Deuteronomy 7:18, commentary and pictures

This command belongs to the instruction in Deuteronomy 4-8, especially chapter 7, about what God required of Israel in order to make them a holy people to Himself. It commands not to be afraid of opposing enemies and nations, but to well remember what the Lord God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt in delivering Israel. What is to be remembered is that after letting Israel go, Pharaoh pursued them with chariots and horsemen, and his whole host was destroyed while Israel walked on dry land on a path Providence prepared.

The verse is to be read and studied together with Deuteronomy 7:8-17 and with all of Deuteronomy chapters 7 and 8. The teaching of Deuteronomy 7 about remembering deliverance from Pharaoh and Egypt as a reason not to fear is to be studied alongside Exodus 15 as instruction about God's protection and the diseases that came upon Egypt. Remembering how God acted strengthens trust in His power and faithfulness, calling His people still to heed His commandments and trust His leading.

That remembrance gives strength to keep God's commandments to a thousand generations, to repent for breaking God's law and to show the world what keeping it means, because God has respect to the obedient and lets His blessing rest on them. Only tried commandment-keepers who love God supremely will be translated, raised from the dead, and welcomed by Christ into the holy city with its gates swung back to see the King in His beauty, where father or mother or children who would spoil the heavenly courts will not be brought in and there will never be another rebellion. The chapter's instruction is God's word and an admonition for people living at the end of the world. The command is to be studied with profit now because the world is nearing the day of God's great final review, when all must stand before the Judge of all the earth to answer for their deeds, in the present time of investigation when every character will have been investigated and every case decided for eternity.