You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.
This verse closes the covenant terms God gave Israel, right after the command to destroy the idols of the land. It ties food, drink and health to one thing — serving the LORD — and that raises a question for readers now: does the promise still hold?
Obedience as the channel
The land was a gift. What happened once Israel lived in it was another matter:
H. Forbes WitherbyGod's own choice gave them the promised land. Their prosperity depended on how they behaved. It is the same for the Christian.
Two conditions of blessing
The verse does not stand alone. It follows the command to tear down the idols of the land, and the pairing is deliberate:
Edward DennettGod adds two things here, and all their blessing would depend on them — separation from evil, and serving the Lord their God (verses 24, 25). These conditions of blessing are unalterable. They are as true now as they were with Israel. The Thessalonians are described in the same way: they turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God (1 Thess. 1:9). Where God is really the issue, there can be no partnership with evil. He claims all that we are and have, and when this claim is recognised, He can bless us according to the desires of His own heart. So here the blessings follow. They are earthly blessings, because Israel was an earthly people, but blessings of that kind without limit.
What "serve" meant
Service was not a new demand sprung on Israel at Sinai. It had been the stated purpose of the whole rescue from Egypt:
F. B. HoleWhen He sent Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, God said to him, "You shall serve God on this mountain" (Ex. 3:12). Again and again during the dispute with Pharaoh the word was, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And when the people were at Sinai, the word was, "You shall serve the LORD your God" (Ex. 23:25). The law was given so that the people might know God's will for them, and serve by obeying it.
Knowing God's will is not the same as having the heart to do it. The same writer marks what the law could not supply:
F. B. HoleThe law did give them a certain standing as the acknowledged people of God. But it could not produce within them the state that would dispose them to obey... So, if we are to serve God, we need two things: an assured standing before Him, and a spiritual state that enables us to do His will.
Bread, water and health
The blessing named is ordinary — food, drink, and a body free of disease:
F. B. HoleThey were to be most careful not to touch their idolatries but to destroy them completely. Then they would be blessed with health and plenty; that is, with fullness of earthly good.
Does the promise carry over to believers now?
L. M. GrantGod gave these conditional promises to Israel under law, not to the church of God today. Our blessings are spiritual, and connected with heavenly places (Eph. 1:3). Godly people today may suffer illness and other afflictions. Epaphroditus was "ill, near to death" — not for disobedience, but for the sake of the work of Christ (Phil. 2:25-30).
What obedience lost, grace gave
Israel never kept their side of it. The sickness was still taken away, but by another route:
Morrish Bible DictionaryGod promised Israel that if they obeyed, He would take all sickness away from them, and would put on them none of the evil diseases of Egypt that they had known (Deut. 7:15). When the Lord was on earth He healed every sickness and every disease among the people (Matt. 9:35). On the ground of obedience they failed to gain freedom from diseases, but their Messiah healed them all in grace.
One writer sees both halves of the verse — the food and the healing — met in a single day of the Lord's ministry:
The Bible TreasuryIn the evening the Lord satisfied the hungry mouths of the people with good things; and in the morning He healed all their diseases. In this way He fulfilled, in part, that ancient promise of the LORD to Israel: "You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you."
Summary
- Given, then conditional — the land came to Israel as God's gift; their prosperity in it hung on obedience.
- Serve, first by parting — blessing rested on two things: turning from the idols of the land, and serving the LORD.
- Serve, as the point of redemption — God brought His people out of Egypt for this — that they might serve Him.
- Serve, but not by law alone — the law told them God's will yet could not create the inward state that obeys.
- Served in grace instead — what obedience failed to win, Israel's Messiah gave in grace — food for the hungry, healing for the sick.