then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage;
Moses speaks to a people about to leave the desert for a land of houses, herds and silver. His warning is not about famine but about fullness: a full stomach, then a proud heart, then a forgotten God — the God who broke their slavery in Egypt.
The danger in this chapter is not enemies or hunger. It is success.
The last part of this chapter warns them of the dangers hidden in prosperity. Then would come the temptation to rest in the luxury, to forget God's goodness to them, and to be lured away to false gods. So it happened in their history, as we know. We as Christians must remind ourselves of the same thing. Days of outward, earthly prosperity are times of spiritual danger and defeat for us too.
Moses warns Israel about forgetting God. One writer turns the same question on us.
Are we not prone to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Sadly, we cannot deny it. We rest in the stream instead of getting up to the Fountain. Mercies, blessings and benefits lie thick along our path. We turn these very gifts into an occasion for self-satisfaction and self-congratulation, instead of making them our constant ground of praise and thanksgiving.
Nothing outward has to change for this verse to come true. The blessings can still flow while the heart has already moved away.
Israel was not to stop short in the enjoyment of the gifts of God, nor to use them as an occasion to forget God Himself. The Christian must watch too. While enjoying the blessing, he may forget the One who gave it and lose sight of his own dependence on God. The heart may depart from God long before God withdraws His blessings; and we may still enjoy them when far from Him.
A proud heart is not a small fault. It runs on to a claim of self-made success, and it ends in judgment.
Israel was not yet in the land, and they were warned not to forget the source of all their blessing once they were there. Their only safeguard would lie in obedience to God's commandments, judgments and statutes. Otherwise the very wealth of their blessings would lead them to pride of heart, and to forgetting the Lord God their Redeemer. Along with this, they would credit their prosperity to their own power and to the might of their own hand, and so bring themselves under the sure judgment of God. Nothing so proves the perversity of our hearts as this: we take the blessings God so graciously gives and use them to exalt ourselves.
The verse ties God's name to a rescue out of the house of slavery. That memory keeps a person low. The bigger the blessing, the more we need it.
Possession without a sense of the deliverance that brought us in — such are our poor hearts — only tends to ruin. The richer the possession, the greater the danger. We must keep alive in the soul the sense of how, and out of what depths, we have been delivered. The light of the place we have been brought into shines back on what we were brought out of. So it makes the grace that did this more precious to us. At the same time it deepens our knowledge of ourselves, and that humbles us and keeps us humble before God.
The same drift shows up later. One writer sees it in the church at Laodicea, and in a prayer from Proverbs that fears plenty as much as poverty.
In Laodicea things have completely changed. There is appreciation, room and attention for everything except Christ… Doesn't Israel's history show the same thing, in the words Moses spoke? … Remember Agur's prayer in Proverbs 30:9: "lest I be full and deny you and say, 'Who is the LORD?' or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God."
- Fullness. Fullness, not famine, is the danger here. Days of outward prosperity are days of spiritual danger.
- Forgetting. Fullness tempts us to rest in the gift and never reach the Giver — to stay at the stream instead of climbing to the Fountain.
- Drift. The heart can leave God long before the blessings stop, so continued blessing is no proof of nearness to Him.
- Pride. A forgotten God leaves an exalted self. I credit my success to my own power, and that brings judgment.
- Remembering. The cure is to keep the house of slavery in view. Remembering what we were rescued from makes grace precious and keeps us humble.
who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, [a wilderness of] fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there is no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
Moses is retracing the road Israel had just travelled, and he picks out the worst stretch of it. Why did God choose that route for a people He had just redeemed, and what were they to do with the memory of it?
The desert was not a detour Israel stumbled into. Commentators put it between two fixed points: redemption behind, the promised land ahead.
This is only the entrance into the wilderness. He does not bring us into the desert until we are out of Egypt... We have trials and exercises there, but it is redemption that brings us into it; our path flows from that... Redemption was at the beginning, Canaan at the latter end; the wilderness comes between the two. Through the wilderness we have God with us, and for us, not holding anything against us, but exercising our hearts.
"Fiery" translates a Hebrew word tied to burning. It is a rare word in the Bible.
Gesenius and Fürst give the word saraph the meanings "to burn" and "to be exalted."... The word occurs only in Numbers 21:6 and Deuteronomy 8:15, translated "fiery," and in Numbers 21:8, Isaiah 14:29 and Isaiah 30:6, translated "fiery serpent."
One writer ties those serpents to the people's murmuring.
The weariness of the journey around Mount Edom frets the people again into murmuring against God. The fiery serpents speak of the power of Satan, which attacks through turning away from God.
The scorpion fits the same landscape. It "inhabits desolate places, hides under stones... and comes out at night" (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The hardest thing in the desert became the source of drink.
He brought water out of the flint rock. His presence makes the earth that has forgotten Him tremble. But for His people in the desert, His power and grace bring refreshment and life out of what looks to man hopeless and set against them. Dependence and confidence in Him — that is the peaceful path of faith.
Another writer sets the supply beside the need:
Had they been able to get bread in the wilderness, there would have been no need to send bread from heaven. Had they found water, it would not have been necessary to bring water out of the rock. The fullness of divine resource met every need. But the needs of the wilderness do not measure out God's provision; they only bring it about.
The verse does not stop at the terrain. The next line gives God's purpose in the route, and one writer applies it to the trouble believers meet.
God's people hold no free pass, no exemption from trouble in this life. While the wicked are kept in sugar, the godly are often kept in brine. God lets His people be in the house of bondage for testing or trial. "who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness... that He might humble you and test you" (Deut. 8:15-16). Affliction is the test of sincerity.
The danger these writers point to is not hardship but plenty.
Are we not prone to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Sadly, we cannot deny it. We rest in the stream instead of going up to the Fountain. Mercies, blessings and benefits lie thick along our path. We turn these very gifts into an occasion of self-satisfaction and congratulation, instead of finding in them the ground of continual praise and thanksgiving.
Another writer sets the danger against its remedy.
Possession without the sense of the deliverance that brought us in — such are our poor hearts — only tends to ruin, and the richer the possession the greater the danger. We must keep alive in the soul the sense of how, and from what depths, we were delivered.
- Led. The desert was not Israel's mistake. It was God's own road between the redemption behind them and the land ahead.
- Threatened. "Fiery" comes from a word meaning to burn. Commentators see in those serpents the power of Satan, striking a people who had turned away.
- Supplied. Water from flint shows grace bringing refreshment out of what looks hopeless. The need brought the supply; it never set its size.
- Proved. No believer holds an exemption from trouble. Affliction tests whether faith is real, and God's aim in the route was to humble His people and test them.
- Remembered. Danger grows with plenty, not with want. Forget the road, and you rest in the gifts instead of the Giver.
who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
Moses is looking back over forty years in the desert. He tells Israel that the hunger and the strange bread were no accident. God planned every stage. The verse holds three things together: what God did, what He was after, and where it was all heading.
Israel did not need the wilderness to be saved. God's plan runs from redemption to the inheritance. The desert does something else.
The wilderness forms no part of God's counsels, which, so far as we are concerned, refer to redemption, and the inheritance; but it does form part of God's ways. See Deuteronomy 8:2, 3, etc.; God proves us, that we may know ourselves, and know Him.
This humbling is discipline with a purpose. It brings what is inside us out into the open, where it can be judged.
God was humbling and testing them. This discipline is essential for every child of God. From the time we are converted we must learn that our life on earth is not going to be a bed of roses (without the thorns!). It is a life in which the selfishness of the flesh inside us must be checked and judged. And until that selfishness is exposed, we will have no concern about judging it.
The manna is how God tested them. It was food nobody had seen before. It taught one lesson above all.
We are also told that God fed them with manna, "that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end" (Deut. 8:16). In this we see what the Lord was aiming at when He gave us Bread from heaven. It teaches us that we depend on Him completely for the true words of instruction and nourishment.
This verse sits inside a warning. The danger Moses points to is not hardship but plenty.
The principle is this. Deliverance by itself is not enough for joy. We must also take hold by faith of our heavenly place in Christ, and know we have it. Yet we can never safely separate that place from the deliverance that was needed to bring us into it. Our hearts are poor things, and possession without a sense of that deliverance only leads to ruin. The richer the possession, the greater the danger.
This closing phrase changes how we read everything before it. God was never making it up as He went. He settled the outcome at the start, and they could only see it at the finish.
God was not uncertain about what He was doing. He was putting them into all these trials and taking them through. When they came to the end, they found that God had been thinking of everything for them. They had not been thinking of it along the way, but it was all "to do you good in the end."
God's heart is set on the outcome. He asks us to look where He looks, and not at the pain of the moment.
I must go through the process, painful as it is. In it I learn what the flesh is. I also learn that God's heart is set on the end He has for me, and not on the present process I am passing through, which rejects the flesh and is necessary. He wants my heart set on that end too. Nothing turns Him aside. Everything in my circumstances, which He has arranged, keeps moving on to carry out His purpose for me.
- In between. Redemption comes first and the inheritance last. The desert is the stretch in between. There God tests us, so that we know ourselves and know Him.
- Humbled. Until the flesh in us is exposed, no one cares to judge it. So God gives His people a road that is not a bed of roses.
- Tested. Bread nobody had seen before teaches complete dependence on God for instruction and nourishment.
- Warned. Plenty is the real danger. The richer the possession, the easier it is to forget the deliverance that gave it.
- The end. God was never uncertain. At the finish they found He had been thinking of everything all along. He asks us to set our hearts on that end too.
-- and thou say in thy heart, My power and the might of my hand has procured me this wealth.
Israel was about to enter a rich land of good houses, growing flocks, and piles of silver and gold. Moses warned them about a sentence they might one day say inside their own hearts, crediting the harvest to their own hand.
This is a claim made in the privacy of the heart, and one writer traces the harm it does back on the person who makes it.
Despite this they might (and did) say in their heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth" (v.17). How much harm this self-centered pride does to a man himself! Israel later gave in to it, and in the Church of God today many have been deceived in the same way, so that God's Word is largely forgotten. So Moses urges Israel again to remember the Lord their God, for He alone gives anyone the power to prosper. He did this for Israel to prove His faithfulness to the covenant He had made with their fathers (v.18).
Hunger keeps a person aware that he is being supplied. Comfort quietly removes that awareness, though it never removes the fact.
But sadly, then as now, the very fullness of the blessing they enjoyed might make them forget the gracious hand that gave it. Plenty of food had long ago destroyed Sodom. Hardship and need wake a person up to his need of God. When he lacks nothing, he can easily lose the sense that he still depends on God.
The boast begins with a shift of attention. The heart moves from the One who gives to the things He gives.
Are we not prone to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Sadly, we cannot deny it. We rest in the stream, instead of getting up to the Fountain. Mercies, blessings and benefits lie scattered richly along our path. We turn them into an occasion for self-satisfaction and self-congratulation, instead of finding in them the blessed ground of continual praise and thanksgiving.
The word points to the things listed a few verses earlier: houses, herds, flocks, silver and gold. It also settles who supplied them.
Here, speaking of Boaz, "wealth" is used as it is in Deuteronomy 8:17-18. There it means God-given personal possessions in the land: the fine houses, herds and flocks, silver and gold mentioned in verses 12 and 13. For the godly Israelite, "wealth" was a mark of the blessing of the Lord, which "makes rich, and He adds no sorrow with it" (Proverbs 10:22).
Taking credit is the end of a slide. One writer names the step that comes first.
The Lord would have us remember two things in the wilderness. First, it is He who has redeemed us from the world, as He brought His people out of Egypt. Second, it is He who sustains us moment by moment in the wilderness. When we realize this direct dependence on God, we are strong to resist the devil. When we lose sight of it, we feel less need of communion with God. We neglect it, and we soon credit our blessings to ourselves.
Money is not the only thing a person can take credit for. A believer can make the same mistake about gifts that are not material at all.
To boast of spiritual gifts and achievements as if we had gained them by our own skill offends the Lord even more. He alone gives, as it pleases Him. It is to put God's blessings and favours in the place of God Himself. If the perishable things of this life are His gift, how much more the spiritual and eternal!
One writer names the safeguard. It is not poverty, but a settled sense of our own nothingness — and he says what keeps us there.
Nothing proves how twisted our hearts are so clearly as this: we take the blessings God so kindly gives us and use them to exalt ourselves. May we take the warning to heart, knowing that in our flesh no good thing lives. May we always seek to be kept in the place of nothingness — and we will be, in the measure that Christ is everything to our souls.
- Gift. The houses, herds, silver and gold of the land were gifts from God. They were a mark of His blessing, not wages we earned.
- Fullness. Need keeps us aware that we depend on God. Plenty wipes out the awareness, but not the dependence.
- Drift. Losing the sense of moment-by-moment dependence weakens communion with God, and self-credit follows.
- Substitution. The heart rests in the stream instead of the Fountain. Mercies then become grounds for self-congratulation.
- Reach. We can boast the same way about spiritual gifts and achievements. That puts God's favours in the place of God Himself.
But thou shalt remember Jehovah thy God, that it is he who giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And it shall be, if thou do at all forget Jehovah thy God, and go after other gods, and serve them, and bow down to them, I testify against you this day that ye shall utterly perish.
Moses has just described the good land — harvests, houses, herds, silver and gold. His warning now is not about famine but about plenty: forget God, and Israel will perish like the nations it came to replace.
The warning turns on one fact: gifts can push the Giver out of sight.
Do we not need line upon line, precept upon precept, and that continually? Are we not prone to forget the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? We cannot deny it. We rest in the stream, instead of getting up to the Fountain. Mercies, blessings and benefits lie scattered richly along our path. We turn them into an occasion of self-satisfaction and self-congratulation, instead of finding in them the ground of continual praise and thanksgiving.
The verse ties forgetting to idolatry. Nothing outward has to change for the heart to have moved.
Israel was not to stop short in the enjoyment of the gifts of God, nor to use them as an occasion to forget God Himself. The Christian, too, must watch. In the enjoyment of the blessing he may forget the One who gave it, and lose sight of his own dependence on God. The heart may depart from God long before He withdraws His blessings. We may still enjoy them while far from Him.
Two verses earlier, Moses quoted a boast: success came from one's own strength. Verse 19 answers it.
Despite this they might — and did — say in their heart, "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth" (v.17). How harmful to a man is this self-centred pride! Israel later gave in to it. In the Church of God today many have been deceived in the same way, and God's Word is forgotten to a large extent.
Moses states the outcome plainly. The measure he uses is the one Israel would watch God apply to Canaan.
If Israel forgot the Lord God and followed and served the idols of the nations, God would carry out His Word and cause Israel to perish too. The nations of Canaan would be destroyed before the Lord. Israel would suffer the same for their disobedience (vs.19-20).
Another writer explains why the treatment is the same. Israel's special title rested on staying different from the nations.
God had separated the Jews from the nations. If they lived no better than those nations, why should He keep treating them as His own people by a special title? Suppose they gave up everything that made them distinct and fell into the idolatry of the nations. Then God would not support such false claims.
This "if" belongs to a particular agreement between God and Israel. That agreement is not God's last word to them.
But here everything depends on their obedience to this conditional covenant, which made them Jehovah's, and His alone. Sovereign restoring grace does not come until chapter 30.
Israel could not keep this condition, as the golden calf had already shown. Yet the book that carries this warning also supplied the words that answered the tempter in the wilderness.
Once again the tempter's proposal was met with words of Scripture taken from the book of Deuteronomy... Again and again they are warned against the idolatry of the nations they were to drive out. They are warned too against the evil practices that come out of that idolatry (Deut. 6:14-15; Deut. 7:4-6; Deut. 8:19-20). They could have no self-confidence here. They had worshipped the golden calf Aaron made, and that had already shown which way their own hearts leaned... The ark speaks of Christ, who could say, "Your law is within My heart" (Ps. 40:8). He had set Jehovah continually before Him and would have no other gods as His God.
- Full barns. The greatest danger is not the wilderness but the wealth. Mercies become self-congratulation, and we rest in the stream instead of going up to the Fountain.
- Forgetting. The heart can leave God long before God removes anything. The blessings keep coming while the dependence dies.
- Other gods. Idolatry starts with the boast "my power and the might of my hand." The same self-centred pride leaves God's Word forgotten today.
- Same doom. Israel gets no exemption. If they drop what makes them distinct, God treats them like the nations He is driving out.
- Remember. Everything here hangs on a conditional covenant. Yet restoring grace comes later in the book, and Deuteronomy's words were the ones the tempter could not overturn.