And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or not.
Forty years after Egypt, Moses tells a new generation to look back over the whole road God led them by. Why the long detour, with all its hunger and humbling, for a people He had already rescued?
Memory has work to do in the heart:
Why, we may ask, were Israel told to "remember the whole way" by which the Lord their God had led them? Certainly, to draw out their hearts in praise for the past, and to strengthen their confidence in God for the future. So it must always be. "We'll praise Him for all that is past, and trust Him for all that's to come."
And the humblings belong in the review just as much as the rescues:
We are to dwell with thankfulness on the striking mercies and rescues that come from our Father's hand. But we are to dwell just as much on the "humblings" and the "provings" of His wise, faithful and holy love. All these things are full of the richest blessing to our souls. People sometimes call them "mercies in disguise." They are not. They are plain, obvious, unmistakable mercies. We shall praise our God for them all through the golden ages of that bright eternity which lies ahead of us.
The desert has a fixed place in the story. It lies between two points, and God set both:
He does not bring us into the desert until we are out of Egypt... The story of redemption in Egypt says not one word about the wilderness. But once the Israelites have gone through it, Deuteronomy 8 looks back over the wilderness... He adds another thing — "to do you good at your latter end." 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 charging anything against us, but exercising our hearts.
Self-knowledge comes slowly. The early days of faith give little of it:
Here is a wonderful point of knowledge. Who can claim it? Who can reach the depths of a human heart? Who can trace its windings and mazes? The details of a wilderness life tend to bring out much of the evil that is in us. At the beginning of our Christian life, the present joy of deliverance takes us up almost completely. So we know very little of the real character of our nature. It is as we get on, from stage to stage of our desert course, that we become acquainted with self.
God already knows what is in the heart. The point is to have it out with Him:
Now God says, "Your heart and Mine want to have a little talk together. I am going to show you what is in your heart, and to show you that I know it." He has brought you to Himself. Suppose you never bring out to Him all that is in your heart. Do you think it will be all right between you?
The road itself is chosen for that work:
God leads us by a trying and rough path... to bring the wrong and the pride in our hearts to light. God loves us too well to allow us to be deceived about our true character... He puts us in the very circumstances that bring it out. Not one of us can escape this testing and sifting.
The test comes down to hunger, and to what a person will live on:
This is another chapter our Lord quotes from when He was tempted. "And He humbled you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that He might make you know that man does not live by bread only." What exercise of faith was there in that? "But by every word that comes out of the mouth of Jehovah man lives." This is exactly what does put man to the proof morally. The word of God tests him. Does he submit to it? Does he live on it? Does he delight in it? Is his food to do the will of God, as the Lord Jesus proved His food was?
- Redeemed first. The desert comes after Egypt, never before. God tests people He has already rescued, and Canaan waits at the far end.
- Humbled next. Early joy leaves our self-confidence untouched. The long road empties it out. We learn our own hearts stage by stage.
- Opened up. The testing tells God nothing new. It brings what is in us out into the open with Him, so we leave nothing unsaid between His heart and ours.
- Tested by the word. Hunger with only God's word to live on is the real examination — whether we will submit to it, feed on it, and delight in it.
- Remembered last. Look back over every stage. The humblings turn out to be mercies — praise for the past, confidence for what lies ahead.
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with the manna, which thou hadst not known, and which thy fathers knew not; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that goeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live.
Deuteronomy 8:3 looks back over forty years and explains why God let His people go hungry before He fed them. Hunger, then bread from heaven, taught one lesson: how a human being is meant to live. Jesus later used this verse to answer Satan in the wilderness.
God Himself allowed the hunger. One writer sees the same process at work in believers now.
We too have to be humbled and proved, and made to know what is in our hearts. It is very profitable and morally wholesome. When we first set out to follow the Lord, we know very little of the depths of evil and folly in our hearts. As we go on in daily life we begin to prove the reality of things. We find out the depths of evil in ourselves. We find out how hollow and worthless everything in the world is. And we find out our urgent need of complete dependence on the grace of God, every moment.
Another writer notes the order here — first the emptying, then the supply:
Two other things belong to this lesson — being left without, and being sustained in secret. "He let you hunger and fed you with manna." He withheld from us what we craved, and then fed us with heavenly food.
The manna was new to Israel and new to their ancestors. One writer explains where it came from and what it pictures:
The food God gave Israel was miraculous. It was unknown before, and no land they passed through produced it. The manna speaks of the Word of God concerning Christ in His lowly path of humiliation on earth. Their wilderness experience should have taught Israel that they depended completely on the Word of God.
Bread does keep the body alive. But a second supply keeps the soul alive:
This is the only true, the only safe, the only happy attitude for man — hanging in earnest dependence on "every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD." Through His word it brings the soul into direct, living, personal contact with the Lord Himself. As bread sustains natural life, so the word of God sustains spiritual life. It is not merely going to the Bible to find doctrines there, or to have our opinions confirmed. It is going to the Bible for the staple food of life.
The little word "every" carries weight of its own.
Note the force and value of the expression "every word." It shows clearly that we cannot do without a single word that has come from the mouth of the LORD. We want it all. We cannot tell the moment when some emergency may arise for which Scripture has already provided.
The word that feeds also examines. William Kelly shows how:
This is exactly what puts man to the proof morally. The word of God tests whether he submits to it, whether he lives on it, whether he delights in it. It tests whether his food is to do the will of God, as the Lord Jesus proved His food was.
Jesus answered the tempter with this verse. One writer shows what His refusal of bread meant:
With all divine resources always at command, it would have been simple for Him to help Himself to bread. But He would not use power to take Himself out of any consequence of the place He had entered as man. Man's place was to obey, and by keeping that place perfectly He defeated the enemy. He waits, therefore — He will act, even in the matter of taking necessary food, only when there is a word from God for it. But more than that, He lived by it — not merely a path outwardly directed by the word, but an inward life formed by it.
Notice what Jesus does not argue. Satan had challenged His sonship; the reply says nothing about it.
It is as though our Lord Christ had said to the adversary: "Whether I am the Son of God or not is not the question now. The question is how man is to live. Scripture alone answers it. Whoever I am, the Scripture is the same."
- Hunger — God allowed the want first, to humble and to show His people what was really in their hearts.
- Manna — He then fed them with bread they had never seen, food no land they crossed had produced.
- Lesson — the miracle taught the principle: bread keeps the body, but a person truly lives by what God speaks.
- Every word — not a favourite passage but the whole of Scripture. Keep it ready for the emergency you cannot yet foresee.
- Christ — He met the tempter with this verse. He waited for God's word before taking bread, and lived out the lesson Israel had failed to learn.