When Your Son Asks
10 It shall be, when Yahweh your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, great and goodly cities which you didn’t build, 11 and houses full of all good things which you didn’t fill, and cisterns dug out which you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive trees which you didn’t plant, and you shall eat and be full; 12 then beware lest you forget Yahweh, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 13 You shall fear Yahweh your God; and you shall serve him, and shall swear by his name. 14 You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, 15 for Yahweh your God among you is a jealous God, lest the anger of Yahweh your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. 16 You shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah. 17 You shall diligently keep the commandments of Yahweh your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he has commanded you. 18 You shall do that which is right and good in Yahweh’s sight, that it may be well with you and that you may go in and possess the good land which Yahweh swore to your fathers, 19 to thrust out all your enemies from before you, as Yahweh has spoken. 20 When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What do the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances, which Yahweh our God has commanded you mean?” 21 then you shall tell your son, “We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand; 22 and Yahweh showed great and awesome signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his house, before our eyes; 23 and he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he swore to our fathers. 24 Yahweh commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Yahweh our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as we are today. 25 It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all these commandments before Yahweh our God, as he has commanded us.”
The danger named is prosperity handed over ready-made, and the answer prescribed for a child's question is a story rather than a rule.
The warning is built out of four things they will receive without working for them: great and goodly cities which you didn't build, and houses full of all good things which you didn't fill, and cisterns dug out which you didn't dig, vineyards and olive trees which you didn't plant Deuteronomy 6:10–11.
Each clause names the labor somebody else did. Cisterns are the sharpest of them — years of cutting rock, in a country where water is the difference between a settlement and a ruin — and they will inherit them finished.
Then: you shall eat and be full; then beware lest you forget Deuteronomy 6:11–12.
The hazard is fullness. Not idolatry first, not persecution, not poverty — being satisfied, in property one did not earn, and losing the memory of how it was acquired. Everything the book fears comes through that door, and it says so again two chapters later Deuteronomy 8:12–14.
One prohibition in the middle is worth stopping on: you shall not tempt Yahweh your God, as you tempted him in Massah Deuteronomy 6:16. The reference is to demanding proof — water on demand, with the question whether God was among them or not. It is the verse the Lord quotes in the wilderness when he is invited to throw himself down Matthew 4:7, and its subject is testing God to see whether he will perform.
The last section is a set of instructions for answering a child, and its shape is the point.
The question is technical: what do the testimonies, the statutes, and the ordinances... mean? Deuteronomy 6:20. A child raised in a household that talks about the law all day is going to ask why any of it is there.
And the answer prescribed is not a definition. We were Pharaoh's slaves in Egypt. Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand Deuteronomy 6:21.
The reply to a question about rules is a story about a rescue. It moves through the signs, the exodus, and the purpose — he brought us out from there, that he might bring us in Deuteronomy 6:23 — and only then reaches the commandments, which arrive at the end as the consequence rather than the subject.
The motive given for keeping them is stated twice and both times it is the people's own good: for our good always, that he might preserve us alive Deuteronomy 6:24.
And note who is speaking. The parent says we were Pharaoh's slaves, though the parent was a child in the wilderness and never saw Egypt. The book's method again: the story is told in the first person by whoever is telling it.
settled What this mark means