Deuteronomy 8:3-6 And he humbled you, and suffered you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know… What is it, therefore, to live by bread alone? Let us contemplate the present age. Behold a workman of the fields always looking down upon his plough, and who never gives himself time to look up towards the heaven whence fertility descends; behold a workman of the town for whom all days are alike, and who quits his trade only for pleasure, or what he believes to be such; behold a man who has dividends, and who lulls himself to sleep in a selfish indolence, whence he awakes only twice a year to receive them; behold an employe, that is to say a man who during his life gives six days to writings of which he is weary and the seventh to amusements of which he will become weary also; behold a wealthy man, and when one asks what is his occupation, he has only one, that of administering his fortune, and, if possible, augmenting it; and those savants who deal only in science, searching unceasingly into the truth of facts, and forgetting the voice which said: "I am the truth"; and those artists who pursue the beautiful whilst forgetting the supreme beauty; and those literary men, who seek the sublime, whilst forgetting that religion is the chief sublime; and those magistrates, who only judge or administer; and those potentates of the earth, who only skim and rule...All those men are, perhaps, good and honourable, incapable of staining their reputation, of dishonouring themselves...But they live by bread only; the earthly life rules them, carries them away, preoccupies them, to the point of leading them to egotism and indifference; they are so mindful of themselves that they forget God; of the world, that they forget heaven; of life, that they forget death and immortality; they take so much care of themselves that they take none of their neighbour; and as to their family, they dream of its advancement. They live in a manner most honourable, doubtless; but they live by bread only...only, and this is their folly and transgression. (Athanase Coquerel.) Parallel Verses KJV: And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live. |
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