DEUTERONOMY 8
This chapter brings before us in a striking way God’s paternal chastening of His sons in the wilderness, and the end which His love has in view in that chastening. All is “to do thee good at thy latter end” (verse 16) when the wealth of the land is entered upon, which is here described with a greater fulness of detail than before. God’s disciplinary ways belong to the wilderness, but they have the land in view, and they are always to be kept in mind.
There is no mention in this chapter of the ways of the people, no reference to their unbelief or their murmurings. The chastening ways of God are the subject; “all the way” is viewed as the leading of Jehovah. The whole of the “forty years in the wilderness” has been divine leading, divine chastening, divine [p. 84] education. We have all had to feel that God’s ways with us have been of a humbling character. “To humble thee” (verse 2); “and he humbled thee” (verse 3); “that he might humble thee” (verse 16). We may have been inclined to regard such experiences as being largely wasted time. But in the outlook of this chapter not a day of it has been wasted. There has not been a single unnecessary encampment; not a spot nor a step that we can afford to forget. There has been something of spiritual and abiding value in it all. None of it is to be forgotten in the land.
In Deuteronomy 8 we are not looked at as going through the experiences of the wilderness, but as getting spiritual intelligence as to them under the instruction of Christ, after we have gone through them, so that we may understand their divine intent. A faithful God has been patiently teaching us lessons which are all essential in view of our entering the land and enjoying its wealth. God had the land before Him from the beginning as the inheritance to which He would bring His sons, and His leading and chastening of those sons always had some bearing on the end that was before Him. His ways always subserve the purposes of His love.
God must have His sons conformed to Christ, and with this in view He has to humble us and to prove us. A large part of our wilderness experience is to test whether we are in subjection to God or not, and to bring home to us how much there is in our hearts that is not, according to Christ. HE was ever in subjection and obedience; it was never a question whether He would keep God’s commandments or not; He did always the things that pleased the Father.
We, being what we are, need humbling; we need to be proved that we may know what is in our heart. There is a great deal of self-deception with us all until God has proved us. We find out then how much there [p. 85] is in us that is unlike Christ. And God uses this in His grace to create “hunger” in our souls. The humbling lies in the discovery, under divine proving, of how unlike we are to Christ, and how unable we are, of ourselves, to become like Him. God allows this to become an intense exercise; He “suffered thee to hunger”. He allows the sense of utter insufficiency in ourselves to be keenly felt, that there may be a deep soul-craving for a sufficiency that is God-given — that is not known to us naturally at all. “Which thou hast not known, and which thy fathers knew not”.
God has led us by a way designed to reduce and humble us. We had to “hunger and thirst after righteousness” that we might prove divine sufficiency. Manna speaks of divine sufficiency for each day. “He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little wanted nothing” (Exodus 16: 18). “But God is able to make every gracious gift abound towards you, that, having in every way always all-sufficiency, ye may abound to every good work” (2 Corinthians 9: 8). No one knows the value of the manna but a humbled soul who has been “suffered ... to hunger”. The humbling need has to be felt before the supply comes. As humbled under the mighty hand of God we learn to appreciate Christ, who in wondrous grace was once humbled here. If my heart is haughty and mine eyes lofty, if I “exercise myself in great matters, and in things too wonderful for me” (Psalm 131), I am a long way from appreciating “Christ once humbled here”. But the divine humblings bring us morally nearer to Him who was “meek and lowly in heart”. They create “hunger” for food that will nourish us for a life that is patterned after Christ.
“He ... fed thee with the manna”. The humbling and the hunger are not all. There had been right through the wilderness the proving of divine faithfulness and sufficiency. God had been saying to them, and is now [p. 86] saying to us, You must live by what comes directly from Me; I will be sufficient for you. God would remind us of how His grace has waited upon us and sustained us. Every believer who has had experience of God’s wilderness ways has had sufficient proof of this to know it to be a reality. In dependence upon God as known in grace we have found support and strength. Every bit of life according to God in the wilderness is in the strength of grace that comes from heaven.
The kind of life that manna sustains was seen perfectly in Christ. There was not a step, not a word, that did not bring into evidence divine sufficiency; He lived by every word that went out of the mouth of God. In so far as we have done so we have learned what it was to be fed with manna. The daily “omer” of manna was a necessity to the Israelite, and daily grace from heaven is a necessity to us. God would make us know that we do not live “by bread alone” — by natural resources — but by communications from Himself suited to each day’s need. We have to learn that we do not live by outward circumstances or conditions, but by the way God is known to us. This is not anything that the wilderness could afford naturally. It is quite a new thing for us to find that what God has spoken is enough to keep us going through the most trying circumstances so that we live in something that is outside all circumstances. A man so living would not consider expediency; he would consider for God.
That was seen perfectly in the blessed Lord. The devil said to Him, You are a hungry man, but if you are the Son of God you can make this stone into bread; why not do it? The Lord replied by quoting the scripture before us in Deuteronomy 8. He was not living by bread, but by every word of God. He was living, as man should live, in relation to God. We are often more occupied as to how we can get comfortably through [p. 87] circumstances than concerned as to being in them in relation to God and His will. God’s providential ordering could easily make all things comfortable for me, but that would not ensure my living spiritually in relation to Him. I do not need manna to make me happy and comfortable in a natural way in my circumstances, but to enable me to be in them in spiritual relation to God, so that I am sustained in my spirit by what comes to me from God. God would have us to live by His word; His sons can live on the communications which He makes to them. What a delight it was to God to have One Man here to whom His word was enough! He lived “by every word of God”. I suppose every saint must have known what it was to live by some word that God has spoken but His beloved Son lived “by every word of God”. He knew the full sustainment of what God could be for man, and in the consciousness of divine sufficiency He refused the devil’s suggestion that He should make bread for Himself.
What is emphasised here is the fact that God in faithfulness provided the manna; it was there for them day by day whether they appreciated it or not; and its great lesson was that “man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that goeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live”. We know from the history in Numbers that the people lost appreciation of the manna. If we walk as men we shall lose taste for the manna. The Corinthians were walking as men, and by the wisdom of man; they were not living by every word of God. It is possible for us to be prudent, and to order our ways with outward propriety and yet have little taste for the manna. It is a pity to be so self-sufficient as to miss the proving of the divine sufficiency which is ever available through God’s grace and faithfulness.
“Thy clothing grew not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years”. This is what the [p. 88] faithfulness of God secured to His people in wilderness conditions. Clothing that does not, grow old — clothing suitable to the kingdom of God — is described in Romans 12 - Romans 14; we may see there the features with which God would have His people invested in the wilderness. God’s faithfulness makes that raiment available, and no one has ever been able to wear it out! It is very durable; it will stand all the vicissitudes of the wilderness, The tribulations of the wilderness — the trying nature of the road — have brought out that God’s people have been able to go through. “Tribulation works endurance; and endurance, experience” (Romans 5: 3, 4). The experience is the proving that through divine faithfulness our foot did not swell. We could speak of ten thousand weaknesses in ourselves, but we have come through to the praise of the One who has brought us through. The wilderness, as viewed here, is just One long experience of divine faithfulness and care, and from this point of view it is intensely interesting. What God can be to His people in the wilderness is as important — in its place — as what He can bestow in the divinely given wealth of the land. Both combine to give us the knowledge of the blessed God who in grace has brought us to Himself.
“And know in thy heart that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee” (verse 6). God’s chastening is parental, not merely punitive. He deals with us as with sons. See Hebrews 12. God began with the thought of sonship; “Thus saith Jehovah: Israel is my son, my firstborn. And I say to thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me” (Exodus 4: 22, 23). Then all through the wilderness, “as a man chasteneth his son, so Jehovah thy God chasteneth thee”. And in the land, “Ye are sons of Jehovah your God” (Deuteronomy 14: 1). We are always sons in the thought of God; it is the blessed relationship with Himself in which His [p. 89] love has set us. We were sons in divine purpose from eternity. Then, when God’s calling separated us from the world, it was that we might receive sonship. Then divine chastening came in that we might be freed from things unsuitable in sons, that we might be partakers of God’s holiness, and fruitful in all that has the character of righteousness, so that sons’ affections might he free. And, finally, in the land the inheritance is enjoyed by the heirs in the consciousness of their relationship and dignity as sons of God for His delight. The inheritance is their God-given portion, but they themselves are His portion, His inheritance, His delight, as in the relationship which His love has called them into, and formed them for. Chastening deals with what is unsuitable in us, but it deals with it from the standpoint of the blessed relationship into which God has called us.
Verses 7 - 10 give us a very comprehensive summary of the wealth of the “good land” which is the fruition of divine promise. There are three parts in the description. Verse 7 speaks of waterbrooks, springs and deep waters; that would have reference to the presence and activities of the Holy Spirit in the saints. Then there is a sevenfold plenty in verse 8 which is suggestive of the completeness of satisfaction which the saints may become possessed of in Christ. And the iron and copper of verse 9 are the hidden strength and wealth of the land. Digging is necessary to secure them; they lie beneath the surface, and can only be acquired as the product of strenuous exercise. But these things are so important that they call for consideration in detail.
“Waterbrooks”, “springs”, and “deep waters” speak of the diversity, freshness and fulness of the power of the Holy Spirit, in the saints. These are not “wells digged” as in chapter 6, which would refer to sources [p. 90] of refreshment made available by the spiritual labour of others. These are directly God-given, and I have no doubt they refer to the Spirit as spoken of by the Lord in the Gospel of John. John 4 speaks of the Spirit as living water given by the Son of God which should become in the believer “a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life”. And Jesus made known how the “waterbrooks” flow when He “stood and cried saying, If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this he said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified” (John 7: 37 - 39). Then the Comforter as spoken of in John 14, John 15 and John 16 would surely be typified by the “deep waters”.
It is striking that; the first feature mentioned of the “good land” makes prominent, figuratively, the Holy Spirit in His varied activities. Eternal life will only be known and enjoyed as the result of the Fountain of water springing up into it. All refreshment and fertility in that region is dependent on the Spirit. There must be the coming to the Son of God and drinking so that the “rivers of living water” may flow. To how many “eternal life” means only the assurance that one is eternally safe, but in Scripture it is “the blessing” (Psalm 133: 3); it means present and eternal satisfaction (John 4: 14); it means fulness of joy (1 John 1: 4). There is no hunger, no thirst, no dryness nor barrenness in the region of eternal life. It is “a land of waterbrooks, of springs, and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills”. The very language used is calculated to awaken the most lively anticipation in our hearts. For, remember, it is presented to us here in all its attractiveness by our blessed Instructor to allure our [p. 91] hearts onward to something not yet possessed. It is the blessed thought of God, the gift of His love, but, from the standpoint of Deuteronomy 8, not yet entered upon in realisation. It is into such a land our God would bring us.
“Amid those favoured hills,
The waterbrooks run down;
River and rill the valleys fill;
And the glad land the Lord doth till,
With plenty crown”.
No greater service could be rendered to the people of God today than to awaken the interest of their hearts in eternal life as that which answers spiritually to the “good land”. The heart of God cherishes the thought of eternal life for man, as we see in John 3; and then in John 4 the Spirit is given as living water to be in us a Fountain springing up into eternal life — to carry our affections in that direction. It is a real loss for souls to read the scriptures as to eternal life in John’s Gospel merely as assurance of eternal security. They involve this, most surely, but they mean very much more than this; they suggest infinite present satisfaction and blessedness. How few can truly say that they know what it is to live in a “region of satisfied desire” ! But that this is the thought of God’s love for His people, and that this is involved in eternal life, it is impossible, in the face of Scripture, to deny. Let us open our hearts more fully to the precious thoughts of divine love!
Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 of the varied gifts bestowed by the Spirit and exercised in His power. The Spirit divides “to each in particular according as he pleases”, and it is God who sets gifts in the assembly. The victorious and ascended Christ has also given gifts — “some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers” (Ephesians 4: 8 - 11).
All these are “waterbrooks” which flow, fed from “the rain from heaven”, and take their divinely appointed course under the ordering of God without tarrying for the sanction or ordination of men. There is the greatest diversity in spiritual manifestations; no one ever saw two waterbrooks exactly alike; each gift in the power of the Spirit has its own distinctiveness, and carries refreshment and promotes spiritual fertility wherever it flows. The precious things of God are thus kept before the attention of saints in a living way, and fruitfulness is stimulated. How great the contrast between this and the human arrangements and order which prevail in Christendom! Men lay out canals of their own devising, but “living water” does not flow in artificial channels; the Spirit of God refuses to be restricted by the formal arrangements of men.
But we must not limit the activities of the Spirit, as typified in these gushing streams, to specific gifts for ministry. As set together in assembly relations each brother and each sister is to be a contributor of spiritual refreshment. The waterbrooks and springs and deep waters are in the saints generally. The effect of wilderness discipline is to bring under judgment all the elements that would cause believers to be a discomfort to each other, that there may be the unhindered flow of what is of the Spirit of God for mutual refreshment and comfort. Whether it be in the experience of the valleys (Philippians 2), or the hills (Philippians 3), the heavenly springs should flow.
It is very exercising when there is not a flow of “living water” amongst saints. If things are dry I must not blame others; are “rivers of living water” flowing out of me? Until these things take form in the saints they are not available for mutual refreshment. But the end of the humbling and parental discipline of the wilderness is that we come into the land to be [p. 93] possessed of these things, and as being possessed they become available for the brethren. Whatever each of us may have that is spiritual and of Christ is for the benefit of all the brethren. Every brother and sister should have an intense conviction of that. The humblings of the wilderness have in view spiritual enrichment in the land.
The scriptures to which we have referred in John’s Gospel have every believer in view. They speak of inward satisfaction, and of ability for mutual refreshment, which every saint may look to realise in his own experience. It should be a matter of exercise and desire with each one of us to prove the present gain of the Spirit in this way. One has to admit that it is little known generally, and perhaps none of us can say that we know it more than in very feeble measure. But it is set before us in Deuteronomy 8 as an attractive prospect to encourage any desire which may be present with us towards entering the “good land”. Every refreshment and fruit that belongs to “the land” is yielded in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is well to note that this is the first feature of “the land” in which Christ would instruct us. Eternal life is “from the Spirit” (Galatians 6: 8).
Then it is “a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive-trees and honey; a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, where thou shalt lack nothing” (verses 8, 9). A great wealth of spiritual substance is brought before us here. We are apt to pass too lightly over these things, but God would have us to ponder each separate item; we shall find great gain in doing so, with prayer that we may have spiritual understanding in regard to them.
“Wheat” speaks of what Christ was as coming in after a new and heavenly order entirely for the pleasure of God. He was “The grain of wheat”, which would have abode alone if it had not fallen into the ground and died. “But if it die, it bears much fruit” (John 12: 24). The saints as the fruit of Christ in death are wheat for the garner of God. “Such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones. And as we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly one” (1 Corinthians 15:48,49). Believers are “of Christ” — of that order of man — through grace and by the work of God. The food of the land would nourish our souls in the truth of this.
“Barley” — as seen in the “sheaf of the first-fruits” — is figurative of Christ in resurrection, “first-fruits of those fallen asleep”. He went into death that He might be entitled to bring out of death all those who are His, and He will do this at His coming for those fallen asleep. There can be no doubt that the saints will all be raised after the order of Christ as risen. But if this is to be manifestly so at His coming He would nourish our souls even now on the great spiritual reality that He has been accepted for us as the risen One. We come into the land as His brethren, risen with Him.
“Vines” yield that “which gladdeneth the heart of man” (Psalm 104:16), and even “cheers God and man” (Judges 9:13). In John 15 where the Lord speaks of Himself as “the true vine”, He says, “I have spoken these things to you that my joy may be in you, and your joy be full”. “The land” is a sphere characterised by fulness of joy, so that when John reports to us “the eternal life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us”, he adds, “And these things write we to you that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:4). When, some years back, there was a ministry which called attention to the true character and blessedness of eternal life, it was opposed as being an attempt to rob the saints of something. Whereas the object of that ministry was [p. 95] to bring about, through divine grace, that eternal life should not be a mere word to us, but that we should have some experimental knowledge of its preciousness, and of the fulness of joy which is involved in it. Is it not to be greatly desired that Christians generally should have more spiritual joy? It is one of the attractive features of the land that it is “a land of ... vines”; it yields abundant joy.
“Fig-trees” represent that sweet fruit of righteousness which Israel, under divine culture, failed to yield. See Luke 13: 6 - 9; Matthew 21: 19. One result of the Father’s chastening is that it “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those exercised by it” (Hebrews 12: 11). And Paul prays for the Philippians that they might be “complete as regards the fruit of righteousness, which is by Jesus Christ, to God’s glory and praise” (Philippians 1: 11). The fruit of “the land” is figurative of precious things which take form “by Jesus Christ” and in the power of the Spirit in the saints. Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians describe that fruit in detail. “The fruit of the light is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5: 9).
“Pomegranates” were on the skirts of the cloak of the priestly ephod (Exodus 28: 33), and they were also on the two pillars of brass for the porch of the temple (1 Kings 7: 18). They are also mentioned as characteristic of the bride in the Song of Solomon; when she is spoken of as a garden enclosed the Bridegroom says of her, “Thy shoots are a paradise of pomegranates, with precious fruits” (4: 13). They seem thus to be suggestive of “fruit unto holiness” as brought forth in the saints through being sustained by the priestly service of Christ. The Philadelphian overcomer who is made a pillar in the temple of God would have adornments such as the pomegranates represent, and such fruit is very precious to the heart of Christ as brought forth by His sister, His spouse. “Pomegranates” are yielded by holy affections, for holiness is by love, not by faith. See 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13. Such affections would secure unity amongst the brethren, and we may learn from John 17 how delightful this is to the Lord.
It is sad to have to recall that the Spirit of God has not only spoken of the pomegranates as adorning the pillars in the temple (1 Kings 7), but He has recorded how those pillars were broken up, and the brass thereof carried to Babylon (Jeremiah 52: 17 - 23). It is a needful reminder that, through unfaithfulness and departure, holy adornments may be lost, as they have been in the Christian profession generally. Indeed the language of Joel might well be applied today, “Be ashamed, ye husbandmen; howl, ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley: because the harvest of the field hath perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate-tree, the palm also and the apple-tree; all the trees of the field are withered, yea, joy is withered away from the children of men” (Joel 1: 11, 12). But if things have withered through unfaithfulness there is yet space to repent, and to return through self-judgment to the precious thoughts of God as made good in Christ, and to humbly wait on Him to make them good in us by His Spirit. In Deuteronomy 8 the abundant wealth of “the land” is set before us in all its fulness, and the question is, Are we attracted by it? Does it allure our hearts? If so, it can, through infinite mercy, be still enjoyed, for in the heart and thought of God He has nothing less for His people.
“A land of olive-trees”. Christ Himself could say, “But as for me, I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God; I will confide in the loving-kindness of God for ever and ever” (Psalm 52: 8). And it is the privilege of those who have His Spirit to take up in their measure, the same words. Jehovah had called Israel, “A green olive-tree, fair, of goodly fruit” (Jeremiah 11: 16); and such has He called His saints to be today. As drawing all from God’s loving-kindness, in contrast with the wicked man “spreading like a green tree in its native soil” (Psalm 37: 35), the saints become spiritual, and yield the fruit of the Spirit. They count upon God, they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, and they partake of the root and fatness of God’s goodness. “The land” is characterised as “a land of olive-trees”, representing the saints as spiritual persons, capable of yielding spiritual fruit and ministering what is spiritual to others, all having its source in God and in the unction of His Spirit .
“Olive-trees and honey” are put together, intimating that “honey” here is not the sweetness of human nature, but of affections that are spiritual. It would speak of the sweet “consolation of love” which is the product of the united activities of the saints in the divine nature. Nothing could more aptly illustrate activities with a common purpose than a hive of bees. And “the land” is marked by the result of this in “honey”. To have the wealth and sweetness of the land we must have the brethren, for the fruition of the land takes form in them by the Spirit. When we see this we begin to appreciate the essentiality of the Lord’s commandment that we should “love one another”. We begin to understand John’s word that “we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren”. We need the gain of all that is in the brethren, and we derive it as we love them, and have fellowship with one another. The formal arrangements of the congregational or hierarchal systems in the religious world are grievous to the Holy Spirit because they hinder the development of fellowship and the spiritual affections of the brethren. The wealth and sweetness of “the land” cannot be enjoyed under such conditions.
[p. 98] Plenty and satisfaction can be found in “the good land”. It is “a land wherein thou shalt eat bread... and be filled, and shalt bless Jehovah thy God for the good land which he hath given thee” (verses 9, 10). Every spiritual desire finds complete satisfaction there.
The “iron” and “copper” of verse 9 indicate the strength of those divine principles which secure the people of God from the inroads of evil. Iron and brass, according to Deuteronomy, are for security against evil. “Iron and brass shall be thy bolts” (Deuteronomy 33: 25). Things cannot be maintained for God, or for the joy of His people, without “bolts”. It has often been noticed that in the days of Nehemiah it is not recorded that Eliashib the high priest put locks and bars on the sheep-gate which he built. He had no bolts of iron and brass, and this laxity led eventually to his preparing a great chamber in the courts of the house of God for the Ammonite (Nehemiah 3: 1; 13: 4 - 9). God would have us to be open brethren in relation to all that is good, but very exclusive in relation to what is evil.
“Iron” speaks of power to overcome the world. Before the time when all the power of the world will be broken by the “sceptre of iron” in the hand of Christ it has been broken morally by Him. He has overcome the world, and His saints can overcome also “through him that has loved us”. In presence of divine power the nations are merely “as a potter’s vessel”. Jeremiah was appointed “an iron pillar, and brazen walls, against the whole land; against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee, saith Jehovah, to deliver thee” (Jeremiah 1: 18, 19).
“Brass (copper)” is clearly connected in Scripture with the unsparing judgment of evil, and moral separation from it. This is seen in the serpent of brass, the [p. 99] altar, the laver, and in the feet of the Son of Man in Revelation 1. As walking in the midst of the candlesticks He does not leave unjudged any feature of evil. If evil is not judged there will be no strength to maintain what is good, The holy and righteous discipline of the house of God is necessary for the safeguarding and preservation of the good that pertains to that house. The promise to the overcomer in Philadelphia is that he shall be made a pillar in the temple of God. It is an allusion to the pillars of brass in Solomon’s temple; stability and strength are connected with the maintenance of holiness and truth, and this involves the judgment of evil, and separation from it.
Job 28 speaks in a striking way of the mining operations by which men get precious things out of the earth, and compares with them the finding of wisdom and understanding. And the conclusion reached at the end of the chapter is, “Lo, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding”. Iron and brass would mark faithful saints as pursuing the path of separation indicated in 2 Timothy 2. The power of the Lord is with such, enabling them to steadfastly maintain good in separation from evil. We have to judge things first in ourselves. No evil has come into the Christian profession of which I cannot find the root and germ in my own flesh. The distinguishing of good and evil, and separating from evil, are most important. They involve deep exercise, answering to digging, but the result is that the soul is confirmed in moral strength, and this is the basis of all that is spiritual in our souls. The waters flow abundantly in the land, and there is great fruitfulness, but underlying are the iron and brass. They are worth attaining, even though only to be got by digging and by traversing “a path no bird of prey knoweth, and the vulture’s eye hath not seen it; the proud beasts have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed over it”.
[p. 100] The warnings of this chapter shew that even after the land has been possessed and enjoyed there are dangers. “Beware that thou forget not Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments ... lest when thou hast eaten and art full ... then thy heart be lifted up, and thou forget Jehovah thy God ... and thou say in thy heart, My power and the might of my hand has procured me this wealth” (verses 11 - 17). Even after being in the land we may get lifted up and become self-confident. These warnings are wholesome for us, for we are as much in danger of forgetting God’s former ways and humbling as was Israel.