Deuteronomy 8:1-9:3

Deuteronomy 8:1-9:3

After talking about how God provided for Israel in the past, Moses then begins to explain how God punished and humbled them. Because of their disobedience, God led Israel wandering aimlessly for 40 years in the wilderness. He allowed them to be unable to make any progress or gather food and supplies for themselves. This was His way of getting their attention so that they would once again be appreciative of all that He had previously done for them. But God did not leave His people to suffer. He provided for them even in their times of disobedience. Despite their disobedience, they were still His children, and He loved them. Now although none of them would see the Promised Land, their children would. God protected them for the sake of the future generations, so that they would know that they could always depend on them. He protected them for the sake of the nations, so that they would know who God is. As a result, He asked for complete obedience. He did not want any more of their partial obedience. That was the command Moses was now giving to the new generation.

Next, Moses presents the other side of their current situation. The Israelites stood at a very pivotal point in their history prior to crossing the Jordan. They could choose to follow God, careful to obey His every command, or they could choose to forget all that He had done for them. Moses knew that once they entered the Promised Land wealth would tempt them greatly. They would go from having very little (as in their years from wandering in the wilderness) to having much. They would have their own homes in which they could live and not have to move every few days. They would have their own livestock which they could care for much more easily. They would have an endless supply of food, able to grow their own food rather than scraping up what they found around them. But Moses did not want them to forget that it would still be God providing all of this for them. Just like He had supplied the manna and quail, these new provisions would be His gifts as well. The temptation would be to forget about God’s provisions and take their new lives and wealth for granted, and Moses warned them that if they did, they would suffer the same fate as the nations around them that had already rejected God.

The initial problem facing Israel, however, was the fact that they did not yet own the land, and it was not going to be an easy land to get. There would be hard work ahead of them, for they were to go in and conquer cities that belonged to powerful nations much larger than themselves. It was not as if the minute they stepped foot in the new land, all the other people groups would die and hand the land over to them. They would have to fight for it. But the difference was that when they did step foot in the new land, they would have the confidence that the same God who had paved the way for their fathers would continue on this journey with them. He would continue to make it possible for them to progress along this journey, ultimately ending in the conquest of the land. Moses wanted them to remember that they would never accomplish this task with their own strength; instead, they had to depend on God.

Matt