Bible Commentaries

Still continuing this discourse, Moses declared that the land when purified of the corrupt people was to be possessed by the people of God as His chosen nation. He showed that the first condition of possession was that they should remember the past with all it had taught them. They must never forget that God had led them and that the way of His leading was purposeful.

All the experiences of the wilderness were in order that they might learn two lessons: first, that they might know their own heart. It is important that we recognize that the meaning of this passage is not that God might know them, but that they might come to know themselves. God knows man perfectly. The important thing is that man should come to know himself.

Out of the humbling that such knowledge must bring to man, a second lesson would be learned, namely, the fact of his need of God and of God's guidance and government.

Therefore, all the chastening and discipline of God resulted from His love. God ever treated man as a man treats his son.

The second principle of possession insisted upon was that the people should live by the Word of God, that is, that they must act on the lessons they had learned and keep the commandments of Him from whom they had received the land as a gift.

Solemnly Moses warned the people against the peril of imagining that their possession of the land was the result of personal effort or thinking that it was by their own strength they had entered therein.