Deuteronomy 11:11

What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from heaven. It was all human effort there. It was not so in the Lord's land. There the human foot could do nothing, and there was no need. The blessed rain from heaven fell on it. The Lord Himself cared for it and watered it with the early and latter rain. The land of Egypt depended on its own resources. The land of Canaan depended wholly on God — on what came down from heaven. "My river is mine own," was the language of Egypt. "The river of God" was the hope of Canaan. The habit in Egypt was to water with the foot; the habit in Canaan was to look up to heaven.

Egypt was the land of independence. Its river watered it, and the sources of that river were so far off that people could all but forget them. Israel's land was a land of mountains and valleys, drinking the water of the rain of heaven. It was a dependent land, and its dependence was obvious. Because it was cast on God in this way, it was the very land He chose for a people who were in the same way to depend on Himself, and so to know His gracious and continual care… Israel's mountains were like a constant prayer to God, and the dews of heaven settled on them.

When God spoke of His earthly people possessing the land to which He would bring them, He said that it was "a land of hills and valleys" (Deuteronomy 11:11); but He also spoke of "fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills" (Deuteronomy 8:7). So there is provision to refresh our souls, whatever our circumstances.

Obedience was therefore the appointed means for giving the early and later rain. That rain was most needed if their blessing was to continue and be enjoyed. So came the needed warning to take care. Strange gods, and other things put in place of the Lord, His land, and His things, must have no place with them. If they did, judgment would follow. One special form of that judgment shut up the heaven and withheld the rain, so that blessing ceased.

How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges and settling the furrows! Think of His stooping down to do a farmer's work for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers on the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people.

The land of their inheritance was not like Egypt. Egypt depended on men's methods of irrigation, watered by "foot." Israel's land was a land of hills and valleys, dependent on rain from heaven (vs. 10-11). This pictures the spiritual inheritance of Christians today. They are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That is unlike the earthly, material blessings of the people of the world. So we are dependent, not on our surrounding circumstances, but on the blessing of God from heaven.