Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Chapter 8. Synopsis of the chapter
Moses proceeds to exhort the Hebrews to keep the law of God: first, on account of the benefits received from him, because, namely, God fed them with manna in the desert, and kept their garments unworn. Secondly, verse 7, on account of the benefits to be received from him in the fertility of the land of Chanaan, if they obey God. Thirdly, verse 19, threatening them with destruction if they forsake God.
1. Take heed diligently to do every commandment that I command thee this day: that you may live, and be multiplied, and going in may possess the land, for which the Lord swore to your fathers. 2. And thou shalt remember all the way through which the Lord thy God hath brought thee for forty years through the wilderness, to afflict thee, and to prove thee, and that the things that were in thy heart might be made known, whether thou wouldst keep his commandments or not. 3. He afflicted thee with want, and gave thee manna for thy food, which neither thou nor thy fathers knew: to shew that not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. 4. Thy raiment, with which thou wast covered, hath not decayed through age, and thy foot is not worn, lo this is the fortieth year. 5. That thou mayest consider in thy heart, that as a man traineth up his son, so the Lord thy God hath trained thee up, 6. That thou mayest keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, and walk in his ways, and fear him. 7. For the Lord thy God will bring thee into a good land, of brooks and waters and fountains: in the plains of which and the hills deep rivers break out: 8. A land of wheat, and barley, and vineyards, wherein fig-trees, and pomegranates, and oliveyards grow: a land of oil and honey. 9. Where without any want thou shalt eat thy bread, and enjoy abundance of all things: the stones whereof are iron, and out of its hills are dug mines of brass; 10. That when thou hast eaten and art full, thou mayest bless the Lord thy God for the excellent land which he hath given thee. 11. Take heed, and beware lest at any time thou forget the Lord thy God, and neglect his commandments and judgments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day: 12. Lest after thou hast eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses and dwelt in them, 13. And shalt have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, plenty of gold and silver and of all things, 14. Thy heart be lifted up, and thou remember not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: 15. And was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness, wherein there was a serpent burning with his breath, and a scorpion, and the dipsas, and no waters at all: who brought forth streams out of the hardest rock, 16. And fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not. And after he had afflicted and proved thee, at the last he had mercy on thee, 17. Lest thou shouldst say in thy heart:
My own might and the strength of my hand have done all these things for me. 18. But remember the Lord thy God, that he gave thee strength, that he might fulfil his covenant, concerning which he swore to thy fathers, as this present day sheweth. 19. But if thou forget the Lord thy God, and follow strange gods, and serve and adore them: behold now I foretell thee that thou shalt utterly perish. 20. As the nations, which the Lord destroyed at thy entrance, so shall you perish also, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God.
1. TAKE HEED DILIGENTLY TO DO EVERY COMMANDMENT THAT I COMMAND THEE THIS DAY.—“Take heed,” that is, observe cautiously, and, as the Hebrew has, keep, and that because this ought to be done for God, and by the commandment of God; for, as Abulensis rightly says: “If men serving earthly masters, out of reverence for them, are most attentive that nothing fail in their service, how attentive and careful ought we to be, when we minister to God, or do any commandment of his! because the reverence of God, like his majesty, is infinitely distant from the reverence and majesty of men. Therefore with great fear we ought to do the commandments of God, taking most diligent care that nothing fail therein; hence it is said, Psalm ii: Serve ye the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto him with trembling; and elsewhere: Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord negligently. This reverence and caution, then, is signified by “take heed to do,” that is, be very attentive to these things.” So far Abulensis.
[…] the Hebrews found no flesh meat, nor corn, nay often not even herbs: hence they murmured, and therefore God gave them manna, as is plain from Exodus xvi, 3. Morally learn here that God feeds with manna, that is, with spiritual food, those whom want afflicts, so that they who fast in the belly may be refreshed in the mind; that they who lack earthly consolations may abound in heavenly. As conversely, they who abound in human consolations are destitute of divine; hence the children of Israel, as soon as they tasted the fruits of the land of Chanaan, lost the manna from heaven, Josue v, 12. So Jacob, poor and wretched, fleeing from Esau, saw the ladder set up to heaven, and God leaning upon it, Genesis xxviii, 12. So St. John in exile, afflicted with hunger and hardships, saw those sublime mysteries of the Apocalypse. So Stephen in the stoning saw Jesus standing on the right hand of the power of God. Hence Christ assigns to John’s disciples this sign of himself, foretold by Isaias: “The poor have the gospel preached to them,” Matthew xi; “Hath not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love him?” “So the Religious is poor in his cell, rich in conscience,” says St. Bernard. And the Apostle, 2 Corinthians iv, when he had said, verse 8: “In all things we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed; we are straitened (afflicted with want), but are not destitute,” adds verse 16: “Though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.”
TO SHEW THEE THAT NOT IN BREAD ALONE DOTH MAN LIVE (for he sustained you in the desert forty years, without bread, by manna), BUT IN EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDETH FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.—In Hebrew, upon all that proceedeth from the mouth of the Lord shall man live; as if to say: Man shall live by whatever thing the Lord shall have commanded, or ordained for the sustenance of human life, as the Jews lived on manna; so that, says Abulensis, if God commanded us to eat serpents, basilisks, stones, etc., we should be nourished better by them than by the most delicate foods; nay, if he willed or commanded, we should live without any food; as Simeon Stylites passed twenty-eight Lents without food and drink, and Christ lived forty days in the desert without food, and when the devil tempted him to gluttony, to feed him, answered these very words: “Not in bread alone doth man live,” etc. So also Elias, Moses and others lived long without food. The like is done in the Saints who, intent on prayer and contemplation, are fed by spiritual delights, and extinguish the memory and appetite of edible things. So Cassian, Conference XIX, chapter iv, relates of the Abbot John that, occupied with spiritual delights, he did not remember whether he had eaten the day before or not.
Note the Hebraism: “A word hath gone forth from someone,” or “from someone’s mouth,” that is, it hath pleased him, it was his will, or it was decreed by him. So Laban with his household says, Genesis xxiv, 50: “The word hath proceeded from the Lord, we cannot speak any thing else to thee but his pleasure,” as if to say: It pleases the Lord that Rebecca marry Isaac, we cannot nor ought we to resist the pleasure of God; and Jeremias xliv, 17, the impious Jews say: “We will do every thing that hath proceeded out of our mouth,” that is, whatever we please.
Mystically, St. Ambrose on Luke iv: Man lives, he says, by every word of God, that is, by the nourishment of the heavenly word, by which the soul is fed, in comparison with which the hunger of the body is to be neglected; and such a word is, first, Christ; secondly, Holy Scripture; thirdly, prayer and the inspiration of God. Some will have this sense to be literal, but from what has been said it is plain that it is mystical.
4. THY RAIMENT, WITH WHICH THOU WAST COVERED, HATH NOT DECAYED THROUGH AGE.—Because, says Aben-Ezra, the manna was of such a temperament that it did not breed sweat, by which garments are worn out and grow old. But this was not enough here; for garments are worn by use alone, especially if one is travelling. There was therefore a miraculous solidity, granted by God for forty years to the garments of the Hebrews, so that they were in no way rent or worn. Hence again these garments seem to have grown with the little ones in the desert; for otherwise they would not have fitted the growing bodies, and so the Hebrews, grown larger, would have had to go naked; for whence in so great a number would each have provided himself with other garments?
So Abulensis. So the garments of St. Apollonius (who was father of 500 monks, a man of wonderful holiness) did not grow old, says Palladius in the Lausiac History, chapter lii, though he lived in the desert of the Thebaid forty years, as did the Hebrews.