If we can fast forward about eight hundred years in Biblical history to the time of the Assyrian threat on Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18, we’ll find something that is strikingly similar to what we’re reading here in Deuteronomy 8.
In that chapter (and the ones before it), the northern kingdom has already fallen (2 Kings 17:6), and Sennecharib has now advanced all the way to the gates of Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17).
King Hezekiah is in a pretty awful position—so bad, in fact, that he’s already ripped the gold off the Temple doors and offered them as a bribe/tribute to Sennecharib if he would just leave the city alone. It doesn’t work—at least, for very long—and Sennecharib arrives with his envoys at Jerusalem anyways.
His emissary is named Rabshekah, and speaks in Hebrew to the people of Jerusalem so that everyone can understand what’s at stake (2 Kings 18:26-27).
In that speech, Rabshekah offers to relocate every one of them to a land that sounds idyllic. They’ll move to a land filled with grain, new wine, bread, vineyards, olive trees, honey, and water that comes from their own cistern.
If you track those qualities along with what Moses says in Deuteronomy 8:7-9, that’s almost exactly what Moses says Canaan will be like after the conquest.
That’s not by accident. He tells the Jerualem-ites that the land prepared for them will be “a land like their own land.” Or, at least it’s what their land used to be like, before immorality, death, and exile ransacked almost the entire nation. Rabshekah’s offer then is more of a reset button. All they have to do is surrender to Assyria, and their lives start over in peace. A tempting offer for most, I’m sure.
But Rabshekah is not just a liar, but a smooth-talking, studied liar. In fact, it seems like Rabshekah has studied other parts of the Law. He even says that they will “live and not die,” which is exactly what Moses says in Deuteronomy 30:19. He calls into question God’s promise of protection, which is exactly how Satan manipulated Eve in Genesis 3:1.
Essentially, what Rabshekah offers the people of Jerusalem is a second Canaan—a land that is free from all the problems they face now, under the protection of an “actual” ruler, which is Sennecharib and not Jehovah.
But there is only one promised land, and it’s not in Assyria. Canaan isn’t just a land, it’s a place God has prepared for His people. They were stepping into a relationship, not just a piece of property, and that can’t be replicated by anyone, no matter how flattering their words sound.