Deuteronomy 7:1

The Dispossession of Nonvassals

7:1 When the Lord your God brings you to the land that you are going to occupy and forces out many nations before you – Hittites, ¹  Girgashites, ²  Amorites, ³  Canaanites, ⁴  Perizzites, ⁵  Hivites, ⁶  and Jebusites, ⁷  seven ⁸  nations more numerous and powerful than you –

Deuteronomy 8:1-20

The Lord’s Provision in the Desert

8:1 You must keep carefully all these commandments ⁹  I am giving ¹⁰  you today so that you may live, increase in number, ¹¹  and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. ¹²  8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹³  has brought you these forty years through the desert ¹⁴  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. 8:3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. ¹⁵  He did this to teach you ¹⁶  that humankind ¹⁷  cannot live by bread ¹⁸  alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. ¹⁹  8:4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years. 8:5 Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, ²⁰  the Lord your God disciplines you. 8:6 So you must keep his ²¹  commandments, live according to his standards, ²²  and revere him. 8:7 For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, ²³  springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills, 8:8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, 8:9 a land where you may eat food ²⁴  in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron ²⁵  and from whose hills you can mine copper. 8:10 You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.

Exhortation to Remember That Blessing Comes from God

8:11 Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. 8:12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses, 8:13 when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything, 8:14 be sure ²⁶  you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, 8:15 and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ²⁷  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ²⁸  from a flint rock and 8:16 fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you ²⁹  and eventually bring good to you. 8:17 Be careful ³⁰  not to say, “My own ability and skill ³¹  have gotten me this wealth.” 8:18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, ³²  even as he has to this day. 8:19 Now if you forget the Lord your God at all ³³  and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated. 8:20 Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you ³⁴  because you would not obey him. ³⁵ 

[7:1]  ¹ sn Hittites. The center of Hittite power was in Anatolia (central modern Turkey). In the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 b.c.) they were at their zenith, establishing outposts and colonies near and far. Some elements were obviously in Canaan at the time of the Conquest (1400-1350 b.c.).

[7:1]  ² sn Girgashites. These cannot be ethnically identified and are unknown outside the OT. They usually appear in such lists only when the intention is to have seven groups in all (see also the note on the word “seven” later in this verse).

[7:1]  ³ sn Amorites. Originally from the upper Euphrates region (Amurru), the Amorites appear to have migrated into Canaan beginning in 2200 b.c. or thereabouts.

[7:1]  ⁴ sn Canaanites. These were the indigenous peoples of the land, going back to the beginning of recorded history (ca. 3000 b.c.). The OT identifies them as descendants of Ham (Gen 10:6), the only Hamites to have settled north and east of Egypt.

[7:1]  ⁵ sn Perizzites. This is probably a subgroup of Canaanites (Gen 13:7; 34:30).

[7:1]  ⁶ sn Hivites. These are usually thought to be the same as the Hurrians, a people well-known in ancient Near Eastern texts. They are likely identical to the Horites (see note on the term “Horites” in Deut 2:12).

[7:1]  ⁷ sn Jebusites. These inhabited the hill country, particularly in and about Jerusalem (cf. Num 13:29; Josh 15:8; 2 Sam 5:6; 24:16).

[7:1]  ⁸ sn Seven. This is an ideal number in the OT, one symbolizing fullness or completeness. Therefore, the intent of the text here is not to be precise and list all of Israel’s enemies but simply to state that Israel will have a full complement of foes to deal with. For other lists of Canaanites, some with fewer than seven peoples, see Exod 3:8; 13:5; 23:23, 28; 33:2; 34:11; Deut 20:17; Josh 3:10; 9:1; 24:11. Moreover, the “Table of Nations” (Gen 10:15-19) suggests that all of these (possibly excepting the Perizzites) were offspring of Canaan and therefore Canaanites.

[8:1]  ⁹ tn The singular term (מִצְוָה, mitsvah) includes the whole corpus of covenant stipulations, certainly the book of Deuteronomy at least (cf. Deut 5:28; 6:1, 25; 7:11; 11:8, 22; 15:5; 17:20; 19:9; 27:1; 30:11; 31:5). The plural (מִצְוֹת, mitsot) refers to individual stipulations (as in vv. 2, 6).

[8:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “commanding” (so NASB). For stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy, “giving” has been used in the translation (likewise in v. 11).

[8:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “multiply” (so KJV, NASB, NLT); NIV, NRSV “increase.”

[8:1]  ¹² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 16, 18).

[8:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ¹⁸ tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[8:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “manna which you and your ancestors did not know.” By popular etymology the word “manna” comes from the Hebrew phrase מָן הוּא (man hu’), i.e., “What is it?” (Exod 16:15). The question remains unanswered to this very day. Elsewhere the material is said to be “white like coriander seed” with “a taste like honey cakes” (Exod 16:31; cf. Num 11:7). Modern attempts to associate it with various desert plants are unsuccessful for the text says it was a new thing and, furthermore, one that appeared and disappeared miraculously (Exod 16:21-27).

[8:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in order to make known to you.” In the Hebrew text this statement is subordinated to what precedes, resulting in a very long sentence in English. The translation makes this statement a separate sentence for stylistic reasons.

[8:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the man,” but in a generic sense, referring to the whole human race (“mankind” or “humankind”).

[8:3]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. CEV).

[8:3]  ²⁹ sn Jesus quoted this text to the devil in the midst of his forty-day fast to make the point that spiritual nourishment is incomparably more important than mere physical bread (Matt 4:4; cf. Luke 4:4).

[8:5]  ³³ tn Heb “just as a man disciplines his son.” The Hebrew text reflects the patriarchal idiom of the culture.

[8:6]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the commandments of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[8:6]  ⁴² tn Heb “by walking in his ways.” The “ways” of the Lord refer here to his moral standards as reflected in his commandments. The verb “walk” is used frequently in the Bible (both OT and NT) for one’s moral and ethical behavior.

[8:7]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “wadis.”

[8:9]  ⁵⁷ tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. NASB, NCV, NLT) or “bread” in particular (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV).

[8:9]  ⁵⁸ sn A land whose stones are iron. Since iron deposits are few and far between in Palestine, the reference here is probably to iron ore found in mines as opposed to the meteorite iron more commonly known in that area.

[8:14]  ⁶⁵ tn The words “be sure” are not in the Hebrew text; vv. 12-14 are part of the previous sentence. For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 in the translation and the words “be sure” repeated from v. 11 to indicate the connection.

[8:15]  ⁷³ tn Heb “flaming serpents”; KJV, NASB “fiery serpents”; NAB “saraph serpents.” This figure of speech (metonymy) probably describes the venomous and painful results of snakebite. The feeling from such an experience would be like a burning fire (שָׂרָף, saraf).

[8:15]  ⁷⁴ tn Heb “the one who brought out for you water.” In the Hebrew text this continues the preceding sentence, but the translation begins a new sentence here for stylistic reasons.

[8:16]  ⁸¹ tn Heb “in order to humble you and in order to test you.” See 8:2.

[8:17]  ⁸⁹ tn For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 17 in the translation and the words “be careful” supplied to indicate the connection.

[8:17]  ⁹⁰ tn Heb “my strength and the might of my hand.”

[8:18]  ⁹⁷ tc Smr and Lucian add “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” the standard way of rendering this almost stereotypical formula (cf. Deut 1:8; 6:10; 9:5, 27; 29:13; 30:20; 34:4). The MT’s harder reading presumptively argues for its originality, however.

[8:19]  ¹⁰⁵ tn Heb “if forgetting, you forget.” The infinitive absolute is used for emphasis; the translation indicates this with the words “at all” (cf. KJV).

[8:20]  ¹¹³ tn Heb “so you will perish.”

[8:20]  ¹¹⁴ tn Heb “listen to the voice of the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.