John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 8:11

"Beware lest thou forget Jehovah thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his ordinances, and his statutes, which I command thee this day:" — Deuteronomy 8:11 (ASV)

Beware that you forget not²⁶³; we may easily estimate the necessity of this admonition from the common corruption of human nature, which is still only too general and too influential, for scarcely shall we find one person in a hundred in whom satiety does not generate arrogance. Moses will later speak in his Song of the rebelliousness of this people:²⁶⁴

“The beloved, (Jeshurun,) waxen fat, and grown thick, kicked.” (Deuteronomy 32:15).

It was necessary, then, that a restraint should be put on such refractory beings; indeed, that their wantonness should be still more tightly repressed in their prosperity. But we may, and it is also good to, extend this doctrine to ourselves, since prosperity intoxicates almost all of us, so that we intemperately act wantonly against God and forget ourselves and Him.

Therefore, Moses not only commands the Israelites not to be ungrateful to God, but warns them to guard themselves (for he uses this word in the sense of beware) from that impious ingratitude. He immediately afterward uses this same word for the keeping of the Law.

But this is the sum: they needed the utmost care and attention to beware that forgetfulness of God should not steal over them in happy circumstances, and thus they should shake off His fear, cast away His yoke, and indulge themselves in the lusts of their flesh. For he shows that contempt of the Law would be a token of ingratitude, because it was inevitable that they would submit themselves to God and keep His Law, if they only reflected that they owed their prosperity to nothing but His blessing.

We have already observed elsewhere that his designation of the Law by various terms amounts to a commendation of its perfect doctrine, meaning that no part of right conduct is omitted in it. He also asserts here (as often elsewhere) the faithfulness of his ministry, so that they would not evasively argue that, while they refuse the commands of a mortal man, they are not therefore rebellious against God. He says, then, that their piety will not be acceptable to God unless they keep the Law set forth by Him.

²⁶³ Take heed to thyself — Lat.

²⁶⁴ “LXX. autem pro eo (Jeshurun) substituerunt ὀ ἠγαπημένος, et V. imitatur per suum Dilectus. Unde autem sit illa versio, vix explicari video; fatente etiam Steucho, se nescire a quo verbo id nomen duct possit si Dilectum significat,” etc. — Marckius on Deuteronomy 32: C.’s own translation of the word is Rectus.