Matthew Henry on Deuteronomy 8:1-9
The charge here given them is the same as before, to keep and do all God's commandments. Their obedience must be, 1. Careful: Observe to do. 2. Universal: To do all the commandments, Deu 8:1. And, 3. From a good principle, with a regard to God as the Lord, and their God, and particularly with a holy fear of him (Deu 8:6), from a reverence of his majesty, a submission to his authority, and a dread of his wrath. To engage them to this obedience, besides the great advantages of it, which he sets before them (that they should live and multiply, and all should be well with them, Deu 8:1), he directs them,
I. To look back upon the wilderness through which God had now brought them: Thou shalt remem…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Deuteronomy 8:4
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years--What a striking miracle was this! No doubt the Israelites might have brought from Egypt more clothes than they wore at their outset; they might also have obtained supplies of various articles of food and raiment in barter with the neighboring tribes for the fleeces and skins of their sheep and goats; and in furnishing them with such opportunities the care of Providence appeared. But the strong and pointed terms which Moses here uses (see also Deu 29:5) indicate a special or miraculous interposition of their loving Guardian in preserving them amid the wear and tear of their nomadic life in the desert. Thirdly,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Deuteronomy 8:6
Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God,.... Not only because they are the commands of God, and of a covenant God and Father, which are reasons sufficient for the observance of them; but because the Lord had dealt so bountifully with them, in providing food and raiment for them in the wilderness, which always continued with them; and because, when he afflicted them, it was a fatherly chastisement, with great tenderness and compassion, and for their good; all which laid them under obligations to keep the commands of God, whatsoever he had enjoined them, whether of the moral, ceremonial, or judicial kind:
to walk in his ways, and to fear him; to walk in the ways he dire…
