Moses Now Reminds Them Of How Serious The Situation Had Been And How His Intercession Had Saved Them (Deuteronomy 9:13-19).
Yahweh had been so affected by their sin that He had wanted to destroy them, and he offered instead to fulfil His promise to Abraham to give the land to his seed by raising up descendants to Moses. But Moses interceded for the people and Yahweh spared them for his sake.
Analysis in the words of Moses:
a Yahweh spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people, let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they (Deuteronomy 9:13-14).
b So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands (Deuteronomy 9:15).
c And I looked, and, behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molten calf (Deuteronomy 9:16 a).
c You had turned aside speedily out of the way which Yahweh had commanded you (Deuteronomy 9:16 b).
b And I took hold of the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes (Deuteronomy 9:17).
a And I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger, for I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also (Deuteronomy 9:18-19).
Note that in ‘a' Yahweh was angry and wanted to destroy the people and blot out their name from under heaven, and replace them with Moses' descendants, and in the parallel Yahweh was angry and wanted to destroy them, and it was Moses' intercession that saved the day. In ‘b' he came down from the Mount with the two stone covenant tablets in his hand, and in the parallel he threw down the tablets and broke them. In ‘c' they had sinned against Yahweh their God and had made themselves a molten calf, and in the parallel they had turned aside speedily out of the way which Yahweh had commanded them (by worshipping the molten calf).
‘ Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, “I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people, let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.” '
Indeed Yahweh had been so angry that He had spoken of them as a stiffnecked people (Exodus 32:9) and had suggested that He destroy them and blot their name from under heaven (compare Exodus 32:33), that is blot them from the record of the living who were in the camp. Then He would make from Moses a nation ‘mightier and greater than they', a deliberate contrast with the ‘greater and mightier' in Deuteronomy 9:1 (compare Exodus 32:10), thus producing children through whom He could fulfil His promise to Abraham. In the parallel this stands against the fact that Moses intercession saved the. Moses was not self-seeking, but had a heart that was determined to help the people for whom he had been given responsibility.
Note how Moses part in pleading for them at this time is here played down. That the effort was great comes out in Deuteronomy 9:18, but his actual intercession is only obliquely mentioned in Deuteronomy 9:19 (contrast Exodus 32:11-14). A later writer would have made the most of it. The only indication that we have here of his intercessory intervention is Yahweh's ‘Let me alone that I may destroy them' (Deuteronomy 9:14, compare Exodus 32:10), and the ‘Yahweh listened to me' (Deuteronomy 9:19). Only Moses himself was likely to have omitted the detail of what followed. Contrast Deuteronomy 9:26-29 which contain his intercession when he returned to the Mount for the new tablets.
(The idea that in the light of God's words Moses could have said nothing, and instead have gone down to see for himself, can be rejected immediately. That would be to see Moses as having failed in his obvious duty and as insulting God's awareness. He knew how quickly God could act in such circumstances and he would hardly doubt the word of Yahweh. Thus the intercession can be assumed, even though not stated. That after all was why God said, ‘let Me alone'. Moses did not need to mention it here. His listeners were already aware of it. He is not reciting history but building up his argument).
It will be noted that if interpreted strictly according to Exodus some events seem out of order, namely the mention of blotting out and of not eating and drinking, both of which occurred later. But this is more apparent than real. There is no reason to doubt that both times that he was in the Mount Moses had gone without food and water during his forty day stint, compare Deuteronomy 9:18, and blotting out was a regular description of the destruction of people (compare Deuteronomy 29:20). When men died their names were blotted out of the camp roll (compare Isaiah 4:3). Nor do we have full details in Exodus of all that Yahweh did say at this point. Moses was not citing Exodus here, he was describing what he remembered as actually happening (this pouring out of things in a disordered state is an indication of someone bringing it quickly back in his memory. An inventor would have been more careful to ensure that he had things in ‘the right order').
‘ So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount was burning with fire, and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked, and, behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God. You had made yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside speedily out of the way which Yahweh had commanded you.'
The description is very much abbreviated and he passes over the danger to his own life as though it had not existed. Rather he contrasts the two scenes, on the one hand the mountain still burning with holy fire (a personal reminiscence not previously mentioned) and the two tables of the covenant in his hands, and on the other the molten calf and their turning aside to their own way. The mountain was afire continually with the living presence of Yahweh, a fire that they dared not approach, while in contrast the molten calf having been shaped in fire, was now void of fire, and was nothing to be afraid of. It was a hollow pretence. Yahweh was where He chose, on the Mount, not on the calf which was where the people chose (compare Deuteronomy 12:5). And while the tablets had been in process of preparation in the Mount in order to finally seal the covenant, the people had been in the process of rebelling against it. Note his emphasis on how quickly they had turned away from the way demanded in the covenant.
‘ And I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.'
All this had been too much for Moses and he had hurled the tablets to the ground and smashed them in front of their very eyes. No better way could have been found of indicating that their actions had made void the covenant. The destruction of a treaty document regularly followed severe breaches of a treaty. Thus this act now invalidated the treaty. Let them see what they had done. They had invalidated the covenant that they had so recently confirmed. It would humanly speaking take the intercession of Moses to bring about the establishment of a new treaty.
He makes no mention of the trials he went through as the people faced up to him. He is prepared not to bring that against them, even though it would have strengthened his argument. (These small touches are the proper evidence that these really are the words of Moses). Rather he moves straight on to what a dangerous position the people had been in.
‘ And I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.'
For in order to spare them from the destruction that they had deserved and to avert the Overlord's anger, he had gone back into the Mount to plead with God. Indeed he had done what he had previously done on the earlier time of forty days and forty nights in the Mount. He had not eaten bread or drunk water. And he had fallen down before Yahweh and pleaded for them, because of all their sin which they had sinned in doing what was evil in the sight of Yahweh, provoking Him to anger.
Note the strong threefold phrase, ‘the sin that they had sinned in doing evil '. He wanted them to realise the grossness of their sin. (And many of his listeners as children and young ‘adults' (over thirteen) had actually been involved, including the elders who would be gathered at the front of the crowd). They had broken the terms of the covenant, and the Covenanter was angry. (As a treaty king would be ‘angry' when his people broke the treaty). Exodus 32:30 also stressed that ‘they had sinned a great sin'.
‘ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also.'
Indeed Moses had recognised the depths of Yahweh's anger, and so was filled with a great fear. He had been afraid of what Yahweh would do. He had been sure that Yahweh had intended to destroy them. And so, he says, he had pleaded, and Yahweh had listened to him that time as well, and had spared the people as a whole, although some had been smitten (Exodus 32:28; Exodus 32:35). For Moses had gathered that originally Yahweh had been determined to destroy every man of them apart possibly from the few who had come to Moses' aid. ‘That time also' stresses to the people how often he has had to intercede for them.
So the people should realise that far from entering the land as a deserving people, they were only there because God had spared them at Moses' request.