Deuteronomy 11:6
and what He did in the midst of all the Israelites to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that belonged to them.
Sermons
The Spirit of RevolutionW. Grashoff.Deuteronomy 11:6
Ocular Demonstrations of God's Nearness Increase Human ResponsibilityD. Davies Deuteronomy 11:1-7
Divine Judgments Upon Others, to Ensure Obedience in UsR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 11:1-9
Obligations Arising from Personal ExperienceJ. Orr Deuteronomy 11:2-10, 18-22














Chastisement (ver. 2) in its wide sense of discipline. The educative process by which God converted, or aimed at converting, the hordes who left Egypt into a nation of brave, free, God-fearing, self-respecting, obedient men and women. This education blended deliverance with judgment on their enemies; loving-kindness in the bestowal of mercies, with severe chastisements in cases of rebellion; attention to their necessities, with frequent exposure to adversity, and consequent trial of their faith and patience. They had been put to school with the Almighty as their Teacher; their lesson-book was the whole extraordinary series of occurrences in Egypt and the desert; the end of the training was to form them to obedience.

I. THREE PHASES OF GOD'S INSTRUCTION OF HIS CHURCH.

1. The shattering of worldly power hostile to the Church (vers. 3, 4). Pharaoh, in his pride and obstinacy, is a type of world-power universally, in its opposition to God's kingdom (Romans 9:17). But though again and again the waves have thus roared, and the floods have lifted up their voice (Psalm 93:3, 4), the Lord on high has shown himself mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea (cf. Psalm 83.; Isaiah 37.; 1 Macc. 4.; Acts 4:23-34; Revelations 19:19; 20:8, 9).

2. The preservation and guidance of the Church itself (ver. 5). In securing the perpetuation of a godly remnant in times of greatest apostasy (1 Kings 19:18; Romans 11:5; Revelations 3:5; 11:3; 12:17); in providing her with a succession of godly teachers (Matthew 28:20; Ephesians 4:11-14); in supplying her necessities, spiritual (John 6:32, 33; 1 Corinthians 10:4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Ephesians 3:16; Philippians 4:19) and temporal (Matthew 10:9, 10; Acts 4:34; 1 Corinthians 9:14; Philippians 4:15, 16); in opening up the path of duty (Acts 16:10; Romans 15:30, 31; 2 Corinthians 10:13-17), in conducting her from one stage of attainment to another (Ephesians 4:12, 13).

3. The overthrow of antichristian rebellion within the Church (ver. 6). The insurrection of Korah and his company may be taken as representative of antichristian movements generally. These are bound to arise, but will infallibly be crushed (2 Thessalonians 2:3-13; 1 John 2:18; Revelation 17.).

II. OBLIGATIONS ARISING FROM EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S WONDERFUL WORKS. The older portion of that generation had personally witnessed the wonderful works referred to. This gave them a certain advantage, and made disobedience doubly culpable. These works of God had been:

(1) in origin, supernatural;

(2) in kind, of stupendous magnitude; and

(3) had extended over a long period of time.

Those who have lived through any period signalized by remarkable workings of God on behalf of his Church, or whose individual experiences have been remarkable, may learn a lesson. Apply to reformation times, times of religious revival, of deliverance from persecutions, of the forth-putting of God's power in missions, etc. (2 Chronicles 31:25, 26; Ezra 3:10-13; Ezra 6:22; Esther 9:27; Psalm 40:10; Psalm 116:6-9; Acts 15:12). Such experiences:

1. Furnish peculiar evidences of God's grace and power, of the reality of his working in salvation and judgment. These evidences, while not losing their value to later generations, are necessarily of greatest force to those who witness the events.

2. Create impressions of God's character and attributes not so readily created by report. It is much to hear of the wonderful works of God from credible witnesses, but hearing with the ear cannot equal, in impressiveness and force, seeing with the eye (Job 42:5).

3. Imply a personal discipline which others have not had the benefit of. The lessons of our experiences may be conveyed to posterity, but the results of them in personal character remain with ourselves. All this lays on those who have had such experiences very special responsibilities. These relate

(1) to personal obedience (ver. 8); and

(2) to the education of children (vers. 18-21).

How are our children to know of God's mighty works in former days, or get the benefit of our own experiences; how are they to be convinced, moved, or instructed by these things, save as the result of diligent parental teaching? - J.O.

And what He did unto Dathan and Abiram.
Moses recalls the revolt against his authority in the wilderness. It took place in conjunction with the revolt of Korah (Numbers 17). The point which Moses emphasises is the revolt against Divinely constituted authority, and the result thereof. At the head of the civil rebellion were the sons of Reuben, Dathan and Abiram. As descendants of the first-born of Israel they grudged Moses his lofty position. They allied themselves with the Levitical revolt, and under the cloak of asserting the universal priesthood of the people (Numbers 16:3) led many to follow them into the vortex of revolution. This insurrection against the Divinely ordered religious and political order threatened the very existence of Israel. God therefore visited the rebels with special Divine judgment, and the nation was saved. This episode in Israel's history gives us a glimpse of the motives which underlie most revolutionary movements. In these —

I. VICE DECKS HERSELF IN THE APPEARANCE OF VIRTUE.

1. The revolutionaries profess ardent desires for the commonweal, for freedom — to save the "enslaved community," etc. Liberty, equality, etc., is their cry, war against tyranny and oppression. They seek to play the role of unselfish friends of the people.

2. But in their depths such movements are mostly dominated by selfishness. In the revolt here referred to Korah was simply an ambitious Levite, hypocritical and selfish. The Reubenites were moved by tribal ambition. Selfishness, ambition, special interests were the moving springs of this as of other revolutions.

3. The revolution of Dathan and Abiram took its rise first on an ecclesiastical ground; but the political movement was not far behind the ecclesiastical. Men with widely differing opinions joined in opposing constituted authority. The cry for "illumination" is speedily followed by that for so-called "freedom."

4. Revolution is not accompanied by penitence. It never seeks the ground of its complaints in the faults of the people themselves.

5. Most revolutions are dominated by some "phrase" or party cry. Here it was: "All the people are holy." The power of the partial truth in it lay in God's Word: "Ye shall be to Me...an holy nation." But God had appointed leaders in Church and State, therefore it was against His authority Dathan and Abiram rebelled.

II. THE PROPHETIC SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS TYPICAL EVENT.

1. The deepest fulfilment lies in the future — in the days of antichrist. Then the political and ecclesiastical order will be overturned — when antichrist comes offering promise of deliverance from all ecclesiastical and political ills.

2. But the punishment meted out to Dathan and Abiram with their fellow rebels shall fall more fiercely on antichrist (Revelation 19:20).

3. A veil, however, overhangs this future. Still there are experiences in history which prepare us to understand what shall be. The French Revolution is a striking example. It was not merely a revolt of ruled against rulers. It was first a spiritual revolution. Scepticism had loosened religious authority, and the political crisis speedily followed, as in the rebellion of Korah. So in France ambitious leaders shrieked of liberty, etc. The whole foundations of order were overturned. Then from the Revolution rose one who had no law but his own will. He trod men under his feet; for twenty-five years the storm raged. Here was a faint experience of what will be in the times of antichrist. A respite has been given; but he who has eyes may conceive somewhat of the trend of that great future revolt.

III. WHAT SHALL WE DO IN VIEW OF WHAT IS COMING?

1. Let us ask, guided by God's Word, what revolts in Church and State will lead to. What is the meaning of much of so-called "progress" and "freedom"? "If the Son shall make you free," etc. (John 8:36). What is "culture" if not found in Christ's Gospel? — this is the only "culture" of eternal worth. Modern "progress" does not always mean progress in righteousness.

2. Do not let the hollow "phrases" of the modern age influence us. In God's Word the madness of rebellion, its falseness and hypocrisy are seen, and its terrible end. The way of righteousness is conformity to the Divine order. The sin of participation in rebellion must be shunned. Those who stand on the side of revolution, of the antichristian age, or (in the future) of antichrist, lay themselves open to the punishment of the rebellious Reubenites.

(W. Grashoff.)

People
Abiram, Canaanites, Dathan, Eliab, Moses, Pharaoh, Reuben
Places
Arabah, Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, Euphrates River, Gilgal, Jordan River, Lebanon, Moreh, Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim, Red Sea
Topics
Abiram, Belonged, Dathan, Eliab, Followed, Households, Middle, Midst, Mouth, Opened, Reuben, Reubenite, Sons, Swallowed, Tents
Outline
1. Another exhortation to obedience
2. by their own experience of God's great works
8. by promise of God's great blessings
16. and by threatenings
18. A careful study is required in God's words
26. The blessing and curse set before them

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 11:6

     5167   mouth
     5682   family, significance

Deuteronomy 11:2-7

     5854   experience, of God
     8231   discipline, divine

Library
Canaan on Earth
Many of you, my dear hearers, are really come out of Egypt; but you are still wandering about in the wilderness. "We that have believed do enter into rest;" but you, though you have eaten of Jesus, have not so believed on him as to have entered into the Canaan of rest. You are the Lord's people, but you have not come into the Canaan of assured faith, confidence, and hope, where we wrestle no longer with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus--when
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

The God of the Rain
(Fifth Sunday after Easter.) DEUT. xi. 11, 12. The land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven. 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. I told you, when I spoke of the earthquakes of the Holy Land, that it seems as if God had meant specially to train that strange people the Jews, by putting them into a country where they
Charles Kingsley—The Gospel of the Pentateuch

Gilgal, in Deuteronomy 11:30 what the Place Was.
That which is said by Moses, that "Gerizim and Ebal were over-against Gilgal," Deuteronomy 11:30, is so obscure, that it is rendered into contrary significations by interpreters. Some take it in that sense, as if it were near to Gilgal: some far off from Gilgal: the Targumists read, "before Gilgal": while, as I think, they do not touch the difficulty; which lies not so much in the signification of the word Mul, as in the ambiguity of the word Gilgal. These do all seem to understand that Gilgal which
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Josiah, a Pattern for the Ignorant.
"Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before Me; I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place."--2 Kings
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

The Blessings of Noah Upon Shem and Japheth. (Gen. Ix. 18-27. )
Ver. 20. "And Noah began and became an husbandman, and planted vineyards."--This does not imply that Noah was the first who began to till the ground, and, more especially, to cultivate the vine; for Cain, too, was a tiller of the ground, Gen. iv. 2. The sense rather is, that Noah, after the flood, again took up this calling. Moreover, the remark has not an independent import; it serves only to prepare the way for the communication of the subsequent account of Noah's drunkenness. By this remark,
Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg—Christology of the Old Testament

Subjects of Study. Home Education in Israel; Female Education. Elementary Schools, Schoolmasters, and School Arrangements.
If a faithful picture of society in ancient Greece or Rome were to be presented to view, it is not easy to believe that even they who now most oppose the Bible could wish their aims success. For this, at any rate, may be asserted, without fear of gainsaying, that no other religion than that of the Bible has proved competent to control an advanced, or even an advancing, state of civilisation. Every other bound has been successively passed and submerged by the rising tide; how deep only the student
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

In the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius Cæsar and under the Pontificate of Annas and Caiaphas - a Voice in the Wilderness
THERE is something grand, even awful, in the almost absolute silence which lies upon the thirty years between the Birth and the first Messianic Manifestation of Jesus. In a narrative like that of the Gospels, this must have been designed; and, if so, affords presumptive evidence of the authenticity of what follows, and is intended to teach, that what had preceded concerned only the inner History of Jesus, and the preparation of the Christ. At last that solemn silence was broken by an appearance,
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Worship of the Synagogue
One of the most difficult questions in Jewish history is that connected with the existence of a synagogue within the Temple. That such a "synagogue" existed, and that its meeting-place was in "the hall of hewn stones," at the south-eastern angle of the court of the priest, cannot be called in question, in face of the clear testimony of contemporary witnesses. Considering that "the hall of hew stones" was also the meeting-place for the great Sanhedrim, and that not only legal decisions, but lectures
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Among the People, and with the Pharisees
It would have been difficult to proceed far either in Galilee or in Judaea without coming into contact with an altogether peculiar and striking individuality, differing from all around, and which would at once arrest attention. This was the Pharisee. Courted or feared, shunned or flattered, reverently looked up to or laughed at, he was equally a power everywhere, both ecclesiastically and politically, as belonging to the most influential, the most zealous, and the most closely-connected religions
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Covenanting Confers Obligation.
As it has been shown that all duty, and that alone, ought to be vowed to God in covenant, it is manifest that what is lawfully engaged to in swearing by the name of God is enjoined in the moral law, and, because of the authority of that law, ought to be performed as a duty. But it is now to be proved that what is promised to God by vow or oath, ought to be performed also because of the act of Covenanting. The performance of that exercise is commanded, and the same law which enjoins that the duties
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

The Old Testament Canon from Its Beginning to Its Close.
The first important part of the Old Testament put together as a whole was the Pentateuch, or rather, the five books of Moses and Joshua. This was preceded by smaller documents, which one or more redactors embodied in it. The earliest things committed to writing were probably the ten words proceeding from Moses himself, afterwards enlarged into the ten commandments which exist at present in two recensions (Exod. xx., Deut. v.) It is true that we have the oldest form of the decalogue from the Jehovist
Samuel Davidson—The Canon of the Bible

Deuteronomy
Owing to the comparatively loose nature of the connection between consecutive passages in the legislative section, it is difficult to present an adequate summary of the book of Deuteronomy. In the first section, i.-iv. 40, Moses, after reviewing the recent history of the people, and showing how it reveals Jehovah's love for Israel, earnestly urges upon them the duty of keeping His laws, reminding them of His spirituality and absoluteness. Then follows the appointment, iv. 41-43--here irrelevant (cf.
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Deuteronomy 11:6 NIV
Deuteronomy 11:6 NLT
Deuteronomy 11:6 ESV
Deuteronomy 11:6 NASB
Deuteronomy 11:6 KJV

Deuteronomy 11:6 Bible Apps
Deuteronomy 11:6 Parallel
Deuteronomy 11:6 Biblia Paralela
Deuteronomy 11:6 Chinese Bible
Deuteronomy 11:6 French Bible
Deuteronomy 11:6 German Bible

Deuteronomy 11:6 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Deuteronomy 11:5
Top of Page
Top of Page