Deuteronomy 8:2-12

2 You are to remember everything of the way in which ADONAI led you these forty years in the desert, humbling and testing you in order to know what was in your heart - whether you would obey his mitzvot or not.

3 He humbled you, allowing you to become hungry, and then fed you with man, which neither you nor your ancestors had ever known, to make you understand that a person does not live on food alone but on everything that comes from the mouth of ADONAI.

4 During these forty years the clothing you were wearing didn't grow old, and your feet didn't swell up.

5 Think deeply about it: ADONAI was disciplining you, just as a man disciplines his child.

6 So obey the mitzvot of ADONAI your God, living as he directs and fearing him.

7 For ADONAI your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams, springs and water welling up from the depths in valleys and on hillsides.

8 It is a land of wheat and barley, grapevines, fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

9 a land where you will eat food in abundance and lack nothing in it; a land where the stones contain iron and the hills can be mined for copper.

10 So you will eat and be satisfied, and you will bless ADONAI your God for the good land he has given you.

11 "Be careful not to forget ADONAI your God by not obeying his mitzvot, rulings and regulations that I am giving you today.

12 Otherwise, after you have eaten and are satisfied, built fine houses and lived in them,

Deuteronomy 8:2-12 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.