Deuteronomy 1:30

The LORD your God which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 1:30. Shall fight for you according to all that he did in Egypt — This was one of the strongest arguments possible to beget in them a firm reliance on the protection and help of God; since they could not but own that the same power which had redeemed them out of Egypt, was no less able to bring them into Canaan; yet even this proved to be of no avail.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:19-46 Moses reminds the Israelites of their march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, through that great and terrible wilderness. He shows how near they were to a happy settlement in Canaan. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites, that they were not far from the kingdom of God. As if it were not enough that they were sure of their God before them, they would send men before them. Never any looked into the Holy Land, but they must own it to be a good land. And was there any cause to distrust this God? An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God's laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God's salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The plan of sending the spies originated with the people; and, as in itself a reasonable one, it approved itself to Moses; it was submitted to God, sanctioned by Him, and carried out under special divine direction. The orator's purpose in this chapter is to bring before the people emphatically their own responsibilites and behavior. It is therefore important to remind them, that the sending of the spies, which led immediately to their complaining and rebellion, was their own suggestion.

The following verses to the end of the chapter give a condensed account, the fuller one being in Numbers 13-14, of the occurrences which led to the banishment of the people for 40 years into the wilderness.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. the cities are great, and walled up to heaven—an Oriental metaphor, meaning very high. The Arab marauders roam about on horseback, and hence the walls of St. Catherine's monastery on Sinai are so lofty that travellers are drawn up by a pulley in a basket.

Anakims—(See on [112]Nu 13:33). The honest and uncompromising language of Moses, in reminding the Israelites of their perverse conduct and outrageous rebellion at the report of the treacherous and fainthearted scouts, affords a strong evidence of the truth of this history as well as of the divine authority of his mission. There was great reason for his dwelling on this dark passage in their history, as it was their unbelief that excluded them from the privilege of entering the promised land (Heb 3:19); and that unbelief was a marvellous exhibition of human perversity, considering the miracles which God had wrought in their favor, especially in the daily manifestations they had of His presence among them as their leader and protector.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Where you were weak, dispirited, divided, raw, and unexperienced, and in a great measure unarmed, and able to do nothing against your numerous, potent, united enemies, but to stand still and see the salvation of God. And therefore now your distrust is highly unreasonable, when you have been hardened and fitted for military service by your travels, disciplined and experienced in some degree as to martial affairs, encouraged by frequent and glorious miracles for forty years together, and you are going into a country divided into several nations and kingdoms.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord your God, which goeth before you,.... In a pillar of cloud by day, and in a pillar of fire by night:

he shall fight for you; wherefore, though their enemies were greater and taller than they, yet their God was higher than the highest; and cities walled up to heaven would signify nothing to him, whose throne is in the heavens:

according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes: which is observed to encourage their faith in God; for he that wrought such wonders in Egypt for them, which their eyes, at least some of them, and their fathers, however, had seen, what is it he cannot do?

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD your God {s} which goeth before you, he shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;

(s) Declaring that to renounce our own force, and constantly to follow our calling, and depend on the Lord, is true boldness, and agreeable to God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

30. who goeth before you] Heb. emphatically, the goer before you is He, found only in D as here or with slight differences, Deuteronomy 1:33, Deuteronomy 20:4, Deuteronomy 31:6; Deuteronomy 31:8; J, Exodus 13:21, has the same part, without the def. art. adding the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire; E, Exodus 14:19, the angel of God going before the camp. It is in such differences of style as well as of figure that the distinction of D consists. See Driver on Exodus 13:21; Exodus 14:9.

he shall fight for you] Cp. JE, Exodus 14:14, and these deuteronomic passages: Exodus 14:25 : Deuteronomy 3:22; Joshua 10:14 b, Joshua 10:42, Deuteronomy 23:3; Deuteronomy 23:10.

before your eyes] LXX omit. Cp. Deuteronomy 4:6; Deuteronomy 4:34, Deuteronomy 6:22, Deuteronomy 9:17, Deuteronomy 25:3; Deuteronomy 25:9, Deuteronomy 28:31, Deuteronomy 29:1, Deuteronomy 31:7, Deuteronomy 34:12; Joshua 10:12; Joshua 24:17. Here Moses insists that the people must prefer their experience of God to the reports of the spies about a situation not yet reached. See Deuteronomy 1:27.

Deuteronomy 1:30

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The attempt made by Moses to inspire the despondent people with courage, when they were ready to despair of ever conquering the Canaanites, by pointing them to the help of the Lord, which they had experienced in so mighty and visible a manner in Egypt and the desert, and to urge them to renewed confidence in this their almighty Helper and Guide, was altogether without success. And just because the appeal of Moses was unsuccessful, it is passed over in the historical account in Numbers 13; all that is mentioned there (Deuteronomy 1:6-9) being the effort made by Joshua and Caleb to stir up the people, and that on account of the effects which followed the courageous bearing of these two men, so far as their own future history was concerned. The words "goeth before you," in Deuteronomy 1:30, are resumed in Deuteronomy 1:33, and carried out still further. "Jehovah,...He shall fight for you according to all (כּכל) that," i.e., in exactly the same manner, as, "He did for you in Egypt," especially at the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14), "and in the wilderness, which thou hast seen (ראית, as in Deuteronomy 1:19), where (אשׁר without בּו in a loose connection; see Ewald, 331, c. and 333, a.) Jehovah thy God bore thee as a man beareth his son;" i.e., supported, tended, and provided for thee in the most fatherly way (see the similar figure in Numbers 11:12, and expanded still more fully in Psalm 23:1-6).