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Deuteronomy

About this book
Chapter 8

1 You must keep carefully all these commandments I am giving you today so that you may live, increase in number, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors.⁠ 2 Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these 40 years through the wilderness so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not.⁠ 3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth.⁠ 4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these 40 years. 5 Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, so the Lord your God disciplines you. 6 So you must keep his commandments, live according to his standards, and revere him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you to a good land, a land of brooks, springs, and fountains flowing forth in valleys and hills,⁠ 8 a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates, of olive trees and honey, 9 a land where you may eat food in plenty and find no lack of anything, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper.⁠ 10 You will eat your fill and then praise the Lord your God because of the good land he has given you.⁠ 11 Be sure you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping his commandments, ordinances, and statutes that I am giving you today. 12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses,⁠ 13 when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything,⁠ 14 be sure you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, 15 and who brought you through the great, fearful wilderness of venomous serpents and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow from hard rock⁠ and 16 fed you in the wilderness with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you and eventually bring good to you. 17 Be careful not to say, “My own ability and skill have gotten me this wealth.” 18 You must remember the Lord your God, for he is the one who gives ability to get wealth; if you do this he will confirm his covenant that he made by oath to your ancestors, even as he has to this day. 19 Now if you forget the Lord your God at all and follow other gods, worshiping and prostrating yourselves before them, I testify to you today that you will surely be annihilated. 20 Just like the nations the Lord is about to destroy from your sight, so he will do to you because you would not obey him.

Texts in conversation

Compare Deuteronomy 8:3 and Wisdom of Solomon 16:26

Hebrew Bible · Deuterocanon

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Summary

The Wisdom of Solomon quotes Deuteronomy’s teaching that people do not live by bread alone, showing how later Jewish writers positioned their teaching in conformity with the Torah to give it similar authority.

Passages

Deuteronomy 8:3

Hebrew Bible
1 You must keep carefully all these commandments I am giving you today so that you may live, increase in number, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised to your ancestors. 2 Remember the whole way by which he has brought you these 40 years through the wilderness so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. 3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. He did this to teach you that humankind cannot live by bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. 4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these 40 years. 5 Be keenly aware that just as a parent disciplines his child, so the Lord your God disciplines you.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

Wisdom of Solomon 16:26

Deuterocanon
24 For the creation, ministering to you, its maker, strains its force against the unrighteous for punishment and in kindness, slackens it on behalf of those who trust in you. 25 Therefore at that time also, converting itself into all forms, it ministered to your all-nourishing bounty, according to the desire of those who had need, 26 that your children, whom you loved, O Lord, might learn that it is not the growth of crops that nourishes a man, but that your word preserves those who trust you. 27 For that which was not destroyed by fire, melted away when it was simply warmed by a faint sunbeam, 28 that it might be known that we must rise before the sun to give you thanks, and must pray to you at the dawning of the light;
50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

References

"... The words in italics are just a part of the many varied relations between Matthew 4:1–11 and Deuteronomy 8 at the word and phrase level. In addition, at a broader level, there are other important relations between these two texts ... A goal of the testing was to teach Israel that a person does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from God (Deuteronomy 8:2–3 ... compare with Wisdom of Solomon 16:26) which is what Jesus quotes back to the tempter when he is tested (Matthew 4:4), revealing he too must learn and follow this principle ..."
Joel Kennedy, The Recapitulation of Israel: Use of Israel's History in Matthew 1:1-4:11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 190–191.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Deuteronomy 8:3 and Wisdom of Solomon 16:26

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