CAPÍTULO II............................................................................................................ 21
2.1 Antecedentes de estudio
(Deuteronomy 8:1-20)
1. All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.
2. And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.
3. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fa-thers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
4. Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.
5. Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
6. Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.
7. For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey,
9. A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
10. When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
11. Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his stat-utes, which I command thee this day:
12. Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;
13. And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;
14. Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
15. Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint;
16. Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fa-thers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;
17. And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.
18. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth the power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
19. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.
20. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 8:1-20) The purpose of this text is clearly stated in v. 2, “thou shalt re-member.” An emphasis on historical memory is to be found in the law and the prophets as well as the various books of wisdom. With-out the correcting force of a godly memory, men will act stupidly and will repeat their sins endlessly.
The implications of this are very ably set forth by Joseph C.
Morecraft III:
1. Chapters eight and nine tell us that God’s claim reaches the mind and attitude, and obedience involves a total submission of the thought-life (including what we think of ourselves) to the Word.
2. These chapters warn us of “pretended autonomy.” Autono-my is the sinful notion that we are responsible for the govern-ing of our passion, desires, etc.; that our minds are sufficient to understand and improve upon life, with no regard to God or His Word; that life is what we say it is; and that truth is what seems to be true to us.
3. Chapter eight warns us especially of any sense of self-suffi-ciency, which is the sinful notion that we do not need God in the every day course of events, because we have great wisdom and strength; that we are the bringers of prosperity and produc-ers of success.1
These verses also tell us much about Palestine in that era, before the Turks made it a desert. It was, v. 7 tells us, a land of brooks of water, and of springs and depths, referring to underground waters. Although wheat and barley were not major crops, they are cited because they
1. Joseph C. Morecraft III, A Christian Manual of Law: An Application of Deuter-onomy (Atlanta, GA: Atlanta Christian Training Center, n.d.), 21.
The God Who Humbles Us (Deuteronomy 8:1-20 ) 139 were staples of diet. Then we have cited vines, fig trees, pomegran-ates, olives, and honey. Three of these, the olive, the grapevine, and the fig, were basic; in fact, a history of these three could be important in tracing the course of civilization in the Mediterranean world. The reference to “brass” means copper.
Verses 2 and 3 make a startling statement: God humbled Israel in the wilderness by making them dependent on manna. Here was a great miracle of providence; it did give the people a startling measure of economic security daily for about forty years. It was a blessing, and yet it was a humbling. The proud and ungodly Israelites were re-minded daily, as they ate manna, that they were dependent upon God. Kings in antiquity fed all members of their court. This accom-plished a double purpose. First, being fed by the ruler made them members of his family; it was a form of adoption, and an act of grace.
But, second, the daily feeding was a reminder of who was king, of his power and protection. It served to stress dependence and to further humility. This was also God’s purpose. At first, He allowed them to suffer hunger to teach them to rely on Him, and then He fed them.
He made them His sons, and He chastened, humbled, and disci-plined them.
Manna was thus in part a humiliation. Man seeks to live by bread alone, but, as v. 3 stresses, this is not possible. Man cannot live like a cow; his own work cannot feed the whole man, no matter how productive he is, nor how much food he raises. He needs the “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD” (v. 3).
Israel accepted manna as a privilege, not as a humiliation and a gift of grace, and it thereby sinned.
This chapter makes a contrast between Israel’s life in the desert and its future life in a land with a rich soil and great fertility. In the desert, Israel readily forgot God even though its existence depended on God’s supernatural care. This providential guidance went so far that their clothing did not wear out, nor their feet give out in the wil-derness (v. 4). If they could forget God under the wilwil-derness circum-stances, what gratitude would they show in a lush land of milk and honey? God’s power and care would soon be forgotten.
Moses then makes three contrasts and three commands. In each of these three, Moses speaks of “this day,” or, “today” (vv. 1, 11, 18).
The first, v. 1, is a summons to obedience. God has given them the
gift of His covenant, and the gifts of the land and its prosperity.
Their response must be to obey His law.
Second, they are commanded in v. 11 to remember and obey. They must not become existentialists, i.e., forgetting the history of God’s covenant grace and assuming that their own power had given them these gifts of care, land, and prosperity. This is stressed in vv. 11-17.
Third, they are told that the consequences of forgetting will be that God will place them on the same level as the Canaanites and then deal with them accordingly (vv. 18-20). If they forget God, He will “forget” them as His people and will punish them as He does the Canaanites. The land did not create itself: it is the Lord’s, and He will give it to whom He wills, whether as a blessing or a curse. As v.
1 says so plainly, “All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live.” Life, personal and national, depends upon God and His care. About 1900, some theo-logians used this chapter to warn the peoples of the West about the necessity for faithfulness. They were not heeded, and we see the re-sults today. Verses 19 and 20 have been called by some, such as P. C.
Craigie, as basic to Deuteronomy. In v. 18, Israel is reminded of God’s sovereignty:
But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his cov-enant which he swear unto thy fathers, as it is this day.
God gives gifts to men to bless or to curse them, as the case may be.
To His covenant people, the power to get wealth is given “that he may establish his covenant.” The gifts God gives us, whether of wealth or of talents, are not for our sakes but for the sake of His covenant. The goal of life is not our enrichment but the Kingdom of God.
It is wrong therefore to say, as did Bernard N. Schneider, “Pros-perity is still a great enemy of faith and spiritual life.”2 The focus in Deuteronomy is not on ourselves, nor on our prosperity, nor on our lack of it, but it is always on God’s covenant, its grace and law.
Moses declares that the dangers ahead come not from their ene-mies but from themselves:
2. Bernard N. Schneider, Deuteronomy (Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1970), 74.
The God Who Humbles Us (Deuteronomy 8:1-20 ) 141 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. (v. 11)
God’s purpose in the wilderness journey was threefold: “to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no” (v. 2). They were be-ing tested and tried so that they would see themselves as the major problem. Joseph Parker called this process God’s plan of life.
When Moses declares, “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live” (v. 3), he is not contrasting a material way of life against a spiritual one, but, rather, the contrast is between man’s desire for au-tonomy as against a total dependence on and trust in God. The stress throughout this chapter is on God’s providence. Man is not alone in this world; more pervasive and total than the air he breathes is the prov-idence of God. We are never outside His very particular government.
To live by God’s every word and predestined act for us means also that we cannot pick and choose our destinies: they are God or-dained. Man is not self-sufficient nor autonomous, and for him to think of life apart from God’s purposes is to live in terms of illusions rather than the truth.
In v. 2, when Moses says that God puts us through various expe-riences “to know what is in thine heart,” the meaning, as C. H.
Waller pointed out, is that the knowledge might arise, that a refining process would develop and bring out in us our potential under God.3
This chapter has had in part a sad history because it sets forth so clearly God’s prerogative to humble, test, and prove His people by subjecting them to a variety of sad experiences. The great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides rebelled against such a doctrine, and much of Judaism followed him. Evil experiences were charged to various “natural” causes. In the twentieth century, this development led some rabbis to reject the hand of God in the Jewish ordeal under Hitler.4 Behind this is a belief common now to both synagogue and church that God has no “right” to will anything but good for man.
Together with this we have the belief in the natural goodness of
3. C. H. Waller, “Deuteronomy.” in C. J. Ellicott, ed., Commentary on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, n.d.), 30.
4. W. Gunther Plaut, “Deuteronomy,” in W. Gunther Plaut, Bernard J. Bam-berger, and William W. Hallo, The Torah: A Modern Commentary (New York, NY:
Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981), 1391.
man. The grim consequence is this: if man is good, and evil comes to him, then God is either incapable of controlling history, or He is not good. Both positions have their followers.
In my seminary days, professors and biblical commentators were particularly derogatory about Deuteronomy. The book is simply Moses preaching about the law; at first glance, the downgrading of Deuteronomy seems strange. Its offense, however, is that here we see God strongly and unequivocally declared to be the absolute deter-miner of history. Basic to modernism in every sphere is the belief that man is the determiner of history. In terms of this, Deuteronomy is seen as an intolerable book.
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