Deuteronomy 11:8 - Meaning and Application

Moses keeps pressing the same subject, as though he were unwilling to stop until he had won their hearts. If they would enter into life, and if they would enter into Canaan, which pictured that life, and find it truly good, then they must keep God’s commandments. He sums it up this way: keep all the commands I give you today, love God, and serve him with all your heart.

He gives several reasons for this. First, obedience was the way to gain and hold the promised land. It was the way to go in and take possession of it, because they would be strong for war and successful in it (Deuteronomy 11:8). Moses speaks as if the battle would not be so hard that they would need special military skill. He does not teach them how to draw a bow or use a sword. Instead, he teaches them to keep God’s commands, because their religion would be their strength and their surest help.

Obedience was also the way to keep the land once they had it (Deuteronomy 11:9). It would help them live long in the land God had set before them. Sin shortens the days of a person’s life, and it also shortens a nation’s peace and success. Obedience, by contrast, helps stretch out their quiet and prosperous time.

Second, the land of Canaan would depend on God’s blessing even more clearly than Egypt did (Deuteronomy 11:10-12). Egypt was fertile, but it was flat and watered by the Nile, not by rain like other lands. It took much work to keep the fields watered, so the Egyptians were likely to think their own labor brought them wealth. Canaan, however, was a land of hills and valleys. It had no great rivers, except the Jordan, but drank in water from heaven’s rain.

This would save them much labor. While the Egyptians were digging ditches and channels through the mud, the Israelites could stay in their homes and trust God to water the land with the early and late rain, which is called the river of God (Psalm 65:9). God had provided so well for their outward needs that they should all the more give themselves to his service. The less they had to do for their bodies, the more they should do for God and for their souls.

This also lifted their thoughts upward to God, who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons (Acts 14:17), and who promised to be like dew to Israel (Hosea 14:5). Blessings bring the most comfort when we see them coming straight from heaven as gifts of God’s care. And the more fully we depend on God, the more freely we should obey him. Moses therefore honors Canaan above other lands, because God’s eye was always upon it, watching over it so that nothing would be lacking as long as they stayed near to him in duty. Its fruitfulness would come not mainly from the soil, but from God’s direct blessing. That is seen in its later condition, for once God departed from it, it became as barren as almost any land under heaven. “Call it not Naomi, call it Marah.”

Third, God would surely bless them with abundance in every good thing if they loved and served him (Deuteronomy 11:13-15). He would give rain in its proper season, neither too little nor too much. They would have the early rain at seedtime and the late rain before harvest (Amos 4:7). This pointed to all the timely blessings God would send, especially spiritual comfort, which comes like the early and late rain (Hosea 6:3). With that watering, the land would yield crops for people to eat, such as grain, wine, and oil (Psalm 104:13-15). It would also grow grass for the cattle, so that even the animals would serve human needs and they would have food and be satisfied (Deuteronomy 11:15). Godliness has promise for this life as well as the life to come, but God’s favor puts a deeper joy in the heart than the increase of grain, wine, and oil ever could.

Fourth, turning from God to idols would certainly ruin them. Moses warns them to watch carefully so their hearts will not be led astray (Deuteronomy 11:16-17). Anyone who leaves God and gives love or worship to any creature will find that he has been deeply deceived, and that deceit will lead to destruction. It is made worse by the fact that simple care could have prevented it. A little watchfulness would have kept them from being trapped by the great deceiver.

To stir them up, Moses speaks plainly. If they turn aside to other gods, they will bring God’s anger upon them, and who can measure the power of that anger? Good things would be taken away, because the heavens would withhold rain, and then the earth would not yield its fruit. Worse still, evil would come on them, and they would quickly perish from that good land. The better the land, the more bitter it would be to lose it. Its goodness would not protect them once their own sin had made them ready for judgment.