“And he will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep, in the land which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”
My Notes
What Does Deuteronomy 7:13 Mean?
"He will love thee, and bless thee, and multiply thee: he will also bless the fruit of thy womb, and the fruit of thy land." God's covenant blessing is comprehensive: love, blessing, multiplication — applied to both people (womb) and land (agriculture). The blessing reaches every dimension of Israelite life: personal (love), communal (blessing), demographic (multiplication), familial (womb), and economic (land, grain, wine, oil, livestock).
The list of blessed categories — corn, wine, oil, cattle, sheep — covers the entire ancient economy. The grain provides bread. The wine provides drink. The oil provides cooking, lighting, and hygiene. The cattle provide labor and meat. The sheep provide wool and milk. God's blessing touches every source of sustenance and every sector of productivity.
The phrase "he will love thee" places love first — before the blessing and before the multiplication. The love is the foundation. The blessing flows from the love. The multiplication flows from the blessing. The economic prosperity flows from the multiplication. Everything traces back to: He will love thee.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What dimension of your life have you excluded from God's blessing?
- 2.How does love being first in the sequence change your understanding of prosperity?
- 3.What sector of your life — economic, familial, physical — needs to be included in God's comprehensive blessing?
- 4.What does 'He will love thee' as the foundation of everything else mean for your daily experience?
Devotional
He will love you. First. Before the blessing. Before the multiplication. Before the grain and wine and oil and livestock. Love. That's where it starts. Everything else flows from God's love for you.
The list of blessings is deliberately comprehensive: womb (your family), land (your property), corn (your bread), wine (your drink), oil (your comfort), cattle (your labor), sheep (your wool). Every dimension of ancient life is covered. God's blessing doesn't specialize in one area and neglect another. It reaches every sector of existence.
The ordering — love, then bless, then multiply — reveals the sequence: love produces blessing. Blessing produces multiplication. Multiplication produces the specific categories of agricultural and familial abundance. You can't have the grain without the multiplication. You can't have the multiplication without the blessing. You can't have the blessing without the love. The love is the first cause of everything else.
The comprehensiveness is the point: God doesn't bless your spiritual life while neglecting your economic life. He doesn't bless your family while ignoring your fields. The blessing reaches every dimension because the love that produces it is comprehensive. A God who loves you partially would bless you partially. A God who loves you completely blesses you comprehensively.
What dimension of your life do you think is outside God's blessing? What sector do you assume God doesn't care about? The Deuteronomy list says: womb and land, grain and wine, cattle and sheep. Every dimension. Every sector. Because the love that starts the chain is total.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
And he will love thee,.... As he has done, and rest in his love, and give further instances and proofs of it:
and…
Flocks of thy sheep - Render it instead: “the ewes of thy sheep.” The phrase is unique to Deuteronomy. The Hebrew word…
Here, I. The caution against idolatry is repeated, and against communion with idolaters: "Thou shalt consume the people,…
love … bless … and multiply thee Cp. Gen 22:17 (E?), Gen 26:24 (J), blessand multiply; note the characteristic addition…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture