Bible Commentaries

Deuteronomy 11:1 Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

Ver. 1. Therefore thou shalt love the Lord.] Cos amoris amor. Ara amorem illius, saith Bernard. Not to love them that so loved us, is to be worse than a publican, more hard-hearted than a Jew. [Matthew 5:46] That the three children burned not in the furnace was a miracle, [Daniel 3:25] so it is that men so favoured love not God.

Deuteronomy 11:2 And know ye this day: for [I speak] not with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm,

Ver. 2. And which have not seen.]

“ Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,

Quam quae sunt oculis commissa fidelibua ” - Horat.

He speaks unto them as to eye-witncsses; and those that have such evidence and self-experience are usually more affected than those that have things by hearsay only. "Mine eye affects my heart." [Lamentations 3:51]

Deuteronomy 11:4 And what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as they pursued after you, and [how] the LORD hath destroyed them unto this day;

Ver. 4. Hath destroyed them unto this day,] i.e., Hath so destroyed and dismayed them, that to this day we hear no more of them: as the Romans so quailed and quelled King Attalus, that he made a law that none of his successors should make war with that state for ever.

Deuteronomy 11:5 And what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place;

Ver. 5. And what he did unto you.] A diary should be diligently kept of what God does for us, [Psalms 102:18] for the help of our slippery memories, and the stirring up of our dull hearts to a contention in godliness.

Deuteronomy 11:6 And what he did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the substance that [was] in their possession, in the midst of all Israel:

Ver. 6. Dathan and Abiram.] Who were Reubenites; and therefore discontented, say the Jewish doctors, because the birthright was taken from Reuben, for his incest, and given to Judah and Joseph. Korah is here, though not mentioned yet, neither excluded nor excused.

Deuteronomy 11:9 And that ye may prolong [your] days in the land, which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey.

Ver. 9. And that ye may prolong.] {See Trapp on "Deuteronomy 4:40"}

Deuteronomy 11:10 For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, [is] not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst [it] with thy foot, as a garden of herbs:

Ver. 10. And wateredst it with thy foot.] Fetching and carrying water, called therefore the water of their feet, as our life is called, "the life of our hands," [Isaiah 57:10] because maintained with the labour of our hands.

Deuteronomy 11:11 But the land, whither ye go to possess it, [is] a land of hills and valleys, [and] drinketh water of the rain of heaven:

Ver. ll. And drinketh water of the rain of heaven.] God crowning the year with his goodness, and his paths dropping fatness. [Psalms 65:10-12] In the Hebrew it is, Thy chariot-wheel tracks; for the clouds are God’s chariots, [Psalms 104:3] in which water is bound. [Job 26:8] How they are upheld, and why they fall here and now, we know not, and wonder. The Egyptians used in a profane mockery to tell other nations, that if God should forget to rain, they might chance to starve for it; they thought the rain was of God, but not their river Nile. See Ezekiel 29:3; Ezekiel 29:9, Isaiah 19:5-6.

Deuteronomy 11:12 A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God [are] always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.

Ver. 12. Which the Lord thy God careth for.] Deus sic curat universa, quasi singula; sic singula, quasi sola. ^(a)

From the beginning of the year.] How easy were it for God to starve us all, by denying us a harvest or two!

Deuteronomy 11:13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

Ver. 13. And it shall come to pass.] This passage of Scripture following, the Jews read daily in their families, as Maimonides reporteth.

Deuteronomy 11:14 That I will give [you] the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil.

Ver. 14. That I will give you the rain.] Rain God gives to all by a providence, [Acts 14:17 Job 38:26] but to his Israel by virtue of a promise, whereby they might "live, not as by bread only, but as by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

Deuteronomy 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

Ver. 16. That your heart be not deceived.] Having first deceived itself; for "the heart is deceitful above all things," [Jeremiah 17:9] and may say to many, as the heart of Apollonius the tyrant seemed to say to him, who dreamed one night, that he was flayed by the Scythians, and boiled in a caldron, and that his heart spake to him out of the kettle and said, Eγω σοι τουτων αιτια, It is I that have drawn thee to all this. ^(a) Those in hell cry so.

Deuteronomy 11:17 And [then] the LORD’S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and [lest] ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you.

Ver. 17. And he shut up the heaven.] The keys of heaven, of the heart, of the womb, and of the grave, God keeps and carries under his own belt, as we may say.

Deuteronomy 11:18 Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.

Ver. 18. In your heart.] Yea, upon your heart, [Isaiah 47:7; Isaiah 57:11] so as they may sink thereinto, [Luke 9:44] as the best balm cast into water sinks to the bottom.

Deuteronomy 11:19 And ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

Ver. 19. Teach them your children.] {See Trapp on "Deuteronomy 6:7"}

Deuteronomy 11:21 That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.

Ver. 21. As the days of heaven,] i.e., As long as the world standeth. Hence haply we may conceive hope of the repentance of the Jews, and their re-establishment in this Promised Land.

Deuteronomy 11:26 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;

Ver. 26. A blessing and a curse.] With the way to either, that if ye miscarry ye may have none to blame but yourselves. For oft it falls out, that whereas "the foolishness of man perverteth his way, his heart fretteth against the Lord." [Proverbs 19:3]

Deuteronomy 11:29 And it shall come to pass, when the LORD thy God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon mount Gerizim, and the curse upon mount Ebal.

Ver. 29. Put the blessing upon mount Gerizim.] That is, Pronounce it there. See Joshua 8:33. Hence the Samaritans built their temple on this mount as a blessed place, and there worshipped they knew not what [John 4:20; John 4:22] calling themselves, Those that belong to the blessed mount.