Deuteronomy 11:10

whither thou goest in to possess it The Sg. equivalent for the Pl. whither ye are crossing to possess it(Deuteronomy 11:8). Therefore the Pl. reading of Sam. and LXX codd. A etc., ye are going in, is probably not correct. But see next note.

from whence ye came out This Pl. is confirmed by the Versions. But with the preceding clause, whither thou goest in, &c., it may be a later addition. Neither is necessary, and indeed both rather break up the comparison which is the writer's main theme for the time.

where thou sowedst thy seed This information is novel. We are not told elsewhere that in Egypt Israel practised agriculture for themselves (thyseed). Yet even if they were confined to the land of Goshen (it is only J which affirms this), that land was partly fertile, and even a tribe of shepherds could hardly have refrained from the opportunities which it offered for the richer feeding of their cattle. P's account of Israel in Egypt says that they multiplied so fast that the land was filled with them; and that when the Egyptians brought them under bondage this included all manner of service in the field(Exodus 1:7; Exodus 1:14).

wateredst it with thy foot The exact reference is doubtful and has been variously explained: to the working of the shadufor machine by which a bucket of water is lifted from the river bed to the fields above; to the working of water-wheels; and to the distribution of the water through the fields by many small channels in the soft mud, which was removed by the foot of the peasant to allow the water to pass and replaced to divert it (Manning, The Land of the Pharaohs, 1887, p. 31, cited by Driver, Deuteronomy 3 p. xxi). The use at the shadufin ancient Egypt is illustrated on the monuments (for an example see Erman, Life in Anc. Egypt, 426); but the employment of the foot in working it, i.e. by pushing or keeping down the weight that balanced the bucket, though recorded, does not seem to be usual. Again, -water-wheels cannot be proved to have been known in ancient Egypt" (W. M. Müller, art. -Egypt" in E.B.col. 1226, n. 1); though Niebuhr saw one worked by the foot in Cairo, and named accordingly (Reisebeschreibung, i. p. 148, pl. xv.), and Robinson saw others in Palestine (B.R.ii. 351, iii. 21). The third explanation, the guidance of water by the foot of the peasant through the fields, seems therefore the most probable (cp. Conder on this method in Palestine, Tent Work in Palestine, 328); though W. M. Müller (loc. cit.) says -most probably "watering with the foot" means carrying water." (It ought not to be overlooked that the words with thy footmay also have been meant to qualify thou sowedst thy seed; in Egypt, however, it was animals who were employed for tramping the scattered seed into the soft mud, rams (Erman, 429) or pigs (Herodotus, ii. 14, Pliny, H.N.xviii. 47).) But to know the exact meaning of with thy footis not necessary for the understanding of the writer. He is contrasting the laborious personal labour required in bringing water to the fields of rainless Egypt, which Erman describes even after a high Nile as incessant over a large part of the country, and as an arduous, servile business necessarily enforced upon the peasants by an anxious government, with the heaven's own direct watering of the Palestine fields without any labour on the part of man. The contrast is, of course, not utter as the deuteronomist in his characteristic style describes it to have been (he himself immediately qualifies it by his reference to the garden of herbs, which in Palestine it was customary to water by channels, cp. Isaiah 1:30). Nevertheless it is in the main true that in Egypt the fields depended for water on human drudgery of the most arduous kind; in Palestine their watering was the direct boon of heaven, beyond man's responsibility. In this connection Erman's remarks (14) on the influence of the Egyptian landscape are relevant. The landscape is monotonous, not -calculated to awaken the inspiration of the soul; unconsciously the dweller in this country will become sober and prosaic, and his gods will be pale forms with whom he has no sympathy. In fact, the Egyptian peasant could scarcely understand a living personal relationship between the individual and the deity.… Thus the Egyptian grew up under conditions unfavourable to the development of his spiritual life, but such as would fortify his understanding and practical industry." And he contrasts the more vivid religious influences which the Greeks experienced from their landscapes their mountains, forests, meadows and rains. This is virtually the same contrast as the deuteronomist here paints between the flat, rainless Egypt, and Palestine with its rains, hills and vales, and consequent springs. In the latter Israel would more easily feel the personal care of them by God Himself (Deuteronomy 11:12).

as a garden of herbs 1 Kings 21:2; Proverbs 15:17. The inference is that the irrigation which in Palestine was only applied to special spots was universal in Egypt; see previous note.