Deuteronomychapter 11
32 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
For the land that you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated on foot, like a vegetable garden.
It stands in A land that drinks the rain of heaven, verses 8 to 17.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Ebal and Gerizim previewed. Remember the chastening, the wonders in Egypt, Pharaoh, the Red Sea, Dathan and Abiram. The land is not like Egypt. Watered by foot with a shaduf. But a land of hills and valleys, drinking water of the rain of heaven. Early and latter rain given if you obey. ‘Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse’. The blessing if you obey, the curse if you will not. When the LORD brings you in, put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. Love the LORD, walk in his ways, cleave unto him; and no man shall be able to stand before you.
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 11The history
The speech is Moses in the first person, and verse 2 draws a line through the room. He says he is speaking to the men who saw the discipline of the LORD and not to their children, who did not.
The setting of the speech is the plain east of the Jordan in the fortieth year, at about 1406 BC on the frame this site keeps.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The land described lies west across the river. Egypt fed itself from a river a farmer could work by hand, and the hill country of Canaan waits on the autumn and spring rains.
The occasion is the end of the general charge that began at chapter 6. The particular statutes start at 12:1, and this chapter is the last push before them.
A first hearer knew what watering by foot meant in Egypt, whether it was a water engine worked by the feet or a man opening and closing his irrigation channels in the mud. The site's published exposition carries both readings.
He knew what a failed autumn rain did to a household, so the threat at verse 17 of a shut heaven was a threat against the year's bread.
He knew the two mountains named at verse 29 by reputation. Gerizim and Ebal stand on either side of the valley at Shechem, and the oak of Moreh named beside them is where Abram built his first altar in the land at Genesis 12:6-7.
What it meant to them
The appeal worked on memory. The men listening had watched Egypt, the sea and the ground that swallowed Dathan and Abiram, and the charge rested on what their own eyes had seen.
The move from a river to the rain changed what obedience meant in daily life. A harvest that hung on the sky put the year under the God who gives the rain.
The blessing and the curse set at verse 26 were not left as an idea. They were given two mountains and a ceremony, and Joshua 8:30-35 records the ceremony carried out.
Sources cited
- The site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 11, in the store
- Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 11 falls in Second sermon, the law restated (chapters 5–26). The Decalogue repeated; the Shema; laws for the land, for worship, for kingship, for war, for the poor. The covenant's central exposition.
Before it: First sermon, retrospective, chapters 1–4. After it: Third sermon, blessings and curses, chapters 27–30.
The whole shape of Deuteronomy→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Your own eyes saw what he did
1. (vv. 1-3)
Deuteronomy 11:1
“Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge--The reason for the frequent repetition of the same or similar counsels is to be traced to the infantine character and state of the church, which required line upon line and precept upon precept.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Deuteronomy 11:1
“In sum, he exhorts them that, being invited by God's love, they should love him in return. Meanwhile, it is well to observe that free affection is the foundation and beginning of duly obeying the Law, for what is drawn forth by constraint, or servile fear, cannot please God.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Deuteronomy 11:3
“And his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt,.... The miraculous works done there, the ten plagues inflicted on the Egyptians for refusing to let Israel go: unto Pharaoh king, of Egypt, and unto all his land; for those plagues not only affected him and his court, and his metropolis, but all parts of the land, the inhabitants of it everywhere.”
Love is commanded three times in this chapter, at verses 1, 13 and 22, and 6:5 is where the book first asks for it. Verse 2 draws a line through the audience, because Moses says he speaks to the men who saw the chastisement of the LORD and not to their children, who did not. The word rendered chastisement carries teaching along with correction, so what those men watched God do in Egypt is counted as their schooling.
2. (vv. 4-5)
Deuteronomy 11:4
“And what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:4
“Thus did he give Egypt for their ransom, Isa. xliii. Rather shall that famous kingdom be destroyed than that Israel shall not be delivered. Upon Dathan and Abiram that embroiled them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 11:5
“And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came unto this place. Meaning not so much the good things he did for them in divers places, as the chastisements and corrections he had exercised them with for their murmurings, rebellions, idolatry, and uncleanness, as at Taberah, Kibrothhattaavah, on the coast of Edom, and plains of Moab; by fire, by sword, by plagues, and fiery serpents; the instances both before and after being of this sort.”
The Red sea is given in one clause and the weight of it falls on the last words, how the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day, which keeps an act done forty years earlier in force at the moment of speaking. Exodus 14:28 is the account it points back to. Verse 5 then covers the whole wilderness period in a single line and names nothing in it, because the men listening supply the detail themselves.
3. (vv. 6-7)
Deuteronomy 11:7
“But your eyes have seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did; Even all before related, with many others; and therefore the instruction they should learn from thence should be as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:7
The authority of the one commanding ought to move us to observe the commandments of God, because by His great power He creates us. "Your eyes have seen all the great works of God, which He did, that you might keep His commandments."
Bonaventure· written before 1257· Collationes de Decem Praeceptis, Collation 1patristic
Numbers 16 is the account, and there the revolt is led by Korah with Dathan and Abiram beside him. This verse names the two Reubenites and their households and leaves Korah out, and Numbers 26:11 records that the children of Korah died not. Both books stand as they are written. Verse 7 closes the recital on the ground of the whole appeal, that your eyes have seen all the great acts of the LORD.
B. A land that drinks the rain of heaven
1. (vv. 8-9)
Deuteronomy 11:8
“Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments - Because God can execute such terrible judgments, and because he has given such proofs of his power and justice; and because, in similar provocations, he may be expected to act in a similar way; therefore keep his charge, that he may keep you unto everlasting life.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:8
“Therefore shall you keep all the commandments which I command you this day,....”
Deuteronomy 11:9
“And that ye may prolong your days in the land,....”
The recital of what they saw turns into a charge, and the first thing promised is strength for the taking of the land. Milk and honey entered Scripture at Exodus 3:8, in what God said to Moses at the bush, and it runs from there to the end of the Torah as the standing description of the place. Long days in the land is the promise attached to honouring parents at Exodus 20:12, and here it is attached to the whole law.
2. (vv. 10-12)
Deuteronomy 11:10
“Wateredst it with thy foot - Rain scarcely ever falls in Egypt, and God supplies the lack of it by the inundations of the Nile. In order to water the grounds where the inundations do not extend, water is collected in ponds, and directed in streamlets to different parts of the field where irrigation is necessary.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:10
“And when it did overflow sufficiently, and left its mud upon the earth, yet that mud was in a little time hardened, and needed another watering, and much digging and labour both of the hand and feet, especially in places more remote from that river; which inconvenience Canaan was free from.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:11
“All this Abraham undergoes that he may dwell in a land of promise watered from above, and not like Egypt, from below, no producer of herbs for the weak and ailing but a land that looks for the early and the latter rain from heaven. It is a land of hills and valleys and stands high above the sea. The attractions of the world it entirely lacks, but its spiritual attractions are for this all the greater.”
Jerome· written before 420· LETTER 46.2patristic
Deuteronomy 11:12
“THE Israelites had sojourned for a while in Egypt, a land which only produces food for its inhabitants by the laborious process of irrigating its fields. They had mingled with the sons of Ham as they watched with anxious eyes the swelling of the river Nile. They had shared in the incessant labors by which the waters were preserved in reservoirs, and afterwards eked out by slow degrees to nourish the various crops. Moses tells them in this chapter that the land of Palestine was not at all like Egypt—it was a land which did not so much depend on the labor of the inhabitants as upon the good will of the God of Heaven. He calls it a land of hills and valleys, a land of springs and rivers, a land dependent not upon the rivers of earth but upon the rain of Heaven, and he styles it in conclusion, "A land which the Lord your God cares for: the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." Observe here a type of the condition of the natural and the spiritual man! In this world in temporals and in all other respects the merely carnal man has to be his own providence, and to look to himself for all his needs. Hence his cares are always many, and frequently they become so heavy that they drive him to desperation. He lives a life of care, anxiety, sorrow, fretfulness and disappointment. He dwells in Egypt, and he knows that there is no joy, or comfort, or provision if it does not wear out his soul in winning it. But the spiritual man dwells in another country! His faith makes him a citizen of another land. It is true he endures the same toils, and experiences the same afflictions as the ungodly, but they deal with him after another fashion, for they come as a gracious Father's appointments and they go at the bidding of loving wisdom.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:12
“A land which the Lord thy God careth for,....”
Egypt was watered by human labour out of the Nile and the land they are going to drinks water of the rain of heaven, which puts the harvest out of a farmer's hands and under the sky. Commentators differ over what wateredst it with thy foot describes: Adam Clarke takes it of a water engine worked by the feet, and others read it of a man opening and closing the ridges of his channels with his foot in the mud. Verse 12 then says the LORD careth for that ground and his eyes are upon it from the beginning of the year even unto the end, which gives a piece of earth a standing of its own.
3. (vv. 13-15)
Deuteronomy 11:13
“And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day,.... In the name, and by the authority of the Lord, the only lawgiver: to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul; see Deu 10:12. Jarchi interprets this of prayer; but it is not to be restrained to that only, but includes the whole service of God, in all the parts of it, performed from a principle of love to him, and in sincerity and truth.”
Deuteronomy 11:14
“The rain - in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain - By the first or former rain we are to understand that which fell in Judea about November, when they sowed their seed, and this served to moisten and prepare the ground for the vegetation of the seed. The latter rain fell about April, when the corn was well grown up, and served to fill the ears, and render them plump and perfect. Rain rarely fell in Judea at any other seasons than these.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:15
“And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle,....”
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:15
“That blessing was promised to the Israelites as a temporal reward for their fidelity to the national covenant [De 11:13]. It was threatened to be withdrawn on their disobedience or apostasy; and most signally is the execution of that threatening seen in the present sterility of Palestine.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 11:15
“Godliness hath here the promise of the life that now is; but the favour of God shall put gladness into the heart, more than the increase of corn, and wine, and oil will.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Verse 13 repeats the demand of the Shema almost word for word, to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, and sets it as a condition with rain hanging on it. The first rain and the latter rain enter Scripture at verse 14, the early rain that softens the ground for autumn sowing and the late rain that fills the grain in spring. The pair carries forward to Jeremiah 5:24, Hosea 6:3, Joel 2:23 and Zechariah 10:1, and James 5:7 uses it of the husbandman waiting for the precious fruit of the earth.
4. (vv. 16-17)
Deuteronomy 11:16
“All that forsake God to set their affection upon, or pay their devotion to, any creature, will find themselves wretchedly deceived to their own destruction; and this will aggravate it that it was purely for want of taking heed.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:16
“Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived,....”
Deuteronomy 11:17
“Shut up the heaven - Which is compared sometimes to a great store-house wherein God lays up his treasures of rain, Job xxxviii, 22, the doors whereof God is said to open when he gives rain, and to shut when he witholds it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
The sanction is cut to fit the promise, since the God who gives the rain can shut up the heaven that there be no rain. Solomon prays this clause back at the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8:35, and Elijah enacts it at 1 Kings 17:1 when he swears there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to his word. James 5:17 reads that drought as an answer to a man's prayer and measures it at three years and six months, and Revelation 11:6 gives the two witnesses power to shut heaven that it rain not.
C. Bind them on your hand; every place you tread
1. (vv. 18-21)
Deuteronomy 11:18
“We cannot expect good practices in the conversation, unless there be good thoughts, good affections, and good principles, in the heart. Let our eyes be fixed upon the word of God. "Bind these words for a sign upon your hand, which is always in view ( Isa. xlix.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
3 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:18
“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words - See Deu 6:4-8 (note), and Exo 13:9 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:18
“Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart, and in your soul,.... Treasure up the laws of God delivered to them in their minds, retain them in their memories, and cherish a cordial affection for them; which would be an antidote against apostasy, idolatry, and other sins, Psa 119:11. and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes; of this and the two following verses; see Gill on Deu 6:7; see Gill on Deu 6:8; see Gill on Deu 6:9.”
Deuteronomy 11:18
“Let our eyes be fixed upon the word of God: Bind them for a sign upon your hand, which is always in view, and as frontlets between your eyes, which you cannot avoid the sight of. Let our tongues be employed about the word of God, especially with our children, who must be taught this, as far more needful than the rules of decency, or the calling they are to live by.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:21
“The sense is: “Keep the covenant faithfully, and so shall your own and your children’s days be multiplied as long as the heaven covers the earth.” The promise of Canaan to Israel was thus a perpetual promise, but also a conditional one.”
This is 6:6-9 said a second time inside the same speech: laid up in the heart, bound on the hand, worn as frontlets, taught to the children sitting, walking, lying down and rising up, and written on the door posts and the gates. Verse 18 addresses the whole nation in the plural where 6:6 addressed one man, and verse 19 drops back into the singular for the house. The promise is enlarged as well, from a man's own days to the days of your children in the land, as the days of heaven upon the earth, a figure Psalm 89:29 uses of David's throne.
2. (vv. 22-23)
Deuteronomy 11:22
“For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you to do them,.... Observe and take notice of them, even all of them, and so as not merely to have a theory or notional knowledge of them, but to put them in practice: to love the Lord your God; and show it by obeying his commands, and which is the end of the commandment, and the principle from which all obedience should flow: to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; see Deu 10:12.”
Deuteronomy 11:23
“Then will the Lord drive out all those nations from before you,.... By little and little, even all the seven nations which then inhabited the land of Canaan; and this he would do to make room for them, that they might inherit the land; see Deu 7:1. and ye shall possess greater nations, and mightier than yourselves; countries whose inhabitants were more in number, and greater in strength, than they; and therefore the conquest of them was not to be ascribed to themselves, but to the Lord; this is often observed; see Deu 7:1.”
Five verbs are stacked in one verse, to keep, to do, to love, to walk and to cleave, and the last of them is the word Genesis 2:24 uses of a man joined to his wife. The nations to be driven out are called greater and mightier than Israel, which is the same assessment the spies brought back at Numbers 13:31 and used as a reason to stay out. The difference the verse makes is over who does the driving.
3. (vv. 24-25)
Deuteronomy 11:24
“From the river - Euphrates, which was on the east, to the uttermost sea - the Mediterranean, which lay westward of the promised land. This promise, notwithstanding the many provocations of the Israelites, was fulfilled in the time of Solomon, for “he reigned over all the kings from the river (Euphrates) even unto the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt.” See 2Ch 9:26, and the note, Num 34:12 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:25
“There shall be no man able to stand before you,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:25
“Nothing contributes more to the making of a nation considerable abroad, valuable to its friends and formidable to its enemies, than religion reigning in it; for who can be against those that have God for them? And he is certainly for those that are sincerely for him, Prov. xiv.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Joshua 1:3-4 hands this promise to Joshua almost word for word after Moses dies, from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great river Euphrates, and Genesis 15:18 gave the same span to Abram. The description runs wider than Israel ever held: Joshua 13:1 says there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed, and 1 Kings 4:21 has Solomon reigning from the river to the border of Egypt, which is the nearest it came. The fear and the dread of verse 25 were promised at Exodus 23:27, and Rahab reports them as fact at Joshua 2:9.
D. A blessing and a curse on two mountains
1. (vv. 26-28)
Deuteronomy 11:26
“Behold, I set before you - a blessing and a curse - If God had not put it in the power of this people either to obey or disobey; if they had not had a free will, over which they had complete authority, to use it either in the way of willing or nilling; could God, with any propriety, have given such precepts as these, sanctioned with such promises and threatenings? If they were not free agents, they could not be punished for disobedience, nor could they, in any sense of the word, have been rewardable for obedience.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 11:27
“A blessing, if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God,.... That is, a blessing should come upon them, even all temporal blessings they stood in need of; they should be blessed in body and estate, in their families, and in their flocks, in town and country; see Deu 28:1, which I command you this day; afresh repeated to them, and enjoined them the observation of it in the name of the Lord.”
Deuteronomy 11:28
“And a curse, if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:28
“Say you to the righteous (for God has said it, and all the world cannot unsay it) that it shall be well with them: but woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The close of the whole book is laid out here in three verses, a blessing and a curse set before the people to choose between. Chapters 27 and 28 stage them at length, fourteen verses of blessing against fifty-four of curse, and 30:19 puts the choice one last time as life and death, blessing and cursing. This day falls eight times in this chapter and seventy times in the book, which keeps the covenant from becoming something that happened to an earlier generation.
2. (vv. 29-30)
Deuteronomy 11:30
“It is said be near the plain, or oaks, or meadows, of Moreh, which was one of the first places that Abraham came to in Canaan; so that in sending them thither, to hear the blessing and the curse, God reminded them of the promise he made to Abraham in that very place, Gen. xii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Gerizim and Ebal stand on either side of the valley at Shechem, and the plains of Moreh named in verse 30 are where Abram built his first altar in the land at Genesis 12:6-7. Chapter 27:12-13 assigns six tribes to each mountain, and Joshua 8:30-35 records the ceremony being carried out on the ground. The Samaritan Pentateuch reads the place which the LORD shall choose as a place already chosen and puts it at Gerizim, which is the old dispute behind the woman's words at John 4:20.
3. (vv. 31-32)
Deuteronomy 11:31
“For ye shall pass over Jordan, to go in to possess the land Which the Lord your God giveth you,.... They were now near it, and by this they are assured they should pass over it, in order to take possession of the land God had given them, and which gift of his was a sufficient title to it: and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein: should not only take possession of it, but make their abode in it; they are assured hereby of continuance in it, on condition they obeyed the laws of God, as follows.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 11:31
“The institution of this service to be done in Canaan was an assurance to them that they should be brought into possession of it, and a token like that which God gave to Moses ( Exod. iii.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 11:32
“And ye shall observe to do all the statutes and judgments,.... Take notice of them, and heed unto them, so as to practise them: which I set before you this day; repeated in order to them, on the observance of which depended their continuance in the land of Canaan; and therefore this is so often repeated and urged.”
The general charge of chapters 6 to 11 ends at verse 32 and the statutes begin at 12:1, so all the statutes and judgments which I set before you this day are the ones about to be given. Ye shall pass over Jordan is said by a man standing on the wrong side of it, and Moses has already given the reason he will not cross three times, at 1:37, 3:26 and 4:21. From here the book stops rehearsing what God did and starts setting out what Israel is to do.
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 11. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Alfred Edersheim, Bible History: Old Testament; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Form of a Harmony; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.