Deuteronomy
Chapter 8
Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone
Be careful to fulfill all the commandments I give you today, that you may live and increase, and conquer the land the Lord promised on oath to your fathers.
Remember how the Lord, your God, brought you through the desert for forty years. He humbled you to test you and know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.
He made you experience want, he made you experience hunger, but he gave you manna to eat which neither you nor your fathers had known, to show you that one does not live on bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the mouth of God.
Your garment did not even fray, or your foot swell all these forty years.
Understand, then, that the Lord has taught you like a father teaches his child.
Observe the commandments of the Lord, your God; follow his ways and revere him.
For the Lord, your God, will bring you into that good land, a land of streams and rivers, of subterranean waters that gush forth in the valleys and mountains,
a land of wheat and barley, of grapes and figs, of pomegranates and olives, a land of oil and honey,
a land where the bread you eat is not rationed and where you will lack nothing, a land with iron in stones and copper mines in the mountains.
You shall eat until satisfied and bless the Lord for the good land he has given you.
Warnings About Forgetting God
So take care that you do not forget the Lord, your God, by neglecting the commandments, norms, and laws I give you today.
And when you have eaten and have been satisfied, when you have built comfortable homes and live in them,
when your livestock have multiplied, when you have silver and gold in abundance and an increase of good things of every kind,
then do not let your heart become proud and do not forget the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery.
He has led you across this great, terrible desert full of fiery serpents, scorpions, and arid land without water. But for you, he made water gush forth from the hardest rock.
And he fed you in the desert with manna which your fathers did not know. He made you experience want and put you to the test so that it would be for your good later on,
lest you say, “With my own strength, I have attained all these good things.”
Remember the Lord, your God, who gave you the power to become prosperous, as you are today, fulfilling the Covenant he promised under oath to your fathers.
But if you forget the Lord and follow other gods, if you pay them homage and bow before them, I warn you right now that you will surely perish.
In the same way that the Lord destroyed the nations that stood in your way, so will he destroy you if you disobey the Lord, your God.
Commentaries
Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone.
The profound significance of the desert in shaping the Israelite people’s conscience is apparent in the first part of this chapter. It shows Israel’s reflection on their desert experience as a place filled with real dangers (15) and also with life opportunities, serving as a battleground between good and evil, sin and grace, God and Satan, truth and falsehood, the Law and debauchery, loyalty and idolatry, community and selfishness, peace and violence. The desert, both as a physical location and a symbolic space, is where God shapes (teaches, cultivates) his people.
This sentence, conveyed by the Lord through Moses, is the same one Jesus reminds the Tempter of when he suggests that he accomplish his messianic mission by focusing only on the material, tangible, and immediate aspects of people. Both the authors of Deuteronomy and Jesus emphasize that this non-material, intangible, spiritual, and conscientious dimension, inherent to human beings, also needs to be cultivated, nourished, and cared for. Here, “everything that comes from the mouth of God” is presented as the primary nourishment, but that does not mean it is the only source, nor does it imply that other ways of enriching the human spirit are insignificant. All that enhances the human spirit is essential, including science and culture. Everything that humanizes humanity is not only a right but also a responsibility. To deny this potential, this calling, and to block it is to oppose the very life plan proposed by the Father and embraced by Jesus, who, knowing this, has come so that all “may have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
Warnings About Forgetting God.
Often, good health, prosperity, and political and military power are accompanied by a certain arrogance and a forgetfulness of God. Since the people have already experienced the negative consequences of straying from the path set by the Lord, the preacher seeks to renew the Covenant, urging them not to repeat past mistakes to avoid further destruction. The harmful effects of turning away from him—disregarding his plan for life, freedom, and justice—are not merely “punishment from God,” but the results of rejecting life that inevitably lead to ethical and moral decline, which the Bible describes as destruction and death.