Deuteronomychapter 8
20 verses · Moses, by tradition · 15th to 13th century BC · The Law
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.
Introduction
Moses, by tradition, The Law, Deuteronomy Overview.
This chapter looks back on forty years of manna and forward to a land of wheat and vines. Moses speaks to a generation that grew up eating bread from heaven and will soon eat bread from its own fields. He wants them to understand why the wilderness years were hard. Then he warns them about the danger that plenty brings. Listen for what the wilderness was meant to teach and what the land might make them forget. Read it as a lesson on how to live when life becomes easy.
Context
- Who
- People who had never bought bread in their lives
- What
- Moses' teaching that the wilderness years were God's discipline, with a warning not to forget Him in the wealth of the land.
- Where
- The plains of Moab east of the Jordan, recalling the wilderness and describing the land of Canaan.
- When
- The fortieth year after the exodus, about 1406 BC on the traditional dating, or late in the thirteenth century BC on the later dating, at the end of the forty years in the wilderness.
- Why
- To teach Israel to depend on God's word and to credit Him with their prosperity in the land.
Historical context
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.
Show the rest of the historical context, 4 more paragraphs
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.
Significance
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.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
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.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
Verse 10 commands a blessing after eating and being satisfied, and the tradition treats the words of this chapter as the ground of the grace said after a meal. Sforno on Deuteronomy 8:10:1 gives the reason the chapter itself supplies. God gives the land in such abundance so that Israel will remember that only he could have given it. The corpus anchors the Talmud's tractate on blessings at these verses, with Berakhot 41a:8 and 41b:4 at verse 8, Berakhot 36b:15 at verse 9 and Arakhin 4a:4 at verse 10. Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:8:1 reads the olive named among the seven kinds as the olive that yields oil rather than the hard fruit that yields none.
How it is read
The commentators read this chapter as a warning attached to plenty. Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:1:1 gives the plain sense of the whole commandment first. He then gives the Midrashic sense, that a meritorious deed once begun is to be carried to the end, since the deed bears the name of the one who finishes it. He proves it from the burial of Joseph's bones at Joshua 24:32, which Moses began and Israel completed, citing Midrash Tanchuma, Eikev 6. Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:2:1 reads the testing of the heart as a test of one particular command, that God is not to be put to the test or doubted. Sforno on Deuteronomy 8:7:1 works through the good land as a list of five qualities, each opened in the text by the word for land. He names running water in place of polluted or standing water, the basic grain crops, and the products fit for a king's table. He adds a land where money is plentiful, and stones that hold iron or serve as building material. Sforno on Deuteronomy 8:16:1 reads the humbling in the wilderness as training to keep the commandments without the confidence that a full basket gives. Sforno on Deuteronomy 8:19:1 names the forgetting the chapter fears. It is the crediting of success to one's own effort in place of thanking God for it. The Rashi entries are from corpus entries marked kept, the Rosenbaum and Silbermann edition, public domain. The Sforno entries are from Eliyahu Munk's HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY. Ibn Ezra stands across this chapter as a linked entry at 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:3:1, 8:3:2, 8:5:1, 8:9:1, 8:13:1, 8:14:1, 8:15:1, 8:17:1, 8:18:1 and 8:20:1. Malbim on Deuteronomy 8:6:1, 8:11:1 and 8:12:1 is linked in the same way, and both are cited by ref alone.
What the rabbis say
The rabbis teach that the clothes of the wilderness generation were kept by the clouds of glory. Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:4:1 says the clouds rubbed the dirt from their clothes and bleached them so that they looked new. He adds that the clothes of the children grew with them as they grew, like the shell of a snail, citing Shir HaShirim Rabbah 4:11 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 850. This site reports it as what the rabbis taught. Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:4:2 reads the second half of the verse as a promise that their feet did not swell like dough, as the feet of those who walk barefoot do. The corpus also holds the Midrash and the Talmud on this chapter as locators without their text. Among them are Bava Metzia 114a:9 at verse 1, Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2 at verse 3 and Berakhot 5a:22 at verse 5. Others are Bamidbar Rabbah 14:2 at verse 7, Bamidbar Rabbah 11:7 at verse 10, Berakhot 32a:12 at verse 14 and Eikhah Rabbah 2:1 at verse 20.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Deuteronomy 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:4:1, 8:4:2 and 8:8:1, Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann, public domain, 1929 to 1934; Sforno, Sforno on Deuteronomy 8:7:1, 8:10:1, 8:16:1 and 8:19:1, Eliyahu Munk, HaChut Hameshulash, CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Deuteronomy 8:1:1, 8:2:1, 8:3:1, 8:3:2, 8:5:1, 8:9:1, 8:13:1, 8:14:1, 8:15:1, 8:17:1, 8:18:1 and 8:20:1, cited by ref alone, CC-BY-NC; Malbim, Malbim on Deuteronomy 8:6:1, 8:11:1 and 8:12:1, cited by ref alone, no English version; Midrash and Talmud, Berakhot 36b:15, 41a:8, 41b:4, 5a:22 and 32a:12, Arakhin 4a:4, Bava Metzia 114a:9, Bamidbar Rabbah 1:2, 14:2 and 11:7 and Eikhah Rabbah 2:1, cited by ref alone; The Sefaria corpus on disk, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/deuteronomy/8.json, fetched 2026-09-19, 2026.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Humbled, hungry, and fed with manna
Deuteronomy 8:1-2
Chapter 8 carries both of the book's standing commands, remember at verses 2 and 18 and forget at verses 11, 14 and 19. Verse 2 asks Israel to hold an event, "these forty years the LORD your God led you". Its purpose, "humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart", makes the forty years a test God ran and then read.
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
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
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
The test ends on a question, whether or not you would keep His commandments, which makes the wilderness an examination of the heart. John Wesley reads to know what was in your heart as bringing to light, for Israel and the church after them, the unbelief that lay hidden there. Matthew Henry notes that the Feast of Tabernacles kept this passage in memory as Passover kept the exodus.
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
Jesus answers the first temptation with this verse at Matthew 4:4. The Hebrew carries no noun behind "every word", reading every outgoing of the mouth of the LORD, and Albert Barnes notes on this verse that Matthew follows the Septuagint, which supplies it. Manna is named as something "neither you nor your fathers had known", and Exodus 16:15 keeps the question its name came from, "What is it?"
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.”
2 more voices on this verse
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
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
Cross references
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'
Deuteronomy 8:4-5
Deuteronomy 29:5 says this again and Nehemiah 9:21 repeats it centuries later. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take it as a work done on the clothes themselves, and Adam Clarke reads provision so ample that no one went ragged in a camp with its own weavers. Verse 5 names the forty years a father's discipline of a son, the figure Hebrews 12:7 takes up for the church.
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.””
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
The lesson is to be settled in the heart, and it reads the hunger and the manna of verses 2 and 3 as a father's training. John Wesley draws three marks from the comparison, that such discipline is given unwillingly, in measure, and for the son's reformation. Matthew Henry calls the forty years Israel's education under strict discipline, given for their good and out of love.
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 8:6-7
Verse 6 turns the forty years into a reason for obedience, and verse 7 gives a second reason, the land, described first by its water. Deuteronomy 11:10-11 sets it against Egypt, where fields were "irrigated on foot", and says it "drinks in the rain from heaven". A harvest fed by rain depends on the sky each year, and the blessings and curses of chapter 28 stand on that dependence.
A good land: eat and bless the LORD
The verse opens a description of the land that runs through verse 9, and verse 10 closes it on the same words, the good land. Albert Barnes observes that Moses praises the land only now, at its border, since such praise in the wilderness would have fed the people's murmuring. Matthew Henry reads the land as a figure of the better country.
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.”
Deuteronomy 8:8-9
Later Jewish practice counts the seven foods of verse 8 as the seven species of the land. The Mishnah tractate Bikkurim, compiled about AD 200, limits the firstfruits of Deuteronomy 26 to them. On verse 9 Adam Clarke notes that the metal is copper, brass being an alloy, and the region is known for the copper workings at Timna and Feinan in the Arabah.
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
The first half of the verse sets the land against the wilderness, where food came one day at a time as manna, and promises food without scarcity. The second half turns to what lies under the ground, and John Wesley reads rocks of iron as ore lying as plentifully as ordinary stones. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown cite Josephus and later travellers for iron in Lebanon and elsewhere.
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
Deuteronomy 8:10-11
The same clause, "when you eat and are satisfied", opens verses 10 and 12, and it runs to blessing in the first and to forgetting in the second. Jewish practice takes verse 10 as the warrant for grace after meals, and the Babylonian Talmud derives the duty from it at Berakhot 48b. Verse 11 defines forgetting as "failing to keep His commandments", so memory here is something done.
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
My power and my hand got me this wealth
The warning stands at the moment of plenty, between the full meal of verse 10 and the fine houses of verse 12. John Gill observes that abundance, which ought to keep God in daily remembrance, tends instead to make men forget him. Matthew Henry calls it base ingratitude when the better God is to a people, the worse they are to him.
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
Deuteronomy 8:12-14
Verse 1 promised that they may "live and multiply", and verse 13 uses that Hebrew verb three times, over herds and flocks, silver and gold. What was promised is what endangers them, and here they build the "fine houses" themselves, a harder case than the inherited houses of 6:10-12. The proud heart comes first and forgetting follows, and the thing forgotten is "the house of slavery".
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.”
The list climbs from herds and flocks to silver and gold and then to all that you have. John Gill reads the herds as fed on the land's pasture, the silver and gold as gained by trade with other nations, and the last clause as children, servants and goods. The verse is one of a run of when clauses, and verse 14 supplies the then.
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.”
The God who would be forgotten is named by what he did, the one who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and verses 15 and 16 extend that record through the wilderness. The description is the remedy for the pride it warns of. Matthew Henry reads the proud heart as the mind rising with the estate into self-conceit, and counsels a low spirit in a high condition.
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
Deuteronomy 8:15-16
The wilderness gets its own sentence, "venomous snakes and scorpions", the snakes of Numbers 21:6. Water from rock comes 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 of verse 2 and adds "in the end He might cause you to prosper", a longer intention for the forty years.
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.”
Manna appears a second time in the chapter, again as food your fathers had not known, and here it is counted among the means God used to humble Israel. John Wesley explains how a gift can humble: mercies increase our debt to God and show our dependence, and so make us little in our own eyes. Matthew Henry reads the manna as a type of Christ, the bread of life.
Deuteronomy 8:16
“To do thee good at thy latter end - This is presented as the result of God’s dealings.”
3 more voices on this verse
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
“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
“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
Deuteronomy 8:17-18
The danger is a sentence said in the heart, "The power and strength of my hands have made this wealth for me". Verse 18 gives wealth a purpose beyond its holder, "to confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers", so the money is covenant business before it is reward. Chapter 9:4-6 presses the same point about the land three times, and the two chapters run one argument.
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
Remember answers the boast of verse 17, since the power the boaster claims for his hands is named here as the gift of the LORD your God. Adam Clarke lists what that power includes, wisdom, skill, strength, health and a fertile earth, and asks who gives them if God does not. Clement of Alexandria adds that those who receive God's gifts are to use them to raise their neighbours.
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
2 more voices on this verse
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
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 8:19-20
The chapter closes by putting Israel under the sentence of the nations it will displace, "so you will perish". Leviticus 18:28 had warned that the land would "vomit you out as it spewed out the nations before you", on the same ground of disobedience, whatever the descent. "I testify against you today" is the witness formula used again at 30:19, with heaven and earth as witnesses.
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
The chapter ends on a condition, and the nations now being driven out serve as the example of what disobedience brings. Matthew Henry reads the sentence as God making no more account of a disobedient Israel than of those nations, covenant notwithstanding. John Gill names idolatry as the shared sin that would bring the shared end.
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.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Exhortation inside the second address, the wilderness read backward and the land read forward, as Deuteronomy classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| When you eat and are satisfied | The same clause opens verse 10 and verse 12. In the first it runs to blessing God for the land and in the second it runs to forgetting Him, so fullness is where the road forks. The site's published exposition records that verse 11 then defines forgetting as failing to keep the commandments, which makes memory in this book something done.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 8:10 to 11, The exposition_notes row on Deuteronomy 8:10 to 11, citing John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763, and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710. | Deuteronomy 8:10, Deuteronomy 8:12 |
| The produce and the metal of the land | Verses 7 to 9 list the land by its water, then by wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey, then by its iron and copper. The site's published exposition records that later Jewish practice counts those seven as the species of the land, and that the Mishnah tractate Bikkurim, compiled about AD 200, limits the firstfruits of chapter 26 to them.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 8:8 to 9, The exposition_notes row on Deuteronomy 8:8 to 9, citing Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, 1832, and John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament, 1748 to 1763. | Deuteronomy 8:7, Deuteronomy 8:8, Deuteronomy 8:9 |
| To humble you and to test you | The purpose clause stands at verse 2 at the head of the chapter's account of the wilderness and again at verse 16 at the end of it, so everything said about the forty years stands between the two. Verse 16 adds a term verse 2 lacks, that in the end He might cause them to prosper, which sets the forty years inside a longer intention.This site's published exposition of Deuteronomy 8:15 to 16, The exposition_notes row on Deuteronomy 8:15 to 16, citing Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, and Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch, 1866. | Deuteronomy 8:2, Deuteronomy 8:16 |
| Every outgoing of the mouth of the LORD | Albert Barnes records that the Hebrew of verse 3 carries no noun where the English supplies word, and reads it literally as every outgoing of the mouth of the LORD. He records that the term was inserted after the Septuagint, which Matthew and Luke follow. John Wesley reads the clause as covering anything God appoints for the purpose, however unlikely it looks as food.Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Deuteronomy 8:3. | Deuteronomy 8:3 |
| What a man says in his heart | Verse 17 quotes the sentence the chapter is guarding against, that the power and strength of his own hands made this wealth for him. The book uses the same move at 7:17 for fear and at 9:4 for pride. Matthew Henry calls it a spiritual idolatry and sets Habakkuk 1:16 beside it, and John Gill sets Hosea 12:8 beside it.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710, on Deuteronomy 8:17. | Deuteronomy 8:17 |
The historical value
13 more paragraphs on the patterns
The land is described by things that can be checked. The site's published exposition records that the Hebrew word rendered brass at verse 9 is copper, brass being an alloy, and Adam Clarke makes the same correction on the verse. The copper workings at Timna and Feinan in the Arabah are what that region is known for, and Clarke reads the stones of iron as loose stone strongly charged with iron ore rather than mines alone.
The produce list is the list a later practice froze. Wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olive oil and honey are counted in Jewish practice as the seven species, and the Mishnah tractate Bikkurim limits the firstfruits of chapter 26 to them.
Adam Clarke brings a traveller's report to verse 8. He cites Mr Harmer's observations on the fertility of Judea, which record Hasselquist eating olives at Joppa said to grow on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem, and finding them the best kind he had tasted in the Levant.
The debated reading of verse 4
The claim that the clothing did not wear out and the feet did not swell is repeated at 29:5 and again at Nehemiah 9:21 centuries later, so it stayed in Israel's memory rather than being made once.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown take the strong terms as describing a work done on the clothes themselves. Adam Clarke reads it as provision so ample that nobody went ragged, and argues from the craftsmen the camp is known to have carried, since a people with carvers, engravers, silversmiths and jewellers for the tabernacle would also have had garment and sandal makers, as they certainly had weavers and embroiderers. The site's published exposition carries both readings and this page states no verdict.
The New Testament's use
Jesus answers the first temptation with verse 3 at Matthew 4:4, and Luke 4:4 gives the shorter form. The quotation follows the Septuagint, which supplies the noun the Hebrew leaves out, and Albert Barnes points that out on this verse.
Verse 5 names the forty years as a father's discipline of his son, which is the figure Hebrews 12:7 takes up for the church, that God treats them as sons and no son goes without discipline.
The water from the rock at verse 15 is told twice in the Torah, at Horeb in Exodus 17:6 and at Kadesh in Numbers 20:11. Paul takes that rock up at 1 Corinthians 10:4 and says the rock was Christ.
The turn at the end
The chapter closes by putting Israel under the same sentence as the nations it is about to displace. Leviticus 18:28 had already warned that the land would spit them out as it spat out those before them, and the ground given here is the same, disobedience rather than descent.
The formula at verse 19, that Moses testifies against them this day, is the witness formula the book uses again at 30:19, where heaven and earth are called to record.
Keep studying
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 form and classifications
Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, 1832 to 1869, on Deuteronomy 8:7; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765, on Deuteronomy 8:2 and This site's published guide to Deuteronomy, src/components/book/guides/deuteronomy/DeuteronomyGuide.tsx, the section The Second Address: the Law Restated at 4:44 to 26:19, which reads chapters 6 to 11 as the twin commands to love and remember.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, Book 2; 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; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.