You shall observe to do all the commandments which I command you today, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers. 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 test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth. Your clothing didn’t grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years. You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you. You shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
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You shall observe to do all the commandments which I command you today, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers. 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 test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth. Your clothing didn’t grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years. You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you. You shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. For Yahweh your God brings you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of springs, and underground water flowing into valleys and hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive trees and honey; a land in which you shall eat bread without scarcity, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper. You shall eat and be full, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land which he has given you.
Parallel Translations
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You shall observe to do all the commandments which I command you today, that you may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which Yahweh swore to your fathers.
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 test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
He humbled you, allowed you to be hungry, and fed you with manna, which you didn’t know, neither did your fathers know, that he might teach you that man does not live by bread only, but man lives by every word that proceeds out of Yahweh’s mouth.
Your clothing didn’t grow old on you, neither did your foot swell, these forty years.
You shall consider in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so Yahweh your God disciplines you.
You shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
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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.
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.
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.
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
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.
Show all 3 translations
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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 the LORD swore unto your fathers.
And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might afflict thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no.
And He afflicted 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 thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
And thou shalt consider in thy heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
And thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in His ways, and to fear Him.
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Cross-references (72)
- Matthew 4:4 (v3) But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’ ”
- Luke 4:4 (v3) Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”
- James 1:3 (v2) knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
- Deuteronomy 29:5 (vv2, 4) I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not grown old on you, and your sandals have not grown old on your feet.
- Nehemiah 9:21 (v4) “Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell.
Show all 71 cross-references
- Hebrews 13:5-6 (v3) Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, “I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any…
- Revelation 3:19 (v5) As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.
- Deuteronomy 4:1 (v1) Now, Israel, listen to the statutes and to the ordinances which I teach you, to do them; that you may live, and go in and possess the land…
- Deuteronomy 8:16 (v2) who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers didn’t know, that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you…
- 1 Peter 1:7 (v2) that the proof of your faith, which is more precious than gold that perishes even though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in…
- Exodus 16:4 (v2) Then Yahweh said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every…
- Psalms 78:23-25 (v3) Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven. He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky. Man…
- 1 Corinthians 10:3 (v3) and all ate the same spiritual food;
- Exodus 16:2-3 (v3) The whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness; and the children of Israel…
- 2 Samuel 7:14 (v5) I will be his father, and he will be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the…
- Exodus 16:12-35 (v3) “I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, ‘At evening you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall…
- Job 5:17-18 (v5) “Behold, happy is the man whom God corrects. Therefore do not despise the chastening of the Almighty. For he wounds and binds up. He…
- Proverbs 3:12 (v5) for whom Yahweh loves, he corrects, even as a father reproves the son in whom he delights.
- Deuteronomy 5:32–6:3 (v1) You shall observe to do therefore as Yahweh your God has commanded you. You shall not turn away to the right hand or to the left. You shall…
- Deuteronomy 2:7 (v2) For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has known your walking through this great wilderness. These forty…
- Luke 12:29-30 (v3) Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but…
- 1 Thessalonians 4:1-2 (v1) Finally then, brothers, we beg and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, that…
- Hebrews 12:5-11 (v5) You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor…
- 1 Peter 5:5-6 (v2) Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another;…
- Exodus 15:25 (v2) Then he cried to Yahweh. Yahweh showed him a tree, and he threw it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made a statute…
- Psalms 37:3 (v3) Trust in Yahweh, and do good. Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture.
- Psalms 105:40 (v3) They asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of the sky.
- Malachi 3:2-3 (v2) “But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap;…
- 1 Corinthians 11:32 (v5) But when we are judged, we are punished by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
- James 4:6 (v2) But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
- Deuteronomy 5:33 (v6) You shall walk in all the way which Yahweh your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may…
- 2 Chronicles 32:31 (v2) However concerning the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent to him to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land, God left…
- Psalms 94:12 (v5) Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah, and teach out of your law,
- John 2:25 (v2) and because he didn’t need for anyone to testify concerning man; for he himself knew what was in man.
- 1 Samuel 12:24 (v6) Only fear Yahweh, and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you.
- 2 Chronicles 6:31 (v6) that they may fear you, to walk in your ways, so long as they live in the land which you gave to our fathers.
- Psalms 104:27-29 (v3) These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they are…
- James 4:10 (v2) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
- Ezekiel 18:28 (v5) Because he considers, and turns away from all his transgressions that he has committed, he shall surely live. He shall not die.
- Ephesians 2:11-12 (v2) Therefore remember that once you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “uncircumcision” by that which is called “circumcision” (in the…
- Exodus 18:20 (v6) You shall teach them the statutes and the laws, and shall show them the way in which they must walk, and the work that they must do.
- Psalms 89:32 (v5) then I will punish their sin with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.
- Psalms 119:4-6 (v1) You have commanded your precepts, that we should fully obey them. Oh that my ways were steadfast to obey your statutes! Then I wouldn’t be…
- Psalms 128:1 (v6) Blessed is everyone who fears Yahweh, who walks in his ways.
- Proverbs 17:3 (v2) The refining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold, but Yahweh tests the hearts.
- Luke 18:14 (v2) I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who…
- 2 Peter 3:1-2 (v2) This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you, that…
- Genesis 22:1 (v2) After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!” He said, “Here I am.”
- Deuteronomy 1:3 (v2) In the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, Moses spoke to the children of Israel according to all that…
- Deuteronomy 1:33 (v2) who went before you on the way, to seek out a place for you to pitch your tents in: in fire by night, to show you by what way you should…
- Deuteronomy 4:9 (v5) Only be careful, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things which your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart all…
- Deuteronomy 7:18 (v2) you shall not be afraid of them. You shall remember well what Yahweh your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:
- Deuteronomy 13:3 (v2) you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams; for Yahweh your God is testing you, to know whether you…
- 2 Chronicles 32:25-26 (v2) But Hezekiah didn’t reciprocate appropriate to the benefit done for him, because his heart was lifted up. Therefore there was wrath on him,…
- 2 Chronicles 33:12 (v2) When he was in distress, he begged Yahweh his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.
- 2 Chronicles 33:19 (v2) His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his trespass, and the places in which he built high places, and set…
- Job 33:17 (v2) that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
- Job 42:5-6 (v2) I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
- Psalms 77:11 (v2) I will remember Yah’s deeds; for I will remember your wonders of old.
- Psalms 81:7 (v2) You called in trouble, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah.”
- Psalms 106:7 (v2) Our fathers didn’t understand your wonders in Egypt. They didn’t remember the multitude of your loving kindnesses, but were rebellious at…
- Psalms 136:16 (v2) to him who led his people through the wilderness; for his loving kindness endures forever:
- Isaiah 2:17 (v2) The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the arrogance of men shall be brought low; and Yahweh alone shall be exalted in that day.
- Jeremiah 17:9-10 (v2) The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? “I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even…
- Amos 2:10 (v2) Also I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite.
- Luke 1:6 (v6) They were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord.
- 2 Peter 1:12-13 (v2) Therefore I will not be negligent to remind you of these things, though you know them, and are established in the present truth. I think it…
- Deuteronomy 4:23 (v5) Be careful, lest you forget the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he made with you, and make yourselves a carved image in the form of…
- Ezekiel 12:3 (v5) “Therefore, you son of man, prepare your stuff for moving, and move by day in their sight. You shall move from your place to another place…
- Revelation 2:23 (v2) I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each…
- Isaiah 1:3 (v5) The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib; but Israel doesn’t know. My people don’t consider.”
71 distinct cross-references across this passage (72 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (28 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Showing that it is not enough to hear the…
Showing that it is not enough to hear the word, except we express it by example of life.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–6 Deu 8:1 All the commandments which I command thee…
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}
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–5 That ye may live, i.e. live comfortably and happily,…
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.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The charge here given them is the same as…
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, Deu 8:1. 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 (Deu 8:6), 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, Deu 8:1), 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, Deu 8:2. 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.
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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 (Exo 16:28); 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 (Deu 8:3): 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, Mat 5:6. 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, Deu 8:16. 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, Deu 8:4. 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 (Exo 12:34), 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 (Mat 6:25), 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, Luk 22:35. [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, Pro 13:15. God had promised to keep the feet of his saints, Sa1 2:9.
3. They must also remember the rebukes they had been under, Deu 8:5. 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, Psa 94:12. 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 (Deu 8:6) 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, Deu 8:7-9. (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 28:2.
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.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–6 All the commandments which I command thee this day…
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 Deu 19:20.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5 An exhortation to obedience, in consideration of past and…
An exhortation to obedience, in consideration of past and promised mercies, ver. 1-9. A caution not to forget God in prosperity, ver. 10-18. A threatening, in case of apostacy, ver. 19, 20.
Live - Live comfortably and happily.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–4 An exhortation to obedience from a consideration of God's…
CHAPTER VIII
An exhortation to obedience from a consideration of God's past
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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
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Deu 8:1. That ye may live — Comfortably and…
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.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv3–4 But by every word that proceedeth out of the…
But by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord - literally, “every outgoing of the mouth of the Lord.” Compare Deu 29:5-6. The term “word” is inserted by the King James Version after the Septuagint, which is followed by Matthew and Luke (see the marginal references). On the means of subsistence available to the people during the wandering, see Num 20:1 note. The lesson was 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 (“bread only,” i. e. the ordinary means of earthly sustenance) through which He is usually pleased to work.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Live a long and happy life; which was often…
Live a long and happy life; which was often promised to the carnal Jews, to encourage them to fill God’s commands. Christians are willing to forego these temporal advantages, that they may obtain such as may last for ever. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 1All the commandments [commandment] which I command thee this…
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.
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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 adjectæ). It is less a repeated, than a continuous (this day) enduring (part. מְצַוְּךָ) 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). ענה 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, (לְמַעַן confessedly from עָנַה 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 (לְּ) 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 (עַלGen_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 God’s 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”). בָּצֵק, 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. עמ־לְבָבֶךָ. 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). תְהֹמֹת usually the waves of the sea, as תְהוֹם 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 Robinson’sBibl. 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. זַיִת שֶׁמֶןthe olive of oil (the olive tree which yields oil) in distinction from the wild olive (עֵץ שֶׁמֶן). 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. כְּמִסְכֵּנֻת from סָכַן 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 so—cannot 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 נָחָשׁ שָׂרָף (Num_21:6). שָׂרָף 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 בָּאֵשׁ) 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 כִּ (Keil), and therefore the more striking. צִמָּאוֹן from צָמֵא 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 (למַעַן) 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. נִסָּה, 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, לְהֵיטִבְךָ) 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 future—to 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. בָּצֵק 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.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 4 thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord…
thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness--The recapitulation of all their checkered experience during that long period was designed to awaken lively impressions of the goodness of God. First, Moses showed them the object of their protracted wanderings and varied hardships. These were trials of their obedience as well as chastisements for sin. Indeed, the discovery of their infidelity, inconstancy, and their rebellions and perverseness which this varied discipline brought to light, was of eminently practical use to the Israelites themselves, as it has been to the church in all subsequent ages. Next, he enlarged on the goodness of God to them, while reduced to the last extremities of despair, in the miraculous provision which, without anxiety or labor, was made for their daily support (see on Exo 16:4). Possessing no nutritious properties inherent in it, this contributed to their sustenance, as indeed all food does (Mat 4:4) solely through the ordinance and blessing of God. This remark is applicable to the means of spiritual as well as natural life.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–5 1. All… which I command — A renewed admonition…
1. All… which I command — A renewed admonition to obedience, that they may obtain the land which Jehovah had promised.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–6 1. The change from Sg. to Pl. is confirmed…
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.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–5 (1) All the commandments.—Perhaps this verse should be placed…
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.
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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).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 8
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.)
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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!
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–5 Vers. 1-6. That they might be induced the more…
FURTHER EXHORTATION TO OBEDIENCE, ENFORCED BY A REVIEW OF GOD"S DEALINGS WITH ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS.
Vers. 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 (Jud_1:2:22 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)
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Vers. 1, 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 him a 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.
Vers. 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 "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" (ver. 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.
1. "To prove thee" (ver. 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 as himself; 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 higher to 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 (ver. 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 (ver. 5). This word includes not only correction but all that belongs to the training of a child. (cf. 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. Ver. 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 training sonship. This order is never reversed rescued, 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. (Vers. 2, 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 (ver. 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 be a continuous advance in preparation for heaven. This is of moreconsequence than all the ease and comfort in the world.
1. 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.
2. If we want God to train us for glory first, 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!
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES. Vers. 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 needs how 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 desert perils arising from outward circumstance, moral temptations, evil powers, personal defects and infirmities, distinctive vocation.
3. Remember Gods 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 event that 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 Gods 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 Gods 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.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 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.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Remember all the way which the Lord thy God…
Deu_8:1-2
Remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee.
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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.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 8
THE BREAD OF THE SOUL
Deuteronomy 8
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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.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.—In addition to the danger of being ensnared…
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.
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Deu_8:2. Remember that God’s 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 God’s 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 Canaan—the 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 Israel’s 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. God’s 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, God’s 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 stage—perils, 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.” Life’s meaning can only be understood by its retrospect and remembrance. We cannot discern God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 God’s 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 son”—God 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 thoroughly—store memory wisely—live obediently. Remembrance of God’s 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 would’st do thyself, could’st 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 striking—in 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 other—he 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
God’s 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 God—are 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 God’s 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 God’s 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, Beware—be 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 godly—frequent religious ordinances—read God’s holy word—contemplate 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 God—sinners 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 God’s 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 man’s 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 viâ tribulation.
“The path of sorrow and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.”
—Spurgeon.
A good land—free 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 sources—a 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 supplies—seasonable, 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. Angel’s 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.” “God’s 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 God’s preparing, sending and bestowing. Happy pilgrims who in the desert have their meat sent from the Lord’s 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 life’s 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. (Ray’s 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 creed—can 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.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. The remembrance of the way. There will be…
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.
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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.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v2
Deuteronomy
THE LESSON OF MEMORY
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Deu 8:2.
The strand of our lives usually slips away smoothly enough, but days such as this, the last Sunday in a year, are like the knots on a sailor’s log, which, as they pass through his fingers, tell him how fast it is being paid out from the reel, and how far it has run off.
They suggest a momentary consciousness of the swift passage of life, and naturally lead us to a glance backwards and forwards, both of which occupations ought to be very good for us. The dead flat upon which some of us live may be taken as an emblem of the low present in which most of us are content to pass our lives, affording nowhere a distant view, and never enabling us to see more than a street’s length ahead of us. It is a good thing to get up upon some little elevation and take a wider view, backwards and forwards.
And so now I venture to let the season preach to us, and to confine myself simply to suggesting for you one or two very plain and obvious thoughts which may help to make our retrospect wise and useful. And there are two main considerations which I wish to submit. The first is -what we ought to be chiefly occupied with as we look back; and secondly, what the issue of such a retrospect ought to be.
I. With what we should be mainly occupied as we look back. Memory, like all other faculties, may either help us 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 retrospects. 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. Some men’s tastes and inclinations are so vitiated and corrupted that they find a joy in living their badnesses over again. Some of us, looking back on the days that are gone, select by instinctive preference for remembrance, the vanities and frivolities and trifles which were the main things in them whilst they lasted. Such a use of the great faculty of memory is like the folly of the Egyptians who embalmed cats and vermin. Do not let us be of those, who have in their memories nothing but rubbish, or something worse, who let down the drag-net into the depths of the past and bring it up full only of mud and foulnesses, and of ugly monsters that never ought to have been dragged into the daylight.
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. Some men look back and say, with Jacob in one of his moods, ‘Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life!’ Yes! and the same man, when he was in a better spirit, said, and a great deal more truly, ‘The God that fed me all my life long, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil.’ Do not paint like Rembrandt, even if you do not paint like Turner. Do not dip your brush only in the blackness, even if you cannot always dip it in molten sunshine.
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, and from what point of view the retrospect of the past must be taken in order that it should be salutary. ‘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. ‘To humble thee and to prove thee, and to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no’; let us look back with a clear recognition of the fact that the use of life is to test, and reveal, and to make, character. This world, and all its outward engagements, duties, and occupations, is but a scaffolding, on which the builders may stand to rear the true temple, and when the building is reared you may do what you like with the scaffolding. So we have to look back on life from this point of view, that its joys and sorrows, its ups and downs, its work and repose, the vicissitudes and sometimes contrariety of its circumstances and conditions, are all for the purpose of making us, and of making plain to ourselves, what we are. ‘To humble thee,’ that is, to knock the self-confidence out of us, and to bring us to say: ‘I am nothing and Thou art everything; I myself am a poor weak rag of a creature that needs Thy hand to stiffen me, or I shall not be able to resist or to do.’ That is one main lesson that life is meant to teach us. Whoever has learnt to say by reason of the battering and shocks of time, by reason of sorrows and failures, by reason of joys, too, and fruition,-’Lord, I come to Thee as depending upon Thee for everything,’ has wrung its supreme good out of life, and has fulfilled the purpose of the Father, who has led us all these years, to humble us into the wholesome diffidence that says: ‘Not in myself, but in Thee are all my strength and my hope.’
I need not do more than remind you of the other cognate purposes which are suggested here. Life is meant, not only to bring us to humble self-distrust, as a step towards devout dependence on God, but also to reveal us to ourselves; for we only know what we are by reflecting on what we have done, and the only path by which self-knowledge can be attained is the path of observant recollection of our conduct in daily life.
Another purpose for which the whole panorama of life is made to pass before us, and for which all the gymnastic of life exercises us, is that we may be made submissive to the great Will, and may keep His commandments.
These thoughts should be with us in our retrospect, and then our retrospect will be blessed: First, we are to look back and see God’s guidance everywhere, and second, 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. And now turn 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.
First, let me say: Remember and be thankful. If what I have been saying as to the standard by which events are to be tried be true; 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 plainly and clearly, that all things that come within the sweep of our memory may equally contribute to our highest good.
Good does not mean pleasure. Bright-being may not always be well-being, and the highest good has a very much nobler meaning than comfort and satisfaction. And so, realising the fact that the best of things is that they shall make us like God, then we can turn to the past and judge it wisely, because then we shall see that all the diversity, and even the opposition, of circumstances and events, may co-operate towards the same end. Suppose two wheels in a great machine, one turns from right to left and the other from left to right, but they fit into one another, and they both produce one final result of motion. So the moments in my life which I call blessings and gladness, and the moments in my life which I call sorrows and tortures, may work into each other, and they will do so if I take hold of them rightly, and use them as they ought to be used. They will tend to the highest good whether they be light or dark; even as night with its darkness and its dews has its ministration and mission of mercy for the wearied eye no less than day with its brilliancy and sunshine; even as the summer and the winter are equally needful, and equally good for the crop. So in our lives it is good for us, sometimes, that we be brought into the dark places; it is good for us sometimes that the leaves be stripped from the trees, and the ground be bound with frost.
And so for both kinds of weather, dear brethren, we have to remember and be thankful. It is a hard lesson, I know, for some of us. There may be some listening to me whose memory goes back to this dying year as the year that has held the sorest sorrow of their lives; to whom it has brought some loss that has made earth dark. And it seems hard to tell quivering lips to be thankful, and to bid a man be grateful though his eyes fill with tears as he looks back on such a past. But yet it is true that it is good for us to be drawn, or to be driven, to Him; it is good for us to have to tread even a lonely path if it makes us lean more on the arm of our Beloved. It is good for us to have places made empty if, as in the year when Israel’s King died, we shall thereby have our eyes purged to behold the Lord sitting on the Royal Seat.
‘Take it on trust a little while,
Thou soon shalt read the mystery right,
In the full sunshine of His smile.’
And for the present let us try to remember that He dwelleth in the darkness as in the light, and that we are to be thankful for the things that help us to be near Him, and not only for the things that make us outwardly glad. So I venture to say even to those of you who may be struggling with sad remembrances, remember and be thankful.
I have no doubt there are many of us who have to look back, if not upon a year desolated by some blow that never can be repaired, yet upon a year in which failing resources and declining business, or diminished health, or broken spirits, or a multitude of minute but most disturbing cares and sorrows, do make it hard to recognise the loving Hand in all that comes. Yet to such, too, I would say: ‘All things work together for good,’ therefore all things are to be embraced in the thankfulness of our retrospect.
The second and simple practical suggestion that I make is this: Remember, and let the memory lead to contrition. Perhaps I am speaking to some men or women for whom this dying year holds the memory of some great lapse from goodness; some young man who for the first time has been tempted to sensuous sin; some man who may have been led into slippery places in regard to business integrity. I draw a ‘bow at a venture’ when I speak of such things-perhaps some one is listening to me who would give a great deal if he or she could forget a certain past moment of this dying year, which makes their cheeks hot yet whilst they think of it. To such I say: Remember, go close into the presence of the black thing, and get the consciousness of it driven into your heart; for such remembrance is the first step to deliverance from the load, and to your passing, emancipated from the bitterness, into the year that lies before you.
But even if there are none of us to whom such remarks would specially apply, let us summon up to ourselves the memories of these bygone days. In all the three hundred and sixty-five of them, my friend, how many moments stand out distinct before you as moments of high communion with God? How many times can you remember of devout consecration to Him? How many, when-as visitors to the Riviera reckon the number of days in the season in which, far across the water, they have seen Corsica-you can remember this year to have beheld, faint and far away, ‘the mountains that are round about’ the ‘Jerusalem that is above’? How many moments do you remember of consecration and service, of devotion to your God and your fellows? Oh! what a miserable, low-lying stretch of God-forgetting monotony our lives look when we are looking back at them in the mass. One film of mist is scarcely perceptible, but when you get a mile of it you can tell what it is-oppressive darkness. One drop of muddy water does not show its pollution, but when you have a pitcherful of it you can see how thick it is. And so a day or an hour looked back upon may not reveal the true godlessness of the average life, but if you will take the twelvemonth and think about it, and ask yourself a question or two about it, I think you will feel that the only attitude for any of us in looking back across a stretch of such brown barren moorland is that of penitent prayer for forgiveness and for cleansing.
But I dare say that some of you say: ‘Oh! I look back and I do not feel anything of that kind of regret that you describe; I have done my duty, and nobody can blame me. I am quite comfortable in my retrospect. Of course there have been imperfections; we are all human, and these need not trouble a man.’ Let me ask you, dear brother, one question: Do you believe that the law of a man’s life is, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself’? Do you believe that that is what you ought to do? Have you done it? If you have not, let me beseech you not to go out of this year, across the artificial and imaginary boundary that separates you from the next, with the old guilt upon your back, but go to Jesus Christ, and ask Him to forgive you, and then you may pass into the coming twelvemonth without the intolerable burden of unremembered, unconfessed, and therefore unforgiven, sin.
The next point that I would suggest is this: Let us remember in order that from the retrospect we may gain practical wisdom. It is astonishing what unteachable, untamable creatures men are. They learn wisdom about all the little matters of daily life by experience, but they do not seem to do so about the higher. Even a sparrow comes to understand a scarecrow after a time or two, and any rat in a hole will learn the trick of a trap. But you can trick men over and over again with the same inducement, and, even whilst the hook is sticking in their jaws, the same bait will tempt them once more. That is very largely the case because they do not observe and remember what has happened to them in bygone days.
There are two things that any man, who will bring his reason and common-sense to bear upon the honest estimate and retrospect of the facts of his life, may be fully convinced of. These are, first, his own weakness. One main use of a wise retrospect is to teach us where we are weakest. What an absurd thing it would be if the inhabitants of a Dutch village were to let the sea come in at the same gap in the same dyke a dozen times! What an absurd thing it would be if a city were captured over and over again by assaults at the same point, and did not strengthen its defences there! But that is exactly what you do; and all the while, if you would only think about your own past lives wisely and reasonably, and like men with brains in your heads, you might find out where it was that you were most open to attack; what it was in your character that most needed strengthening, what it was wherein the devil caught you most quickly, and might so build yourselves up in the most defenceless points.
Do not look back for sentimental melancholy; do not look back with unavailing regrets; do not look back to torment yourselves with useless self-accusation; but look back to see how good God has been, and look back to see where you are weak, and pile the wall, higher there, and so learn practical wisdom from retrospect.
Another phase of the practical wisdom which memory should give is deliverance from the illusions of sense and time. Remember how little the world has ever done for you in bygone days. Why should you let it befool you once again? If it has proved itself a liar when it has tempted you with gilded offers that came to nothing, and with beauty that was no more solid than the ‘Easter-eggs’ that you buy in the shops-painted sugar with nothing inside-why should you believe it when it comes to you once more? Why not say: ‘Ah! once burnt, twice shy! You have tried that trick on me before, and I have found it out!’ Let the retrospect teach us how hollow life is without God, and so let it draw us near to Him.
The last thing that I would say is: ‘Let us remember that we may hope. It is the prerogative of Christian remembrance, that it merges into Christian 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 again 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.’
With regard to this fleeting life, it is a delusion to say ‘to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant’; but with regard to the life of the soul that lives in God, that is true, and true for ever. The past is a specimen of the future. The future for the man who lives in Christ is but the prolongation, and the heightening into superlative excellence and beauty, of all that is good in the past and in the present. As the radiance of some rising sun may cast its bright beams into the opposite sky, even so the glowing past behind us flings its purples and its golds and its scarlets on to the else dim curtain of the future.
Remember that you may hope. A paradox, but a paradox that is a truth in the case of Christians whose memory is of a God that has loved and blessed them whose hope is in a God that changes never; whose memory is charged with ‘every good and perfect gift that came down from the Father of Lights,’ whose hope is in that same Father, ‘with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.’ So on every stone of remembrance, every Ebenezer on which is graved: ‘Hitherto hath the Lord helped us,’ we can mount a telescope-if I may so say-that will look into the furthest glories of the heavens, and be sure that the past will be magnified and perpetuated in the future. Our prayer may legitimately be; ‘Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me!’ And His answer will be: ‘I will not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.’ Remember that you may hope, and hope because you remember.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Practical Exhortations (continued)
Practical Exhortations (continued)
The people are reminded of God's goodness to them at the time of the exodus and during their sojourn in the wilderness. They are exhorted to humility and obedience, and warned against worshipping strange gods.
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2, 3. The events of the wanderings were intended to teach Israel humility and dependenee on God alone: see on Deu_7:19.
3. Which thou knewest not] see Exo_16:15. But by every word, etc.] If necessary God can sustain human life apart from the usual means. The Saviour had this trust in God and refused to create bread for himself: see Mat_4:4.
4. God who gives the life provides also the raiment and the bodily health: see Mat_6:25-34. Jewish commentators understood this description literally, but it is evidently poetical and rhetorical.
6-20. A warning against pride and self-sufficiency: see on Deu_4:25.
7-9. The gifts of God in the rich and beautiful land of Canaan are a motive to thankfulness and obedience, but may become a temptation to forgetfulness and pride: see on Deu_4:25.
9. Iron is found in various parts of Palestine, especially in the N. Basalt (see on Deu_3:11) is found E. of the Jordan. Copper, here called brass, is found in the Lebanon range and to the E. of the Dead Sea. We do not read of the Jews working mines in Canaan, but the writer of the book of Job was acquainted with mining operations, and gives a graphic description of the process in Deuteronomy 28, which should be read in RV.
16. At thy latter end] i.e. by bringing them into the land of promise if they stood the test.
18. Cp. 1Ch_29:12-14.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v6 (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
fear
(See Scofield "Psa 19:9").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 4. Thou Shalt Remember! Provision and Warning
4. Thou Shalt Remember! Provision and Warning
CHAPTER 8
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1. Remember the forty years and Jehovah’s 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. Jehovah’s 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 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 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).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 A Reference to God’s Goodness
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.
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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.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 4 General Information:
General Information:
Moses continues to speak to the Israelites as if they are one person. (See: Forms of You)
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You must keep ... you may live and multiply, and go in and possess ... your fathers
All instances of "you" and "your" and the verbs are plural. (See: Forms of You)
You will call to mind
This is an idiom. AT: "You must remember" (See: Idiom)
forty years
"40 years" (See: Numbers)
he might humble you
"he might show you how weak and sinful you are"
to know
"to reveal" or "to show"
what was in your heart
The heart is a symbol of a person's character. AT: "what kind of people you are" or "how you would behave" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
command
life
multiply
possess
Promised Land
Yahweh
oath
ancestor
God
year
desert
humble
test
know
heart
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–3 8:1-20 Once Israel inhabited the land, they might have…
8:1-20 Once Israel inhabited the land, they might have the human tendency to take credit for the blessings that followed. Moses warned the people to guard against a self-congratulatory attitude. God alone is the source of all prosperity and achievement.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.