lightly esteemed among the nations, as the closing verses of the chapter show. Even their sons and daughters they burned in their fires in honour of their false gods.

Another danger might arise among them, when they got into the land, as mentioned in the opening verses of Deu 13:1-18. Moses had been their great prophet, through whom God had again and again spoken to them. Now one crafty device of the adversary is to imitate what God does, and so presently there would arise prophets that were inspired not by God but by him, in the effort to lead the people astray. They were not to hearken to such a prophet but rather to put him to death.

Similar tactics of the devil have been used against the faith of Christ, as we see for instance in such a scripture as 1Co 12:3. In the early Christian assemblies, when as yet hardly any of the New Testament had been written, there were men of prophetic gift, who spoke words inspired by the Spirit of God. Men might appear amongst them who spoke as inspired by some evil spirit; and such were to be detected and refused. Hence the injunction “Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge” (1Co 14:29). In 1Co 4:1-21 had been told not to judge before the time, when they attempted to assess the value of the different servants of God; but here we find that the utterances of prophets in the assembly were to be heard with godly care and judgment, lest things should be said that were not of God. Similar godly care and judgment is needed today as we listen to what purports to be the ministry of the word of God. It negatives the idea that there may be men who can so speak that everything they say must be received without any question.

In the latter part of this chapter the people are warned against a similar danger, but not from self-styled prophets. There would arise evil men in their midst who would divert a whole city from the Lord to the worship of false gods with their abominations. Such evil was to be utterly destroyed from amongst them, if the fact of it was established beyond all question.

We do well to note carefully the stipulations of verse Deu 14:1-29. The judgment was not to be executed until there had been inquiry and search and diligent asking for facts, so that the evil reported was certain and beyond all dispute. Hasty action might easily lead to a miscarriage of justice. If in the church of God today similar diligence and care were exercised, we should be made wise unto salvation from some difficulties that endanger us.

The first 21 verses of Deu 14:1-29 stress the fact that Israel as a nation were a people specially set apart to God, and therefore to avoid certain common practices on the one hand, and to be very careful as to what they ate on the other. The avoidance of the things prohibited would doubtless be for their physical good, and help to mark them off from other peoples. Many centuries later, when in Christian circles those from among the Gentiles soon outnumbered those from the Jews, these restrictions gave rise to the “doubtful disputations,” of which Rom 14:1-23 speaks. In that chapter the Spirit of God does not legislate but leaves every man to be persuaded in his own mind what he should do. We may profitably transfer the thought to what we may mentally read and inwardly digest. Let us take care that we do not feed mentally on what is impure.

Then the chapter turns from what they should take in as food to what they should give out as tithes, and how they should present it to the Lord. The tithe was ultimately for the upkeep of the Levites whose lives were to be given to the service of God, and also to be used for the poor and needy who would be found amongst them.

Legislation continues through nearly the whole of Deu 15:1-23 as to how the poor amongst them were to be considered. Every seventh year was to be a year of release. The well-to-do Israelite might lend money to his poor neighbour, but anything not repaid when the seventh year arrived, was to be released and left in the hand of the poor man. We see therefore that the law demanded a spirit of gracious care for the poor among the people, though this arrangement did not apply to strangers among them. Should there be no poor, the rule would lapse, but in verse Deu 11:1-32 they are plainly told that “the poor shall never cease out of the land.” For us Christians it is equally true that there will always be found amongst us those who are “weak in the faith,” who are but “babes” in Christ; and those strong in the faith must be careful lest by their “knowledge” they make “the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died” (1Co 8:11). The poor and weak must be considered.

In verses 16-18, we have a further reference to the law as to the “Hebrew servant,” first given in Exo 21:1-36. It is remarkable that it should again appear here, connected with those who are “poor,” for in it we see something that found perfect fulfilment in the Lord Jesus. He took “the form of a Servant,” and though He was rich yet for our sakes became poor, as we told in

Corinthians Deu 8:9. We are again reminded of the piercing of the ear against the door, and this meant the shedding of blood, though it may only have been a tiny drop. As it was in Egypt, so it was to be here, blood on the door but this time signifying the devotion of the One whose blood was shed.

The picture presented to us in this chapter is evidently one of grace, which was to shine out in the midst of the demands of the law. We may well close our meditation on these things by observing that if there was to be an exhibition of grace when law was dominant, how much more should grace characterise all our behaviour today, seeing that we “are not under the law but under grace” (Rom 6:14).

Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary

Lest We Forget

Deu 8:1-20

INTRODUCTORY WORDS

We remember a verse which reads, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”

There are some who desire to hold themselves completely to the New Testament message for the Church. This, however, cannot be right, in view of the Scripture we have just quoted.

The Old Testament is filled with messages to Israel, or, concerning Israel, which have a most vital bearing upon the Church.

We grant that the Church is distinct from Israel, and yet, God dealt with His people of old, along the line of the same general principle as He deals with His people today. First century messages are given to the twentieth century Church with all authority. So, also, do messages given centuries before Christ, carry tremendous authority to the Church, which lives so many centuries since Christ.

In the 8th chapter of Deuteronomy, Moses is addressing the Children of Israel by way of remembrance. He is telling them of how the Lord led them through the wilderness forty years, testing them, and proving them. He then looks forward and reminds them of the good land into which the Lord their God is about to bring them. Then he gives abundant warning lest they should forget God, and begin to feel that they had themselves accomplished the great fete of their safe arrival on the borders of Canaan.

The Christian of today needs also to remember how the Lord has led him. He, too, has had many testings by the way and has been proved of God. He, too, has had a present-day experience of the good land, in the deeper life which God has given him. He, too, is in danger of imagining that his own hand brought him forth. into so large a place. Therefore he needs to remember God’s dealings with Israel.

There is a Scripture in Romans which says, “If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee.” If God cast Israel off because of unbelief, unfaithfulness, and ingratitude; shall He deal differently with us, who live with enlarged vision, and fuller life? In the Book of Hebrews God brings up these very experiences, reminding us how the fathers tempted Him during the forty years, and how He was grieved with that generation, and sware in His wrath that they should not enter into His rest. He said, “Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the Living God.”

If God gave Israel a promise of rest, and they entered not in because of unbelief; should not we, therefore, fear, “Lest, a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it”?

We sincerely hope that those who read this will not feel that God is speaking to a people who were led by Moses 1500 years before Christ; we trust that they will realize that God is speaking through them unto us upon whom the end of the ages is come.

I. OBEDIENCE BRINGS BLESSING (Deu 8:1)

Moses told Israel that all the Commandments, which he had commanded them, they should observe and do, that they might live and multiply and go in and possess their land.

If there are some who would argue that Israel was saved by Law, and Law-works, and that we are saved by Grace; we answer, that the question of salvation is not being discussed here at all. Observing the Commandments of the Lord was to be followed by life and multiplication and possession. The life of this verse is not eternal life. God was speaking to them about how they might be prospered in their earth life.

Is this not true with us as well as with them? Salvation is by grace, but grace gives no license for men to live as they list. If believers, under Law to Christ, fail to walk in the Spirit, they will not be under the blessing. Love is the fulfillment of the Law, but not its breaking. Grace teaches men how to live soberly, righteously, and godly, but not how to luxuriate in licentiousness and lust.

Christians are urged to mortify their members upon the earth. They are told to put off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communications. Christians are not to lie one to another, or to evilly entreat one another.

Shall we think for one moment that we can wander into by-paths of shameful sinning, and still prosper in life, and be multiplied, and possess our possessions in the realms of spiritual victory; that is impossible?

Christ spoke blessing to the pure in heart, to the merciful, to the meek, to the peacemakers, to those who thirst after righteousness, and He still speaks blessing upon the same.

Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.” He also said, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” In these words the Holy Ghost, through Paul, was not giving “a method by which sinners could be saved, but a method by which saints could be blest.

II. TIMES OF TESTING (Deu 8:2)

Our verse tells us that God led Israel through forty years in the wilderness to accomplish four things.

1. He sought to humble them. We should realize the heinousness of pride. Even after the wilderness experiences were completed, God gave further warning through Moses; “Lest * * thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God.” We suppose that after the deliverance from Pharaoh, although the Children of Israel had no more than “stood still,” beholding the salvation of the Lord; yet, they were lifted up in pride, as though their own hand had gotten them the victory. Therefore, God had to humble them.

2. He sought to prove them. An untried servant cannot be trusted with important service. In Timothy, we are warned not to lay hands suddenly on any man. The deacons who are chosen must “first be proved; then let them use the office of a deacon, being found blameless.”

Even the men of this world will prove one another before they trust one another. When Daniel spoke to Melzar he said, “Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days.”

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “And we have sent with them our brother, whom we have oftentimes proved diligent in many things.”

When God proves us, and finds us faithful in that which is least, He can trust us with that which is much.

3. He sought to know what was in their heart. Man looketh upon the outward appearances, God looketh on the heart. God’s eye searcheth all things. He knoweth what is in the heart of man. At times we may fail the Lord through the weakness of our flesh, or through ignorance, but God doth not judge us wrongfully. He can look beyond a seeming failure to the intents and thoughts of the heart. Sometimes to all outward appearances a servant of the Lord may appear to be most faithful, even though he has covered up the real purpose of his heart. Let not that man think that he can deceive the Lord. “All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do,” He who would deceive God is warned not to be deceived, for “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

4. He sought to know if Israel would keep His Commandments. Disobedience is black with the frown of God. The very essence of sin is lawlessness. Sin is the trangression of the Law-that is, the going across the Law.

“We have turned every one to his own way.” He that saith, “Lord, Lord,” but doeth not the commandments of the Lord, will be disrobed of his falsity. If God were a demagogue enforcing on men commandments that were evil, and hurtful, it would be different. But the commandments of the Lord are not only right, but beneficent. God asks us to do only that which is for our good.

III. GOD’S PURPOSE IN PROVING (Deu 8:3)

1. He caused Israel to hunger, that He might give her His manna. The disciples asked, “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Christ replied, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

God caused Israel to hunger, that Israel might behold His care in providing the manna from Heaven. They had been used to the onions and garlic of Egypt; now even that, was cut off that He might provide them food from heaven. In their distress, and hunger, and thirst, Israel cried, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” That is just what God did do. He gave them water from the flinty rock, yea, He brought forth streams from the rock; He commanded the clouds from above and opened the doors of Heaven, and rained down manna for them to eat, and gave them the corn of Heaven: man did eat angel’s food; He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls like as the sand of the sea. “So they did eat and were filled.”

Sometimes God lets us hunger that He may feed us. Elijah was fed by the ravens. The multitude were fed by the Lord from the scanty supply of a few small loaves and fishes; while twelve baskets full were left over after all were filled.

“My God shall supply all your need” Is still workable and true.

2. He caused Israel to hunger that He might show that man should not live by bread alone. One of Christ’s great messages, centered around the Heavenly manna. Israel in her hunger was affording God the opportunity, not only to show to her, but also to her descendents, centuries beyond her time, that Christ was the Bread from Heaven.

The Jews said, “Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from Heaven to eat.” Jesus replied to the Jews, “My Father giveth you the true Bread from Heaven. For the Bread of God is He which cometh down from Heaven, and giveth life unto the world.” Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life; He that cometh unto Me shall never hunger.”

It is wonderful to stand three thousand years down the shores of time, and to look back over three millenniums and behold in Israel’s hunger and God’s supply of the Heavenly manna, one of the greatest messages of gospel truth, “Christ the Bread of Life.”

IV. GOD’S MANIFESTATION OF MERCIES (Deu 8:4-5)

1. The mercy of physical provision. “Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell.” Traveling through a wilderness filled with pitfalls, and beset with unseen dangers, is not conducive either to the protection of clothes, or to the preservation of foot-ease. Some mock at these words, thinking that the mark of unbelievable fiction and fairy tales is plainly manifested. Let them mock on. For our part we believe God. Was it harder for God to keep garments from waxing old, and feet from becoming swollen, than it was to provide manna from Heaven and streams from the rock?

God may not use the supernatural, where the natural is easily operative; but God is able to work all things after the counsel of His will.

The Holy Spirit through the Psalmist wrote, “Marvellous things did He in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt.” Then He recounts events including the dividing of the sea, and the subsequent cleaving of the rock and the manna, and the quails.

We stand with the Holy Spirit in accepting all of these things as they are written. We stagger not because of unbelief. “Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in Thy sight.”

2. The mercy of physical chastening. On the one hand God showed His power in protecting Israel from all manner of diseases and from ravenous beasts, and from swelling feet and threadbare clothes. On the other hand, God chastened Israel with fiery serpents, which killed the thousands, and with terrific judgments.

Here are some of the statements in 1Co 10:1-33, which sum up a number of God’s chastenings.

“They were overthrown in the wilderness.”

There “fell in one day three and twenty thousand.”

“Were destroyed of the serpents.”

“Were destroyed of the destroyer.”

How was this chastening done? “As a man chasteneth his son.” Not for one. moment should we think that God chastened Israel to spite Himself upon them. “Like as a father” is the message of the Bible. In all of God’s chastenings He was but seeking to awaken Israel to her need, and to recall her back to His heart of mercy and love.

“No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”

V. GOD’S FINAL OBJECTIVE (Deu 8:7-9)

Whether God was dealing in mercies or in chastening, He had but one final objective in it all-He was leading Israel to “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.” This was to be the lot of a people, who had dwelt where there were no pools and no water.

The ones who had been hungry and crying for meat, God was leading to a land of “wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey.”

The ones who had dwelt without houses, He was leading “to a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.”

And what does the Christian have in view? A City whose Builder and Maker is God. Here, we have no abiding place, but we seek one to come. Here, we have tribulation, there, we have peace. Here, we have sorrow and sickness and death; there, we have no more pain, no sickness, no death.

VI. GOD’S WARNING WORD (Deu 8:11-13)

“Lord, help us to remember our sacred debt;

Oh, by the love that sought us,

Oh, by the Blood that bought us,

Oh, by the grace that brought us to the fold,

Lord, let us not forget,

Oh, let us not forget.”

God’s warning to Israel was, “Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping His Commandments, and His judgments,” etc.

When was Israel in danger of forgetting God? It was when she had eaten and was full; when she had built goodly houses, and dwelt therein. It was when her herds and flocks, her silver and her gold, and all that she had was multiplied: then she would be in danger of forgetting, and of lifting up her heart in pride. How strange this seems-in danger of forgetting God, when crowned with blessings from God! Yet, such is the case. How many there are who cannot thrive, spiritually, under Divine favor and blessing!

Persecution and penury, sickness and sorrow, darkness and distress seem to drive us to God. The house of mourning proves better than the house of feasting.

VII. GOD’S PUNISHMENT FOR THE UNGRATEFUL AND DISOBEDIENT (Deu 8:19-20)

Moses’ final word was fulfilled to the letter in the days when Israel turned her back upon God. God’s people became proud and self-centered. They forgot to thank God. They remembered not that He had blessed them with all that they possessed. They even went so far as to serve other gods, and walked in the abominations of the nations. The result was that they perished in their evil ways. Today they are driven among all nations. Their land is trodden down of the Gentiles. They have suffered untold anguish because of their disobedience. For twenty-three hundred years, they have been wanderers among the nations.

The same judgment will rest upon the church if she dares to forget her God. He will punish her backslidings. It is always an evil thing, and bitter, to forget the Lord our God.

AN ILLUSTRATION

A FLOWER PARABLE

The following aptly illustrates the danger of “forgetting” the Lord and delaying salvation to some future date.

“As Fred Barlow came up the walk, he saw through the open door his pretty cousin, Lois, standing with a bouquet of roses in her hands, the picture of perplexity.

‘Well,’ he said inquiringly.

She turned quickly.

‘Well,’ she repeated, ‘what do you think of that?’ and she handed him the flowers.

He saw at a glance that the bouquet had been one of rare beauty, but now the flowers were withered. From many of them the petals were fallen, and the ferns and smilax were yellow and drooping. Even as he took it a shower of rose leaves fell at his feet ‘With the love of Mrs. Maiden,’ he read from the card attached, ‘She hasn’t just sent it, of course?’ he said, in a questioning tone.

‘Sambo brought it in that box not five minutes ago,’ she answered.

Fred picked up the box and looked it over carefully, as if to find some explanation of the strange gift, ‘Depend upon it,’ he said at length, ‘she must have sent it by him several days ago, and the rascal forgot to bring it. Of course she wouldn’t insult you by sending you such a specimen.’ And he tossed the bouquet contemptuously on the table. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘let’s have a game of tennis.’

In the interest of the game Lois forgot the matter, but when she was alone again her perplexity returned.

‘I don’t believe Sambo could have forgotten it,’ she said. ‘How beautiful it must have been! I don’t understand it at all, and when I get a chance I am going to ask Mrs. Maiden.’

The chance came sooner than she expected, for that very afternoon Mrs. Maiden called and invited her to ride. For a little while they talked on different matters, and then Lois said:

‘Those were very rare roses you sent me this morning,’ thinking as she emphasized ‘this morning’ that she would find out whether they had been sent before.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Maiden, ‘they were beautiful. I gathered and arranged them for you on Monday, but I enjoyed their beauty and fragrance so much I kept them myself as long as I could.’

She spoke seriously, but when she saw the look of astonishment on Lois’ face she could not conceal a smile.

‘If it wasn’t a mistake, Mrs. Maiden, it must have been a parable,’ said Lois, decidedly. ‘Please tell me quick.’

‘Dear Lois,’ said her friend, ‘I wanted to show you how you mean to treat your best Friend.’

If Lois was perplexed before she was wholly mystified now, and begged for an explanation.

‘Last week,’ said Mrs. Maiden, ‘I passed a group of high school girls on the street. I think they were talking about Annie Temple’s joining the church the week before, for I heard her name, and then I heard one of them say, ‘Oh, of course, I mean to be a Christian when I get to be an old woman, but now I am young I mean to enjoy myself, and have a good time.’

‘I said that myself,’ said Lois, ‘but surely-‘

She paused, and after waiting a moment for her to conclude her sentence, Mrs. Maiden said:

‘There never was a greater mistake than the idea that becoming a Christian lessens the enjoyment of life; but it is not that I wish to show you. Life lies before you, bright with promise like those budding roses when I gathered them. Beauty and health are yours, mental faculties alert and active, and unnumbered opportunities, and the energy and enthusiasm of youth. And from the Friend who has given it all to you, and says, ‘Give Me thine heart,’ you turn away and answer, ‘Not yet, O Lord not yet; wait until I am old and feeble, when bodily strength is failing, when mental powers are waning, when my life can be of no pleasure to myself and no service to Thee, then I will give it to Thee.’ Were not these fading flowers a fit emblem of such a gift, dear Lois?’

The young girl bowed her head in assent, but she made no reply.”

Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water

Deu 8:1. That ye may live Comfortably and prosperously, for life, in the Scripture phrase, signifies more than bare life, namely, happiness and prosperity, Gen 17:18; 1Sa 25:6; Lev 25:36; 1Th 3:8. On the other hand, afflictions and calamities are called death, Exo 10:17, and 2Co 11:23.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deu 8:4. Thy raiment waxed not old. By a miracle the Lord preserved the clothes of the Israelites from wearing and decay, or by means of trade and war with the supplies they brought from Egypt, and by their own manufactures in the deserts; for they were never seen in nakedness and rags. The beautiful cloth of the tabernacle was all manufactured in the vicinity of mount Sinai; consequently, they could do much towards manufacturing their own raiment.

Deu 8:9. Dig brass. nechosheth, and nachosh, brass; the genera is here put for all the species. We dig nickle, a word evidently Hebrew, and lapis calaminaris, which is the ore of zinc, of which brass is formed by a mixture of copper. The mountains abounded with salubrious springs, which were very scarce in the plains and deserts.

Deu 8:15. Fiery serpents, so called from the burning heat and thirst excited by the poison, in those who were bitten. See Numbers 21.

Deu 8:16. Who fed thee daily with manna, gathered every morning, that he might teach thee to depend on him for all things, having long proved his fidelity.

REFLECTIONS.

Israel is here exhorted to keep the commandments of the Lord, and to remember his works. And what is better calculated to soften the soul into obedience, and enkindle it with faith and love, than to meditate on all the wonderful works of the Lord? The recollection of God and all his grace brings down a heaven into the soul. How pleasant for the Hebrew to say, our God suffered us to hunger for a moment, and then gave us bread from heaven; he suffered us to thirst, and then gave us water from the granite rock. We feared to expose our feet to the burning sands, but they neither blistered nor swelled. How many are his miracles and mercies, and his mercy endureth for ever.

The recollection of the Hebrews was to extend to their afflictions for comfort, as well as to their mercies. The Lord chastened them as children, because he loved them and sought their good. By the serpents, by the sword, and by the plague, he punished a part to save the whole. Hence in the approaching period, when adversity should be changed for prosperity; when the vine should fill their cups, and the fields crown their tables, the Israelites are charged to remember the goodness and severity of God; to bless him in their feasts, and to fear his holy name. Oh how ignorant, how mean is that man, when a little prosperity turns his brain, and displays the pride and vanity of his heart. He is unworthy of the bounties of providence, and they shall soon forsake him. Yet such is the character of vain and giddy man. Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked; he forgot the rock from whence he was hewn; but when oppressed for his sin, when weeping by the waters of Babylon, he said, If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning; if I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.

It is here declared, and with a high voice, that if Israel, through the enjoyment of vineyards, cattle and corn, and through the increase of gold and silver, should forget the Lord, and worship Baal, then they should surely perish; and the Lord would destroy them, as he had destroyed the seven devoted nations. And these were more than words; they were sad prophecies of what afterwards actually came to pass. Read, oh read the sad accomplishment of these predictions, in the Second book of Chronicles, and the last chapter. Be warned, oh my soul, by the words of this venerable prophet. Be warned, oh antinomian age, of the dangers attendant on riches and commerce, on conformity to the world, and lukewarmness in the faith. Be warned, oh age, which makes problems of the gospel, which sports with infidelity, and almost totally disremembers the new covenant sealed with the blood of Christ. He who destroyed or banished the Canaanites; he who made Israel a desolation, he who removed the candlestick from Asia by the Saracens, and punished the apostasy of the church in Europe, by the Goths and Vandals, still lives. Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword with two edges, and his sceptre is a rod of strength. Who would not fear thee, thou King of saints!

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deuteronomy 8

“All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord aware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no.” (Vers. 1, 2.)

It is, at once, refreshing, edifying and encouraging to look back over the whole course along which the faithful hand of our God has conducted us; to trace His wise and gracious dealings with us; to call to mind His many marvellous interpositions on our behalf, how He delivered us out of this strait and that difficulty; how, oft-times, when we were at our wits’ end, He appeared for our help, and opened the way before us, rebuking our fears and filling our hearts with songs of praise and thanksgiving.

We must not, by any means, confound this delightful exercise with the miserable habit of looking back at our ways, Our attainments, our progress, our service, what we have been able to do, even though we are ready to admit, in a general way, that it was only by the grace of God that we were enabled to do any little work for Him. All this only ministers to self complacency, which is destructive of all true spirituality of mind. Self-retrospection, if we may be allowed to use such a term, is quite as injurious in its moral effect as self-introspection, In short self occupation, in any of its multiplied phases, is most pernicious; it is, in so far as it is allowed to operate, the death-blow to fellowship. Anything that tends to bring self before the mind must be judged and refused, with stern decision; it brings in barrenness, darkness and feebleness. For a person to sit down to look back at his attainments or his doings, is about as wretched an occupation as any one could engage in. We may be sure it was not to any such thing as this that Moses exhorted the people when he charged them to “Remember all the way by which the Lord their God had led them”

We may here recur, for a moment, to the memorable words of the apostle in Philippians 3. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Now, the question is, what were the “things” of which the blessed apostle speaks? Did he forget the precious dealings of God with his soul, throughout the whole of his wilderness journey? Impossible; indeed we have the very fullest and clearest evidence to the contrary. Hear his touching words before Agrippa: “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great.” So also, in writing to his beloved son and fellow-labourer, Timothy, he reviews the past, and speaks of the persecutions and afflictions which he had endured: “But,” he adds, “Out of them all the Lord delivered me.” And again, At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.”

To what then does the apostle refer when he speaks of “forgetting the things which are behind”? We believe he refers to all those things which had no connection with Christ things in which the heart might rest, and nature might glory – things which might act as weights and hindrances; all these were to be forgotten in the ardent pursuit of those grand and glorious realities which lay before him. We do not believe that Paul, or any other child of God or servant of Christ, could ever desire to forget a single scene or circumstance, in his whole earthly career, in any way illustrative of the goodness, the loving kindness, the tender mercy, the faithfulness of God. On the contrary, we believe it will ever be one of our very sweetest exercises to dwell upon the blessed memory of all our Father’s ways with us while passing across the desert, home to our everlasting rest. ” There with what joy reviewing

Past conflicts, dangers, fears,

Thy hand our foes subduing,

And drying all our tears;

Our hearts with rapture burning,

The path we shall retrace.

Where now our souls are learning

The riches of thy grace.”

But let us not be misunderstood. We do not, by any means, wish to give countenance to the habit of dwelling merely upon our own experience. This is often very poor work, and resolves itself into self occupation. We have to guard against this as one of the many things which tend to lower our spiritual tone and draw our hearts away from Christ. But we need never be afraid of the result of dwelling upon the record of the Lord’s dealings and ways with us. This is a blessed habit, tending ever to lift us out of ourselves, and fill us with praise and thanksgiving.

Why, we may ask, were Israel charged to “remember all the way” by which the Lord their God had led them? Assuredly, to draw out their hearts in praise for the past, and to strengthen their confidence in God for the future. Thus it must ever be. “We’ll praise Kim for all that is past, and trust Him for all that’s to come.” May we do so more and more! May we just move on, day by day, praising and trusting, trusting and praising. These are the two things which redound to the glory of God, and to our peace and joy in Him. When the eye rests on the “Eben-ezers” which lie all along the way, the heart must give forth its sweet “Hallelujahs” to Him who has helped us hitherto, and will help us right on to the end. He hath delivered, and He doth, deliver, and He will deliver. Blessed chain! Its every link is divine deliverance.

Nor is it merely upon the signal mercies and gracious deliverances of our Father’s hand that we are to dwell, with devout thankfulness, but also upon the “humblings” and the “provings” of His wise, faithful and holy love. All these things are full of richest blessing to our souls. They are not, as people sometimes call them, “mercies in disguise,” but plain, palpable, unmistakable mercies for which we shall have to praise our God throughout the golden ages of that bright eternity which lies before us.

“Thou shalt remember all the way” – every stage of the journey, every scene of wilderness life, all the dealings of God, from first to last, with the special object thereof, “to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.”

How wonderful to think of God’s patient grace and painstaking love with His people in the wilderness! What precious instruction for us! With what intense interest and spiritual delight we can hang over the record of the divine dealings with Israel in all their desert wanderings! How much we can learn from the marvellous history! We, too, have to be humbled and proved, and made to know what is in our hearts. It is very profitable and morally wholesome. On our first setting out to follow the Lord, we know but little of the depths of evil and folly in our hearts. Indeed, we are superficial in everything. It is as we get on in our practical career that we begin to prove the reality of things; we find out the depths of evil in ourselves, the utter hollowness and worthlessness of all that is in the world, and the urgent need of the most complete dependence upon the grace of God, every moment. All this is very good; it makes us humble and self-distrusting; it delivers us from pride and self-sufficiency, and leads us to cling, in child-like simplicity, to the One who alone is able to keep us from falling. Thus as we grow in self-knowledge we get a deeper sense of grace, a more profound acquaintance with the wondrous love of the heart of God, His tenderness toward us, His marvellous patience in bearing with all our infirmities and failings, His rich mercy in having taken us up at all, His loving ministry to all our varied need, His numberless interpositions on our behalf, the exercises through which He has seen fit to lead us for our souls’ deep and permanent profit.

The practical effect of all this is invaluable; it imparts depth, solidity and mellowness to the character; it cures us of all our crude notions, and vain theories; it delivers us from one-sidedness and wild extremes; it makes us tender, thoughtful, patient and considerate toward others; it corrects our harsh judgements and gives a gracious desire to put the best possible construction upon the actions of others, and a readiness to attribute the best motives in cases which may seem to us equivocal. These are precious fruits of wilderness experience which we may all earnestly covet.

“And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.” (Ver. 3.)

This passage derives special interest and importance from the fact that it is the first of our Lord’s quotations from the book of Deuteronomy, in His conflict with the adversary in the wilderness. Let us ponder this deeply. It demands our earnest attention. Why did our Lord quote from Deuteronomy? Because that was the book which, above all others, specially applied to the condition of Israel, at the moment. Israel had utterly failed, and this weighty fact is assumed in the book of Deuteronomy, from beginning to end. But not withstanding the failure of the nation, the path of obedience lay open to every faithful Israelite. It was the privilege and duty of every one who loved God, to abide by His word, under all circumstances; and in all places.

Now, our blessed Lord was divinely true to the position of the Israel of God; Israel after the flesh had failed and forfeited everything; He was there, in the wilderness, as the true Israel of God, to meet the enemy by the simple authority of the word of God. “And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Luke 4.)

Here then is something for us to ponder. The perfect Man, the true Israel, in the wilderness, surrounded by the wild beasts, fasting for forty days, in the presence of the great adversary of God, of man, of Israel. There was not a single feature in the scene to speak for God. It was not with the second Adam as it was with the first; He was not surrounded with all the delights of Eden, but with all the dreariness and desolation of a desert, there in loneliness and hunger – but there for God!

Yes; blessed be His Name, and there for man; there to show man how to meet the enemy in all his varied temptations; there to show man how to live. We must not suppose, for a moment, that our adorable Lord met the adversary as God over all; true, He was God, but if it were only as such that He stood in the conflict, it could not afford any example for us. Besides, it would be needless to tell us that God was able to vanquish and put to flight a creature which His own hand had formed. But to see One who was, in every respect, a man, and in all the circumstances of humanity, sin excepted; to see Him there in weakness, in hunger, standing amid the consequences of man’s fall, and to find Him triumphing completely over the terrible foe; it is this which is so full of comfort, consolation, strength and encouragement for us.

And how did He triumph? This is the grand and all-important question for us, a question demanding the most profound attention of every member of the church of God, a question the magnitude and importance of which it would be utterly impossible to overstate. How then did the Man Christ Jesus vanquish Satan in the wilderness? Simply by the word of God. He overcame not as the Almighty God, but as the humble, dependent, self-emptied, and obedient Man. We have before us the magnificent spectacle of a man, standing in the presence of the devil, and utterly confounding him with no other weapon whatsoever save the word of God. It was not by the display of divine power, for that could be no model for us; it was simply with the word of God in His heart and in His mouth, that the second Man confounded the terrible enemy of God and man.

And let us carefully note that our blessed Lord does not reason with Satan He does not appeal to any facts connected with Himself – facts with which the enemy was well acquainted. He does not say, I know I am the Son of God; the opened heavens, the descending Spirit, the Father’s voice have all borne witness to the fact of my being the Son of God.” No; this would not do; it would not and could not be an example for us. The one special point for us to seize and learn from is that our Great Exemplar, when meeting all the temptations of the enemy, used only the weapon which we have in our possession, namely, the simple, precious, written, word of God.

We say, “all the temptations,” because in all the three instances our Lord’s unvarying reply is, “It is written.” He does not say, “I know” – “I think” – I feel” – “I believe” this, that or the other; He simply appeals to the written word of God – the book of Deuteronomy in particular, that very book which infidels have dared to insult, but which is pre-eminently the book for every obedient man, in the face of total, universal, hopeless wreck and ruin.

This is of unspeakable moment for us, beloved reader. It is as though our Lord Christ had said to the adversary, “Whether I am the Son of God or not, is not now the question, but how man is to live, and the answer to this question is only to be found in holy scripture; and it is to be found there as clear as a sunbeam, quite irrespective of all questions respecting me. Whoever I am, the scripture is the same, Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”

Here we have the only true, the only safe, the only happy attitude for man, namely, hanging in earnest dependence upon “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” Blessed attitude! we may well say; there is nothing like it in all this world. It brings the soul into direct, living, personal contact with the Lord Himself, by means of His word. It makes the word so absolutely essential to us, in everything; we cannot do without it. As the natural life is sustained by bread, so the spiritual life is sustained by the word of God. It is not merely going to the Bible to find doctrines there, or to have our opinions or views confirmed; it is very much more than this; it is going to the Bible for the staple commodity of life – the life of the new man; it is going there for food, for light, for guidance, for comfort, for authority, for strength, for all, in short, that the soul can possibly need, from first to last.

And let us specially note the force and value of the expression, every word.” How fully it shows that we cannot afford to dispense with a single word that has proceeded out of the mouth of the Lord. We want it all We cannot tell the moment in which some exigency may present itself for which scripture has already provided. We may not; perhaps, have specially noticed the scripture before, but when the difficulty arises, if we are in a right condition of soul, the true posture of heart, the Spirit of God will furnish us with the needed scripture; and we shall see a force, beauty, depth and moral adaptation in the passage which we had never seen before. Scripture is a divine, and therefore exhaustless treasury in which God has made ample provision for all the need of His people, and for each believer in particular, right on to the end. Hence we should study it all, ponder it, dig deeply into it, and have it treasured up in our hearts, ready for use when the demand arises.

There is not a single crisis occurring in the entire history of the church of God, not a single difficulty in the entire path of any individual believer, from beginning to end, which has not been perfectly provided for in the Bible. We have all we want in that blessed volume; and hence we should be ever seeking to make ourselves more and more acquainted with what that volume contains so as to be “thoroughly furnished” for whatever may arise, whether it be a temptation of the devil, an allurement of the world, or a lust of the flesh; or, on the other hand, for equipment for that path of good works which God has afore prepared that we should walk in it.

And we should further give special attention to the expression, “Out of the mouth of the Lord.” This is unspeakably precious. It brings the Lord so very near to us, and gives us such a sense of the reality of feeding upon His every word, yea, of hanging upon it as something absolutely essential and indispensable. It sets forth the blessed fact that our souls can no more exist without the word than our bodies could without food. In a word, we are taught by this passage that man’s true position, his proper attitude, his only place of strength, safety, rest and blessing is to be found in habitual dependence upon the word of God.

This is the life of faith which we are called to live, life of dependence – the life of obedience – the life that Jesus lived perfectly. That blessed One would not move a step, utter a word, or do a single thing save by the authority of the word of God. No doubt He could have turned the stone into bread, but He had no command from God to do that; and inasmuch as He had no command, He had no motive for action. Hence Satan’s temptations were perfectly Powerless. He could do nothing with a Man who would only act on the authority of the word of God.

And we may also note, with very much interest and profit, that our blessed Lord does not quote scripture for the purpose of silencing the adversary; but simply as authority for His position and conduct. Here is where we are so apt to fail; we do not sufficiently use the precious word of God in this way; we quote it, at times, more for victory over the enemy than for power and authority for our own souls. Thus it loses its power in our hearts. We want to use the word as a hungry man uses bread, or as a mariner uses his chart and his compass; it is that on which we live and by which we move and act, and think and speak. Such it really is, and the more fully we prove it to be all this to us, the more we shall know of its infinite preciousness. Who is it that knows most of the real value of bread? Is it a chemist? No; but a hungry man. A chemist may analyse it and discuss its component parts, but a hungry man proves its worth. Who knows most of the real value of a chart; is it the teacher of navigation? No; but the mariner as he sails along an unknown and dangerous coast.

These are but feeble figures to illustrate what the word of God is to the true Christian. He cannot do without it. It is absolutely indispensable, in every relationship of life, and in every sphere of action. His hidden life is fed and sustained by it; his practical life is guided by it; in all the scenes and circumstances of his personal and domestic history, in the privacy of his closet, in the bosom of his family, in the management of his affairs, he is cast upon the word of God for guidance and counsel.

And it never fails those who simply cleave to it, and confide in it. We may trust scripture without a single shade of misgiving. Go to it when we will, we shall always find what we want. Are we in sorrow? Is the poor heart bereaved, crushed and desolate? What can soothe and comfort us like the balmy words which the Holy Spirit has penned for us? One sentence of holy scripture can do more, in the way of comfort and consolation, than all the letters of condolence that ever were penned by human hand. Are we discouraged, faint-hearted and cast down? The word of God meets us with its bright and soul-stirring assurances. Are we pressed by pinching poverty? The Holy Ghost brings home to our hearts some golden promise from the page of inspiration, recalling us to Him who is “The Possessor of heaven and earth,” and who, in His infinite grace, has pledged Himself to “supply all our need according to his riches in glory, by Christ Jesus.” Are we perplexed and harassed by the conflicting opinions of men, by the dogmas of conflicting schools of divinity, by religious and theological difficulties? A few sentences of holy scripture will pour in a flood of divine light upon the heart and conscience, and set us at perfect rest, answering every question, solving every difficulty, removing every doubt, chasing away every cloud, giving us to know the mind of God, putting an end to conflicting opinions by the one divinely competent authority.

What a boon, therefore, is holy scripture! What a precious treasure we possess in the word of God! How we should bless His holy Name for having given it to us! Yes; and bless Him, too, for everything that tends to make us more fully acquainted with the depth, fullness and power of those words of our chapter, “Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.”

Truly precious are these words to the heart of the believer! And hardly less so are those that follow, in which the beloved and revered lawgiver refers with touching sweetness to Jehovah’s tender care throughout the whole of Israel’s desert wanderings. “Thy raiment,” he says, “waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.”

What marvellous grace shines out in these words! Only think, reader, of Jehovah looking after His people, in such a manner, to see that their garments should not wax old or their foot swell! He not only fed them, but clothed them and cared for them in every way. He even stooped to look after their feet, that the sand of the desert might not injure them! Thus, for forty years, did He watch over them, with all the exquisite tenderness of a father’s heart. What will not love undertake to do for its object? Jehovah had set His love upon His people, and this one blessed fact secured everything for them, had they only understood it. There was not a single thing within the range of Israel’s necessities, from Egypt to Canaan, which was not secured to them and included in the fact that Jehovah had undertaken to do for them. With infinite love and almighty power on their side, what could be lacking?

But then, as we know, love clothes itself in various forms. It has something more to do than to provide food and raiment for its objects. It has not only to take account of their physical but also of their moral and spiritual wants. Of this the lawgiver does not fail to remind the people. “Thou shalt also consider,” he says, “in thine heart” – the only true and effective way to consider – “that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.”

Now, we do not like chastening; it is not joyous, but grievous. It is all very well for a son to receive food and raiment from a father’s hand, and to have all his comforts provided by a father’s thoughtful love; but he does not like to see him taking down the rod. And yet that dreaded rod may be the very best thing for the son; it may do for him what no material benefits or earthly blessings could effect; it may correct some bad habit, or deliver him from some wrong tendency, or save him from some evil influence, and thus prove a great moral and spiritual blessing for which he shall have to be for ever thankful. The grand point for the son is to see a father’s love and care in the discipline and chastening, just as distinctly as in the various material benefits which strew his path from day to day.

Here is precisely where we so signally fail, in reference to the disciplinary dealings of our Father. We rejoice in His benefits and blessings; we are filled with praise and thankfulness as we receive, day by day, from His liberal hand, the rich supply of all our need; we delight to dwell upon His marvellous interposition on our behalf, in times of pressure and difficulty; it is a most precious exercise to look back over the path by which His good hand has led us, and mark those “Eben-ezers” which tell of gracious help supplied all along the road.

All this is very good, and very right, and very precious; but then there is great danger of our resting in the mercies, the blessings and the benefits which flow, in such rich profusion, from our Father’s loving heart and liberal hand. We are apt to rest in these things, and say with the psalmist, “In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved. Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong.” True it is, “by thy favour,” but yet we are prone to be occupied with our mountain, and our prosperity; we allow these things to come in between our hearts and the Lord, and thus they become a snare to us. Hence the need of chastening Our Father, in His faithful love and care is watching over us; He sees the danger and He sends trial, in one shape or another. Perhaps a telegram comes announcing the death of a beloved child, or the crash of a bank involving the loss of our earthly all. Or, it may be, we are laid on a bed of pain and sickness, or called to watch by the sick bed of a beloved relative.

In a word, we are called to wade through deep waters which- seem to our poor feeble coward hearts absolutely overwhelming. The enemy suggests the question, “Is this love?” Faith replies, without hesitation and without reserve, “Yes!” it is all love, perfect love; the death of the child, the loss of the property, the long, heavy, painful illness, all the sorrow, all the pressure, all the exercise, the deep waters and dark shadows – all, all is love – perfect love and unerring wisdom. I feel assured of it, even now; I do not wait to know it by-and-by, when I shall look back on the path from amid the full light of the glory; I know it now, and delight to own it to the praise of the infinite grace which has taken me up from the depth of my ruin, and charged itself with all that concerns me, and which deigns to occupy itself with my very failures, follies and sins, in order to deliver me from them, to make me a partaker of divine holiness, and conform me to the image of that blessed One who “loved me and gave himself for me.”

Christian reader, this is the way to answer Satan, and to hush the dark reasonings which may spring up in our hearts. We must always justify God. We must look at all His disciplinary dealings in the light of His love. “Thou, shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” Most surely we should not like to be without the blessed pledge and proof of sonship. “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?” But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be Partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.” Heb. 12: 5-13.

It is, at once, interesting and profitable to mark the way in which Moses presses upon the congregation the varied motives of obedience arising from the past, the present and the future. Everything is brought to bear upon them to quicken and deepen their sense of Jehovah’s claims upon them. They were to “remember” the past; they were to “consider” the present; and they were to anticipate the future; and all this was to act on their hearts, and lead them forth in holy obedience to that blessed and gracious One who had done, who was doing, and who would do such great things for them.

The thoughtful reader can hardly fail to observe in this constant presentation of moral motives a marked feature of this lovely book of Deuteronomy, and a striking proof that it is no mere attempt at a repetition of what we have in Exodus; but, on the contrary, that our book has a province, a range, a scope and design entirely its own. To speak of mere repetition is absurd; to speak of contradiction is impious.

“Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.” The word “therefore” had a retrospective and prospective force. It was designed to lead the heart back over the past dealings of Jehovah, and forward into the future. They were to think of the marvellous history of those forty years in the desert, the teaching, the humbling, the proving, the watchful care, the gracious ministry, the full supply of all their need, the manna from heaven, the stream from the smitten rock, the care of their garments and of their very feet, the wholesome discipline for their moral good. What powerful moral motives were here for Israel’s obedience!

But this was not all, they were to look forward into the future; they were to anticipate the bright prospect which lay before them; they were to find in the future, as well as in the past and the present, the solid basis of Jehovah’s claims upon their reverent and whole-hearted obedience.

“For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, a, land of oil olive, and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.”

How fair was the prospect! How bright the vision! How marked the contrast to the Egypt behind them and the wilderness through which they had passed! The Lord’s land lay before them in all its beauty and verdure, its vine-clad hills and honeyed plains, its gushing fountains and flowing streams. How refreshing the thought of the vine, the fig-tree, the pomegranate and the olive! How different from the leeks, onions and garlic of Egypt! Yes, all so different, It was the Lord’s own land: this was enough. It produced and contained all they could possibly want. Above its surface, rich profusion; below, untold wealth, exhaustless treasure.

What a prospect! How the faithful Israelite would long to enter upon it! – long to exchange the sand of the desert for that bright inheritance! True, the desert had its deep and blessed experiences, its holy lessons, its precious memories. There they had known Jehovah in a way they could not know Him even in Canaan; all this was quite true, and we can fully understand it; but still the wilderness was not Canaan, and every true Israelite would long to set his foot on the land of promise, and truly we may say that Moses presents the land, in the passage just quoted, in a way eminently calculated to attract the heart. “A land,” he says, “wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it.” What more could be said? Here was the grand fact, in reference to that good land into which the hand of covenant love was about to introduce them. All their wants would be divinely met. Hunger and thirst should never be known there. Health and plenty, joy and gladness, peace and blessing were to be the assured portion of the Israel of God, in that fair inheritance upon which they were about to enter. Every enemy was to be subdued; every obstacle swept away; “the pleasant land,” was to pour forth its treasures for their use; watered continually by heaven’s rain, and warmed by its sunlight, it was to bring forth, in rich abundance, all that the heart could desire.

What a land! what an inheritance! What a home! Of course, we are looking at it now from a divine standpoint; looking at it according to what it was in the mind of God, and what it shall, most assuredly, be to Israel, during that bright millennial age which lies before them. We should have but a very poor idea indeed of the Lord’s land, were we to think of it merely as possessed by Israel in the past, even in the very brightest days of its history, as it appeared amid the splendours of Solomon’s reign We must look onward to “the times of the restitution of all things,” in order to have anything like a true idea of what the land of Canaan will yet be to the Israel of God.

Now Moses speaks of the land according to the divine idea of it. He presents it as given by God, and not as possessed by Israel. This makes all the difference. According to his charming description, there was neither enemy nor evil occurrent: nothing but fruitfulness and blessing from end to end. That is what it would have been, that is what it should have been, and that is what it shall be, by-and-by, to the seed of Abraham, in pursuance of the covenant made with their fathers – the new, the everlasting covenant, founded on the sovereign grace of God, and ratified by the blood of the cross. No power of earth or hell can hinder the purpose or the promise of God. “Hath he said, and shall he not do it?” God will make good to the letter every word, spite of all the enemy’s opposition, and the lamentable failure of His people. Though Abraham’s seed have utterly failed under law and under government, yet Abraham’s God will give grace and glory, for His gifts and calling are without repentance.

Moses fully understood all this. He knew how it would turn out with those who stood before him, and with their children after them, for many generations; and he looked forward into that bright future in which a covenant God would display, in the view of all created intelligences, the triumphs of His grace in His dealings with the seed of Abraham His friend.

Meanwhile, however, the faithful servant of Jehovah, true to the object before his mind, in all those marvellous discourses in the opening of our book, proceeds to unfold to the congregation the truth as to their mode of acting in the good land on which they were about to plant their foot. As he had spoken of the past and of the present, so would he make use of the future; he would turn all to account in his holy effort to urge upon the people their obvious, bounden duty to that blessed One who had so graciously and tenderly cared for them all their journey through, and who was about to bring them in and plant them in the mountain of His inheritance. Let us hearken to His touching and powerful exhortations.

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he has given thee.” How simple! How lovely! How morally suitable! Filled with the fruit of Jehovah’s goodness, they were to bless and praise His holy Name. He delights to surround Himself with hearts filled to overflowing with the sweet sense of His goodness, and pouring forth songs of praise and thanksgiving. He inhabits the praises of His people. He says, “Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.” The feeblest note of praise from a grateful heart ascends as fragrant incense to the throne and to the heart of God.

Let us remember this, beloved reader. It is as true for us, most surely, as it was for Israel, that praise is comely. Our grand primary business is to praise the Lord. Our every breath should be a hallelujah. It is to this blessed and most sacred. exercise the Holy Ghost exhorts us, in manifold places. “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.” We should ever remember that nothing so gratifies the heart and glorifies the Name of our God as a thankful worshipping spirit on the part of His people. It is well to do good and communicate. God is well pleased with such sacrifices. It is our high privilege, while we have opportunity, to do good unto all men, and especially unto them who are of the household of faith. We are called to be channels of blessing between the loving heart of our Father and every form of human need that comes before us in our daily path. All this is most blessedly true; but we must never forget that the very highest place is assigned to praise. It is this which shall employ our ransomed powers, throughout the golden ages of eternity, when the sacrifices of active benevolence shall no longer be needed.

But the faithful lawgiver knew but too well the sad proneness of the human heart to forget all this, to lose sight of the gracious Giver, and rest in His gifts. Hence he addresses the following admonitory words to the congregation-wholesome words, truly, for them and for us. May we bend our ears and our hearts to them, in holy reverence and teachableness of spirit!

“Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgements, and his statutes, which I command thee this day. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought; where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end: and thou say in thine heart, My power, and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day, that ye shall utterly perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish, because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God.” (Vers. 11-20.)

Here is something for us to ponder deeply. It has, most assuredly, a voice for us, as it had for Israel. We may perhaps feel disposed to marvel at the frequent reiteration of the note of warning and admonition, the constant appeals to the heart and conscience of the people as to their bounden duty to obey, in all things, the word of God; the recurrence again and again to those grand soul-stirring facts connected with their deliverance out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness.

But wherefore should we marvel? In the first place, do we not deeply feel and fully admit our own urgent need of warning, admonition and exhortation? Do we not need line upon line, precept upon precept, and that continually? Are we not prone to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Alas! alas! we cannot deny it. We rest in the stream, instead of getting up to the Fountain. We turn the very mercies, blessings and benefits which strew our path, in rich profusion, into an occasion of self-complacency and gratulation, instead of finding in them the blessed ground of continual praise and thanksgiving.

And then, as to those great facts of which Moses so continually reminds the people, could they ever lose their moral weight, power or preciousness? Surely not. Israel might forget and fail to appreciate those facts, but the facts remained the same. The terrible plagues of Egypt, the night of the passover, their deliverance from the land of darkness, bondage and degradation, their marvellous passage through the Red Sea, the descent of that mysterious food from heaven, morning by morning, the refreshing stream gushing forth from the flinty rock: how could such facts as these ever lose their power over a heart possessing a spark of genuine love to God? And why should we wonder to find Moses, again and again, appealing to them and using them as a most powerful lever wherewith to move the hearts of the people? Moses felt the mighty moral influence of these things himself, and he would fain lead others to feel it also. To him they were precious beyond expression, and he longed to make his brethren feel their preciousness as well as himself. It was his one object to set before them, in every possible way the powerful claims of Jehovah upon their hearty and unreserved obedience.

This, reader, will account for what might, to an unspiritual, unintelligent, cursory reader, seem the too frequent recurrence to the scenes of the past, in those wonderful discourses of Moses. We are reminded, as we read them, of the lovely words of Peter, in his second epistle: “Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.” (2 Peter 1: 12-15.)

How striking the unity of spirit and purpose in these two beloved and venerable servants of God! Both the one and the other felt the tendency of the poor human heart to forget the things of God, of heaven and of eternity; and they felt the supreme importance and infinite value of the things of which they spoke. Hence their earnest desire to keep them continually before the hearts and abidingly in the remembrance of the Lord’s beloved people. Unbelieving, restless nature might say to Moses or to Peter, “Have you nothing new to tell us? Why are you perpetually dwelling on the same old themes? We know all you have got to say; we have heard it again and again. ‘Why not strike out into some new field of thought? Would it not be well to try and keep abreast of the science of the day? If we keep perpetually moping over those antiquated themes, we shall be left stranded on the bank while the stream of civilization rushes on. Pray give us something new.”

Thus might the poor unbelieving mind, the worldly heart reason; but faith knows the answer to all such miserable suggestions. We can well believe that both Moses and Peter would have made short work with all such reasonings. And so should we. We know whence they emanate, whither they tend, and what they are worth; and we should have, if not on our lips, at least deep down in our hearts a ready answer – an answer perfectly satisfactory to us, however contemptible it may seem to the men of this world. Could a true Israelite ever tire of hearing of what the Lord had done for him, in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness? Never! Such themes would be ever fresh, ever welcome to his heart. And just so with the Christian; can he ever tire of the cross and all the grand and glorious realities that cluster round it? Can he ever tire of Christ, His peerless glories and unsearchable riches – His Person, His work, His offices? Never! No, never, throughout the bright ages of eternity. Does he crave anything new? Can science improve upon Christ? Can human learning add ought to the great mystery of godliness which has for its foundation God manifest in the flesh, and for its topstone a Man glorified in heaven? Can we ever get beyond this? No, reader, we could not if we would, and we would not if we could.

And even were we, for a moment, to take a lower range, and look at the works of God in creation; do we ever tire of the sun? He is not new; he has been pouring his beams upon this world for well-nigh six thousand years, and yet those beams are as fresh and as welcome today as they were when first created. Do we ever tire of the sea? It is not new; its tide has been ebbing and flowing for nearly six thousand years, but its waves are as fresh and as welcome on our shores as ever. True, the sun is often too dazzling to man’s feeble vision, and the sea often swallows up, in a moment, man’s boasted works; but yet the sun and the sea never lose their power, their freshness, their charm. Do we ever tire of the dew-drops that fall in refreshing virtue upon our gardens and fields? Do we ever tire of the perfume that emanates from our hedgerows? Do we ever tire of the notes of the nightingale and the thrush?

And what are all these when compared with the glories which cluster round the Person and the cross of Christ? What are they when put in contrast with the grand realities of that eternity which is before us?

Reader, let us beware how we listen to such suggestions, whether they come from without or spring from the depths of our own evil hearts, lest we be found, like Israel after the flesh, loathing the heavenly manna and despising the pleasant land; or like Demas who forsook the blessed apostle, having loved this present age; or like those of whom we read in the sixth of John, who, offended by our Lord’s close and pointed teaching, “went back, and walked no more with him.” May the Lord keep our hearts true to Himself, and fresh and fervent in His blessed cause, till He come!

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Deuteronomy 8. Israels duty to be faithful and obedient to Yahweh enforced by a recital of His loving treatment of them in the wilderness (Deu 8:1-17). Unless they are faithful they will perish as the Canaanites did (Deu 8:18-20).

Deu 8:2. prove: Deu 6:16* (tempt, same Heb. verb).

Deu 8:3. manna: Exo 16:14-35, Num 11:7-9*. The lesson of the manna is, that Yahweh can sustain human life by whatever means He wills or commands Jesus quotes but spiritualises the words (Mat 4:4).

Deu 8:4. The miracle of the food was matched by another of the clothingthey wore not out during all the forty years (see Deu 10:18, Gen 28:20). Rashi on this passage says that, as the children grew older, their clothes grew also, just as the shells of snails do.swell: render blister.

Deu 8:5. chasteneth: Deu 4:36* (instruct).

Deu 8:7. brooks of water: better, water wadies, i.e. such wadies as never become dry.depths: i.e. the waters under the earth (see Deu 4:18*.

Deu 8:9. iron: render basalt (Deu 3:11*).brass: render copper. Brass was then unknown.With Deu 8:11-18 cf. the similar warning in Deu 6:12.

Deu 8:11. judgements, etc.: Deu 4:45*.

Deu 8:15. fiery (i.e. stinging) serpents: Num 21:6*, cf. Jer 8:17.The scorpion (mentioned in Dt. only) belongs to the spider family, its sting causing extreme pain and sometimes even death. The proper name Akrabbim (Jos 15:3) means scorpions.

Deu 8:18. as at this day: Deu 2:22*.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

REMEMBER! DO NOT FORGET!

(vs.1-20)

Israel was left no opportunity to say they did not understand what God was telling them. He repeated it in many different ways and insisted on it in no uncertain terms. Verse 1 emphasizes again that Israel must observe every commandment God gave, that they might live and multiply in possession of their land.

They must remember how the Lord God had led them all through their forty years of trial in the wilderness. That history was designed by God to humble and test His people, to bring out what was in their hearts, to prove whether they were willing to walk in His laws. Today, God has seen fit to leave believers in the world which is a wilderness indeed, with many occasions of trial that serve to humble us. We need this in order to learn well that we do not live merely by the food we eat, but by the Word of God (vs.2-3). In fact, the food God gave Israel was miraculous, that which was unknown before, and not derived from the lands they passed through. They would not understand that the manna was typical of the spiritual food by which believers are sustained in all their history on earth. The manna speaks of the Word of God concerning Christ in His lowly path of humiliation on earth. Israel ought to have learned through their wilderness experience they were totally dependent on the Word of God.

How amazing it was too that their clothing did not wear out in all that time, nor did their feet swell through walking. Such grace shown them, Israel should have realized that, as they disciplined their children, so it was right that the Lord should discipline them.

Insisting that Israel remember to keep God’s commandments, Moses gave as an incentive the promise of the Lord to bring them into “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey,” in which they would have no scarcity, a land producing iron and copper (vs.6-8).

However, when blessed with all this abundance, then Israel ought to be deeply thankful to the Lord, remembering that they were dependent utterly on His great goodness (v.10). The danger would be present of their forgetting the Lord because they were prospering. The possession of material things might become such an object that God’s goodness and God’s commandments would be forgotten (v.11).

When they found food plentiful in the land, when they built beautiful houses, when their herds and flocks multiplied, their silver and gold and other possessions increased, then their hearts might be lifted up in such self-complacency that they should forget the Lord who had brought them from the hard bondage of Egypt (vs.12-14). Could they forget that God had led them in mercy through the great and terrible wilderness, with its serpents and scorpions, bringing water from the rock for their thirst, feeding them with manna (vs.15-16)?

In spite of this they might (and did) say in their heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth” (v.17). How harmful to himself is this self-centered pride of man! As Israel later succumbed to it, so in the Church of God today, many have been deceived in this way, and God’s Word is in large measure forgotten. Again therefore Moses urges Israel to remember the Lord their God, for it is He only who gives power to anyone to prosper, and He did this to Israel to prove His faithfulness expressed in the covenant He had made with their fathers (v.18).

If Israel would forget the Lord God and follow and serve the idols of the nations, then God’s Word would be carried out also in causing Israel to perish. Just as the nations of Canaan would be destroyed before the Lord, so Israel would suffer the same because of their disobedience (vs.19-20).

David and Solomon are object lessons as regards prosperity and its results. In all David’s history of suffering he showed a lovely character of depending on the Lord. He needed the Lord and thirsted after the Lord when circumstances were against him. When he became ruler over Israel he did not stand out so beautifully as a man of faith, and failed badly in some instances, taking bad advantage of his prosperous conditions, such as in the case of his sin against Bathsheba and her husband (2Sa 11:1-27); yet still the lessons of early years remained to remind him of his need of the Lord. He did sorrowfully confess his sin and returned to the Lord. But Solomon came to the throne of Israel amid wealth and splendor, and it was not long before he married many wives who turned away his heart from the Lord, and go so far away that we never read of him repenting, as David did.

For believers today too there will be disastrous consequences for disobedience and leaving the Lord out of their practical lives, not eternal judgment, but suffering under God’s governmental hand on earth.

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

8:1 All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe {a} to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.

(a) Showing that it is not enough to hear the word, unless we express it by the example of our lives.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Warning against pride and forgetfulness of God ch. 8

"Two important lessons from the past are now referred to. First, the experience of God’s care in the wilderness period, when the people of Israel were unable to help themselves, taught them the lesson of humility through the Lord’s providential discipline. The memory of that experience should keep them from pride in their own achievements amid the security and prosperity of the new land (Deu 8:1-20)." [Note: Thompson, p. 134.]

The Israelites were not only in danger of compromising with the Canaanites (ch. 7). They were also in danger of becoming too self-reliant when they entered the land (ch. 8). Note the double themes of remembering and forgetting, and the wilderness and the Promised Land in this chapter. They lead to the warning in Deu 8:19-20.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

God humbled the Israelites in the sense that He sought to teach them to have a realistic awareness of their dependence on Himself for all their needs. This is true humility. God’s provision of manna to eat and clothing to wear should have taught the people that they were dependent on His provision for all their needs, not just food and clothing.

What proceeds from God’s mouth (Deu 8:3) does not refer to the spoken revelations of God exclusively but, more comprehensively, to all that comes from God to man. [Note: See Gerhard von Rad, Deuteronomy, p. 72; Raymond Van Leeuwen, "What Comes out of God’s Mouth: Theological Wordplay in Deuteronomy 8," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 47 (January 1985):53-57; and Miller, p. 116.]

"The third means of divine self-disclosure in the context of the Deuteronomic covenant [in addition to historical event and theophany] was by word. It is important to note, however, that in the ancient Near East and in the Old Testament there is no essential distinction between act and word, for the act is produced by the word and the word is never without effective purpose. It is dynamic, entelic, purposeful, creative, powerful (cf. Gen 1:3, etc.). It does not exist (as in Greek philosophy, for example) as a theoretical or neutral abstraction. In terms of revelation, and especially in Deuteronomy, it is necessary to see the powerful word as a covenant instrument; the word of the Sovereign commands and communicates, but it also effects, empowers, and creates." [Note: Merrill, "A Theology . . .," p. 64.]

The contrast intended is not between physical bread and the special revelation of God in Scripture. It is more generally between what man provides for himself and what God provides for him. God was warning the Israelites against excessive self-reliance (cf. Mat 4:4; Luk 4:4).

"Just as the Genesis narratives used God’s act of providing clothing for Adam and Eve to demonstrate his care for humankind after they were cast out of the Garden (Gen 3:21), so God’s care for Israel in the wilderness is pictured here in his providing for their clothing (Deu 8:4). Moreover, the same picture of God as a loving father, which permeates the early chapters of Genesis . . ., is recalled again here: ’As a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you’ (Deu 8:5; cf. Deu 32:6)." [Note: Sailhamer, p. 441.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

THE BREAD OF THE SOUL

Deu 8:1-20

IN the chapters which follow, viz. 8., 9., and Deu 10:1-2, we have an appeal to history as a motive for fulfilling the fundamental duty of loving God and keeping His commandments. In its main points it is substantially the same appeal which is made in chapters 1-3, is, in fact, a continuation of it. Its main characteristics, therefore, have already been dealt with; but there are details here which deserve more minute study. Coming after Yahwehs great demand for the love of His people, the references to the Divine action in the past assume a deeper and more affectionate character than when they were mere general exhortations to obedience and submission. They become inducements to the highest efforts of love; and the first appeal is naturally made to the gracious and fatherly dealing of Yahweh with His people in their journey through the wilderness. Of all the traditions or reminiscences of Israel, this of the wilderness was the most constantly present to the popular mind, and it is always referred to as the most certain, the most impressive, and the most touching of all Israels historic experiences. Yet Stade and others push the whole episode aside, saying, if any Israelites came out of Egypt, we do not know who they were. Such a mode of dealing with clear, coherent, and in themselves not improbable historical memories, is too arbitrary to have much effect, and the wilderness journey remains, and is likely to remain, one of the indubitable facts which modern critical research has established rather than shaken.

To this, then, our author turns, and he deals with it in a somewhat unusual way. As we have seen, the prevalent notion that piety and righteousness are rewarded with material prosperity is firmly rooted in his mind. But he did not feel himself limited to that as the solitary right way of regarding the providence of God. Mens minds are never quite so simple and direct in their action as many students and critics are tempted to suppose. Every great conception which holds the minds of men produces its effects, even from the first moment it is grasped, by all that is in it. Implications and developments which are made explicit, or are called out into visibility, only by the friction of new environments, have been there from the beginning; and minds have been secretly molded by them though they were not conscious of them. Hard and fast lines, then, are not to be drawn between the stages of a great development, so that one should say that before such and such a moment, when a new aspect of the old truth has emerged into consciousness, that aspect was not effective in any wise. The outburst of waters from a reservoir is indubitable evidence of steady, persistent pressure from within in that direction before the overflow. Similarly, in the region of thought and feeling the emergence of a new aspect of truth is of itself a proof that the holders of the root conception were already swayed in that direction.

The history of Christianity affords proof of this. It is a commonplace today that the world is only beginning to do justice to some aspects of the teaching of our Lord. But the teaching, always present, always exerted its influence, and was felt before it could be explained. In the Old Testament development the same thing was most emphatically true. Individual responsibility to God was not, so far as we can now see, distinctly present in Israelite religious thought till the time of Jeremiah, but it would be absurd to say that any mind that accepted the religion of Yahweh had ever been without that feeling. So with the doctrine of Gods providence over men: we are not to say that before the Book of Job the explanation of suffering as testing discipline had been entirely hid from Israel, by the view that material prosperity and adversity were regulated in the main according to moral and religious life. Consequently, notwithstanding previous strong assertions of the latter view which we find in Deuteronomy, we need not be in the least surprised to find that here the hardships of the wilderness journey are regarded, not as a punishment for Israels sins, but simply as a trial or test to see what their heart was towards Him. This is essentially the point of view of the Book of Job, the only difference being that here it is applied to the nation, there to the individual. But our chapter rises even above that, for the first verses of it plainly teach that the experiences of the wilderness were made to be what they were, in order that the people might learn to know the spiritual forces of the world to be the essential forces, and that they might be induced to throw themselves back upon them as that which is alone enduring. In the words of Deu 8:3, they were taught by this training that man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God.

These two then, that hardship was testing discipline for Israel, and that it was also intended to be the means of revealing spirit as the supreme force even in the material world, are the main lessons of the eighth chapter. Of these the last is by far the most important. Casting back his eye upon the past, the author of Deuteronomy teaches that the trials and the victories, the wonders and the terrors of their wilderness time were meant to humble them, to empty them of their own conceits, and to make them know beyond all doubting that God alone was their portion, and that apart from Him they had no certainty of continuance in the future and no sustainment in the present. “All the commandment which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live,” is the fundamental note, and the physical needs and trials of the time are cited as an object-lesson to that effect. “He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not; that He might make thee to know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceedeth out of the mouth of Yahweh doth man live.” Of course the first reference of the “everything that proceedeth” is to the creative word of Yahweh. The meaning is that the sending of the manna was proof that the ordinary means of living, i.e., bread, could be dispensed with when Yahweh chose to make use of His creative power. Many commentators think that this exhausts the meaning of the passage, and they regard our Lords use of these words in the Temptation as limited in the same fashion. But both here and in the New Testament more must be intended. Here we have the statement in the first verse that Israel is to keep the commandments, which certainly are a part of “all that proceeds” from the mouth of God, that they may live. This implies that the mere possession of material sustenance is not enough for even earthly life. Impalpable spiritual elements must be mingled with “bread” if life is not to decay. This, our chapter goes on to say, would be plain to them if they would carefully consider Gods dealing with them in the wilderness, for the sending of the manna was meant to emphasize and bring home to them that very truth. It was meant, in short, to convey a double lesson-the direct one above referred to, and the more remote but deeper one which had been asserted in the first verse.

In the Temptation narrative the same deeper meaning is surely implied. The temptation suggested to Jesus was that He should use the miraculous powers given to Him for special purposes to make stones into bread for Himself. Now that would have been precisely an instance of the literal primary meaning of our passage; it would have been a case of supplying the absence of bread by the use of the creative word of God. To meet that temptation and to put it-aside our Lord uses these words: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Thereupon He was no more importuned to supply the place of bread by a creative word. The implication is that the life of the Son of God found sustenance in spiritual strength derived from His Father. In other words, the passage is really parallel to Joh 4:31 if: “In the mean while the disciples prayed Him, saying, Rabbi, eat. But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not. The disciples therefore said one to another, Hath any man brought Him to eat? Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to accomplish His work.” Understanding it thus, the Temptation passage is entirely in accord with that from which it is quoted, if the first and third verses be taken together. Both teach that abundance of material resources, all that visibly sustains the material life, is not sufficient for the life of such a creature as man. Not only his inner life, but his outer life, is dependent for its permanence upon the inflow of spiritual sustenance from the spiritual God. For animals, bread might be enough; but man holds of both the spiritual and the material as animals do not. It is not mere mythical dreaming when man is said to be made in the image of God; it expresses the essential fact of his being. Consequently, without in-breathings from the spiritual, even his physical life pines and dies. But how wonderful is this insight in a writer so ancient, belonging to so obscure a people as the Jews! How can we account for it? There was nothing in their character or destiny as a people to explain it, apart from the supernatural link that binds them and their thoughts at all times to the coming Christ, and draws them, notwithstanding all aberrations, even when they know it not, towards Him.

How great an attainment it is we may see, if we reflect for a moment upon the state of Christian Europe at the present day. Nowhere among the masses of the most cultured nations is this deeply simple truth accepted by the vast majority of men. Nowhere do we find that history has succeeded in bringing it home to the conscience as a commonplace. The rich or well-to-do cling to riches, the means of material enjoyment, as if their life did consist in the abundance of things they possess. They strive and struggle for them with an industry, a forethought, a perseverance, which would be justified only if man could live by bread alone. That is largely the condition of those who have bread in abundance or hope to gain it abundantly. With those who do not have it the case is perhaps even worse. Worn and fretted by the hopeless struggle against poverty, driven wild by the exigencies of a daily life so near starvation point that a strike, a fall in prices, a months sickness, bring them face to face with misery, the toiling masses in Europe have turned with a kind of wolfish impatience upon those who talk of God to them, and demand “bread.” As a German Socialist mother said publicly some years ago, “He has never given me a mouthful of bread, or means to gain it: what have I to do with your God?” Their only hope for the future is that they may eat and be full; and of this they have made a political and religious ideal which is attracting the European working classes with most portentous power.

In all countries men are passionately asserting that man can live by bread alone, and that he will. For this dreadful creed increasing numbers are prepared.to sacrifice all that humanity thought it had gained, and shut their ears to any who warn them that, if they had all they seek, earth might be still more of a Pandemonium than they think it at present. But they have much excuse. They have never had wealth so as to know how very little it can do for the deepest needs of men; and their faith in it, their belief that if they were assured of a comfortable maintenance all would be right with the world, is pathetic in its simplicity. Yet the secret that is hid today from the mass of men was known among the small Israelite people two thousand five hundred years ago. Since then it has formed the very keynote of the teaching of our Lord; but save by the generations of Christians who have found in it the key to much of the riddle of the world it has been learned by nobody.

Yet history has never wearied in proclaiming the same truth. Israel, as we have seen, had verified it in the history of the pre-Canaanite races whose disappearance is recorded in the first section of our book, and in the doom which was impending over the Canaanites. But to our wider experience, enriched by the changes of more than two thousand years, and by the still more striking vicissitudes of ancient days revealed by archaeology, the fact that intelligence of the highest kind, practical skill, and the courage of conquerors cannot secure “life,” is only more impressively brought home. If we go back to the pre-Semitic empire of Mesopotamia, to what is called the Akkadian time, we find that, before the days of Abraham, a great civilization had arisen, flourished for more than one thousand years, and then decayed so utterly that the very language in which its records were written had to be dealt with by the Semites, who inherited the former culture, as we deal with Latin. Yet these early people had made a most astonishing advance into the ocean of unknown truth. They had invented writing; they had elaborate systems of law and social life: they had in other directions made remarkable discoveries in science, especially in mathematical and astronomical science, and had built great cities in which the refinement and art of modern times was in many directions anticipated. In all ways they stood far higher above neighboring peoples than any civilized nation of Europe stands now in comparison with its neighbors. But if they were at all inclined to put their trust in the immortality of science, if they ever valued themselves, as we do, on the strength of the advances they had made, time has had them in derision. Very much of what they knew had to be rediscovered painfully in later times. Their very name perished out of the earth; and it has been discovered now to make them an object of abiding interest only to the few who make ethnology their study. Neither material wealth and comfort nor assiduous culture of the mind could save them. For their religion and morals were, amid all this material success, of the lowest type. They heard little of what issues from the mouth of God in the specially Divine sphere of morality, and did not give heed to that little, and they perished. For man does not live by bread alone, but by that also, and neglect of it is fatal.

It may be said that they flourished for more than a thousand years, and neglect of the Divine word, if it be a poison, must (as Fenelon said of coffee) be a very slow one, so far as nations are concerned. But it has always been a snare to men to mistake the Divine patience for Divine indifference and inaction. The movement, though to us creatures of a day it seems slow, is as continuous, as crushing, and as relentless as the movement of a glacier. “The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small,” and all along the ages they have thrown out the crushed and scattered fragments of the powers that were deaf to the Divine voice. So persistently has this appeared that it would by this time have passed beyond the region of faith into that of sight, were it not always possible to ignore the moral cause and substitute for it something mechanical and secondary. The great world-empires of Egypt and Assyria passed away, primarily owing to neglect of the higher life. Secondarily, no doubt, the ebbs and flows of their power, and their final extinction, were influenced by the course of the Indian trade; and many wise men think they do well to stop there. But in truth we do not solve the difficulty by resting in this secondary cause; we only shift it a step backwards. For the question immediately arises, why did the trade change its course from Assyria to Egypt, and back again from Egypt to Assyria? Why did a rivulet of it flow through the land of Israel in Solomons day and afterwards cease? The answer must be that it was when the character of these various nations rose in vigor by foresight and moral self-restraint that they drew to themselves this source of power. They “lived,” in fact, by giving heed to some word of God. Nor does the history of Greek supremacy in Europe and Asia, or the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, contradict that view. The modern historian, whatever his faith or unfaith may be, is driven to find the motive power which wrought in these stupendous movements in the moral and spiritual sphere. This transforms history from being merely secular into a Bible, as Mommsen finely says, “And if she cannot any more than the Bible hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting her she too will be able to bear with and to requite them both.” She utters her voice in the streets, and in the end makes her meaning clear. For she gives us ever new examples.

Probably her grandest object-lesson at present is the wasting and paralysis that is slowly withering up all Mohammedan states. Where they have been left to themselves, as in Morocco and Persia, depopulation and the breakup of society has come upon them, and where Muslim populations are really prospering it is under the influence of Christian Powers. And the reason is plain. Islam is a revolt from, and a rejection of, the higher principles of life contained in Christianity, and a return to Judaism. But the Judaism to which it returned had already lost its finest bloom. All that was left to it of tenderness or power of expansion Islam rejected, and of the driest husks of Old Testament religion it made its sole food. Naturally and necessarily, therefore, it has been found inadequate. It cannot permanently live under present conditions, and it is capable of no renewal. Here and there, especially in India attempts to break out of the prison house which this system builds around its votaries are being made, but in the opinion of experts like Mr. Sell they cannot succeed. “Such a movement,” he tells us, “may elevate individuals and purify the family life of many, but it will, like all reform movements of the past, have very little real effect on Islam as a polity and as a religion.” If he be right, we learn from a Mohammedan whom he quotes, the Naual Mulisin-ul-Mulk, what alone can be looked for. “To me it seems,” he says, “that as a nation and a religion we are dying out; our day is past, and we have little hope of the future.” More conspicuously and deliberately perhaps than any one did Mohammed choose to go back from the best light that shone in the world of his day. Some at least of his contemporaries knew what a spiritual religion meant. He was guilty, therefore, of the “great refusal”; and his work, great as it was, seems to some even of his own disciples to be hastening to its end. Material success, bread in all senses, the kingdoms founded by him and his successors had in abundance, and still might have. But man cannot live by that alone, and the absence of the higher element has taken even that away.

In Christendom, too, the same lesson is being taught. Of all European countries France perhaps is that where the corroding power of materialistic thought has been most severely felt. Yet few countries are so rich in material wealth, and if bread was all that “life” demanded, no country should be so full of it. But if is in no sense so. Even its intellectual life is drooping, and its population, if not decreasing, is standing still. This, all serious writers deplore; and the dawn of what may perhaps be a new era is seen in the earnestness with which the sources of this evil are sought out and discussed. Men like the Vicomte de Vogue depict the new generation as weary of negations, sick of the material positivism of their immediate predecessors, disgusted with “realism,” which, as another recent writer defines it, “in thought is mere provincialism, in affection absolute egoism, in politics the deification of brute force; in the higher grades of society tyranny; in the lower, unbridled license.” And the only cure is faith and moral idealism.

“Society can apply to itself today,” says De Vogue, “the beautiful image of Plotinus; it resembles those travelers lost in the night, seated in silence on the shore of the sea, waiting for the sun to rise above the billows.” In Germany similar conditions have produced similar though much mitigated results. Yet even there, Lange, the historian of materialism, tells us that there runs through all our modern culture a tendency to materialism, which carries away every one who has not found somewhere a sure anchor. “The ideal has no currency; all that cannot prove its claim on the basis of natural science and history is condemned to destruction, though a thousand joys and refreshments of the masses depend upon it.” He concludes by saying-that “ideas and sacrifices may still save our civilization, and change the path of destructive revolution into a path of beneficent reforms.” Through all history, then, and loudest in our own day, the cry of our passage goes up; and where the path marked out by the faith of Israel, and carried to its goal by Jesus Christ, has been forsaken, the peoples are resting in hungry expectation. Words from the mouth of God can alone save them; and if the Churches cannot make them hear, and no new voice brings it home to them there would seem to be nothing before them but a slower or quicker descent into death.

But it may be that the nations are deaf to the Churches voice because these have not learned thoroughly that life for them too is conditioned in the same fashion. They can live truly, fully, triumphantly only when they take up and absorb “everything that issues from the mouth of God.” All Christians must admit this; but most proceed at once to annul what they have stated by the limitations of meaning they impose upon it. An older generation vehemently affirmed this faith, meaning by it every word and letter which Scripture contained. We do not find fault with what they assert, for the first necessity of spiritual life is the study and love of the Holy Scriptures. No one who knows what the higher life in Christ is, needs to be told that the very bread of life is in the Bible. Neglect it, or, what is perhaps worse, study it only from the scientific and intellectual point of view, and life will slowly ebb away from you, and your religion will bring you none of the joy of living. Bring your thoughts, your hopes, your fears, and your aspirations into daily contact with it, and you will feel a vigor in your spiritual nature which will make you “lords over circumstance.” Every part of it contributes to this effect when it is properly understood, for experience proves the vanity of the attempt to distinguish between the Bible and the word of God. As it stands, wrought into one whole by labors the strenuousness, the multiplicity, the skill, and the religious spirit of which we are only now coming to understand, it is the word of God; it has issued from His mouth, and from it, searched out and understood, the most satisfying “bread” of the soul must come. Only by use of it can the Christian soul live. But though the Bible is the word of God par excellence, it is not the only word that issues from the mouth of God to man. Because the Church has often too much refused to listen to any other word of God, those who are without are “sitting looking out over the sea towards the west for the rising of the sun which is behind them.” For if it is death to the spirit to turn away from Scripture, it means sickness and disease to refuse to learn the other lessons which are set for us by the God of truth. All true science must contain a revelation of Him, for it is an exposition of the manner of His working. History too is a Bible, which has been confirming with trumpet tongue the truths of Scripture as we have seen. Nay, it is a commentary upon the special revelation given to us through Israel, set for our study by the Author of that revelation. Further, we may say that the progress of our Christian centuries has shown us heights and depths of wisdom in the revelation mankind has received in Christ which, without its light, we should not have known.

The spirit of Christ in regard to slavery, for instance, was made manifest fully only in our day. The true relations of men to each other, as conceived by our blessed Lord, are evidently about to be forced home upon the world by the turmoils, the strikes, and the outrages, by the wild demands, and the wilder hopes which are the characteristic of our epoch. In the future, too, there must be experiences which will make manifest to men the brand which the spirit of Christ puts upon war, with its savagery and its folly. These are only noteworthy instances of the explanation of revelation by the developments of the Divine purpose in the world. But in countless ways the same process is going on, and the Church which refuses to regard it is preparing a decay of its own life. For man lives by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and every such word missed means a loss of vitality. The Christian Church, therefore, if it is to be true to its calling, should be seriously watchful lest any Divinely sent experience should be lost to it. It cannot be indifferent, much less hostile, to discoveries in physical science; it cannot ignore any fact or lesson which history reveals; it cannot sit apart from social experiments, as if holding no form of creed in such things, without seriously impairing its chances of life. For all these things are pregnant with most precious indications of the mind of God, and to turn from them is to sit in darkness and the shadow of death. In the most subtle and multifarious way, the inner spiritual life of man is being modified by the discoveries of scientists, historians, philologists, archaeologists, and critics, and by the new attention which is being given to the foundations of society and social life. All the truth that is in these discoveries issues from the mouth of God. They too are a Bible, as Mommsen says, and if the Christian Church cannot “hinder the fool from misunderstanding and the devil from quoting them,” it can itself listen with open ear to these teachings, and work them into coherent unity with the great spiritual Revelation. This is the perennial task which awaits the Church at every stage of its career, for on no other terms can it live a healthy life.

Here we find the answer to timid Christians who address petulant complaints to those who are called to attempt this work. If, say they, these new thoughts are not essential to faith, if in the forms to which we have been accustomed the essence of true religion has been preserved, why do you disturb the minds of believers by outside questions? The reply is that we dare not refuse the teaching which God is sending us in these ways. To refuse light is to blaspheme light. Though we might save our generation some trouble by turning our back upon this light, though we might even save some from manifest shipwreck of faith, we should pay for that by sacrificing all the future, and by rendering faith impossible perhaps for greater multitudes of our successors.

Yet this does not imply that the Church is to be driven about by every wind of doctrine. Some men of science demand, apparently, that every new discovery, in its first crude form, should be at once adopted by the Church, and that all the inferences unfavorable to received views of religion, which occur to men accustomed to think only truths that can be demonstrated by experiment, should be registered in its teachings. But such a demand is mere folly. The Church has in its possession a body of truth which, if not verifiable by experiment, has been verified by experience as no other body of truth has been. Even its enemies being judges, no other system of a moral or spiritual kind has risen above the horizon which can for a moment be compared with Christianity as the guide of men for life and death. Through all changes of secular thought, and amid all the lessons which the world has taught the Church, the fundamental doctrines have remained in essence the same, and by them the whole life of man, social, political, and scientific, has ultimately been guided. Immense practical interests have therefore been committed to the Churchs keeping, the interests primarily of the poor and the obscure. She ought never to be tempted, consequently, to think that she is moving and acting in a vacuum, or manage her affairs after the manner of a debating society. It is no doubt a fault to move too slowly; but in circumstances like that of the Church, it can never be so destructive to the best interests of mankind as to move with wanton instability. Her true attitude must be to prohibit no lines of inquiry, to open her mind seriously to all the demonstrated truths of science with gladness, to be tolerant of all loyal effort to reform Christian thought in accordance with the new light, when that has become at all possible. For her true food is everything that issues from the mouth of God; and only when she receives with gratitude her daily bread in this way also, can her life be as vigorous and as elevated as it ought to be.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary