Deuteronomy 8:1-10

Remember the LORD Your God

1 You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers.

2 Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments.

3 He humbled you, and in your hunger He gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had known, so that you might understand that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. ^[a]

4 Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

5 So know in your heart that just as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.

6 Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God, walking in His ways and fearing Him.

7 For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

9 a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper.

10 When you eat and are satisfied, you are to bless the LORD your God for the good land that He has given you.

Deuteronomy 8:1-10 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 8

In this chapter Moses repeats the exhortation to observe the commands of God, and urges the Israelites to it, from the consideration of the great and good things God had done for them in the wilderness, and even in those instances which were chastisements, and were of an humbling nature, De 8:1-6, and on the consideration of the blessings of the good land they were going to possess, De 8:7-9 for which blessings they are exhorted to be thankful, and are cautioned against pride of heart through them, and forgetfulness of God, and of his goodness to them while in the wilderness, and when brought into the land of Canaan, which they were to ascribe to his power and goodness, and not their own, De 8:10-18, and the chapter is concluded with a warning against idolatry, lest they perish through it as the nations before them, De 8:19,20.

Footnotes

• [a] Cited in Matthew 4:4 and Luke 4:4