Ulangan 8:2-4

8:2 Remember the whole way by which he ¹  has brought you these forty years through the desert ²  so that he might, by humbling you, test you to see if you have it within you to keep his commandments or not. 8:3 So he humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you with unfamiliar manna. ³  He did this to teach you ⁴  that humankind ⁵  cannot live by bread ⁶  alone, but also by everything that comes from the Lord’s mouth. ⁷  8:4 Your clothing did not wear out nor did your feet swell all these forty years.

Ulangan 8:12-16

8:12 When you eat your fill, when you build and occupy good houses, 8:13 when your cattle and flocks increase, when you have plenty of silver and gold, and when you have abundance of everything, 8:14 be sure ⁸  you do not feel self-important and forget the Lord your God who brought you from the land of Egypt, the place of slavery, 8:15 and who brought you through the great, fearful desert of venomous serpents ⁹  and scorpions, an arid place with no water. He made water flow ¹⁰  from a flint rock and 8:16 fed you in the desert with manna (which your ancestors had never before known) so that he might by humbling you test you ¹¹  and eventually bring good to you.

[8:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:2]  ² tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NRSV, NLT); likewise in v. 15.

[8:3]  ³ tn Heb “manna which you and your ancestors did not know.” By popular etymology the word “manna” comes from the Hebrew phrase מָן הוּא (man hu’), i.e., “What is it?” (Exod 16:15). The question remains unanswered to this very day. Elsewhere the material is said to be “white like coriander seed” with “a taste like honey cakes” (Exod 16:31; cf. Num 11:7). Modern attempts to associate it with various desert plants are unsuccessful for the text says it was a new thing and, furthermore, one that appeared and disappeared miraculously (Exod 16:21-27).

[8:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “in order to make known to you.” In the Hebrew text this statement is subordinated to what precedes, resulting in a very long sentence in English. The translation makes this statement a separate sentence for stylistic reasons.

[8:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “the man,” but in a generic sense, referring to the whole human race (“mankind” or “humankind”).

[8:3]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term may refer to “food” in a more general sense (cf. CEV).

[8:3]  ⁷ sn Jesus quoted this text to the devil in the midst of his forty-day fast to make the point that spiritual nourishment is incomparably more important than mere physical bread (Matt 4:4; cf. Luke 4:4).

[8:14]  ⁸ tn The words “be sure” are not in the Hebrew text; vv. 12-14 are part of the previous sentence. For stylistic reasons a new sentence was started at the beginning of v. 12 in the translation and the words “be sure” repeated from v. 11 to indicate the connection.

[8:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “flaming serpents”; KJV, NASB “fiery serpents”; NAB “saraph serpents.” This figure of speech (metonymy) probably describes the venomous and painful results of snakebite. The feeling from such an experience would be like a burning fire (שָׂרָף, saraf).

[8:15]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the one who brought out for you water.” In the Hebrew text this continues the preceding sentence, but the translation begins a new sentence here for stylistic reasons.

[8:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in order to humble you and in order to test you.” See 8:2.