There is an unmistakable association that was intended (for
the reader to pick up on here) between the actions of God in the past and the
actions that we can anticipate from Him in the future. Moses simply reminded
Israel of the things that God had done for them in his lifetime. They were to remember and not forget how that
(with some difficulties) God delivered them from Egypt, led them, fed them with
manna, kept their clothing as good as new, prevented them from having ill
health, quenched their thirst and even disciplined and trained them along the
way. The overt inference that Moses was aiming at was that God would do similar
things for them later in Canaan. Not the same things, but different things with
the same power and for the same general reason.
So,
Moses admonished the people to keep their eyes on God, to keep His
commandments, to walk in His ways and to fear Him. The blessings that they
could expect were these (listed in the text): God would bring them into a good
land, they would have water, wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates,
olive oil, honey, plenty of bread, iron, brass, silver, gold, nice houses,
herds, flocks, a growing population and full stomachs. Sounds pretty good, eh?
That specific type of success was part of the covenant that was uniquely given
to Israel. We should not extrapolate from that any sort of health and wealth
prosperity gospel for ourselves today. Not to say that God never blesses anyone
abundantly anymore, for, He does! But the material promises for Israel were exclusively
theirs. Our guarantees are primarily spiritual (Ephesians 1:3 & Matthew
6:33).
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