LOOK BACK—AND FORWARD
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Opening Prayer
You alone, Loving Father, are worthy of my highest honor and praise. I worship you as I come to meditate on your Word today.
Read DEUTERONOMY 8
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Do Not Forget the Lord
8 Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
6 Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; 8 a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; 9 a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.
10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.
19 If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. 20 Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Let the words ‘you will lack nothing’ (v. 9) reverberate in your heart.
Let’s review the various verbs used in this chapter to describe what the Lord has done to Israel in the past: led, humbled, tested, causing you to hunger, feeding you, disciplines. What are the most important lessons God wanted Israel to learn in that ‘vast and dreadful wilderness’ (v. 15)? How does this explain Jesus’ use of verse 3 in his conflict in the desert with Satan?1 Turn to reflect on your own life. Have you experienced hard times, ‘that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions’ (v. 15)? With hindsight, how do you sum up the contribution of those hard times to your discipleship? Have you also experienced the provision of clothes that did not wear out and unswollen feet (v. 4)?
Observe the verbs describing the Israelites’ future: be careful to follow, remember, observe, walking in obedience, praise the Lord your God, do not forget. The description of ‘the good land’ (vv. 7, 8) the Israelites are going to possess is rapturous, climaxing with ‘you will lack nothing’ (v. 9). What dangers does the Lord foresee flowing from these times of plenty? The chapter ends by returning to the danger of idolatry—three times the bell tolls with the word ‘destroyed’ (vv. 19, 20). Turn to reflect on your own life again. What particular threats have success and prosperity brought to your discipleship? Have pride and self-satisfaction drowned your zeal and extinguished your desire to pray?
Think about ‘remembering’2 and ‘forgetting’, words that occur like a refrain in Deuteronomy (and also in Psalms and Jeremiah). These are not just intellectual concepts in Deuteronomy. Remembering is to follow, to do, to obey; forgetting is to ignore or repudiate. Memory is the guardian of our consciences, and also the basis of our civilizations.
Apply
Be intentional about remembering the gift of God’s love and faithfulness—in Scripture, in history, in your own life.
Closing prayer
I pray for myself and my society, Lord God, with gratitude for the ‘good land’ that you have given me, with penitence for pride, self-satisfaction, and hardness of heart.
1 Matt 4:4 2 e.g. Deut 5:15; 8:2; 9:7; 24:9; 25:17; 32:7
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