For the land that you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated on foot, like a vegetable garden. For the land you are entering to possessThis phrase sets the stage for a significant transition for the Israelites. The Hebrew word for "land" is "eretz," which often signifies not just a physical territory but a place of divine promise and blessing. The "land" they are entering is Canaan, a land promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This promise is a central theme in the Pentateuch, symbolizing God's faithfulness and the fulfillment of His covenant. The phrase "to possess" indicates a divine mandate and inheritance, suggesting that this land is not merely a place to inhabit but a gift from God that requires stewardship and obedience. is not like the land of Egypt
Egypt, in the biblical narrative, represents a place of bondage and human effort. The Israelites' experience in Egypt was marked by slavery and oppression, a stark contrast to the freedom and divine provision they are to experience in the Promised Land. The phrase "not like the land of Egypt" emphasizes the difference between a life of self-reliance and one of reliance on God's provision. Historically, Egypt was known for its dependence on the Nile River for irrigation, symbolizing human control and effort in agriculture. from which you have come
This phrase serves as a reminder of the Israelites' past and the deliverance God provided. The journey from Egypt to the Promised Land is not just a physical journey but a spiritual one, moving from slavery to freedom, from human effort to divine grace. The phrase underscores the importance of remembering God's past faithfulness as a foundation for trusting Him in the future. where you sowed your seed and irrigated it by hand
The agricultural practices in Egypt required significant human labor and ingenuity. The phrase "sowed your seed and irrigated it by hand" highlights the reliance on human effort and the toil associated with it. In contrast, the Promised Land is described elsewhere in Deuteronomy as a land flowing with milk and honey, where God Himself provides rain and fertility. This contrast serves to remind the Israelites that their new life in Canaan will be marked by divine provision rather than human toil. as in a vegetable garden
The imagery of a "vegetable garden" suggests a small, controlled, and labor-intensive environment. In Egypt, the Israelites were confined and their efforts limited to what they could manage with their own hands. This phrase contrasts with the vastness and abundance of the Promised Land, which is described as a land of hills and valleys, watered by rain from heaven. The metaphor of a vegetable garden underscores the limitations of human effort compared to the boundless provision of God in the land He is giving them. Persons / Places / Events 1. MosesThe author of Deuteronomy, delivering God's message to the Israelites. 2. IsraelitesThe chosen people of God, who are being prepared to enter the Promised Land. 3. EgyptThe land of bondage from which the Israelites were delivered, characterized by manual labor and dependence on human effort for agriculture. 4. Promised Land (Canaan)The land God promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, described as a land flowing with milk and honey. 5. The ExodusThe event of God delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, leading them towards the Promised Land. Teaching Points Contrast Between Human Effort and Divine ProvisionThe Israelites' experience in Egypt required human effort for sustenance, symbolizing reliance on self. In contrast, the Promised Land represents God's provision and blessing. Dependence on GodJust as the Israelites were to depend on God for the fertility of the Promised Land, believers today are called to trust in God's provision and guidance in their lives. Spiritual Growth and FruitfulnessThe transition from Egypt to the Promised Land can be seen as a metaphor for spiritual growth, moving from self-reliance to a life of faith and fruitfulness in Christ. Remembering Past DeliveranceReflecting on past deliverance from "Egypt" in our lives can strengthen our faith and trust in God's future promises. Living in the Promises of GodBelievers are encouraged to live in the reality of God's promises, embracing the abundant life He offers through faith and obedience. Bible Study Questions 1. How does the contrast between Egypt and the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 11:10 reflect our spiritual journey from self-reliance to faith in God? 2. In what ways can we apply the lesson of dependence on God from this verse to our daily lives? 3. How does the concept of divine provision in the Promised Land relate to Jesus' teaching in John 15:5 about abiding in Him? 4. What are some "Egypts" in your life that God has delivered you from, and how can remembering these strengthen your faith? 5. How can the promise of a "land flowing with milk and honey" inspire us to live out our faith in the promises of God today? Connections to Other Scriptures Genesis 12:1-3God's promise to Abraham about the land and blessings, setting the stage for the Israelites' journey. Exodus 3:7-8God's assurance to Moses about delivering the Israelites from Egypt to a good and spacious land. Numbers 13:27The report of the spies about the richness of the Promised Land, contrasting it with Egypt. Hebrews 11:8-10The faith of Abraham in looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God, paralleling the Israelites' journey to the Promised Land. John 15:5Jesus' teaching on dependence on Him, contrasting human effort with divine provision. People Abiram, Canaanites, Dathan, Eliab, Moses, Pharaoh, ReubenPlaces Arabah, Beth-baal-peor, Egypt, Euphrates River, Gilgal, Jordan River, Lebanon, Moreh, Mount Ebal, Mount Gerizim, Red SeaTopics Egypt, Enterest, Entering, Foot, Garden, Goest, Green, Hast, Herb, Herbs, Irrigated, Isn't, Planted, Possess, Possession, Seed, Seeds, Sow, Sowed, Sowedst, Sowest, Vegetable, Vegetables, Watered, Wateredst, Watering, Whence, WhitherDictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 11:10 4240 garden, natural
4260 rivers and streams Deuteronomy 11:8-12 1335 blessing Deuteronomy 11:8-17 7258 promised land, early history Deuteronomy 11:10-11 4468 horticulture
4532 vegetables Deuteronomy 11:10-12 5704 inheritance, material Deuteronomy 11:10-15 4854 weather, God's sovereignty
8472 respect, for environment 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: 1856The 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 11:10 NIVDeuteronomy 11:10 NLTDeuteronomy 11:10 ESVDeuteronomy 11:10 NASBDeuteronomy 11:10 KJV
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