“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children —
Moses has just told Israel that no other nation has God so near. Then he turns the whole speech on one word: only. Israel could still lose what they had seen with their own eyes. No enemy would take it. A careless heart would simply let it slip.
The privilege behind the warning
The warning follows a gift no other nation had:
William KellyWhat nation had such a wonder as God Himself among them — God Himself near the least of them? … It was not merely a sight of God, but One who chose to take the liveliest and most intimate interest in His people Israel.
Watch yourself
The first command is not about the nation or the law. It speaks to the person listening, and it echoes later in Scripture:
Leslie M. GrantJust as Timothy was told, "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine" (1 Tim. 4:16), so Israel is told, "Take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen" (v. 9). We may too easily forget things that once greatly impressed us, so that we need constant reminders.
(The ESV renders the words to Timothy, "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.")
Why forgetting is the named danger
The danger Moses names is a failing memory, and it runs through the whole book:
W. W. FeredayThere is a dangerous tendency in the human heart to forget, particularly in matters relating to God. Deuteronomy gives us Moses' final addresses to the people. How often we meet warnings there such as "Beware lest you forget," and "Take heed that you remember."
Keeping the soul diligently
Why did Moses repeat his warnings so often? One writer points to the state of the human heart:
C. H. MackintoshBut the poor human heart is prone to wander; and many influences are at work around us to draw us off the narrow path of obedience. We need not be surprised, then, at the solemn and often-repeated warnings Moses addressed to the hearts and consciences of his hearers.
The same writer gives a plain test of diligence — how a person treats God's word day by day:
C. H. MackintoshWe may be sure there is no more accurate indicator of our moral and spiritual condition than the way we treat the word of God. Do we love it? Do we love to study it, thirst after it, delight in it? Do we long for the quiet hour when we can pore over its sacred pages and drink in its most precious teaching? … If not, we have urgent need to look closely at our spiritual state, for we are sadly out of health.
Two responsibilities in one verse
The verse turns outward halfway through. Whoever guards this truth must also hand it on:
C. H. MackintoshThese are weighty words for all of us. They set before us two things of enormous importance: personal responsibility and family responsibility — testimony in the individual and in the home. God's people of old had to guard the heart with all diligence, so that it would not let slip the precious word of God. And more than that, they had a solemn duty to teach their children and their grandchildren the same.
Children and grandchildren
The reach of the command extends past one's own children. Writers note that both generations named in the verse put someone under obligation:
George C. WillisLet us look together at a few of the Old Testament exhortations to us who are parents or grandparents, for we find both are included.
This concern for children runs through the whole book:
Edward DennettWe find, for example, in the book of Deuteronomy very detailed directions for their instruction (Deut. 6:6-7; see also Deut. 4:9; and Deut. 11:19) … The heart of God, flowing out towards His saints, includes their children also within the circle of His affections.
No excuse today
One writer brings the same danger to readers today. Our advantages make neglect worse, not better:
F. B. HoleTheir danger would be forgetfulness, as the following verses show. The same danger is ours today … Of course, the invention of printing has given us an enormous advantage compared with some 3,500 years ago. It has indeed; but if we do not diligently study our Bibles, and then teach and talk about their contents, we are truly to blame.
Summary
- Nearness first. The warning rests on a gift: God Himself near His people, taking a personal interest in them. That is worth guarding.
- Guard yourself. The command starts with one person, like the later word to Timothy: keep a close watch on yourself.
- Forgetting is the threat. Deuteronomy returns again and again to one danger: a fading memory of what God has done.
- The heart is the test. How a person treats God's word is the truest reading of their spiritual health.
- Then pass it on. Guarding your own heart is not the end. The verse names children and grandchildren, and truth can vanish in a generation or two if no one teaches it.