Deuteronomy 11:21

11:18-25 Let all be directed by the three rules here given. 1. Let our hearts be filled with the word of God. There will not be good practices in the life, unless there be good thoughts, good affections, and good principles in the heart. 2. Let our eyes be fixed upon the word of God, having constant regard to it as the guide of our way, as the rule of our work, Ps 119:30. 3. Let our tongues be employed about the word of God. Nor will any thing do more to cause prosperity, and keeping up religion in a nation, than the good education of children.

That your days may be multiplied,.... Long life being a very desirable blessing, and which is promised to those that obey and keep the law; see Deuteronomy 30:19 . and the days of your children; which are dear to parents, and the continuance of whose lives, next to their own, is most desirable, yea, as desirable as their own; and especially it is desirable that they might have a posterity descending from them, to enjoy for ever their estates and possessions; as it was to the people of Israel, that they might have a seed always to dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them; the land of Canaan, so often spoken of as the promise, oath, and gift of God: as the days of heaven upon the earth; that is, as long as the heavens and the earth shall be, and the one shall be over the other, as they will be to the end of time.

(21) In the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them. —“It is not written here ‘to give you,’ but ‘to give them.’ Hence we find the resurrection of the dead taught in the Law.” If this were the remark of a Christian commentator, it would be thought fanciful; but it is only the comment of a Jew. And the Jewish belief in the literal fulfilment of these promises to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, simply on the ground of God’s word, is an unquestionable fact, whatever may be thought of it. Comp. Acts 7:5 , which is singularly pointed. God “gave him (Abraham) none inheritance in it, no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him,” besides.

But if, on the other hand, their heart was foolish to turn away from the Lord and serve other gods, the wrath of the Lord would burn against them, and God would shut up the heaven, that no rain should fall and the earth should yield no produce, and they would speedily perish (cf. Leviticus 26:19-20 , and Deuteronomy 28:23-24 ). Let them therefore impress the words now set before them very deeply upon themselves and their children ( Deuteronomy 11:18-21 , in which there is in part a verbal repetition of Deuteronomy 6:6-9 ). The words, "as the days of the heaven above the earth," i.e., as long as the heaven continues above the earth, - in other words, to all eternity (cf. Psalm 89:30 ; Job. Deu 14:12), - belong to the main sentence, "that your days may be multiplied," etc. ( Deuteronomy 11:21 ). "The promise to give the land to Israel for ever was not made unconditionally; an unconditional promise is precluded by the words, 'that your days may be multiplied'" (Schultz). (For further remarks, see at Deuteronomy 30:3-5 .) For ( Deuteronomy 11:22-25 ) if they adhered faithfully to the Lord, He would drive out before them all the nations that dwelt in the land, and would give them the land upon which they trod in all its length and breadth, and so fill the Canaanites with fear and terror before them, that no one should be able to stand against them. (On Deuteronomy 11:23 , cf.

Deuteronomy 7:1-2 ; Deuteronomy 9:1 , and Deuteronomy 1:28 .) The words, "every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours," are defined more precisely, and restricted to the land of Canaan on both sides of the Jordan by the boundaries which follow: "from the desert (of Arabia on the south), and Lebanon (on the north), and from the river Euphrates (on the east) to the hinder sea" (the Mediterranean on the west; see Numbers 34:6 ). The Euphrates is given as the eastern boundary, as in Deuteronomy 1:7 , according to the promise in Genesis 15:18 . (On Deuteronomy 11:25 , cf. Deuteronomy 7:24 ; Deuteronomy 2:25 , and Exodus 23:27 .)