“For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn’t like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are crossing over to take possession of is a land of hills and valleys, which soaks up water when rain falls from the sky. It is a land Adonai your God cares for. The eyes of Adonai your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”-Deuteronomy 11:10-12
Verse 10 of Deuteronomy chapter 11 is an important verse to understand because it highlights the primary difference between Egypt and the land of Canaan, the Promised Land the Israelites would soon be inheriting.
The Complete Jewish Bible says…“For the land you are entering in order to take possession of it isn’t like the land of Egypt. There you would sow your seed and had to use your feet to operate its irrigation system, as in a vegetable garden.”
The King James Version of the Bible says…“For the land, whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs”
And the relatively easy-to-understand English of the New International Version of the Bible says…“The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.”
So what exactly does irrigation of the land or watering the land “by foot” really mean?
I would say out of the three, the dynamic translation that the Complete Jewish Bible uses is easiest to understand.
All of this is referring to the manmade irrigation system that was so essential to Egypt’s ability to grow crops.
We’re talking about a system of canals, reservoirs and channels that were constructed to irrigate the fields using water from the Nile.
Remember, the Nile was Egypt’s only real source of water.
What Moses is telling the people is that Canaan will not at all be like Egypt because in Egypt they had to shed a serious amount of blood, sweat and tears to get water to the fields.
However, in the Promised Land, God would water the fields for them.
This would have been an incredible blessing!
Another important thing to keep in mind is just how different Egypt was from Canaan in terms of geography.
Egypt was for the most part a flat land but Canaan was quite hilly and as a result had a lot of valleys.
Egypt was just like any other gentile land on the planet in that it became whatever its inhabitants by design decided to make of it.
However, the Promised Land was different.
This land was special in that it was the only piece of real estate on earth that God Himself looked after and tended.
I kind of felt this when I flew into Israel about two summers ago.
There was this supernatural sense that everything I had ever learned about how the world works does NOT apply once you’re in God’s territory.
It was really as if I was entering a totally new dimension of reality where the wisdom of the gentiles while having practical use was something that could easily be overturned in the Holy Land.
And yes, there is such a thing as the wisdom of the gentiles that is useful and good…
…but it is worldly wisdom and knowledge and does NOT originate from the heavens.
The worldly system Egypt had devised was when you think about it actually quite amazing.
Human foot power was employed in a variety of different mechanical operations to ensure Egypt’s irrigation system worked smoothly.
One ingenious device they used was called a SHADUF.
Here’s a picture of it.
As you can see, it was basically a bucket on a rope with one end tied to a lever.
How it worked is that a person would dip the bucket into a reservoir of water and using the pole for leverage transfer the water over into an irrigation channel.
This was a helluva a lot of work.
During Egypt’s crop season which lasted about 100 days, about 1000 TONS OF WATER PER ACRE WERE USED TO PROPERLY IRRIGATE THE FIELDS!!
This was amazing!!!
Thousands of SHADUFs, water wells and other ingenious methods to numerous to go into here were used to get the water into the irrigation channels and out into them crop fields.
Some of you with a farming background might be wondering, didn’t the natural overflow of the Nile during the flooding season provide the fields with all the water needed?
The answer is no.
We’re talking about two different processes here.
The flooding of the Nile didn’t really provide the necessary amount of water really needed to irrigate the fields.
Rather, the importance of the flooding is that it carried rich nutrients inside the silt that was necessary to fertilize the fields BEFORE the planting of crops began.
Again, remember that Egypt was essentially a desert wasteland that had very little rain.
Minus the water which flowed from the Nile River deep from within another area of Africa, it’s doubtful that any civilization could have developed there at all.
Can you now see why at the time Egypt was such a proud civilization?
The reason is because they had developed an unprecedented and very elaborate irrigation infrastructure and they had accomplished all of this on their own.
They were so proud of their manmade works.
Yet, in the Promised Land, the Lord promised His Grace was going to replace manmade works.
Once they entered into Canaan, they would no longer have need for man-made and human-powered irrigation systems.
The Lord Himself would bring rain from the sky and irrigate the fields.
And this Living Water from the Lord would be more than sufficient to provide…
…the grain for the people…
…the grapes from the vines…
…and the fruit from the trees…
…and the grass for the herds.
What works would the Israelites have to do to get these great blessings?
Absolutely nothing.
All the Israelites had to do was be obedient and seek the Lord…
…and all their needs would be taken care of.
I said it before and I’ll say it again.
When God blesses, boy He blesses big.
However, Moses did issue a stern warning to the people.
Moses told the people to not even think about giving praise to any one of the numerous Canaanite gods for the rain and the abundant crops.
Unfortunately, whether it was out of misplaced gratitude or an effort to be tolerant so as to maintain peace with their neighbors, we’re going to find out the Israelites did end up falling into idolatry.
The Hebrews were going to be living among a people who had long ago already did all of the hard work of clearing the land, adding fertilizers and making stone fences to pen in the animals so they wouldn’t go out into the fields and destroy the crops.
Because of this, we’re going to see that the temptation was just too great for some of the Israelites to not offer sacrifices to the heathen gods of their neighbors.
Yet, God made it clear to Israel that if that ever happened and they let their human inclinations get the better of them to the point where they succumbed to this evil, not only would He turn off the rain resulting in the ground becoming fruitless but if the rebellion continued, Israel would be kicked out of the land.
CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT
“So do not worry, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’
or ‘What shall we drink?’
or ‘What shall we wear?’
For the gentiles run after
all these things,
and your heavenly Father
knows that you need them.
But seek first his kingdom
and his righteousness,
and all these things
will be given to you as well.”
-Matthew 6:31-33
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