The Warning Lest When They are Blessed They Forget Who Has Blessed Them (Deuteronomy 8:11-20).
Knowing the hearts of the people Moses now saw fit to gave them a severe warning. He recognised that there was a danger that when they became prosperous they would forget Who had given them all these blessings, and would begin rather to commend themselves. He therefore seeks to prepare for such an eventuality.
Analysis in the words of Moses.
a Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God, in not keeping His commandments, and His ordinances, and His statutes, which I command you this day (Deuteronomy 8:11).
b Lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied (Deuteronomy 8:12-13)..
c Then your heart is lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage (Deuteronomy 8:14 b).
d Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water (Deuteronomy 8:15 a).
d Who brought you forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers knew not; that He might humble you, and that He might prove you, to do you good at your latter end (Deuteronomy 8:15-16).
c And lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has obtained for me this wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:17).
b But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is He Who gives you power to obtain wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as at this day (Deuteronomy 8:18).
a And it shall be, if you forget Yahweh your God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that you will surely perish. As the nations that Yahweh causes to perish before you, so shall you perish, because you would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God (Deuteronomy 8:19-20).
Note that in ‘a' the warning is lest they forget Yahweh their God, and in the parallel the warning of what will result from doing so is given. In ‘b' their wealth is multiplied, and in the parallel they are warned to remember that it is Yahweh their God who has given them power to obtain their wealth. In ‘c' the fear is that their heart will be lifted up and they forget Yahweh their God, and the parallel fears lest they see the wealth as self-acquired. In ‘d' He led them through the terrible and dry wilderness, and in the parallel He provided food and water.
‘ Beware lest you forget Yahweh your God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command you this day,'
But Moses had led men, and especially these men, for too long not to be aware that times of plenty could pose a danger so he adds a further warning. They must beware lest in all their plenty they forget Yahweh. The point was not that men would forget altogether, for that was unlikely, but that they would forget their covenant responsibility. Their ‘forgetfulness' would be revealed by their not keeping His commandments, and His statutes and His ordinances. We too may still regularly enjoy our attendance at worship, but the test of the genuineness of our faith is whether we still remember Him by the way we live our lives in the daily grind.
‘ Lest, when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses, and dwelt in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart is lifted up, and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.'
Compare here Hosea 13:6. ‘According to their pasture so were they filled, they were filled and their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten me'. The danger was lest, when they were full and satisfied, and had their own splendid homes, and large flocks, and great wealth, and when it all continued to multiply seemingly endlessly, they forgot the One Who had given it to them, the One Who brought them to this wealth and freedom by bringing them out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. It is one of the strange quirks of man that when God is too good to him he revels in it and tends to overlook God. It was in recognising this that the writer in Proverbs, while not wanting to be poor, also did not want to be too rich (Proverbs 30:9). Let them not then, says Moses, be like those who remember Him when they are in slavery but forget Him when they are free.
‘ Who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water, who brought you forth water out of the rock of flint, who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers knew not; that he might humble you, and that he might prove you, to do you good at your latter end,'
Let them remember that it was He Who had watched over them in the wilderness. Compare for this Deuteronomy 32:10, ‘Who found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness, He compassed him about, He cared for him', and Hosea 13:5. ‘I knew you (and therefore cared for you) in the wilderness in the land of great drought'. The wilderness period was ever seen as a time of God's constant care.
So let them think what Yahweh had done for them. He had led them through a great and terrible wilderness, stretching mile after mile, with water short and food scarce, and the way rough, in the burning sun. It was a wilderness where there were fiery snakes and scorpions waiting to bite and sting, and inject with venom, where the ground was thirsty and waterless. But He had supplied them with water from the flinty rocks (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:8), and had given them the wonderful provision of the manna for food, that manna which was unknown to their fathers (compare Deuteronomy 2:7). And He had brought them through all this in order to humble them, and as a test to them, so that finally He might do them good.
It was during those experiences that they had been forced to look to Yahweh, for they had had nowhere else to look. And He had been the author and file-leader of their deliverance (compare Hebrews 2:10; Hebrews 12:2). In a way it had been much easier to trust under those conditions, simply because they had had to, even though their trust had been a very wavering trust (it had been as much in Moses as in God). But once life was safe and placid forgetfulness would come easily.
“Fiery serpents.” This may refer to the result of their venom as seeming to set men on fire, or refer to the dazzling sun shining on their skins, or it may simply signify ‘venomous'.
But note here the vivid contrast between this and Deuteronomy 8:7-10. In those verses there was plenteous water with which the ground was satiated (Deuteronomy 8:7), there was fruitfulness in abundance (Deuteronomy 8:8-9), there were no creatures needing to be avoided, but here in the wilderness the ground had been thirsty with no water, they had had to rely on the manna, and snakes and scorpions abounded. Thus the danger now was that they would begin to think that they did not need to rely on Yahweh any more.
‘ And lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand has obtained for me this wealth.'
An equal danger was that when they prospered they might then say within their hearts, ‘I have achieved this by myself. It is my power and the might of my hand that has obtained all this wealth for me'. Certain conditions lead men to trust God, but conditions that are too good tend to make men forget God and depend only on themselves. We need to be most concerned about our spiritual lives when we prosper most, for it can make us foolish so that we forget that behind all is God.
We have here the idea of a subtle form of idolatry which does not involve graven images, it is the idolatry of man's worship of himself, man placing himself and his society in the place of God.
‘ But you shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is he who gives you power to obtain wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers, as at this day.'
So at that time they must ensure that they remembered Yahweh their God, and that it was He who had given them power to obtain wealth. And that He had done it in order to establish His covenant at that time, the covenant by which He had promised to bring prosperity to His own, the very covenant that He had sworn to their fathers whom He had also prospered most of the time. It was important that the covenant be established in their hearts. Then all he had been warning against would not prevail against them. It is by remembering our vows made in the hard times that we can ensure that we remain constant.
‘ And it shall be, if you (thou) shall forget Yahweh your (thy) God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you (ye) this day that you (ye) shall surely perish. As the nations that Yahweh causes to perish before you (ye), so shall you (ye) perish, because you (ye) would not listen to the voice of Yahweh your (your) God.'
Let them, however, beware of the alternative route, the route of idolatry and flagrant disobedience. This warning may seem to come somewhat abruptly, but not if we see it in the context of the whole speech, and in the light of the fact that in those days men would always worship something, so that if they forgot Yahweh they would soon turn to other gods. The danger of succumbing to the gods of the land was ever present in Moses' mind, and he came back to it constantly. When they were at ease it would be so easy to relax their rigid obedience to Yahweh and find the easygoing gods of the land preferable (man loves to have something to worship. That is how he is made, but he prefers it not to be too demanding). For they offered lustful pleasure rather than stern demands, and when all was well nothing was required of them.
Moses now cites himself as a witness, as earlier he had called on heaven and earth as witnesses (Deuteronomy 4:26), to the fact that if they forgot Him, if they walked after other gods and served them, and worshipped them, gods who would undoubtedly enable them to satisfy their deepest lusts, then let them know that Yahweh would ensure that they surely perished. In the same way as they will see the nations of the land perish when they put them to the sword, so would they perish because they refused to listen to Yahweh's voice, the voice of ‘Yahweh their God'.
In the Western world today people have never had it so good. Even the poorest are comparatively wealthy and possess things that their forebears never dreamed of. And the result has not been gratitude to God, but greed for more, and a readiness to seek entertainment and satisfaction for their lustful natures regardless of righteous living. They too have succumbed to idols. Their gods are idols of music and sport and entertainment, but these, which can be good in themselves, are equally destroying their souls, and the souls of others, because they have become the be all and end all of their lives, and lead them into behaviour which is displeasing to God and harmful to themselves.