Deuteronomy11
New Living Translation
1“You must love the Lord your God and always obey his requirements, decrees, regulations, and commands.
2Keep in mind that I am not talking now to your children, who have never experienced the discipline of the Lord your God or seen his greatness and his strong hand and powerful arm.
3They didn’t see the miraculous signs and wonders he performed in Egypt against Pharaoh and all his land.
4They didn’t see what the Lord did to the armies of Egypt and to their horses and chariots—how he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. He destroyed them, and they have not recovered to this very day!
5“Your children didn’t see how the Lord cared for you in the wilderness until you arrived here.
6They didn’t see what he did to Dathan and Abiram (the sons of Eliab, a descendant of Reuben) when the earth opened its mouth in the Israelite camp and swallowed them, along with their households and tents and every living thing that belonged to them.
7But you have seen the Lord perform all these mighty deeds with your own eyes!
8“Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter.
9If you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants—a land flowing with milk and honey!
10For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden.
11Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain—
12a land that the Lord your God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year!
13“If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today, and if you love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and soul,
14then he will send the rains in their proper seasons—the early and late rains—so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil.
15He will give you lush pastureland for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat.
16“But be careful. Don’t let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods.
17If you do, the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you.
18“So commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these words of mine. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders.
19Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up.
20Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21so that as long as the sky remains above the earth, you and your children may flourish in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors.
22“Be careful to obey all these commands I am giving you. Show love to the Lord your God by walking in his ways and holding tightly to him.
23Then the Lord will drive out all the nations ahead of you, though they are much greater and stronger than you, and you will take over their land.
24Wherever you set foot, that land will be yours. Your frontiers will stretch from the wilderness in the south to Lebanon in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
25No one will be able to stand against you, for the Lord your God will cause the people to fear and dread you, as he promised, wherever you go in the whole land.
26“Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse!
27You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today.
28But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the Lord your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before.
29“When the Lord your God brings you into the land and helps you take possession of it, you must pronounce the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal.
30(These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley, near the town of Gilgal, not far from the oaks of Moreh.)
31For you are about to cross the Jordan River to take over the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take that land and are living in it,
32you must be careful to obey all the decrees and regulations I am giving you today.
Study Guide
Public-domain commentary and original-language notes for Deuteronomy 11.
Chapter Summary
In this chapter: The great work God wrought for Israel. (1–7). Promises and threatenings. (8–17). Careful study of God's word requisite. (18–25). The blessings and the curse set forth. (26–32).
vv1-7
Observe the connexion of these two; Thou shalt love the Lord, and keep his charge. Love will work in obedience, and that only is acceptable obedience which flows from a principle of love, 1Jo 5:3. Moses recounts some of the great and terrible works of God which their eyes had seen. What our eyes have seen, especially in our early days, should affect us, and make us better long afterwards.
vv8-17
Moses sets before them, for the future, life and death, the blessing and the curse, according as they did or did not keep God's commandment. Sin tends to shorten the days of all men, and to shorten the days of a people's prosperity. God will bless them with an abundance of all good things, if they would love him and serve him. Godliness has the promise of the life that now is; but the favour of God shall put gladness into the heart, more than the increase of corn, and wine, and oil. Revolt from God to idols would certainly be their ruin. Take heed that your hearts be not deceived. All who forsake God to set their affection upon any creature, will find themselves wretchedly deceived, to their own destruction; and this will make it worse, that it was for want of taking heed.
vv18-25
Let all be directed by the three rules here given. 1. Let our hearts be filled with the word of God. There will not be good practices in the life, unless there be good thoughts, good affections, and good principles in the heart. 2. Let our eyes be fixed upon the word of God, having constant regard to it as the guide of our way, as the rule of our work, Ps 119:30. 3. Let our tongues be employed about the word of God. Nor will any thing do more to cause prosperity, and keeping up religion in a nation, than the good education of children.
Key Words
אָהַב: to have affection for (sexually or otherwise)
אֱלֹהִים: gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative
שָׁמַר: properly, to hedge about (as with thorns), i.e. guard; generally, to protect, attend to, etc.
מִשְׁמֶרֶת: watch, i.e. the act (custody), or (concretely) the sentry, the post; objectively preservation, or (concretely) safe; figuratively observance, i.e. (abstractly) duty or (objectively) a usage or party
חֻקָּה: {an enactment; hence, an appointment (of time, space, quantity, labor or usage)}
מִשְׁפָּט: properly, a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree (human or (participant's) divine law, individual or collective), including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penalty; abstractly, justice, including a participant's right or privilege (statutory or customary), or even a style
מִצְוָה: a command, whether human or divine (collectively, the Law)
יָדַע: to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing); used in a great variety of senses, figuratively, literally, euphemistically and inferentially (including observation, care, recognition; and causatively, instruction, designation, punishment, etc.)
יוֹם: a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), (often used adverb)
כִּי: (by implication) very widely used as a relative conjunction or adverb (as below); often largely modified by other particles annexed
Cross References
Deuteronomy 11The historical account of the earth swallowing Dathan and Abiram mentioned in verse 6.
Supported by Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, John Calvin, JFB
Identical commandment to bind God's words as signs and frontlets.
Supported by Matthew Henry, John Calvin
Identical commandment to teach the words to children when sitting, walking, lying down, and rising.
Supported by Matthew Henry, John Calvin
The fulfillment of Joshua setting the blessings and curses on Gerizim and Ebal.
Supported by Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole
The historical account of God destroying Pharaoh's horses, chariots, and army in the Red Sea.
Supported by Matthew Poole, John Calvin, JFB
New Testament reference to the agricultural patience required for the early and latter rain.
Supported by JFB
Prophetic promise of the early rain and the latter rain in their seasons.
Supported by JFB
Moses reiterates setting life/death and blessing/cursing before Israel for their choice.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Historical example of heaven being shut up from rain due to Israel's idolatry.
Supported by JFB
The original command during Passover to keep God's law as a sign on the hand.
Supported by Matthew Poole
God's original covenant boundary promise to Abraham, including the Euphrates river.
Supported by Matthew Poole
The explicit cataloging of blessings on Gerizim and curses on Ebal.
Supported by Matthew Henry
Parallel description of Canaan's natural water supply contrasted with Egypt.
Supported by Matthew Poole
The plains of Moreh connected to Abraham's first altar in Canaan.
Supported by Matthew Poole