Deuteronomy 11:13

11:8-17 Moses sets before them, for the future, life and death, the blessing and the curse, according as they did or did not keep God's commandment. Sin tends to shorten the days of all men, and to shorten the days of a people's prosperity. God will bless them with an abundance of all good things, if they would love him and serve him. Godliness has the promise of the life that now is; but the favour of God shall put gladness into the heart, more than the increase of corn, and wine, and oil. Revolt from God to idols would certainly be their ruin. Take heed that your hearts be not deceived. All who forsake God to set their affection upon any creature, will find themselves wretchedly deceived, to their own destruction; and this will make it worse, that it was for want of taking heed.

And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day,.... In the name, and by the authority of the Lord, the only lawgiver: to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul; see Deuteronomy 10:12. Jarchi interprets this of prayer; but it is not to be restrained to that only, but includes the whole service of God, in all the parts of it, performed from a principle of love to him, and in sincerity and truth.

(13) It shall come to pass. —At this point begins the formal sanction of this charge by a declaration of rewards and punishments. Such sanctions are a characteristic feature of the Law. (Comp. Exodus 23:20 —end, at the close of the first code; Leviticus 26, and Deuteronomy 28; and, in the New Testament, the well-known close of the Sermon on the Mount in St. Matthew 7, and of the parallel sermon in St. Luke 6 ) To love the Lord your God.—“Not that thou shouldst say, ‘Behold, I am a disciple in order that I may become rich: in order that I may be called great: in order that I may receive reward; “but whatsoever ye do, do from love” (Rashi). To serve him with all your heart.—The Jewish commentator says that this refers to prayer, and compares Daniel (Deuteronomy 6:16): “Thy God whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee.” There was no religious service for Israel in Babylon except prayer. The thought seems worth preserving, though the words are obviously capable of a wider application.

Verse 13. - Being thus wholly dependent on God, it behooved them to be careful to attend to his commandments and to obey them, that so his blessing might be continued to them and to the laud. If they would love and serve the Lord as they were bound to do, he would give them the rain of their land, i . e . rain for their land, such as it required (cf. "rain of thy seed," Psalm 30:2, 3 ), in the proper season, the early and the latter rain, so that they should fully enjoy the benefits of the land. Deuteronomy 11:13

Another motive for fidelity is added, namely, the entire dependence of the promised land upon God for its fertility. It was "a land flowing with milk and honey;" yet this its richness was not, as was that of Egypt, the reward of truman skill and labor, but was, on the contrary, the gift of God simply and entirely; the effect of "the former and the latter rains" sent by Him. The spiritual significance of these and many other such peculiarities of the promised land must not be overlooked. Egypt and Canaan are distinguished in this and the following verses, by certain of their most remarkable physical traits. Canaan as a mountainous country (compare Deuteronomy 3:25 note) was well watered, but by the rains of heaven, on which it absolutely depended for its crops. Artificial irrigation could do nothing to remedy this dependence. Hence, it was a land on which, so long as God's people were faithful and consequently prosperous, "the eyes of God" would always be: i. e., He would supply at each successive season (compare Deuteronomy 11:14-15) the useful conditions of productiveness. But Egypt, fit emblem here as elsewhere of the world of nature in distinction from the world of grace, though of course deriving its all ultimately from the Giver of all good things, yet directly and immediately owed its riches and plenty to human ingenuity and capital. It enjoyed no rain worth speaking of, but drew its water supply from the annum overflowing of the Nile.

This only lasts about a hundred days; but is rendered available for agricultural purposes throughout the year by an elaborate and costly system of tanks, canals, forcing machines, etc. To these mechanical appliances allusion is made in Deuteronomy 11:10. The inhabitants of Egypt probably watered "with the foot" in two ways, namely, by means of tread-wheels working sets of pumps, and by means of artificial channels connected with reservoirs, and opened, turned, or closed by the feet. Both methods are still in use in Egypt.

13 . The verse is not only in the Pl. and a repetition of certain formulas, but it also changes the speaker ( my commandments can only mean God’s). It is evidently inserted by an editor (so too Steuern. and Bertholet) (who also altered the opening of the next verse, q.v. ) because he thought it again necessary to safeguard the promise by repeating the usual deuteronomic condition. But the condition breaks into the theme of the writer which for the moment is only the contrast between the two lands. On the contents of the v . see on Deuteronomy 10:12 .

This peculiarity in the land of Canaan led Moses to close the first part of his discourse on the law, his exhortation to fear and love the Lord, with a reference to the blessing that would follow the faithful fulfilment of the law, and a threat of the curse which would attend apostasy to idolatry. Deuteronomy 11:13-15 If Israel would serve its God in love and faithfulness, He would give the land early and latter rain in its season, and therewith a plentiful supply of food for man and beast (see Leviticus 26:3 and Leviticus 26:5; and for the further expansion of this blessing, Deuteronomy 28:1-12).

[Bible] 11:11. But it is a land of hills and plains, expecting rain from heaven. 11:12. And the Lord thy God doth always visit it, and his eyes are on it from the beginning of the year unto the end thereof. 11:13. If then you obey my commandments, which I command you this day, that you love the Lord your God, and serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul: 11:14. He will give to your land the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your corn, and your wine, and your oil, 11:15. And your hay out of the fields to feed your cattle, and that you may eat and be filled. 11:16. Beware lest perhaps your heart be deceived, and you depart from the Lord, and serve strange gods, and adore them: 11:17. And the Lord being angry shut up heaven, that the rain come not down, nor the earth yield her fruit, and you perish quickly from the excellent land, which the Lord will give you. 11:18. Lay up these words in your hearts and minds, and hang them for a sign on your hands, and place them between your eyes. 11:19. Teach your children that they meditate on them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest on the way, and when thou liest down and risest up. 11:20. Thou shalt write them upon the posts and the doors of thy house: 11:21. That thy days may be multiplied, and the days of thy children in the land which the Lord swore to thy fathers, that he would give them as long as the heaven hangeth over the earth. 11:22. For if you keep the commandments which I command you, and do them, to love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, cleaving unto him, 11:23. The Lord will destroy all these nations before your face, and you shall possess them, which are greater and stronger than you. 11:24. Every place, that your foot shall tread upon, shall be yours. From the desert, and from Libanus, from the great river Euphrates unto the western sea shall be your borders.