5 I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes have not grown old on you, and your shoes have not grown old on your feet.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And I have led you. He descends to the blessings with which He had continually visited His people during the course of forty years. Yet he does not recount them all, but contents himself with a few of the most remarkable instances, viz., that their clothes had not been worn out by age, and that they had been fed from heaven, when no sustenance was to be obtained from the fruits of the earth. He reminds them that God's glory had been manifested by these testimonies, in order that they might submit themselves to His rule.
Your clothes are not waxen old - See on Deuteronomy 8:4 (note).
And I have led you forty years in the wilderness,.... From the time of their coming out of Egypt unto that day, which though not quite complete, is given as a round number. Eupolemus (d), an Heathen writer, confirms this date of the ministry of Moses among the Israelites; he says, Moses performed the office of a prophet forty years:
your clothes are not waxen old upon you: were not worn out; all those forty years they had been in the wilderness, they had never wanted clothes fitting for them, according to their age and stature, and which decayed not; See Gill on Deuteronomy 8:4,
and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy foot; which were necessary to wear in travelling, and especially in a rugged wilderness; and yet, thought they had been always in use during so long a time, were not worn out, which was really miraculous; See Gill on Deuteronomy 8:4.
(d) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 30. p. 447.
With the appeal to the gracious guidance of Israel by God through the desert, the address of Moses passes imperceptibly into an address from the Lord, just as in Deuteronomy 11:14. (On Deuteronomy 29:5, Deuteronomy 29:6, vid., Deuteronomy 8:3-4; on Deuteronomy 29:7, vid., Deuteronomy 2:26., and Deuteronomy 3:1. and Deuteronomy 3:12.).
*More commentary available at chapter level.