Deuteronomy 8:14

Moses speaks these words on the plains of Moab, in the second great address of the book (Deuteronomy 5–26), to the generation about to cross into Canaan. Within that address, they belong to his long call to love and obey God (Deuteronomy 6–11).

Earlier in this chapter Moses reminds the people that God humbled them for forty years in the wilderness, fed them with manna and kept their clothes from wearing out, to teach them that “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8:2–4). He then describes the land ahead, with its brooks and springs, its wheat and barley, vines, fig trees and pomegranates, olive oil and honey (Deuteronomy 8:7–9). Verse 11 turns from that bright picture to a warning: “Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God.”

“Beware” is shâmar, to guard or keep watch, a verb that pictures hedging something about as with thorns. Israel is to stand guard over their own hearts. The danger is shâkach, the ordinary Hebrew word for forgetting, to mislay or lose sight of something from want of memory or attention. Moses explains in the same breath what this forgetting looks like: it happens “in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes.” So forgetting the LORD shows itself in how a person lives, and remembering him shows itself in keeping his word. Moses had given the same warning before, telling Israel to keep their souls diligently lest they forget what their eyes had seen (Deuteronomy 4:9).

Moses names God’s law with three words. Mitsvâh is a commandment, mishpâṭ is a judgment or ruling, often about justice among the people, and chuqqâh is something prescribed, a statute or enactment. Together they take in the whole of what God has commanded, so obedience reaches into every part of life. “Which I command thee this day” gives the charge its weight. Moses speaks as the LORD’s appointed spokesman, and the word binds this generation now, on the day they hear it.

Verses 12 and 13 describe the very blessings God means to give, and each one is a moment when forgetting comes easily. “When thou hast eaten and art full” joins ʼâkal, to eat, with sâbaʻ, to be satisfied and have plenty. After forty years of gathering manna one day at a time, Israel would sit down to their own harvests in a land “flowing with milk and honey” (Deuteronomy 6:3) and have more than enough. “Goodly houses” built (bânâh) and lived in would replace the tents of the wilderness, and a settled home brings a sense of having arrived and being secure. Moses had already told them that they would receive cities, wells and vineyards they did not build or plant, and in the same breath he told them to beware lest they forget the LORD (Deuteronomy 6:10–12).

Verse 13 widens the picture. Herds (bâqâr, cattle and oxen, used for ploughing and for meat and milk) and flocks (tsôʼn, sheep and goats, which gave wool, milk, meat and animals for offerings) were the working wealth of a pastoral people. Silver and gold were stored wealth for trade and fine things, the kind of riches Abram had when he was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold. In the KJV each clause of the verse ends with “multiply” or “is multiplied”, and behind them all stands the verb râbâh, to increase or become many. The last clause, “all that thou hast is multiplied”, gathers up everything else they would own. This is the increase God had promised when he said he would bless the fruit of their land, their cattle and their flocks (Deuteronomy 7:13–14). Moses piles up the blessings so that the warning lands with its full weight.

In the wilderness God’s hand was plain to see in the manna each morning and the water from the rock. In Canaan bread would come from fields and herds, and it would be easy to credit the soil, their own labour, or the gods of the land. The Canaanites worshipped Baal and Asherah as gods of rain, fertility and harvest, and Moses foresees the pull to thank them for Israel’s plenty. Comfort tests faith as surely as hardship does, and often more quietly.

Verse 14 names what happens inside: “Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God.” The heart, lêbâb, is the inner person, the seat of thought, will and feeling. To be lifted up, rûwm, is to be raised high, and when it is said of the heart it means haughtiness. Pride comes first in the verse and forgetting follows from it, because a heart that thinks itself great stops thanking the one who gave it everything. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). The same pull toward self-sufficiency runs all the way back to the fall in Genesis 3.

Moses answers pride with history. The LORD is the God “which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” The phrase bayith ʿebed means a house of slaves, a house of servitude. Israel had been slaves in the mightiest empire of their day, and they owed their freedom wholly to God. The Exodus was the ground of their life as a people, and when their children asked why they kept God’s statutes, parents were to answer by telling how the LORD brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand (Deuteronomy 6:20–25). To forget that God would be to deny their own story.

That is what later happened. After Joshua’s generation died, “there arose another generation after them, which knew not the LORD,” and they served the Baals (Judges 2:10–13). A psalm says, “They forgat God their saviour, which had done great things in Egypt” (Psalm 106:21). Through Jeremiah the LORD grieves, “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32). Nehemiah’s prayer confesses that Israel “were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets” (Nehemiah 9:26).

Verses 15 and 16 go on describing the God Israel might forget, and every clause tells of something he did. He “led thee through that great and terrible wilderness.” The verb yâlak means to walk, and here to lead, so God himself directed every step of the journey. The midbâr is the wilderness or desert, the vast dry land of Sinai, “great” for its size and “terrible” for its dangers.

It held “fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water.” The fiery serpents, whose bite brought burning pain, recall the plague in which the LORD sent serpents among the people and many died, and the serpent of brass he gave for their healing (Numbers 21:6–9). Venomous creatures and thirst were threats that could wipe out a nation of travellers, and Israel came through them because God kept them.

Then the LORD “brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint.” Challâmîysh is flint, one of the hardest of stones, and water flowing out of it shows God’s power to bring life from the most barren source there is. He gave water from the rock at Rephidim (Exodus 17:6) and again at Meribah (Numbers 20:11), and a psalm remembers that “He clave the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink as out of the great depths” (Psalm 78:15–16).

Verse 16 turns to the manna (mân), the bread God gave every morning for forty years (Exodus 16:35). Its name comes from the people’s question when they first saw it, “What is it?” (Exodus 16:15). Moses calls it food “which thy fathers knew not,” because it was new to every generation before them and came straight from God’s hand. It fell every day except the Sabbath, with a double portion on the sixth day, and it had to be gathered day by day.

God fed them this way “that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee.” The verb ʻânâh means to afflict or humble, to bring low. Living on a perishable food that could only be gathered daily stripped away Israel’s self-sufficiency and taught them that their life came from God. To prove is to test, and Moses has already said why God did it: “to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (Deuteronomy 8:2).

The danger reaches its height in a sentence spoken silently: “And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.” It is said in the heart, the same lêbâb as in verse 14. The boast can stay private, an inner conviction that is never voiced, and still shape everything a person does.

Every word of the boast claims the credit. “Power” is kôach, strength, ability or vigour. “Might” is ʻôtsem, power or substance, and “hand” is yâd, the hand that works, standing for all of a person’s effort and skill. “Gotten” is ʻâsâh, the broad verb for doing or making, so the boast amounts to “my strength made this.” “Wealth” is chayil, a word that can mean strength, ability, wealth or an army, and here it is the riches of the land. In this account of things God has dropped out of the picture altogether.

Scripture answers the boast from every side. “Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase” (Proverbs 3:9–10). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Jesus warns that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12:15).

Against the boast Moses sets a command: “But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Zâkar means to remember, and in another form to mention or bring to remembrance. This remembering is the opposite of the forgetting in verse 11, so it shows itself in gratitude, worship and obedience.

Moses answers the boast with its own words. The “power” here is the same word, kôaḥ, and the “wealth” is the same ḥayil, and Moses gives both back to God. The strength that earns, along with the health, skill and opportunity that make labour fruitful, is his gift. David prays the same truth: “Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all” (1 Chronicles 29:12). Proverbs says, “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22).

God gives this power “that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.” The covenant is his oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, promising land, many descendants, and blessing for all the families of the earth through Abraham (Genesis 12:1–3). Israel’s wealth in the land would be God keeping that word, so the blessing serves his promise and his plan as well as their comfort. “As it is this day” points to what they could already see. They stood on the border of the land God had sworn to give, living proof that he keeps his promises.

The passage ends with its hardest words: “And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.” “Do at all forget” renders a Hebrew construction that repeats the verb shâkach for emphasis, and “surely perish” does the same with ʼâbad. Both the act and its result are stated with full force.

Forgetting leads straight to idolatry. To “walk after” joins hâlak, to walk, used for a whole way of life, with ʼachar, behind or after. To walk after other gods is to follow them and order one’s life by them. “Other gods” is ʼachêr, other or strange, with ʼĕlôhîym, the same plural word that names the true God, where it is a plural of majesty. To “serve” is ʻâbad, to work, labour, serve or worship, and to “worship” is shâchâh, to bow down in homage. (ʻâbad, to serve, is a different word from ʼâbad, to perish.) This is the first commandment broken: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3–6). The LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, claims all of Israel’s devotion, because he alone is God.

Moses then speaks as a witness in court: “I testify against you this day.” ʻÛwd means to testify or bear witness, and yôwm, day, fixes the moment. Earlier in the book Moses had said, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day.” The covenant God made with Israel at Horeb set his commandments before them with blessings and curses, and Moses formally puts on record what unfaithfulness would bring.

Israel’s later history shows how hard this charge is to keep in human strength. Jesus is the faithful Son who remembered the Father at every step. He said, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), and where pride lifted Israel’s heart, he humbled himself and “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:6–8). Through him God has given a better covenant (Hebrews 8:6), the one he promised through Jeremiah: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33). The letter to the Hebrews quotes that promise in full (Hebrews 8:10–12). God also promised, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27). By his Spirit, God’s people now remember him and walk in his ways out of grateful love.

The wilderness gifts of verses 15 and 16 point to Christ. Of the water from the rock Paul says, “and that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4), and Jesus calls, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (John 7:37–38). The fiery serpents and the serpent of brass foreshadow the cross: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14–15). The manna points to the true bread from heaven. Jesus says, “Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead” (John 6:49), and “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). The humbling and proving have their likeness in him too, for “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). God still proves his people, and “the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,” ends in praise and glory (1 Peter 1:6–7).

The house of bondage has its counterpart as well. Christ frees us from the slavery of sin, whose wages is death, for “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). He gave his church a meal of remembrance, his body broken and his blood shed, with the words “this do in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24–25).

He also shows us what true wealth is. “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). He tells us to lay up treasure in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19–21), and he has gone to prepare a place for us in his Father’s house of many mansions (John 14:2–3), a better home than any goodly house in Canaan. All things were created by him and for him, and by him all things consist (Colossians 1:16–17). All the promises of God in him “are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). God has blessed us “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3), for “Christ is all, and in all” (Colossians 3:11), and we run looking unto Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2).

Christ bore the perishing that our unfaithfulness deserved. God “hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), the way, the truth and the life, through whom we come to the Father (John 14:6), and God gave him “that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

These verses show us a God who gives with an open hand. He freed slaves from the house of bondage, led them through a wilderness full of death, brought water out of flint, fed them with a bread their fathers had never seen, and brought them to a land full of good things, all to keep a promise he had sworn long before. Even his hard dealings in the desert had their good end in view. What he asks in return is to be remembered as the giver, and that remembering is the very thing that keeps a full heart humble.

The passage also shows that God is just and impartial. The LORD who drove out the nations for their sin warned his own people plainly that the same end awaited them if they turned from him, and he kept his word both ways. His warning is itself a mercy, spoken while there was still time to remember. In Christ, the Son who remembered the Father perfectly, God has written his law on the hearts of his people and given them the bread and water that last forever. The food on our tables, the roof over our heads and the strength to earn them come from that same hand.