Deuteronomy 29:8

Verse 1 introduces everything that follows in chapters 29 and 30, Moses’ last great appeal before Israel crosses the Jordan. “These are the words of the covenant” names what he is about to say as the terms of a binding agreement. The word for “words”, dâbâr, means word or speech, and in a separate sense a matter or thing. Here it stands for the whole body of laws, statutes and exhortations that make up the covenant. The word for covenant, bᵉrîyth, means a covenant, alliance, treaty or league, and between God and Israel it is a bond that God himself begins, resting on his promises and his commands. “Covenant” comes twice in this verse, once for Moab and once for Horeb.

The covenant is the LORD’s from the start. He “commanded Moses to make” it, and tsâvâh is the ordinary verb for giving a command, so the terms come from God and Moses carries them to the people as the go-between, as he did at Horeb.

Horeb is Mount Sinai, where God first made his covenant with Israel (Exodus 19–24) and set them apart as his own people (Exodus 19:5–6). Forty years have passed since then, and the date is usually given as around 1406 BC. The generation that stood at Horeb has died in the wilderness, after they refused in unbelief to enter the land (Numbers 14). Most of those now standing in Moab were children then or were born on the way. Moses speaks the words of the covenant to them, so that this generation takes the covenant as its own before it crosses into the land.

“Beside” translates mil-levad, “in addition to” or “apart from”. The covenant in Moab stands alongside the covenant at Horeb and renews it, with the same God, the same law and the same promises, now applied to a people about to leave the wilderness for settled life in Canaan, among its temptations to idolatry. So Deuteronomy restates the law with fuller explanation and sets out the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 28 in detail. Moab is the threshold of the land and the last place Moses speaks to the whole nation before his death, which gives this moment its urgency. Joshua later leads Israel in renewing the covenant again at Shechem (Joshua 24:25), and the prophets look forward to a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34).

Moses “called unto all Israel”. The verb qârâʼ means to call out to, to summon or address, and here it gathers the whole nation for a solemn assembly in which every person is answerable for what is said.

He begins with their own eyes: “Ye have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt.” The verb râʼâh is the ordinary word for seeing, and it also carries the sense of perceiving and taking note. The deeds belong to Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, God’s personal covenant name, so the plagues and the deliverance were the work of Israel’s own God, who had bound himself to them. Moses names everyone they fell on: “unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land.” The king, his officials and the whole country felt God’s hand, and the mightiest power of that day had to let his people go. The LORD had said beforehand that his judgment in Egypt would reach its gods as well (Exodus 12:12), so the plagues showed him to be the one true God over every ruler and idol. Israel would need that lesson in a land full of other gods.

Verse 3 names those deeds: “The great temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles.” “Great” stands twice in the verse, on the trials and on the miracles. The signs, ʼôwth, are marks or tokens that point to God’s presence and purpose, such as the plagues and the pillar of cloud and fire. The miracles, môwphêth, are wonders, a word used both of a sign that confirms a message and of a miracle done by God or in his name. Together they describe the plagues of Exodus 7–12 and the crossing of the sea (Exodus 14), works that confirmed Moses as God’s messenger and showed the LORD over the gods of Egypt.

Moses’ history starts where the covenant at Horeb started, when the LORD began his words by recalling that he had brought Israel “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” God’s grace comes first and his commands follow. Deuteronomy calls Israel again and again to remember all the way the LORD led them (Deuteronomy 8:2) and to “remember the days of old” (Deuteronomy 32:7). Scripture keeps retelling these deeds: God bore Israel out of Egypt on eagles’ wings (Exodus 19:4), Joshua recounts the plagues and the sea (Joshua 24:5–7), and a psalm rehearses God’s wonders in Egypt and the wilderness (Psalm 78:12–16). Hebrews takes this same generation’s history as a warning to believers against hardening their hearts (Hebrews 3:7–11).

After all this Moses says, “Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.” Israel had seen the wonders and heard God’s commands, and still lacked the inner capacity to understand what they meant and to answer with trust and obedience.

The heart, lêb, is the whole inner person: mind, will and moral character as well as feeling. “Perceive” is yâdaʻ, to know, with the sense of a knowing that comes by experience and relationship. “See” is râʼâh, the same verb as “Ye have seen” in verse 2, now used of seeing what the works meant. “Hear” is shâmaʻ, which reaches from hearing to listening, understanding and obeying. Heart, eyes and ears together cover the whole person, and the saying became a familiar way in Israel of describing a people without understanding. Jeremiah uses it of a people “which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not” (Jeremiah 5:21). Isaiah is sent to a people who will hear and see without understanding (Isaiah 6:9–10), and Jesus applies Isaiah’s words to those who heard his parables (Matthew 13:13–15).

“Unto this day” marks how long the dullness had lasted. Forty years of signs, manna and law had passed, and the condition remained as Israel stood at the edge of the land, which makes the covenant call that follows all the more urgent. It also shows that a heart that understands is something only God gives.

In verse 5 the voice changes, and Moses speaks the LORD’s own words: “And I have led you forty years in the wilderness.” “Led” is yâlak, to walk, here in the form that means to make walk, to lead. The forty years were the years of discipline after Israel’s refusal to enter the land (Numbers 14:33–35), and through every one of them God himself was leading.

Then comes a detail of daily life: “your clothes are not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot.” “Waxen old” comes twice in this verse. The verb bâlâh means to wear out, decay or grow old. In a desert where clothes and sandals were vital against the weather and the rough ground, and could hardly be replaced, God kept what his people wore whole for forty years. Moses has said the same earlier (Deuteronomy 8:4), and in Nehemiah’s day the Levites recall it in their prayer (Nehemiah 9:21).

Verse 6 goes on: “Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink.” Bread was Israel’s staple food, and wine the common drink of a settled people and a sign of a fruitful land. “Strong drink”, shekar, covers other fermented drinks. All three come from fields, vineyards and human labour, and for forty years Israel had none of them. God fed them with manna from heaven until they came to the land (Exodus 16:35), as Exodus 16 tells, and gave them water from the rock (Exodus 17:6). Their life hung on his hand from day to day, and a psalm remembers that they doubted his provision even while he fed them (Psalm 78:19–20). The same provision prepared them for Canaan, whose worship was bound up with fields and harvests. A people who had lived forty years on God’s bread would know that their food came from him, whatever the land later yielded.

Verse 7 brings the story to the place where they stand: “And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, came out against us unto battle, and we smote them.” Sihon and Og were Amorite kings who held the land east of the Jordan. Heshbon was Sihon’s chief city, and Bashan was known for its fertile land and strong cattle. The full account is in Numbers 21:21–35.

“Came out” is yâtsâʼ, to go or come out, and “battle” is milchâmâh, war, a full engagement. The two kings marched out to make war on Israel as it passed toward the land. “Smote” is nâkâh, to strike or smite, the ordinary word for striking down an enemy, and here it means a complete defeat. Moses had told Israel that the LORD their God would fight for them (Deuteronomy 1:30), and these victories proved it. Joshua later recalls that God sent the hornet before Israel to drive out their enemies (Joshua 24:12).

Verse 9 draws the conclusion: “Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.” “Therefore” ties the command to everything before it. God delivered them from Egypt, led them, fed and clothed them, and gave them victory and land, and so they are to keep his covenant. Obedience is Israel’s answer to what God has already done.

“Keep” is shâmar, from a root that pictures hedging something about, as with thorns, and so it means to guard, watch over and observe. Israel is to guard God’s words with care and hold them at the centre of its life. “Do them”, ʻâsâh, carries the keeping into action, so that the words are lived out. The covenant, bᵉrîyth, of verse 1 returns, and “the words of this covenant” echo the words that opened the passage. Moses goes on in this chapter to say that the covenant binds those standing before the LORD that day (Deuteronomy 29:15).

“Prosper” is sâkal, a verb that means to be wise and have understanding, to make wise and instruct, to consider, and to prosper. Success in Israel’s life is joined to walking wisely in God’s ways, and the promise covers “all that ye do”: their fields, their battles, their homes and their life as a nation. The blessings of obedience are set out at length in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26:3–13. God’s charge to Joshua joins keeping the law with prospering in the same way (Joshua 1:7–8), and so does the psalm of the blessed man who delights in the law of the LORD (Psalm 1:1–3).

The covenant in Moab looks ahead to the covenant made in Christ. Jesus is the mediator of “a better covenant” (Hebrews 8:6), the new covenant in which God puts his laws into the mind and writes them on the heart (Hebrews 8:10). Through his death he became the mediator of that new covenant (Hebrews 9:15). He came to fulfil the law (Matthew 5:17), and God sent his Son so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in those who walk after the Spirit (Romans 8:3–4). God’s righteousness comes by faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe (Romans 3:22), and whoever is in Christ is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17).

What Israel lacked in verse 4, Christ gives. He is the light of the world (John 8:12), who came so that the blind might see (John 9:39). The Holy Spirit he promised teaches his people (John 14:26), and Paul prays that God would give believers the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (Ephesians 1:17) and fill them with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and understanding (Colossians 1:9–10).

The wonders of Egypt foreshadow a greater deliverance. Jesus’ own signs, his healing of the sick (Matthew 8:16), his stilling of the storm (Mark 4:39) and his raising of Lazarus (John 11:43–44), showed who he is and that the kingdom of God had come (Luke 11:20). The gospel declares what God did before the eyes of witnesses: Christ died for our sins, was buried and rose again (1 Corinthians 15:3–4), so that we are set free from serving sin (Romans 6:6). On the cross “he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:15). Through death he destroyed the devil, who had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14), and God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57). Israel’s battles against Sihon and Og point to the believer’s wrestling against spiritual powers (Ephesians 6:12), fought in Christ’s victory until he comes as the conquering King (Revelation 19:11–16). Israel was told what its eyes had seen, and believers look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

The bread Israel lived without points to the bread of life. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” and whoever comes to him will never hunger, and whoever believes on him will never thirst (John 6:35). The fathers ate manna in the wilderness and died, and he is the living bread from heaven (John 6:49–51). Knowing the LORD, the purpose of the wilderness years, comes in knowing the Son, “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), for whoever has seen him has seen the Father (John 14:9).

The land east of the Jordan points to the inheritance believers have in Christ. In him we have obtained an inheritance (Ephesians 1:11), the Holy Spirit is its earnest (Ephesians 1:13–14), and we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). A rest remains for the people of God (Hebrews 4:9–10). The prosperity of verse 9 is fulfilled in those who abide in him and bear much fruit (John 15:5), for all the promises of God are yea and amen in him (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Moses asks Israel for nothing until he has told what God has done. The LORD broke the strongest power on earth for his people, led them for forty years, fed them each morning and kept the sandals on their feet, fought their battles and gave them land, and only then said, “Keep therefore.” The God of this passage gives first, and he gives his commands so that his people may prosper.

The passage also speaks honestly about the human heart. Israel saw more wonders than any generation before it and still needed a heart to perceive, and God, who alone gives that heart, promised it and has given it in Christ by his Spirit. The same God cared about clothes and shoes and daily bread, and he still knows what his people need for each day. His purpose in all of it is the one he named in the wilderness: “that ye might know that I am the LORD your God.”