Ver. 14. Then thine heart be lifted up— An usual effect of prosperity and great riches, as Euripides observes: υβριν δε τικτει πλουτος; wealth breeds pride and contempt of others; for when men are elated by their distinguished circumstances, they easily fancy themselves to be very important persons, and possessed of extraordinary merit; and, in proportion to their vanity, and the high thoughts they entertain of themselves, they are apt to have an unbecoming and insolent contempt of others, as if they were of a different nature from their fellow-creatures, and originally formed in a higher order of being. Nor is this the worst: another fatal effect of affluent prosperity, is, that it makes men forget the Lord their God; for when every thing about us is gay, and has a smiling aspect, we are too apt to be careless and inconsiderate, and to be diverted by pleasure from greater and more important concerns; and when the mind is thus weakened and dissolved, it is no wonder if men pride themselves in their riches, as their ultimate happiness, and, for want of reflecting on the instability of all human affairs, think themselves self-sufficient, and lose that just sense which they ought to have of the sovereignty of their Maker, and of their absolute and necessary dependance upon him. See Foster's Sermons, vol. 1: ser. 8.
Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 8:14
Deuteronomy 8:14
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;