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A Warning Not to Forget God in Prosperity

 8

This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the L ord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2Remember the long way that the L ord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. 3He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the L ord. 4The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. 5Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the L ord your God disciplines you. 6Therefore keep the commandments of the L ord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. 7For the L ord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, 8a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, 9a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. 10You shall eat your fill and bless the L ord your God for the good land that he has given you.

11 Take care that you do not forget the L ord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. 12When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, 13and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, 14then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the L ord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, 15who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, 16and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. 17Do not say to yourself, “My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.” 18But remember the L ord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. 19If you do forget the L ord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. 20Like the nations that the L ord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the L ord your God.


5. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart. He concludes that in the constant tenor of God’s acts, from the time the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, His paternal care for their instruction might be recognised For the word יסר,258258     See note on Deuteronomy 11:2, ante, p. 383. yasar, is taken by some in too restricted a sense for “to chastise,” whereas it comprehends the whole process of a proper education; as if he had said, that unless they were hereafter submissive, and disposed to be dutiful, they would be something more than intractable, since they had been duly taught and kept under the best discipline, and that God had omitted nothing which could be required from the father of a family. Hence it follows, that long ago, and by much instruction, they were accustomed to embrace the teaching of the Law, just as it becomes children to be obedient to their father’s voice. And this he explains more clearly in the next verse; again concluding, that therefore they were to observe the Law, and to walk in the commandments of God. Whereon also we may shortly observe, that the fear of God, as I have already stated elsewhere, is the foundation of due obedience to the Law. The passage which I have interwoven from Deuteronomy 11 may also be counted among the promises, for God allures in it His people to obedience by the hope of His blessing; and since the possession of the land, which was then in sight, is set before them, the words appeared to me to fit in not badly here; because God had no other intention in this eulogium of it, but to prepare the minds of the people for keeping the Law.

7. For the Lord thy God. We may shortly sum up the words and the matter. He almost sets before their eyes a habitation full of wealth and various advantages, in order that they there may worship God more cheerfully, and study to repay by their gratitude so signal a benefit. In chapter 8 he commends the goodness of the land, because it is watered by the streams which flow through its valleys and mountains, and because it produces all kinds of fruits to supply them with nourishment; and not only so, but because it contains also mines of iron and brass. In chapter 11 he expresses the same thing more plainly and in greater detail, by the addition of a comparison with the land of Egypt; the fruitfulness of which, although it is marvellous from the yearly inundation of the Nile, and is renowned as an extraordinary miracle, yet requires much labor and cultivation, since it is irrigated by means of drains by the hand and industry of men. But the land of Canaan depends on God’s blessing, and waits for the rain from heaven. Moreover Moses extols in glowing words the peculiar privilege of the land, saying, that it is ever looked upon by God, in order that, on their part, the Israelites might attentively, and constantly also, look to Him. For this is the force of the words, “always, from the beginning of the year, even unto the end of the year;” as if he had said, that they would be ungrateful to God, unless they constantly and zealously directed their regards to Him, since He never ceased daily to look on them. It is true, indeed, that there is no corner of the earth which does not experience God’s blessing, witness the fact that the Nile fertilizes the whole of Egypt; but, because that only happens once a year, and since its waters are conducted hither and thither by drains artificially made by man, Moses, therefore, not improperly makes it the ground of his exhortation that they should constantly give themselves to meditation on the Law; for not only at a particular season of the year, but almost at every moment, their necessity would compel them to ask for God’s aid, when they saw that the land was ever requiring from Him the remedy of its dryness. The question however arises, how Moses could declare in such magnificent terms the richness of the land of Canaan, when now-a-days it is scarcely counted among those that are fertile; and thus262262     “Des esprits phrenetiques, and profanes.” — Fr. This ancient scoff, repeated by Voltaire and other modern infidels, is well met by Dr. Keith, “Evidences of Prophecy, (Art. Judaea,)” by quotations not only from Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Florus, and Pliny the Elder, but from Volney and Gibbon themselves, as well as more friendly witnesses. the ungodly wantonly deride him, since all whom business or any other cause have taken there contradict his encomiums. Yet I do not doubt that it was always distinguished by the abundance of its various fruits, as we shall presently see in its proper place, where its fertility was proved by the bunch of grapes; but, at the same time, it is to be observed that its abundance was increased in a new and unwonted manner by the arrival of the people, that God might shew that He had blessed that country above all others for the liberal supply of His children. As long, therefore, as that land was granted as the inheritance of the race of Abraham, it was remarkable for that fertility which God had promised by Moses. But now, so far from wondering that it is to a great extent desert and barren, we ought rather to be surprised that some small vestiges of its ancient fruitfulness exist; since what God Himself had so often threatened against it must needs be fulfilled. The barrenness, therefore, of the land as it now appears, instead of derogating from the testimony of Moses, rather gives ocular demonstration of the judgment of God, which, as we shall see elsewhere, was denounced against it. In sum, as God for His people’s sake still further enriched a land already fruitful, so, for the punishment of the sins of this same people, He sowed it with salt, that it might afford a sad spectacle of His curse.

10. When thou hast eaten and art full. In these words he admonishes them that they would be too senseless, unless God’s great bounty should attract them to obedience, since nothing is more unreasonable, than, when we have eaten and are full, not to acknowledge from whence our food has come. Fitly, then, does Moses require gratitude from the people, when they shall enjoy both the land promised to them and an abundance of all good things.


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