Deuteronomy 9:1-29 - L. M. Grant's Commentary on the Bible

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WARNINGS BECAUSE OF PREVIOUS REBELLIONS

(vs.1-29)

In spite of Israel's many failures in the wilderness. God would keep His Word to bring them to the land of promise. Israel is told to go in and dispossess the nations greater and mightier than themselves, with great fortified cities, the people great and tall, descendants of the Anakim who were giants, who had a reputation of being invincible (vs.1-2). But Israel must understand that it was the living God who went before them "as a consuming fire" to render the enemy helpless before them (v.3).

As well as needing such encouragement in the Lord, Israel needed serious warnings, for they might think in their heart that the Lord was fighting for them because of their righteousness, which was far from the truth. Rather, the wickedness of these nations had risen to such a height that God was driving them out (v.4). Moses insists in verse 5 that it was not because of Israel's righteousness that they would possess the land, but because of the wickedness of the nations who then possessed it, and also that God would thus fulfill His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Was Israel really a righteous nation? No, Moses tells them, they were a stiff-necked people, that is, stubborn and rebellious. Then he goes on to recount to them the many proofs in their history of their sinful character. "Remember!" he tells them, "Do not forget" (v.7). They had provoked the Lord to anger from the beginning of their wilderness journey. Also in Horeb their guilt was enormous, so that God was on the verge of destroying them. Moses had gone up to the mountain to receive the tables of stone on which the ten commandments were written, being there 40 days and 40 nights without food or water (v.9). He brought the tables down when the Lord told him Israel had corrupted themselves in making a golden image (v.12).

At that time the Lord threatened to blot our Israel's name from under heaven, and offered Moses the opportunity of becoming the head of a greater and mightier nation (v.14). Moses does not, in recounting this, tell how he had pled for Israel and God had relented (Exodus 32:11-14), but he does speak of coming down the mountain, seeing the golden calf Israel had made, and throwing the two tables of stone on the ground and breaking them (vs.15-17).

Israel's sin caused Moses then to fall down before the Lord a second time for 40 days and 40 nights, without food and water, for he was afraid of the anger of the Lord against Israel, and he interceded for them before God, and the Lord listened (vs.18-19). God was angry with Aaron also, and only the intercession of Moses preserved Aaron from judgment (v.20). Moses, burned the golden calf, crushed it into particles like dust and threw it into a brook of water (vs.20-21). These two verses describe what happened before Moses' 40 days of fasting and prayer.

Moses then speaks of other cases of Israel's rebellion, first at Taberah (Numbers 11:1-10), their complaining about their food; then at Massah (Exodus 17:2-6), complaining about the lack of water; then at Kibroth Hattaavah (Numbers 11:32-34), when the Lord showed mercy in giving Israel quails and they responded by greedily devouring them without any recognition of His goodness (vs.22-23). Also, Moses reminded Israel of their rebellion against the Word of the Lord at Kadesh Barnea when they refused to go into the land (Numbers 14:1-10). All of this proved Israel to be unworthy of the blessing God was going to give them in the land. How could they possibly boast then that the prosperity given them was because of their righteousness? As Moses says, they had been rebellious against the Lord from the day he knew them (v.24).

Verse 2 refers back to verse 18 to impress on Israel how dependent they were on an intercessor, for if they had gotten what they deserved it would have meant their destruction. Believers today also depend on the intercession of the Lord Jesus for our being borne with and sustained in our earthly wilderness history.

Moses' prayer at the time was not based on any hope that Israel would improve in their conduct, but on two great facts, first that God had claimed Israel as His own inheritance by redeeming them from Egyptian bondage (v.26), and secondly, on the fact of who their fathers were, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom God had given His unconditional promise (v.27). Thus, he asked God to remember these servants of His and turn His eyes from the stubbornness of Israel.

Moses used another powerful argument in verse 28. If God destroyed Israel in the wilderness, the Egyptians would say that God was not able to bring Israel into the promised land, but had rather shown hatred to Israel by killing them. Yet, in spite of all their miserable failure, Moses reminded God the children of Israel were His own people, His inheritance, whom He had brought by His great power out of Egypt (v.29), and could He cancel the value of that work by their destruction?

The history reminds us that we today are also fully dependent on the intercession of the Lord Jesus for our preservation and blessing.

Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 9:1

Deuteronomy 9:1-29

1 Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,

2 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!

3 Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.

4 Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.

5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

6 Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

7 Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.

8 Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:

10 And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11 And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.

12 And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.

13 Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

14 Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15 So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.

16 And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.

17 And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also.

20 And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.

21 And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.

22 And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.

23 Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.

24 Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.

25 Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.

26 I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

27 Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28 Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.

29 Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.