Deuteronomychapter 8
20 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
Key verse
He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
It stands in Humbled, hungry, and fed with manna, verses 1 to 6.
The chapter
Chapter summary
‘Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD’. Moses remembers the manna, the clothes that did not wear out, the feet that did not swell. The wilderness was a school. Humbling, proving, teaching dependence. A good land is coming. Brooks, fountains, wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, oil olive, honey; iron and brass for tools. Beware of full stomachs: ‘beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God … lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein … thine heart be lifted up’. Jesus' first wilderness answer comes from this chapter (Matt 4:4).
Context
Law · Moses · Deuteronomy overview
The world behind this chapter
Deuteronomy 8The history
Moses is the speaker and he is reading the forty years he led back to the people who lived them as children. He describes the wilderness as it was, great and terrifying, with venomous snakes and scorpions and thirsty ground where water had to come out of flint.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
Two details of those years are held up as evidence, clothing that did not wear out and feet that did not swell. Both are the complaints of people who walk for a living, since sandals and cloaks were costly and mended again and again. Adam Clarke reads the claim as provision so ample that nobody went ragged, and Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read it as a work done on the clothes themselves.
A first hearer knew the land by its produce. Wheat and barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and honey is an accurate inventory of the Israelite hill country, where terraced slopes grew grain in the valleys and orchards on the ridges. Barley came in at spring, wheat weeks later, grapes and figs at the end of summer, and olives were pressed in autumn.
A first hearer also knew what the water meant. Deuteronomy 11:10 and 11 set this land against Egypt, where a field was watered on foot from the river, and say this one drinks the rain from heaven. A harvest fed by rain depends on the sky every year.
The line about stones of iron and hills to dig copper from is literal. Adam Clarke corrects the older English brass to copper, since brass is an alloy, and reads the stones of iron as loose stone strongly charged with ore. Copper was mined and smelted in the Arabah south of the Dead Sea, and the slag heaps at Timna and Faynan are still there.
What it meant to them
The manna generation was about to become a farming nation, and the chapter names the exact hour the danger arrives. It is not when the harvest fails but when the barns are full, the herds have multiplied and the silver is stacked.
The sentence they carried out of this chapter, that a man does not live on bread alone, was learned by eating food nobody planted for forty years. Verse 18 then gives the wealth a purpose outside the man who holds it, to confirm the covenant sworn to their fathers.
Sources cited
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible , 1832, on Deuteronomy 8:4 and 8:9
- Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible , 1871, on Deuteronomy 8:4
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament , 2000
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions , 1961
Where the chapter sits
Deuteronomy 8 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.
Not by bread alone. ‘Man doth not live by bread only’, Jesus' answer in the wilderness (Matt 4:4).
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
Places1
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Humbled, hungry, and fed with manna
1. (vv. 1-2)
Deuteronomy 8:1
“All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do,....”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Deuteronomy 8:1
“Yet, at the same time, he indirectly reproves their obstinacy, which was then detected; since otherwise, if all things had gone prosperously with them, it would have been easy for them to pretend great fear of God, though, as was actually discovered, it did not really exist.”
John Calvin· Commentaries (1554)reformed
Deuteronomy 8:1
“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.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 8:2
“To know - That thou mightest discover to thyself and others that infidelity, inconstancy, hypocrisy, and perverseness, which lay hid in thy heart; the discovery whereof was of singular use both to them, and to the church of God in all succeeding ages.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Remember falls fourteen times in this book and forget nine, and chapter 8 carries both, remember at verses 2 and 18 and forget at verses 11, 14 and 19. What verse 2 asks Israel to hold is an event rather than a doctrine, all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years. The purpose comes in three clauses, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, so the forty years are described as a test God ran and then read.
2. (v. 3)
Deuteronomy 8:3
“One who possesses the Word, who is almighty God, needs nothing and never lacks any of the things he desires, for the Word is an infinite possession and the source of all our wealth. However, someone may object and insist that he has often seen the just in need of food. This is rare and happens only where no one else is just. Besides, let him read the beautiful sentence, "It is not by bread alone that the just man lives, but by the Word of the Lord," who is the true bread, the bread of heaven.”
Clement of Alexandria· written before 215· The Instructor Book 3patristic
2 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:3
“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.”
Deuteronomy 8:3
“By every word - That is, by every or any thing which God appoints for this end, how unlikely so-ever it may seem to be for nourishment; seeing it is not the creature, but only God's command and blessing upon it, that makes it sufficient for the support of life.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 8:3
- Quoted inLuke 4:4But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
'Man shall not live by bread alone' (temptation)
- Quoted inMatthew 4:4But Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Jesus answers the tempter, 'It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone'
Jesus answers the first temptation with this verse at Matthew 4:4. The Hebrew carries no noun where the King James supplies word, reading every outgoing of the mouth of the LORD, and Albert Barnes points out on this verse that Matthew follows the Septuagint, which does supply it. Manna is named as a thing they had never seen, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, and Exodus 16:15 preserves the question the name came from, what is it.
3. (vv. 4-5)
Deuteronomy 8:4
“Thy raiment waxed not old, etc. - The plain meaning of this much-tortured text appears to me to be this: “God so amply provided for them all the necessaries of life, that they never were obliged to wear tattered garments, nor were their feet injured for lack of shoes or sandals.” If they had carvers, engravers, silversmiths, and jewelers among them, as plainly appears from the account we have of the tabernacle and its utensils, is it to be wondered at if they also had habit and sandal makers, etc., etc., as we are certain they had weavers, embroiderers, and such like?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:4
“But the strong and pointed terms which Moses here uses (see also De 29:5) indicate a special or miraculous interposition of their loving Guardian in preserving them amid the wear and tear of their nomadic life in the desert. Thirdly, Moses expatiated on the goodness of the promised land.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Deuteronomy 8:5
“As a man chastiseth his son - That is, unwillingly, being constrained by necessity; moderately, in judgment remembering mercy; and for thy reformation not thy destruction.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 29:5 says this again and Nehemiah 9:21 repeats it centuries later, so the claim stayed in Israel's memory rather than being made once. Readers divide over what it describes. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take it as a work done on the clothes themselves, and Adam Clarke reads provision so ample that nobody went ragged among a people who carried weavers and embroiderers with them. Verse 5 then names the whole forty years as a father's discipline of a son, the figure Hebrews 12:7 takes up for the church.
4. (v. 6)
Deuteronomy 8:6
“Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God,....”
Deuteronomy 8:6-7
Verse 6 turns the forty years into a reason for obedience and verse 7 gives the second reason, the land itself. It is described first by its water, brooks, fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills. Deuteronomy 11:10-11 sets that against Egypt, where a man watered his field with his foot from the river, and says this land drinketh water of the rain of heaven. A harvest fed by rain depends on the sky every year, and that dependence is the ground the blessings and curses of chapter 28 stand on.
B. A good land: eat and bless the LORD
1. (v. 7)
Deuteronomy 8:7
“See Exo 3:8 note, and the contrast expressed in Deu 11:10-11, between Palestine and Egypt. The physical characteristics and advantages of a country like Palestine must have been quite strange to Israel at the time Moses was speaking: compare Deu 3:25 note. To have praised the fertility and excellence of the promised land 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 that they would meet from the inhabitants of Canaan.”
2. (vv. 8-9)
Deuteronomy 8:8
“A land of wheat, etc. - On the subject of this verse I shall introduce the following remarks, which I find in Mr. Harmer’s Observations on the Fertility of the Land of Judea, vol. iii., p. 243. “Hasselquist tells us that he ate olives at Joppa (upon his first arrival in the Holy Land) which were said to grow on the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem; and that, independently of their oiliness, they were of the best kind he had tasted in the Levant.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 8:9
“A land whose stones are iron - Not only meaning that there were iron mines throughout the land, but that the loose stones were strongly impregnated with iron, ores of this metal (the most useful of all the products of the mineral kingdom) being every where in great plenty. Out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass - As there is no such thing in nature as a brass mine, the word נחשת nechosheth should be translated copper; of which, by the addition of the lapis calaminaris, brass is made. See on Exo 25:3 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and honey are counted in later Jewish practice as the seven species of the land, and the Mishnah tractate Bikkurim, compiled about AD 200, limits the firstfruits of Deuteronomy 26 to them. Verse 9 turns from food to metal, and the Hebrew word rendered brass is copper, brass being an alloy. Adam Clarke makes that correction on this verse, and the copper workings at Timna and Feinan in the Arabah are what the region is known for.
3. (v. 10)
Deuteronomy 8:10
“When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God,.... For as the Lord would furnish them with plenty of food, they might eat of it liberally, provided they did not indulge to intemperance, as everyone may whom God has blessed with a fulness of good things; and this shows that we are to return thanks to God for a plentiful meal, as well as to ask a blessing on it: for the good land which he hath given thee; which supplied them with such plenty, that they enjoyed full meals every day.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:10
“They must not have any fellowship with those that, when they had eaten and were full, blessed false gods, as the Israelites themselves had done in their worship of the golden calf, Exod. xxxii. Whatever they had the comfort of God must have the glory of.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 8:10-11
The same clause opens verse 10 and verse 12, when thou hast eaten and art full, and it runs to blessing in the first and to forgetting in the second, so fullness is where the road forks. Jewish practice takes verse 10 as the warrant for the blessing said after a meal rather than before it, and the Babylonian Talmud derives the obligation from this verse at Berakhot 48b. Verse 11 then defines forgetting as not keeping his commandments, so memory in this book is something done rather than something felt.
C. My power and my hand got me this wealth
1. (v. 11)
Deuteronomy 8:11
“Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God,.... The Father of mercies and fountain of goodness, the author and donor of every good and perfect gift. Plenty is apt to induce a forgetfulness of God, when on the contrary one would think it should keep him in continual remembrance, and engage to daily thankfulness to him: in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; gave a repetition of, and in the name of God afresh enjoined them, even laws moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which, when not observed, God is forgotten.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:11
“Their dignity forbids them to stoop, and their liberty forbids them to serve. But we are basely ungrateful if the better God is to us the worse we are to him. (2.) "Forget not God's former dealings with thee.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 12-14)
Deuteronomy 8:12
“Lest when thou hast eaten and art full,.... Not only once and again, but continually, day after day, being indulged with great plenty: and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; who for forty years had only dwelt in tents, moving from place to place in the wilderness.”
Deuteronomy 8:13
“And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply,.... Having good pasture for them in so fruitful a land: and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied; by trading with other nations: and all that thou hast is multiplied; children, servants, and substance.”
Deuteronomy 8:14
“The provision he made for thee in the wilderness, that great and terrible wilderness." They must never forget the impressions which the horror of that wilderness made upon them; see Jer. ii. 6 , where it is called the very shadow of death.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:14
“Then thine heart be lifted up,....”
Verse 1 promised that they may live, and multiply, and verse 13 uses that word three times over herds, flocks, silver, gold and all that thou hast, so the thing promised is the thing that endangers. Chapter 6:10-12 warned about houses full of good things which thou filledst not, where the danger is inheriting what another man built; here they build the goodly houses themselves, which is the harder case. The heart lifted up comes first and forgetting follows it, and what gets forgotten is named as the house of bondage.
3. (vv. 15-16)
Deuteronomy 8:15
“Render: “Who brought thee through that great and terrible wilderness, the fiery serpent and the scorpion, and the dry land where are no waters.” On the fiery serpents see Num 21:6 note.”
Deuteronomy 8:16
“Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna,....”
4 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:16
“Who fed thee - with manna - See this miracle described in Exo 16:13 (note), etc.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 8:16
“To do thee good at thy latter end - This is presented as the result of God’s dealings.”
Deuteronomy 8:16
“The mercies of God, if duly considered, are as powerful a mean to humble us as the greatest afflictions, because they increase our debts to God, and manifest our dependance upon him, and by making God great, they make us little in our own eyes.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Deuteronomy 8:16
“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.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The wilderness gets its own sentence, fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, and the fiery serpents are Numbers 21:6. Water out of the rock is told twice in the Torah, at Horeb in Exodus 17:6 and at Kadesh in Numbers 20:11, and Paul takes up that rock at 1 Corinthians 10:4. Verse 16 repeats the purpose clause of verse 2, humble thee and prove thee, and adds a term the earlier verse did not carry, to do thee good at thy latter end, which sets the forty years inside a longer intention.
4. (vv. 17-18)
Deuteronomy 8:17
“And thou say in thine heart,.... These words are in connection with the former part of the Deu 8:14, and thou forget the Lord thy God; the author and giver of all the good things enjoyed, and think within themselves, though they might not express it in words at length: my power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth; so ascribing that to themselves, their labour, and diligence, which ought to be ascribed to the bounty and blessing of God; see Hos 12:8.”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:17
“It is spiritual idolatry thus to sacrifice to our own net, Hab. i. "Then take heed of forgetting God." This follows upon the lifting up on the heart; for it is through the pride of the countenance that the wicked seek not after God, Ps. x.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 8:18
“God - giveth thee power to get wealth - Who among the rich and wealthy believes this saying? Who gives wisdom, understanding, skill, bodily strength, and health? Is it not God? And without these, how can wealth be acquired? Whose is providence? Who gives fertility to the earth? And who brings every proper purpose to a right issue? Is it not God? And without these also can wealth be acquired?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:18
“But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God,....”
Deuteronomy 8:18
“By these words [Scripture] is showing clearly that it is God who grants us gifts of good things and that we ought as servants of the grace of God to sow God's gracious gifts and enable our neighbors to become people of honor. The aim is for the man of self-control to enable those who are continent to find their fulfillment, the man of courage to do the same for the noble, the man of practical wisdom for the understanding, and the man of justice for the just.”
Clement of Alexandria· written before 215· The Stromata Book 2patristic
Deuteronomy 8:18
“It is our duty to get wisdom, and above all our gettings to get understanding; and yet it is God's grace that gives wisdom, and when we have got it we must not say, It was the might of our hand that got it, but must own it was God that gave us power to get it, and therefore to him we must give the praise and consecrate the use of it.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The danger is put as a sentence a man says in his heart, my power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. Verse 18 answers it by giving the wealth a purpose outside the man who holds it, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, so the money is covenant business before it is anyone's reward. Chapter 9:4-6 presses the same point about the land three times in three verses, not for thy righteousness, and the two chapters run one argument.
5. (vv. 19-20)
Deuteronomy 8:19
“And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God,....”
1 more voice on this verse
Deuteronomy 8:19
“8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; 9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass. The charge here given them is the same as before, to keep and do all God's commandments.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Deuteronomy 8:20
“As the nations which the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish,.... Be cut off by the sword, or cast out as they were, the same sins, particularly idolatry, being committed by them.”
The chapter closes by putting Israel under the same sentence as the nations it is about to displace, so shall ye perish. Leviticus 18:28 had already warned that the land would spue them out as it spued out those before them, and the ground given here is the same one, disobedience rather than descent. I testify against you this day is the witness formula the book uses again at 30:19, where heaven and earth are called to record.
This page carries no textual note on Deuteronomy 8. 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; 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.
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