DEUTERONOMY 8

1 All the commandments [Kol hamitzvot] which I command thee this day shall ye observe [be shomer] to do, that [lema'an (in order that)] ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land [ha'aretz] which Yahweh sware unto your fathers [Avoteichem].

2 And thou shalt remember all the way [kol haderech] which Yahweh thy Elohim led thee these forty years [arba'im shanah] in the wilderness [midbar], to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart [lev], whether thou wouldest keep [be shomer] his commandments [over His mitzvot], or no.

..."remember" - Hebrew signifying to mark (so as to be recognised), ... to recall it to mind by making mention of it... avoid any repetition of mistakes.

"To humble thee, and to prove thee" — Man is by nature self-centred and arrogant. Reverses humble him, and make him more amenable to Divine instruction ...Even a man of the spiritual calibre of Hezekiah allowed "his heart to be lifted up" and so brought trouble on the nation (2 Chron. 32:25-26, 31).

To know what was in thine heart

What a person may hide in his heart can be entirely different to what he proclaims with his lips. The hidden heart of man reveals the true motives of his life. Hezekiah was tested in that way, and it was found that his heart was lifted up.

Christ warned the Ecclesias that

"he who searcheth the reins and hearts will give unto every one according to their works" (Rev. 2:23).

External appearances will be ruthlessly torn aside in that day. The friends of Job falsely implied that he was guilty of secret sin, of

"covering his trangressions as Adam, by hiding his iniquity in his bosom" (Job 31:33).

Unable to convince his friends of his innocence, Job denied the accusation before the Judge of all the earth with Whom we have to do and to Whom

"all things are naked and open" (Heb. 4:13).

From Him, Job received vindication, so that his friends had to make reconciliation.

The Christadelphian Expositor

3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers [Avoteicha] know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread [lechem] only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of Yahweh doth man live.

A spiritual result was aimed at in this ascetic rigour. Israel was made to know experimentally that men have not been brought into existence merely to indulge their appetites; that these appetites are but means; that they are only in their place when they are ministrant to the ultimate end of being: that this ultimate end is to serve the Lord with gladness in the worship of His greatness, and in the exercise of mercy and truth to fellow-man.

In this employment of created life, God, the Creator, receives pleasure, and man, benefit. The taste for such an employment of life is liable to be blunted, and finally destroyed, in the possession of abundance. Israel, luxuriating in plenty, would never have learnt the lesson which prepared their second generation for entering the land of promise as an accepted worshipping nation.

In poor, but sufficient living, they came to perceive that not bread alone, but the words and worshipping of Yahweh were a staple in truly civilised life.

The Visible Hand of God Ch 15.

4 Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these forty years.

5 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so Yahweh thy Elohim chasteneth thee.

6 Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of Yahweh thy Elohim, to walk in his ways, and to fear him.

7 For Yahweh thy Elohim bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

8 A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

9 A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

10 When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless Yahweh thy Elohim for the good land which he hath given thee.

11 Beware that thou forget not Yahweh thy Elohim, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:

12 Lest when thou hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein;

13 And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied;

14 Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget Yahweh thy Elohim, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

15 Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness [midbar], wherein were fiery serpents [nachash], and scorpions [akrav], and drought [parched earth], where there was no water; who brought thee forth water [ mayim] out of the rock of flint;

The Wilderness of Sinai

This, then, I believe is the place or country to which the personal Son of Man, "the Man Christ Jesus," will come first at his approaching advent. The region is admirably adapted for the manifestation of omnipotence, in the judicial manifestation of the mystical Son of Man, or Rainbowed Angel.

The Peninsula of Sinai is the southern region which is reserved in solitude for a future display of great signs and wonders far transcending anything witnessed by Israel in the olden time. This peninsula is formed by two arms running into the land from the north end of the Red Sea, and is bounded by the one styled "the tongue of the Egyptian sea" (Isa. xi. 15) on the southwest, at the end of which is Suez; and by the other, or Elanitic Gulf, called also the Gulf of Akaba, on the east. These waters form two divergent sides of a triangle, within the area of which are mounts Sinai and Paran, and a "waste howling wilderness," containing nothing to be desired.

Moses styles it, "a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water" (Deut. viii. 15). It is a dry, hot, sandy, mountainous region, that no government seeks to annex, and which no emigrants undertake to people. The few that are found within it are the descendants of Hagar -- wild men, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them (Gen. xvi. 11).

From Suez to Akaba, at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Akaba, a road was constructed by the Romans, measuring 125 miles in a straight line. The peninsula included within these limits is filled up with mountains, and narrow valleys, and desolate plains. Of these mountains, the chain or elevated circle of Sinai is the chief.

To the northward of the central region of Sinai, and divided from it by a broad valley, called El Sheikh, is a mountain range extending eastward, called Zebeir. North of this are sandy plains and valleys, the most barren and destitute of water of the whole country. This section borders still further north on another mountain chain, termed El Tyh, which stretches nearly across the peninsula from gulf to gulf. Still north of this range is the desert of El Tyh, through which ran the old Roman road, and, at present, the great pilgrim road from Egypt, by Suez to Akaba, on the way to Mecca.

North and northwest, and, indeed, inclusive of the desert El Tyh, is the wilderness of Paran, a tract so called after mount Paran, a chain of mountains bordering the desert of Paran on the east. The wilderness lies between the southern border of Palestine and the Mediterranean on the north; Egypt on the west; Idumea, or Edom on the east; and the El Tyh range of the peninsula on the south. "The Holy One," says Habakkuk, writing in Jerusalem, "will come in from mount Paran."

Eureka 10.6.

16 Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;

Manna in the wilderness

The two main facts in the type were that the manna came from heaven, and that the children of Israel were so situated that if they had not received it, they must have perished.

Almost of their own force, they speak of eternal life through Christ. This meaning becomes absolutely certain in the presence of Christ's promise "to him that overcometh" of permission to "eat of the hidden manna" (Rev. 2:17), and of his declaration during a conversation on the Mosaic manna that he is the living bread that came down from heaven, whereof if a man eat, he shall not die (John 6:51).

This interpretation involves the doctrine that man is mortal, and will die apart from Christ; and also the truth that Christ is not of human origin, as the Josephite school alleges, but of Divine origin by the Holy Spirit in the way narrated in Luke 1:35.

Law of Moses Ch 13

17 And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth.

18 But thou shalt remember Yahweh thy Elohim: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.

19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget Yahweh thy Elohim, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.

20 As the nations which Yahweh destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of Yahweh your Elohim.