Verses 10-12
10-12. The land… is not as… Egypt Moses contrasts the land they have left with the land they are to possess. Egypt depended, as it still does, for its fertility upon the annual overflow of its great river, whose waters were made available for the whole year by artificial water-courses. Human labour and human foresight were constantly required. Man must especially care for the land in Egypt. The country they are seeking is one that Jehovah cared for. Not a land of extended plains reclaimed from the desert by the waters of its single river, but a land of hills and valleys, which drinketh the rain of heaven.
Wateredst it with thy foot This expression suggests their servile toil in Egypt. It may refer to the use of some kind of machinery for irrigation worked by the foot, but “it is more probable that this alludes to the mode of stopping small watercourses with mud by the foot, and turning off the water into another channel.” WILKINSON’S Ancient Egyptians, vol. i, p. 581. Comp. THOMSON’S Land and the Book, vol. ii, p. 279.
A land which the Lord thy God careth for As if he watered it with his own hands. All that servile toil required in Egypt for irrigation will be unnecessary in the land to which they are bound.
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