15 Who was your guide through that great and cruel waste, where there were poison-snakes and scorpions and a dry land without water; who made water come out of the hard rock for you;
And lifting up his hand, Moses gave the rock two blows with his rod: and water came streaming out, and the people and their cattle had drink enough.
Then the Lord sent poison-snakes among the people; and their bites were a cause of death to numbers of the people of Israel.
Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.
And they never said, Where is the Lord, who took us up out of the land of Egypt; who was our guide through the waste of sand, through an unplanted land full of deep holes, through a dry land of deep shade, which no one went through and where no man was living?
And the Lord said to Moses, Go on before the people, and take some of the chiefs of Israel with you, and take in your hand the rod which was stretched out over the Nile, and go. See, I will take my place before you on the rock in Horeb; and when you give the rock a blow, water will come out of it, and the people will have drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the chiefs of Israel.
He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;
His hand made the rock open, and the waters came streaming out; they went down through the dry places like a river.
To him who took his people through the waste land: for his mercy is unchanging for ever.
He who made the arm of his glory go at the right hand of Moses, by whom the waters were parted before them, to make himself an eternal name; He who made them go through the deep waters, like a horse in the waste land? Like the cattle which go down into the valley, they went without falling, the spirit of the Lord guiding them: so you went before your people, to make yourself a great name.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Deuteronomy 8
Commentary on Deuteronomy 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
Moses had charged parents in teaching their children to whet the word of God upon them (ch. 6:7) by frequent repetition of the same things over and over again; and here he himself takes the same method of instructing the Israelites as his children, frequently inculcating the same precepts and cautions, with the same motives or arguments to enforce them, that what they heard so often might abide with them. In this chapter Moses gives them,
Deu 8:1-9
The charge here given them is the same as before, to keep and do all God's commandments. Their obedience must be,
Deu 8:10-20
Moses, having mentioned the great plenty they would find in the land of Canaan, finds it necessary to caution them against the abuse of that plenty, which was a sin they would be the more prone to new that they came into the vineyard of the Lord, immediately out of a barren desert.