Two chapters on why Israel was chosen and what the wilderness was for. The answer to the first is deflating and freeing: not because they were impressive — they were the smallest nation going — but because God loved them. The answer to the second is that forty years of hunger and manna were a school, teaching a lesson the full barns of Canaan would make easy to forget.
A study in Deuteronomy 7-8 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 8 min read
The Fewest Of All People
“The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people.”
Deuteronomy 7:7
Israel is told plainly what did not qualify it: not size, not strength, not achievement. It was the smallest of the nations. God explains His choice by ruling out every reason a chosen people might feel proud of. Election here is humbling, not flattering.
Because The LORD Loved You
“But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers… Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.”
Deuteronomy 7:8-9
The only reason given is a circular one: He loved you because He loved you, and because He had promised. That is what grace always looks like when you trace it back — it does not rest on anything in the person. And it is durable: “the faithful God… to a thousand generations.” A love that did not begin with our worth will not end with our failure.
To Humble Thee, And To Prove Thee
“And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee… 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.”
Deuteronomy 8:2-3
The hunger and the manna were deliberate — a curriculum. Stripped of every resource but God’s daily word, Israel was meant to learn that His word is what actually sustains a life. When Jesus faced His own forty days in the wilderness, hungry, this is the verse He threw back at the tempter.
“When Christ said to the tempter, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,’ He repeated the words that, more than fourteen hundred years before, He had spoken to Israel.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 121
My Power And The Might Of Mine Hand
“Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God… And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth.”
Deuteronomy 8:11, 17-18
The wilderness was hard, but the real test comes when they are “full.” A comfortable, successful people is in more spiritual danger than a hungry one, because success whispers that you did this yourself. Moses tells them to say a blessing over the good land precisely so the full stomach does not become a forgetful heart. The next study drives the point home: not for your righteousness.
