Deuteronomy 8:11

Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(11) Beware that.—From Deuteronomy 8:11 to Deuteronomy 8:18 inclusive is one long sentence in the Hebrew, and may be taken thus: “Take heed to thyself lest thou forget Jehovah thy God (so that thou keep not, &c.); lest thou eat and be satisfied (while thou buildest, &c.); and thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah (thy deliverer, thy leader, thy sustainer), and say in thine heart, My power, &c.; and (take heed) that thou remember Jehovah thy God, that it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth,” &c. The caution is prophetic, as may be seen by the following examples:—

“When Rehoboam had . . . strengthened himself, he forsook the law of the Lord, and all Israel with him” (2Chronicles 12:1).

“But when he (Uzziah) was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (2Chronicles 26:16).

“Hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; for his heart was lifted up” (2Chronicles 32:25).

Other instances might easily be added.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:10-20 Moses directs to the duty of a prosperous condition. Let them always remember their Benefactor. In everything we must give thanks. Moses arms them against the temptations of a prosperous condition. When men possess large estates, or are engaged in profitable business, they find the temptation to pride, forgetfulness of God, and carnal-mindedness, very strong; and they are anxious and troubled about many things. In this the believing poor have the advantage; they more easily perceive their supplies coming from the Lord in answer to the prayer of faith; and, strange as it may seem, they find less difficulty in simply trusting him for daily bread. They taste a sweetness therein, which is generally unknown to the rich, while they are also freed from many of their temptations. Forget not God's former dealings with thee. Here is the great secret of Divine Providence. Infinite wisdom and goodness are the source of all the changes and trials believers experience. Israel had many bitter trials, but it was to do them good. Pride is natural to the human heart. Would one suppose that such a people, after their slavery at the brick-kilns, should need the thorns of the wilderness to humble them? But such is man! And they were proved that they might be humbled. None of us live a single week without giving proofs of our weakness, folly, and depravity. To broken-hearted souls alone the Saviour is precious indeed. Nothing can render the most suitable outward and inward trials effectual, but the power of the Spirit of God. See here how God's giving and our getting are reconciled, and apply it to spiritual wealth. All God's gifts are in pursuance of his promises. Moses repeats the warning he had often given of the fatal consequences of forsaking God. Those who follow others in sin, will follow them to destruction. If we do as sinners do, we must expect to fare as sinners fare.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For brass read copper (Genesis 4:22 note); and compare the description of mining operations in Job 28:1-11. Mining does not seem to have been extensively carried on by the Jews, though it certainly was by the Canaanite peoples displaced by them. Traces of iron and copper works have been discovered by modern travelers in Lebanon and many parts of the country; e. g., the district of Argob (see Deuteronomy 3:4 notes) contains iron-stone in abundance.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11-20. Beware that thou forget not the Lord—After mentioning those instances of the divine goodness, Moses founded on them an argument for their future obedience.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God,.... The Father of mercies and fountain of goodness, the author and donor of every good and perfect gift. Plenty is apt to induce a forgetfulness of God, when on the contrary one would think it should keep him in continual remembrance, and engage to daily thankfulness to him:

in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; gave a repetition of, and in the name of God afresh enjoined them, even laws moral, ceremonial, and judicial, which, when not observed, God is forgotten.

Geneva Study Bible

Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. Beware lest thou forget, etc.] Deuteronomy 6:12, Deuteronomy 8:14.

in not keeping his commandments, etc.] That this formula is a later intrusion (so Steuernagel) is possible: it changes the direction of the exhortation (10–17) which is not against disobedience, but against the nation imagining themselves to be the authors of their wealth, which was entirely the gift of Jehovah: in fact Deuteronomy 8:12 follows well on Deuteronomy 8:10.

12, 13 contain in their proper order such items as characterise the condition of the settled agriculturist in distinction from that of the nomad: sufficiency of food (see on Deuteronomy 1:28, Deuteronomy 8:9); the building of houses (see Jerus. i. 285 f.); the multiplication of herds and flocks (the cattle and sheep of the fellaḥin and even their camels are stouter and more powerful than those of the pure nomads: Robinson, Bib. Res. i. 311, 314, ii. 364, and the oxen and sheep are certainly more numerous: cp. Musil, Edom, i. 272: and the present writer, Expositor, Sept. 1908, 258 ff.); and as a consequence the increase of silver and gold (what of these the Beduin possess is nearly always in the form of ornaments; of money, except when they act as carriers or guides on trade routes there is very little, and coins are seldom seen with them); and all that thou hast is multiplied, the nomads never have reserves of any commodity, and are always near, if not actually on the verge of, extreme poverty.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 11-14. - Wealth is apt to engender in the possessor of it a spirit of self-gratulation and pride, and abundance of good things to induce men to be luxurious, "to trust in uncertain riches," and to be forgetful of the bounteous hand from which all that they enjoy has come. Against this the people are here cautioned and warned. Deuteronomy 8:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

But if the Israelites were to eat there and be satisfied, i.e., to live in the midst of plenty, they were to beware of forgetting their God; that when their prosperity - their possessions, in the form of lofty houses, cattle, gold and silver, and other good things - increased, their heart might not be lifted up, i.e., they might not become proud, and, forgetting their deliverance from Egypt and their miraculous preservation and guidance in the desert, ascribe the property they had acquired to their own strength and the work of their own hands. To keep the people from this danger of forgetting God, which follows so easily from the pride of wealth, Moses once more enumerates in Deuteronomy 8:14-16 the manifestations of divine grace, their deliverance from Egypt the slave-house, their being led through the great and terrible desert, whose terrors he depicts by mentioning a series of noxious and even fatal things, such as snakes, burning snakes (saraph, see at Numbers 21; 6), scorpions, and the thirsty land where there was no water. The words from נחשׁ, onwards, are attached rhetorically to what precedes by simple apposition, without any logically connecting particle; though it will not do to overlook entirely the rhetorical form of the enumeration, and supply the preposition בּ before נחשׁ and the words which follow, to say nothing of the fact that it would be quite out of character before these nouns in the singular, as a whole people could not go through one serpent, etc. In this parched land the Lord brought he people water out of the flinty rock, the hardest stone, and fed them with manna, to humble them and tempt them (cf. Deuteronomy 8:2), in order (this was the ultimate intention of all the humiliation and trial) "to do thee good at thy latter end." The "latter end" of any one is "the time which follows some distinct point in his life, particularly an important epoch-making point, and which may be regarded as the end by contrast, the time before that epoch being considered as the beginning" (Schultz). In this instance Moses refers to the period of their life in Canaan, in contrast with which the period of their sojourn in Egypt and their wandering in the desert is recorded as the beginning; consequently the expression does not relate to death as the end of life, as in Numbers 23:10, although this allusion is not to be altogether excluded, as a blessed death is only the completion of a blessed life. - Like all the guidance of Israel by the Lord, what is stated here is applicable to all believers. It is through humiliations and trials that the Lord leads His people to blessedness. Through the desert of tribulation, anxiety, distress, and merciful interposition, He conducts them to Canaan, into the land of rest, where they are refreshed and satisfied in the full enjoyment of the blessings of His grace and salvation; but those alone who continue humble, not attributing the good fortune and prosperity to which they attain at last, to their own exertion, strength, perseverance, and wisdom, but gratefully enjoying this good as a gift of the grace of God. חיל עשׂה, to create property, to prosper in wealth (as in Numbers 24:18). God gave strength for this (Deuteronomy 8:18), not because of Israel's merit and worthiness, but to fulfil His promises which He had made on oath to the patriarchs. "As this day," as was quite evident then, when the establishment of the covenant had already commenced, and Israel had come through the desert to the border of Canaan (see Deuteronomy 4:20).