Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky, a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?” Know therefore today that Yahweh your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.
Parallel Translations
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Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky,
a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?”
Know therefore today that Yahweh your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.
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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,
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!
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.
Show all 3 translations
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Hear, O Israel: thou art to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven,
a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say: 'Who can stand before the sons of Anak?'
Know therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is He who goeth over before thee as a devouring fire; He will destroy them, and He will bring them down before thee; so shalt thou drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as the LORD hath spoken unto thee.
Cross-references (52)
- Deuteronomy 4:24 (v3) For Yahweh your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.
- Romans 8:31 (v3) What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
- Hebrews 12:29 (v3) for our God is a consuming fire.
- Deuteronomy 20:4 (v3) for Yahweh your God is he who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”
- Deuteronomy 7:23-24 (v3) But Yahweh your God will deliver them up before you, and will confuse them with a great confusion, until they are destroyed. He will…
Show all 50 cross-references
- Exodus 23:29-31 (v3) I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you.…
- Joshua 3:11 (v3) Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passes over before you into the Jordan.
- Micah 2:13 (v3) He who breaks open the way goes up before them. They break through the gate, and go out. And their king passes on before them, with Yahweh…
- Deuteronomy 1:30 (v3) Yahweh your God, who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,
- 2 Thessalonians 1:8 (v3) punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,
- Joshua 3:14 (vv1, 3) When the people moved from their tents to pass over the Jordan, the priests who bore the ark of the covenant being before the people,
- Deuteronomy 11:31 (v1) For you are to pass over the Jordan to go in to possess the land which Yahweh your God gives you, and you shall possess it and dwell in it.
- Isaiah 41:10-16 (v3) Don’t you be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. Yes, I will…
- Deuteronomy 1:28 (v1) Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart melt, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and…
- Deuteronomy 4:38 (v1) to drive out nations from before you greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land for an inheritance, as it is…
- Deuteronomy 7:1-2 (v3) When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the…
- Isaiah 33:14 (v3) The sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless ones. Who among us can live with the devouring fire? Who among us can live…
- Nahum 1:5-6 (v3) The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it. Who…
- Matthew 15:10 (v3) He summoned the multitude, and said to them, “Hear, and understand.
- Mark 7:14 (v3) He called all the multitude to himself, and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand.
- Ephesians 5:17 (v3) Therefore don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
- Revelation 19:11-16 (v3) I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes…
- Deuteronomy 31:3-6 (v3) Yahweh your God himself will go over before you. He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua will…
- Isaiah 27:4 (v3) Wrath is not in me, but if I should find briers and thorns, I would do battle! I would march on them and I would burn them together.
- Isaiah 30:27 (v3) Behold, Yahweh’s name comes from far away, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke. His lips are full of indignation. His tongue…
- Isaiah 30:30 (v3) Yahweh will cause his glorious voice to be heard, and will show the descent of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and the flame of…
- Isaiah 30:33 (v3) For his burning place has long been ready. Yes, for the king it is prepared. He has made its pyre deep and large with fire and much wood.…
- Numbers 13:22 (vv1–2) They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built…
- Deuteronomy 3:18 (v1) I commanded you at that time, saying, “Yahweh your God has given you this land to possess it. All of you men of valor shall pass over armed…
- Deuteronomy 7:1 (v1) When Yahweh your God brings you into the land where you go to possess it, and casts out many nations before you—the Hittite, the…
- Deuteronomy 7:16 (v3) You shall consume all the peoples whom Yahweh your God shall deliver to you. Your eye shall not pity them. You shall not serve their gods;…
- Deuteronomy 9:6 (v3) Know therefore that Yahweh your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
- Deuteronomy 11:23 (v1) then Yahweh will drive out all these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourselves.
- Joshua 1:11 (v1) “Pass through the middle of the camp, and command the people, saying, ‘Prepare food; for within three days you are to pass over this…
- Exodus 9:11 (v2) The magicians couldn’t stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians.
- Numbers 13:28 (v2) However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak…
- Numbers 13:28-33 (v1) However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak…
- Numbers 13:33 (v2) There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their…
- Deuteronomy 2:11-12 (v2) These also are considered to be Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim. The Horites also lived in Seir in the past, but…
- Deuteronomy 2:21 (v2) a great people, many, and tall, as the Anakim; but Yahweh destroyed them from before Israel, and they succeeded them, and lived in their…
- Deuteronomy 7:24 (v2) He will deliver their kings into your hand, and you shall make their name perish from under the sky. No one will be able to stand before…
- Deuteronomy 27:2 (v1) It shall be on the day when you shall pass over the Jordan to the land which Yahweh your God gives you, that you shall set yourself up…
- Joshua 3:6 (v1) Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, “Take up the ark of the covenant, and cross over before the people.” They took up the ark of the…
- Joshua 3:16 (v1) the waters which came down from above stood, and rose up in one heap a great way off, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan; and those…
- Joshua 4:5 (v1) Joshua said to them, “Cross before the ark of Yahweh your God into the middle of the Jordan, and each of you pick up a stone and put it on…
- Joshua 4:19 (v1) The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and encamped in Gilgal, on the east border of Jericho.
- Job 11:10 (v2) If he passes by, or confines, or convenes a court, then who can oppose him?
- Daniel 8:4 (v2) I saw the ram pushing westward, northward, and southward. No animals could stand before him. There wasn’t any who could deliver out of his…
- Daniel 11:16 (v2) But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and…
- Nahum 1:6 (v2) Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are…
50 distinct cross-references across this passage (52 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (25 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Meaning, shortly.
Meaning, shortly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Deu 9:1 Hear, O Israel: Thou [art] to pass…
Deu 9:1 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,
Ver. 1. Hear, O Israel.] It was all their business at present to hear, and yet he excites them so to do by an Oyez, as it were. He knew their dulness, and the din that corruption maketh in the best hearts; how soon sated men are with divine discourses, and how little heed they give to the most wholesome exhortations. Let a child be never so busy about his lesson, if but a bird fly by, he must needs look where he lights; so, &c.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This day, i.e. shortly, within a little time, the…
This day, i.e. shortly, within a little time, the word day being oft put for time, as Joh 8:56; 1Co 4:5; Rev 16:14, within two months; for Moses spake this on the first day of the eleventh month, Deu 1:3, and they passed over Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, Jos 4:19. Nations, i.e. the land of those nations; for that only they were to possess, but as for the nations or people they were not to possess, but to destroy them. Thus they are said to inherit Gad, Jer 49:1, i.e. the country and cities of Gad, as it is there explained.
Greater and mightier than thyself: this he adds, partly that they might not be surprised when they find them to be such; partly that they might not trust to their own strength, but wholly rely upon God’s help, for the destroying of them, and, after the work was done, might ascribe the praise and glory of it to God alone, and not to themselves.
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Fenced up to heaven, as the spies reported, Deu 1:28. See on Gen 11:4.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 The call to attention (Deu 9:1), Hear, O Israel,…
The call to attention (Deu 9:1), Hear, O Israel, intimates that this was a new discourse, delivered at some distance of time after the former, probably the next sabbath day.
I. Moses represents to the people the formidable strength of the enemies which they were now to encounter, Deu 9:1. The nations they were to dispossess were mightier than themselves, not a rude and undisciplined rout, like the natives of America, that were easily made a prey of. But, should they besiege them, they would find their cities well fortified, according as the art of fortification then was; should they engage them in the field, they would find the people great and tall, of whom common fame had reported that there was no standing before them, Deu 9:2. This representation is much the same with that which the evil spies had made (Num 13:28, Num 13:33), but made with a very different intention: that was designed to drive them from God and to discourage their hope in him; this to drive them to God and to engage their hope in him, since no power less than that which is almighty could secure and prosper them.
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II. He assures them of victory, by the presence of God with them, notwithstanding the strength of the enemy, Deu 9:3. "Understand therefore what thou must trust to for success, and which way thou must look; it is the Lord thy God that goes before thee, not only as thy captain, or commander-in-chief, to give direction, but as a consuming fire, to do execution among them. Observe, He shall destroy them, and then thou shalt drive them out. Thou canst not drive them out, unless he destroy them and bring them down. But he will not destroy them and bring them down, unless thou set thyself in good earnest to drive them out." We must do our endeavour in dependence upon God's grace, and we shall have that grace if we do our endeavour.
III. He cautions them not to entertain the least thought of their own righteousness, as if that had procured them this favour at God's hand: "Say not. For my righteousness (either with regard to my good character or in recompence for any good service) the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land (Deu 9:4); never think it is for thy righteousness or the uprightness of thy heart, that it is in consideration either of thy good conversation or of they good disposition," Deu 9:5. And again (Deu 9:6) it is insisted on, because it is hard to bring people from a conceit of their own merit, and yet very necessary that it be done: "Understand (know it, and believe it, and consider it) that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this land for thy righteousness. Hadst thou been to come to it upon that condition, thou wouldst have been for ever shut out of it, for thou art a stiff-necked people." Note, Our gaining possession of the heavenly Canaan, as it must be attributed to God's power and not to our own might, so it must be ascribed to God's grace and not to our own merit: in Christ we have both righteousness and strength; in him therefore we must glory, and not in ourselves, or any sufficiency of our own.
IV. He intimates to them the true reasons why God would take this good land out of the hands of the Canaanites, and settle it upon Israel, and they are borrowed from his own honour, not from Israel's deserts. 1. He will be honoured in the destruction of idolaters; they are justly looked upon as haters of him, and therefore he will visit their iniquity upon them. It is for the wickedness of these nations that God drives them out, Deu 9:4, and again, Deu 9:5. All those whom God rejects are rejected for their own wickedness: but none of those whom he accepts are accepted for their own righteousness. 2. He will be honoured in the performance of his promise to those that are in covenant with him: God swore to the patriarchs, who loved him and left all to follow him, that he would give this land to their seed; and therefore he would keep that promised mercy for thousands of those that loved him and kept his commandments; he would not suffer his promise to fail. It was for their fathers' sakes that they were beloved, Rom 11:28. Thus boasting is for ever excluded. See Eph 1:9, Eph 1:11.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Hear, O Israel,.... A pause being made after the…
Hear, O Israel,.... A pause being made after the delivery of the preceding discourse; or perhaps what follows might be delivered at another time, at some little distance; and which being of moment and importance to the glory of God, and that Israel might have a true notion of their duty, they are called upon to listen with attention to what was now about to be said:
thou art to pass over Jordan this day; not precisely that very day, but in a short time after this; for it was on the first day of the eleventh month that Moses began the repetition of the laws he was now going on with, Deu 1:3, and it was not until the tenth day of the first month of the next year that the people passed over Jordan, Jos 4:19 which was about two months after this:
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to go in and possess nations greater and mightier than thyself; the seven nations named Deu 7:1 where the same characters are given of them:
cities great and fenced up to heaven; as they were said to be by the spies, Deu 1:28, and were no doubt both large and strongly fortified, and not to be easily taken by the Israelites, had not the Lord been with them, Deu 9:3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–2 A promise of Canaan, ver. 1-3. A caution, not…
A promise of Canaan, ver. 1-3. A caution, not to ascribe this to their own merit, ver. 4-6. A rehearsal of their various rebellions, ver. 7-24. and of Moses's intercession for them, ver. 25-29.
Hear, O Israel - This seems to be a new discourse, delivered at some distance of time from the former, probably on the next sabbath-day. This day - That is, shortly, within a little time, the word day being often put for time. Nations - That is, the land of those nations. Mightier than thyself - This he adds, that they might not trust to their own strength, but rely upon God's help for the destroying them, and, after the work was done, might ascribe the glory of it to God alone, and not to themselves.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On v1 The people are informed that they shall shortly pass…
CHAPTER IX
The people are informed that they shall shortly pass over
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Jordan, and that God shall go over before them, to expel the
ancient inhabitants, 1-3.
They are cautioned not to suppose that it is on account of their
righteousness that God is to give them that land, 4-6.
They are exhorted to remember their various provocations of the
Divine Majesty, especially at Horeb, 7-14;
and how Moses interceded for them, and destroyed the golden
calf, 15-21.
How they murmured at Taberah, 22;
and rebelled at Kadesh-barnea, 23;
and had been perverse from the beginning, 24.
An account of the intercession of Moses in their behalf, 25-29.
NOTES ON CHAP. IX
Verse 1. Thou art to pass over Jordan this day] היום haiyom, this time; they had come thirty-eight years before this nearly to the verge of the promised land, but were not permitted at that day or time to pass over, because of their rebellions; but this time they shall certainly pass over. This was spoken about the eleventh month of the fortieth year of their journeying, and it was on the first month of the following year they passed over; and during this interim Moses died.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 Deu 9:1-2. This seems to be a new discourse,…
Deu 9:1-2. This seems to be a new discourse, delivered at some distance of time from the former, probably on the next sabbath day. This day — That is, shortly, within a little time, the word day being often put for time. To possess nations — That is, the land of those nations. Mightier than thyself — This he adds that they might not trust to their own strength, but wholly rely upon God’s help for the conquering them, and after the work was done, might ascribe the glory of it to God alone, and not to themselves. Who can stand — This seems to have been a proverb used in those times.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 The lesson of this chapter is exactly that of…
The lesson of this chapter is exactly that of Eph 2:8, “By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.”
In referring to their various rebellions, Moses here, as elsewhere, has regard not so much for the order of time as to that of subject. (Compare Deu 1:9-15 note.) Such reasons as convenience and fitness to his argument sufficiently explain the variations observable when the statements of this chapter are minutely compared with those of Exo. 32–34. In these variations we have simply such treatment of facts as is usual and warrantable between parties personally acquainted with the matters.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–3 This day, very soon, (Menochius) within the space of…
This day, very soon, (Menochius) within the space of a month. (Calmet) --- Sky: an hyperbole to denote their surprising height. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Second Command
The Second Command
Deu_9:1 to Deu_11:32
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Deu_9:1-29.
1Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass1 over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven. 2A people great [mighty] 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? 3Understand therefore [And thou understandest] this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming [eating] fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out [and thou dispossessest them and destroyest], and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. 4Speak not thou in thine heart, after that [since] 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: but2 [since] for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee. 5Not 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 [in order] that he may perform3 [fulfil] the word which 6the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand therefore [And thou understandest] that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land 7to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people. Remember, and forget not [thou shalt not forget this, that] how thou provoked 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 [with 8respect to] the Lord. Also [And even] in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you. 9When 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 [bread I did not eat, and water I did not drink]: 10And the Lord delivered [gave] unto me [the] two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written [omit 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. 11And 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. 12And 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 13them; they have made them a molten [founded, cast] image. Furthermore [And] the Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. 14Let 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 [more 15numerous] than they. So [And] I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in [upon] my two hands. 16And 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. 17And I took [seized] the two tables, and cast them out of [from upon] my two hands, and brake them before your eyes. 18And 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. (19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you.) But [And] the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also. 20And the Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time. 21And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small4 [ground it well], even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. 22And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye 23provoked the Lord to wrath. Likewise when [And as] the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment [mouth] of the Lord your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. 24Ye have been rebellious against the 25Lord from the day that I knew you. Thus [And] I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as [which] I fell down at the first [omit at the first]; because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26I prayed therefore [And I prayed] 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 27brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember [Think upon] thy servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; look [turn] not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: 28Lest 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 29slay them in the wilderness. Yet [And still] they are thy people and thine inheritance which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Deu_9:1-5. Hear, sq. Deu_9:1 calls attention to a new, as Deu_6:4 to the first command (Deu_5:1). הַיּוֹם (hoc die, hodie), at this time לָבֹא, Deu_4:1. לָרֶשֶׁת גוֹיִם, what these possess (Deu_7:1). Comp. Deu_2:12; Deu_2:21-22. The description of the nations and cities drawn from Deu_1:28. Since the second command is directed against images, its exposition could not start from any deeper basis, than when it begins from that imagination which caused the heart of Israel to melt, while in truth it should have kept the image of Jehovah in His word of promise in the heart, and have held it against any such thought or imagination. The words are partly different from those in Deu_7:1.—רַבִּים occurs there, and עֲצֻמִים מִמֶּךָ, which are found here, are there dependent upon רַבִּים, while the description of the cities is there entirely wanting. The enumeration there rules the description (Deu_7:7). On the other hand the transfer from Deu_1:28 is so exact, that the רָם, which is omitted Deu_9:1, occurs in Deu_9:2, and the sons of Anak are expressly mentioned as those well-known, and the mention of whose name Israel heard with the greatest terror. Moses speaks designedly in the very words of the spies. It is an ironical citation. Deu_9:3. Israel now understands, how could it be otherwise after the victory over Sihon and Og, that Jehovah is (He) the Captain at its head (Deu_3:28). As a consuming fire recalls the punishment upon the former generation; but since we have here an exposition of the prohibition of images, it is literally a resumption of Deu_4:24 in its connection with this prohibition. The quality referred to has only an introductory reference to the destruction of the Canaanites. For He shall destroy them is explained by the clause: He shall bring them down before thee.—יַכְנִיעֵם, alluding to the name Canaan, and intimating the terror, the breaking, with which Israel should easily accomplish their expulsion. Observe the three-fold and emphatic הוּא. The thought is in unison with Deu_8:17 sq. מַהֵר is not in opposition to Deu_7:22, but is only modified by it, viz. as quickly as it may be best for thee, quickly in a general sense, and in whatever way As the Lord hath, sq. may be understood. [Their destruction would be quick compared with what might be expected in the circumstances in any ordinary human conquest, but not quick, or at once, so as to endanger their interests.—Wordsworth calls attention to the fact that in Deu_7:22 Moses is speaking of the nations; here he speaks of a particular race, the sons of Anak. There is no lapse of memory or inconsistency.—A. G.] While Deu_8:17 sq. treats in entire accordance with the first command, of the grossest form of self-exaltation, the apotheosis of their own strength, Deu_9:4 here, in agreement with the second command, speaks of the refined pride, of self-righteousness and the corresponding rewards ascribed to it; the cultivation of hypocritical Pharisaism. It is not sufficient that Moses guarding against this thought, has directly opposed his but for, sq.; he resumes it once more and emphatically in Deu_9:5. He meets the Pharisaism which usually rests in a simple external righteousness, with the added inward uprightness of the heart. The wickedness of these nations already mentioned is in like manner supplemented by the word and oath of the promise, Deu_4:37-38; Deu_7:8. Deu_9:6 forms the conclusion through the certainly (Deu_9:3) to be presumed self-knowledge of Israel, which, in connection with the wickedness of the Canaanites, takes away every other natural right to Canaan than that in the free love of Jehovah to the fathers. The designation as stiff-necked (Exo_32:9) prepares the way for what follows. It is a characteristic expression with the leader of Israel, and describes Israel as stubborn under the yoke laid upon him; hence as an untractable beast of burden (comp. Mat_11:28-29!), Act_7:51; Isa_48:4. [This chapter, with other passages, gives rise to the title of Deuteronomy as a “book of reproofs.” The censure is sharp. There is no concealment of the sins of the people, especially of its ingratitude and rebellion. This unsparing reproof is itself a strong argument in favor of the Mosaic authorship. For any later author wishing to impose his work upon the people, would have sought to conciliate and thus prepare the way for the reception of his book. And as Wordsworth well says, “it is impossible to believe that a whole people should have conspired to accept a libel against itself, and to have venerated it as an oracle of God,” as they must have done if it is not from Moses.—A. G.]
2. Deu_9:6-24. The large experience which Moses had of the truthfulness of this declaration of Jehovah concerning Israel determines his emphatic demand in Deu_9:7, through which he designs to impress more clearly upon the mind of the people its natural peculiarity and unworthiness. לְמִן־ (Deu_4:32), comp. Exo_14:11. He begins significantly with a deed of kindness, as the deliverance from Egypt, in order by contrast to characterize the shameful conduct of Israel. Comp. upon Deu_1:26. עִס־, with [A. V. against], brings out more clearly the shamefulness, through the actual connection, upon the covenant relation. Deu_9:8. The apostasy at Horeb (Exodus 32) forms the very core of the historical proof, because it is the most striking illustration with respect to the second command. The ו signifies also, even: directly after the covenant had been concluded, Exodus 24. Comp. upon Deu_1:37 (Deu_5:9). [So also Bib. Com.: “The conjunction introduces a special example of a general statement.—A. G.] The narrative which follows is so thoroughly personal and Mosaic, and bears the stamp of one’s own experience so clearly, that we cannot think of the art and skill of a later deuteronomist. Deu_9:9; comp. Exo_24:12-13. Thus precisely when nothing could have been more unexpected than the apostacy of the people. Moses went to bring the very tables of the covenant, Israel ought to have awaited it with the most sacred suspense and attention (Deu_5:19; Deu_4:13; Deu_5:2-3); comp. Exo_24:18. The number 40 intimates the character of the desert, namely, the tempting, testing nature for Israel of this residence of Moses. They had waited for Moses forty years; now they would not wait forty days and nights. The fast which, Exo_34:28, was related in connection with the second tables of the law, is not transferred from that passage to this, but as is clear from Exo_24:11, it is there tacitly intimated. To this entire absorption in God on the part of Moses, Israel on its part formed the exact counterpart. Deu_9:10. Comp. Exo_31:18; Exo_32:16; (Deu_8:15; Luk_11:20) Deu_4:10 sq.; Deu_5:5; Deu_5:19. Thus the wonderful authentic document of the covenant. Deu_9:11 is not merely a resumption of the giving of the tables; but, as at the end, sq. shows, after the apostacy of Israel had already occurred, i.e., the given tables must now become the formal and solemn testimony against the unfaithful people, and at the same time for the faithfulness of Jehovah, who even in anger—for His anger is in love—guards the integrity of His covenant. Hence the same expression as in Deu_9:9. Deu_9:12. Comp. Exo_32:7 sq. מַהֵר answers to the following מַהֵר, if the apostacy occurs so quickly, the mediator also must quickly appear, both with respect to the judgment as for mediation, if it is still possible to mediate and save. שִׁחֵת. Comp. upon Deu_4:16, where the word is borrowed from Exo_32:7, as in the highest degree descriptive of image worship. Thy people, sq., sounds as if the people were rejected, but also as fitting to the mediator of the people. The way commanded Israel, relates to the manner in which Israel should not worship God, Deu_4:16; Deu_5:8, explained by the following clause, they, sq. מַסֵּכָה from נָסַךְ, to pour, here used in reference to the golden covering, or as a description of the whole. The casting and working of metals was long practised in Egypt, and hence known to the Israelites. Exo_32:2 sq. Deu_9:13. (Exo_32:9). Comp. upon Deu_9:6. The appearance now reveals their real nature. Deu_9:14. הֶרֶף for הָרְף imper. apoc. (הַרְפֵּה) from רָפָה with מִן following: to desist from, to let alone, and presupposes, as in Exo_32:10, where it also occurs in a similar way, the here omitted intercession of Moses. Comp. Deu_7:24. Deu_9:15. (Exo_32:15). As already in Deu_9:10, so here, the fire is brought into prominence Comp. Deu_4:11 sq. It (Exo_24:17 sq) shines upon the two tables which he bore with himself, in his hands, and resting against his breast, as the law itself, coming down from the mount. Deu_9:16 agreeing with Deu_9:12 sq. A calf. A symbol, according to the Egyptian pattern (Apis. Mnevis) truly of the general power of God (Elohim), hence upon the general level of heathenism, although Jehovah may have been represented therein as the object of worship. On the other hand the fire, and Moses with the tables, symbolized the deficient holiness. The casting down and breaking, Deu_9:17, occurred in indignation at the breach of the covenant on the part of Israel (Exo_32:19); corresponding to that which Moses had heard from God upon the mount, Deu_9:14. The mediator of the covenant sharing in the anger of Jehovah, recognizes in that way the divine judgment which casts away Israel to destruction, as righteous. But after that the holiness and righteousness of God had thus been sufficiently cleared, His grace and mercy could be invoked, Deu_9:18. When Moses casts himself before the Lord, he gives a proof that he did not think that the covenant itself was one, “discontinued on the part of the Lord,” (Schultz). Doct. and Eth. 13, upon . Deu_1:6 to Deu_4:40. Intercession rests upon the covenant faithfulness of God, notwithstanding all our unfaithfulness. The forty days and nights (Exo_34:28) are expressly (as at first) compared with those mentioned, Deu_9:9, having thus plainly the same object, viz., the obtaining at this time the second tables of the law-covenant. All that took place after Moses’ descent from the mount, as related in Exo_32:30-31, upon which the occurrences Exo_33:1 sq. came to pass, down to Exo_34:28, is here omitted, since Moses went up to obtain the new tables of the law. We have not here different accounts (of the Jehovist, of his first and second documents) which we are to harmonize, but on the contrary a compressed statement, and one as to its aim, fully corresponding with the one complete statement of Exodus. As the intercessory character of the given time, by which it is distinguished from the former residence, so the second fast of Moses has its accessory reasons in the sin of Israel. [Bib. Com.: “Moses interceded for the people before he came down from the mountain the first time, Exo_32:11-13. This intercession is only briefly alluded to here. Afterwards he spent another forty days in the mount, Exo_34:9, and the intercession of Moses made therein is that brought forward here, and in 25–29.”—A. G.]. At the same time Deu_9:19 hints at all that is related in Exodus 33, for the full hearing and answering followed first in Exo_34:10 sq. Until that occurred, there was ground indeed for fear ( Heb_12:21), since Jehovah only in this way and by degrees, and from the beginning in a restricted manner, revealed His condescension. The forty days and nights are thus a continuous wrestling with God, of the Mediator, for his people. At that time, as before, e.g., Exo_14:15; Exo_17:9, and again later Num_11:2; Num_14:20 The destruction of Israel was averted, and the covenant confirmed anew through Moses alone, in whom only the position of mediator, and the promise of God (Deu_9:14, I will make thee, sq.) are conspicuous. But this is still Deu_9:20, carried out with respect to Aaron. The anger of Moses, Exo_32:21 sq., illustrates the anger here attributed to Jehovah; on the other hand Exodus contains nothing of any special intercession for Aaron. That here in Moses, Levi enters in the room and office of Aaron is the first intimation of a feature genuinely deuteronomic (comp. Intro., § 4, I. 22) introductory to chap. 10. Deu_9:21. Your sin, the calf which they had made, in which their sin as a fact lay as it were tangible (the corpus delicti). Through this symbolical transaction, with which comp. Exo_32:20, the sin was energetically removed from their midst. The brook descending from the mount is presupposed in the “water,” Exo_17:6; and since they drank of the brook, the drinking there, Exo_32:20, is here intimated in the allusion to the brook; it was a circumstance of secondary moment. Deu_9:22. Comp. upon Num_11:1-3; upon Exodus 17; upon Num_11:33-34. The general national character of Israel is revealed in Deu_9:7, and hence, beside the great apostacy at Horeb, other instances earlier and later are alluded to. Deu_9:23. Comp. Deu_1:19 sq.; Deu 26:32, 43. Thus Deu_9:24 returns in a summary way to Deu_9:7 (Exo_6:9; Exo_6:12). [In enforcing his admonition against self-righteousness, Moses selects such instances in their history as may serve his purpose best, without any strict regard to the order of time. He uses those parts of events more fully related elsewhere, which are fitted to his end, without even professing to give any full or detailed statement. This is just what is constantly done in all similar discourses. There is no inconsistency or contradiction.—A. G.].
3. Deu_9:25-29. In a brief, summary way, Deu_9:25 is also a resumption of the intercession of Moses, Deu_9:18, and with this agrees Deu_9:26 sq. The contents of this intercessory prayer are essentially taken from Exo_32:11-13, for this first prayer, breaking forth from the heart of the mediator, contains all that follows: It is only ever repeated. Destroy not. Comp. Deu_9:12. They have destroyed (corrupted) themselves, hence it is for God not to destroy, but to save, (Luk_9:56). It sounds characteristically New Testament like, in the Old Testament, as negatively Old Testament like. It is a Psalm title, Psalms 57, 59, 75. Thy people returns on good grounds the thy used by God, Deu_9:12. Inheritance, preparatory to Deu_9:27. God has inherited it from the fathers. Comp. upon Deu_4:20. At the same time a denial that Moses had ever wrought any mighty deed (Deu_9:12), it was all the greatness of God (Deu_7:8). Profound and subtle is the full designation of the fathers of the people, Deu_9:27; with respect to its conceded nature it descends from these fathers! As if Moses would say, what labor and patience hast thou not also had with them! let the love and forbearance shown to the fathers designated as servants of the Lord, i.e., as those who can come into view according to their obedience, avail for Israel (Deu_4:37; Deu_7:8). Look (turn) in order to see, and then to punish. Deu_9:28. As Israel thought little of Jehovah’s honor, so the mediator of Israel gives the greater thought and care to that honor (Deu_9:3) and love (Deu_1:27). The land, i.e., the people of the land from whom Jehovah had wrested Israel (Exo_14:4; Exo_14:17-18). Moses places the inability (Num_14:16) first, pointing to the unwillingness. מִ From these reasons, because. Deu_9:29. Comp. Deu_9:26. The contrary assertion closes the prayer, is the true, and is also the actual.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The grace, promise, and gifts of God are in order to bring men low, and lay them before Him. Comp. Deu_1:8. (Mat_22:4; Luk_14:17). Faith has merely to take, and any delay in the possession is merely the result of the unbelief and disobedience of men. With respect to time also; for faith it is this day, or still shortly, (Luk_18:8; Rev_1:1). But such utterances of God are to be understood in the spirit, since a thousand years are with Him as one day; 2 Peter 3.
2. The providence of God, especially His preservation, is a continual creation; so also His gracious leading of His people is a constant salvation from the deserved judgment. The moment of redemption outweighs every other in the sin in which we are involved. Hence Moses not only at first reminds Israel of the exodus from Egypt, but in his intercessory prayer reminds the Lord of that redemption. So much is evident from Deu_9:26. The world, according to its origin, is set upon nothing (Heb_11:3) the sinner (Gen_2:17) according to justice is set for destruction.
3. The repeated testimony that Moses received the tables from God, which contained all His own words (Deu_9:9-11; Deu_9:15) emphasizes one aspect of the mediation, that in which he stands as the representative of God to the people. As this is confirmed upon the most trustworthy grounds, so also the other side, in which he stands as the representative of the people toward God. As in Abraham, Israel is determined according to the promise, so in Moses according to the law. He received the law not only for Israel, but he was (Deu_9:19) regarded expressly as Abraham, as acting for the whole people. It is therefore in accordance with the character of mediator when Moses, the agent of the people, brings his intercession with God for them to its issue; the more so as Aaron, to whom belongs all the priestly mediation of Israel, in the transaction at Horeb, had not acted for God, but for the people, so that Moses must enter for him, as he had for the people. The relation which lies at the basis of the representation of many through one, is that of Adam, of Christ a truly theological.
4. “Even to his High Priest,” says Baumgarten, “he could not appeal, for the anger of Jehovah burned also against Aaron (Deu_9:20). Only one point seemed to remain, that Moses had given his forty days’ fasting and tears as an atonement for Israel (Deu_9:18; Deu_9:25-28). But this Moses could not cross the Jordan, he also must die on account of his sins in the wilderness.” Consequently, as the leadership of the hosts of Israel upon earth must pass into the hand of Joshua, so must the leading of the cause of Israel before God await another mediator, Heb_8:6; Heb_9:15 sq.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Luther: “Moses in this chapter cuts off all spiritual pride.” Deu_9:1-6. For and against Israel: 1) For Israel speaks the promise which will be fulfilled; for Israel the Lord contends who goes before Him. 2) Against Israel is his own heart and his stiff neck. Our enemies are not our greatest danger, but our own hearts and nature. Deu_9:3. The knowledge that the Lord goes before us, and stands for us, is the certain and daily experience of the believer. Deu_9:4. Schultz: “The knowledge of sin is the only source in which the earnest strivings to live anew can have their origin and be strengthened.” Deu_9:7 sq. Starke: “A Christian should suffer himself to be reminded when he has sinned, Psa_141:5.” Deu_9:14. Freylinghausen: “O what a gracious word, that the Lord should represent Himself as weak, as if Moses alone by his intercession could turn away this terrible judgment.” Auberlen: “God makes faith much easier to him than to Abraham.” Calvin: “He still continues with tears, as all the saints, although their prayers are heard and answered.” Deu_9:20. Starke: “Christians should pray for one another, Jam_5:15.” Deu_9:24. “What a sad testimony.” Deu_9:25 sq. Krummacher: “To bring the availing sacrifice was kept for another. Who thinks not of His prostrations, His tears, His strong cries, etc.” Deu_9:26-29. Piscator: “The true form and manner of prayer that we may be heard: 1) To whom should such prayer be offered? To the Lord of Lords. 2) What reasons should impel us? The command of God, His promise, and our necessity. 3) To what end should it be directed? That God would remember His honor, truth, and almighty power. 4) How the prayer should be made? In a hearty confidence in the truthfulness and mercy of God. 5) What should one ask? For grace, the forgiveness of sins, and the preservation of the Church. (Comp. further upon Exodus 32 sq.).
Footnotes:
[1][Deu_9:1. Passing—about to pass.—A. G.]
[2][Deu_9:4. Lit.: and in.]
[3][Deu_9:5. Lit: cause to stand, confirm.—A. G.]
[4][Deu_9:21. Lit.: well, diligently, with great care.—A. G.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 3 1. Nations greater… cities great and fenced — This…
1. Nations greater… cities great and fenced — This description of the nations and cities is similar to what we have in Deu_1:38.
Whom thou knowest — The majority of the spies who had been sent to search the land brought back reports which the people credited, and which disheartened them. See Deu_1:28, also Numbers 12:28.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 1. Hear, O Israel] Deu_6:4.
1. Hear, O Israel] Deu_6:4.
thou art to pass over Jordan this day] Similarly Deu_30:18 (and cp. Deu_2:18), Sg.; Deu_4:14; Deu_4:26; Deu_11:31; Deu_31:13, Pl., but apparently editorial.
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to possess] or dispossess. Deu_2:12; Deu_2:21 f., Deu_11:23, Deu_12:2; Deu_12:29, Deu_18:14, Deu_19:1, Deu_31:3, with personal object as here. For another form of same vb. see on Deu_4:38.
nations greater and mightier than thyself] So Deu_4:38 also Sg.; Deu_11:23, Pl.: cp. Jos_23:9.
cities … fenced, etc.] See on Deu_1:28.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–3 (1) Hear, O Israel.—A fresh portion of the exhortation…
IX.
EXHORTATION TO REMEMBER THE SINS OF THE EXODUS.
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(1) Hear, O Israel.—A fresh portion of the exhortation begins here. The cause of Israel’s conquest of Canaan is not to be sought in their own merit, but in the choice of Jehovah.
Thou art to pass.—Literally, thou art passing: i.e., just about to pass.
Nations greater and mightier than thyself.—If this is true (and there is no reason to doubt it), the responsibility of the conquest does not rest with Israel; they were the Divine executioners. (See Note on Jos_5:13-14.)
Cities . . . fenced up to heaven.—Comp. the expression in Gen_11:4, “a city and a tower whose top may reach unto (literally, is in) heaven.” So here, “cities great and fortified in the heavens.” Was St. Paul thinking of this expression when he said, “We wrestle against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly regions?” (Eph_6:12).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. H. Mackintosh 1880 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 9
Deuteronomy 9
"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; 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!" (Vers. 1, 2.)
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This chapter opens with the same grand Deuteronomic sentence, "Hear, O Israel." This, we may say, is the key note of this most blessed book, and especially of those opening discourses which have been engaging our attention. But the chapter which now lies open before us presents subjects of immense weight and importance. In the first place, the lawgiver sets before the congregation, in terms of deep solemnity, that which lay before them, in their entrance upon the land. He does not hide from them the fact that there were serious difficulties and formidable enemies to be encountered. This he does, we need hardly say, not to discourage their hearts, but that they might be forewarned, forearmed, and prepared. What that preparation was we shall see presently; but the faithful servant of God felt the rightness, yea, the urgent need of putting the true state of the case before his brethren.
There are two ways of looking at difficulties; we may look at them from a human stand-point, or from a divine one; we may look at them in a spirit of unbelief, or we may look at them in the calmness and quietness of confidence in the living God. We have an instance of the former, in the report of the unbelieving spies, in Numbers 13; We have an instance of the latter, in the opening of our present chapter.
It is not the province nor the path of faith to deny that there are difficulties to be encountered by the people of God; it would be the height of folly to do so, inasmuch as there are difficulties, and it would be but fool-hardiness, fanaticism, or fleshly enthusiasm to deny it. It is always well for people to know what they are about, and not to rush blindly into a path for which they are not prepared. An unbelieving sluggard may say, "There is a lion in the way;" a blind enthusiast may say, "There is no such thing;" the true man of faith will say, "Though there were a thousand lions in the way, God can soon dispose of them”.
But, as a great practical principle of general application, it is very important for all the Lord’s people to consider deeply and calmly what they are about, ere they enter upon any particular path of service or line of action. If this were more attended to, we should not witness so many moral and spiritual wrecks around us. What mean those most solemn, searching and testing words addressed by our blessed Lord to the multitudes that thronged around Him, in Luke 14? "He turned and said to them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother his wife, and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish" (Vers. 26-30.)
These are solemn and seasonable words for the heart. How many unfinished buildings meet our view, as we look forth over the wide field of Christian profession, giving sad occasion to the beholders for mockery! How many set out upon a path of discipleship, under some sudden impulse, or under the pressure of mere human influence, without a proper understanding or a due consideration of all that is involved; and then when difficulties arise, when trials come, when the path is found to be narrow, rough, lonely, unpopular, they give it up, thus proving that they had never really counted the cost, never taken the path in communion with God, never understood what they were doing.
Now, such cases are very sorrowful; they bring great reproach on the cause of Christ, give occasion to the adversary to blaspheme, and greatly dishearten those who care for the glory of God and the good of souls. Better far not to take the ground at all than, having taken it, to abandon it in dark unbelief and worldly-mindedness.
Hence, therefore, we can perceive the wisdom and faithfulness of the opening words of our chapter. Moses tells the people plainly what was before them; not, surely, to discourage them, but to preserve them from self-confidence which is sure to give way in the moment of trial; and to cast them upon the living God who never fails a trusting heart.
“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."
Here, then, is the divine answer to all difficulties, be they ever so formidable. What were mighty nations, great cities, fenced walls, in the presence of Jehovah? Simply as chaff before the whirlwind. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The very things which scare and stumble the coward heart afford an occasion for the display of God’s power, and the magnificent triumphs of faith. Faith says, "Grant me but this, that God is before me and with me, and I can go anywhere." Thus the only thing in all this world that really glorifies God is the faith that can trust Him and use Him and praise Him; and inasmuch as faith is the only thing that glorifies God, so is it the only thing that gives man his proper place, even the place of complete dependence upon God, and this ensures victory and inspires praise-unceasing praise.
But we must never forget that there is moral danger in the very moment of victory - danger arising out of what we are in ourselves. There is the danger of self-gratulation - a terrible snare to us poor mortals. In the hour of conflict, we feel our weakness, our nothingness, our need. This is good and morally safe. It is well to be brought down to the very bottom of self and all that pertains to it, for there we find God, in all the fullness and blessedness of what He is, and this is sure and certain victory and consequent praise.
But our treacherous and deceitful hearts are prone to forget whence the strength and victory come. Hence the moral force, value and seasonableness of the following admonitory words addressed by the faithful minister of God to the hearts and consciences of his brethren, "Speak not thou in thine heart - here is where the mischief always begins - "after that the Lord 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 those nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee."
Alas! what materials there are in us! What ignorance of our own hearts! What a shallow sense of the real character of our ways! How terrible to think that we are capable of saying in our hearts such words as, "For my righteousness!" Yes, reader we are verily capable of such egregious folly; for as Israel was capable of it so are we, inasmuch as we are made of the very same material; and that they were capable of it is evident from the fact of their being warned against it; for, most assuredly, the Spirit of God does not warn against phantom dangers or imaginary temptations. We are verily capable of turning the actings of God on our behalf into an occasion of self-complacency; instead of seeing in those gracious actings a ground for heartfelt praise to God, we use them as a ground for self exaltation.
Hence, therefore, we would do well to ponder the words of faithful admonition addressed by Moses to the hearts and consciences of the people; they furnish a very wholesome antidote for the self-righteousness so natural to us as well as to Israel. " Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land; but for the wickedness of those 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. Understand therefore, that the Lord giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people. 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." (Vers. 5-7.)
This paragraph sets forth two great principles which, if fully laid hold of, must put the heart into a right moral attitude. In the first place, the people were reminded that their possession of the land of Canaan was simply in pursuance of God’s promise to their fathers. This was placing the matter on the most solid basis - a basis which nothing could ever disturb.
As to the seven nations who were to be dispossessed, it was on the ground of their wickedness that God, in the exercise of His righteous government, was about to drive them out. Every landlord has a perfect right to eject bad tenants; and the nations of Canaan had not only failed to pay their rent, as we say, but they had injured and defiled the property to such an extent that God could no longer endure them; and therefore He was going to drive them out, irrespective altogether of the incoming tenants. Whoever was going to get possession of the property, these dreadful tenants must be evicted. The iniquity of the Amorites had reached its highest point, and nothing remained but that judgement should take its course. Men might argue and reason as to the moral fitness and consistency of a benevolent Being unroofing the houses of thousands of families and putting the occupants to the sword; but we may depend upon it the government of God will make very short work with all such arguments. God, blessed for ever be His holy Name, knows how to manage His own affairs, and that too without asking man’s opinion. He had borne with the wickedness of the seven nations to such a degree that it had become absolutely insufferable; the very land itself could not bear it. Any further exercise of forbearance would have been a sanction of the most terrible abominations; and this of course was a moral impossibility. The glory of God absolutely demanded the expulsion of the Canaanites.
Yes; and we may add, the glory of God demanded the introduction of the seed of Abraham into possession of the property to hold, as tenants for ever under the Lord God Almighty, the most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth. Thus the matter stood for Israel, had they but seen it. Their possession of the land of promise and the maintenance of the divine glory were so bound up together that one could not be touched without touching the other. God had promised to give the land of Canaan to the seed of Abraham, as an everlasting possession. Had He not a right to do so? Will infidels question God’s right to do as He will with His own? Will they refuse to the Creator and Governor of the universe a right which they claim for themselves? The land was Jehovah’s, and He gave it to Abraham His friend for ever; and although this was true, yet were not the Canaanites disturbed in their tenure of the property until their wickedness had become positively unbearable.
Thus we see that in the matter both of the outgoing and incoming tenants, the glory of God was involved. That glory demanded that the Canaanites should be expelled because of their ways; and that glory demanded that Israel should be put in possession because of the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But, in the second place, Israel had no ground for self-complacency, as Moses most plainly and faithfully instructs them. He rehearses in their ears, in the most touching and impressive manner, all the leading scenes of their history from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea; he refers to the golden calf, to the broken tables of the covenant, to Taberah and Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah; and sums all up, at verse 24, with these pungent humbling words, "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you."
This was plain dealing with heart and conscience. The solemn review of their whole career was eminently calculated to correct all false notions about themselves; every scene and circumstance in their entire history, if viewed from a proper standpoint, only brought to light the humbling fact of what they were, and how near they had been, again and again, to utter destruction. With what stunning force must the following words have fallen upon their ears! "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. Furthermore, the Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; 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." (Vers. 12-14.)
How withering was all this to their natural vanity, pride and self-righteousness! How should their hearts have been moved to their very deepest depths by those tremendous words, "Let me alone, that I may destroy them!" How solemn to reflect upon the fact which these words revealed - their appalling nearness to national ruin and destruction! How ignorant they had been of all that passed between Jehovah and Moses, on the top of mount Horeb! They had been on the very brink of an awful precipice. Another moment might have dashed them over. The intercession of Moses had saved them, the very man whom they had accused of taking too much upon him. Alas! how they had mistaken and misjudged him! How utterly astray they had been in all their thoughts! Why the very man whom they had accused of self-seeking and desiring to make himself altogether a prince over them, had actually refused a divinely given opportunity of becoming the head of a greater and mightier nation than they! Yes, and this same man had earnestly requested that if they were not to be forgiven and brought into the land, his name might be blotted out of the book.
How wonderful was all this! What a turning of the tables upon them! How exceedingly small they must have felt, in view of all these wonderful facts! Surely as they reviewed all these things, they might well see the utter folly of the words, "For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land." How could the makers of a molten image use such language! Ought they not rather to see and feel and own themselves to be no better than the nations that were about to be driven out from before them? For what had made them to differ? The sovereign mercy and electing love of their covenant God. And to what did they owe their deliverance out of Egypt, their sustenance in the wilderness, and their entrance into the land? Simply to the eternal stability of the covenant made with their fathers, "a covenant ordered in all things and sure," a covenant ratified and established by the blood of the Lamb, in virtue of which all Israel shall yet be saved and blessed in their own land.
But we must now quote for the reader the splendid paragraph with which our chapter closes - a paragraph eminently fitted to open Israel’s eyes to the utter folly of all their thoughts respecting Moses, their thoughts respecting themselves, and their thoughts respecting that blessed One who had so marvellously borne with all their dark unbelief and daring rebellion.
"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. 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. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look; not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their uncleanness, nor to their sin : 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. Yet they are Thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power, and by thy stretched out arm."
What marvellous words are these to be addressed by a human being to the living God! What powerful pleadings for Israel! What self-renunciation! Moses refuses the offered dignity of being the founder of a greater and mightier nation than Israel. He only desires that Jehovah should be glorified, and Israel pardoned, blessed and brought into the promised land. He could not endure the thought of any reproach being brought upon that glorious Name so dear to his heart; neither could he bear to witness Israel’s destruction. These were the two things he dreaded; and as to his own exaltation, it was just the thing about which he cared nothing at all. This beloved and honoured servant cared only for the glory of God and the salvation of His people; and as to himself, his hopes, his interests, his all, he could rest, with perfect composure, in the assurance that his individual blessing and the divine glory were bound together by a link which could never be snapped.
And oh! how grateful must all this have been to the heart of God! How refreshing to His spirit were those earnest, loving pleadings of His servant! How much more in harmony with His mind than the intercession of Elias against Israel, hundreds of years afterwards! How they remind us of the blessed ministry of our Great High Priest who ever liveth to make intercession for His people, and whose active intervention on our behalf never ceases for a single moment!
And then how very touching and beautiful to mark the way in which Moses insists upon the fact that the people were Jehovah’s inheritance, and that He had brought them up out of Egypt. The Lord had said, "Thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt." But Moses says, "They are Thy people, and thine inheritance, which Thou broughtest out." This is perfectly exquisite. Indeed this whole scene is full of profound interest.
C. H. Mackintosh, Notes on the Pentateuch — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–3 Vers. 1-6. Israel might acknowledge that it was of…
DISSUASIVES FROM SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Vers. 1-6. Israel might acknowledge that it was of God"s free gift that they possessed the land of Canaan, and yet might flatter themselves by thinking it was because of their righteousness and goodness that the gift was bestowed. To guard against this, Moses tells them that not because of their righteousness would God go before them and drive out the mighty peoples that then occupied the land, but because of the wickedness of these peoples themselves were they to be extirpated (vers. 1-6). He further reminds them of their transgressions in the past, and how they thereby came under the Divine displeasure, and were saved from destruction only through his earnest intercession (vers. 7-24).
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This day; at this time, very soon. Nations, etc. (cf. Deu_7:1) Cities (cf. Deu_1:28)
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1-3. See Homily on (Deu_4:23, Deu_4:24)
HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES Vers. 1-6. Against self-righteous conceit.
Sanguine expectation of success in war is a potential force of immeasurable value. If the expectation be ill-founded, it is worse than none. It will not stand as substitute for other equipment, but it serves as a final edge upon the well-tempered blade. Like the figure naught," which increases the sign of value only when added to other figures, so sanguine anticipation of triumph is only forceful when based on solid qualities.
I OBSERVE THE FORMIDABLE CONTEST. God has never encouraged his servants to underrate difficulties. Jesus Christ did not over color the advantages of his service.
1. The Amorites were superior in stature. This might, in itself, become an instrument of strength; it might prove a source of weakness. The larger the machinery, the greater motive power is demanded.
2. The Amorites excelled in martial courage. They were mightier." The land had become divided into petty kingdoms, and it is evident that deadly wars between the tribes were frequent. Such practice had developed warlike skill.
3. They fought behind well-built ramparts. Their cities were fortresses, while the Hebrews, unskilled in war, had to fight in the open field. Defenders of bastioned homes have great advantage over foreign assailants.
4. The Amorites possessed a wide reputation. This would serve to brace to the highest pitch the courage of the inhabitants, while it would serve to dismay the besieging army. Every visible and material advantage was on the side of the Canaanites.
II LEARN THE SECRET OF ISRAEL"S TRIUMPH.
1. Gods alliance outmatches all martial opposition. The unseen power is always greater than the seen. God"s arrows find their way through the best-jointed harness. The simple breath of Omnipotence withers all opposition. Whatever we omit to take to the battle-field, let us not omit to take God.
2. Occult forces often lead the van. In advance, even of their vanguard, unseen pioneers would sap the foeman"s strength. As fire devours the stubble, so would the Canaanites" strength become as rottenness. Hornets, pestilence, lightning, hail a thousand agencies God employs as the real army in advance of the human host.
3. God"s work and man"s reciprocally interlace: God will never do our part; we can never do God"s part. There is scope everywhere for human agency, but it must never invade the Divine province. We are to work because God works with us in us. God promised that he "would bring down the enemy;" Israel was "to drive them out.
III MARK THE GROUNDS OF GOD"S AWARD. He fought on the side of Israel, and against the Canaanites, for specific reasons. Some of these are mentioned for the instruction of men. Strong inducements disposed the Hebrews to regard themselves as the favorites of Heaven, on the ground of their superior goodness. This was corrupt fruit from an evil tree. These were false flatteries, forged by Satan. Against these fortresses of self-righteousness Moses was directed to hurl the battering-ram of reproof.
1. Human righteousness not meritorious. It is not meritorious, because it is deficient. All true righteousness has some merit; but if the unrighteousness in a man"s life exceed the righteousness, then blame must exceed approval. The Canaanites were evicted because of moral rottenness, the fruit of gross idolatry. Loyalty to God alone could entitle the Hebrews to replace them. In this they had been signally wanting.
2. Material possessions have often a vicarious origin. They are given to one for the sake of another. The faith of Abraham had borne a long succession of fruits. There is a principle of moral solidarity in the human race. We are not distinct units, but component parts members one of another.
3. We see the inviolability of Gods promise. To our purblind eyes that promise often seems to fail; yet failure is absolutely impossible. His time and man"s time do not always correspond. God"s words must be taken as expressive of God"s conceptions. His words are expansive enough to contain an infinitude of meaning. D.
HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR Vers. 1-6. The policy of reprobation.
Moses here indicates very clearly what lay at the foundation of the invasion. It is to be carried on successfully as a judgment upon Canaanitish sin. It is no merit in the victors, but the demerit of the vanquished, which determines the Divine dealings. In one word, it is a policy of reprobation. And here let us observe
I THAT REPROBATION IS THE OPPOSITE OF APPROBATION. Great confusion of thought exists upon this subject through losing sight of this. The conduct of the Canaanites had been going on from bad to worse, and it was impossible for God to approve of it. He had no alternative but to loathe them for their iniquities, and to arrange their fate accordingly. Reprobation in the last resort, in the case of those finally impenitent, is a necessity with God; he cannot but loathe those guilty of such conduct (of. Robert Hall"s "Help to Zion"s Travelers," p. 45).
II A VICTORY IS AT ALL EVENTS A JUDGMENT ON THE VANQUISHED. It has indeed been said that the next worst thing to a defeat is a victory, by which it is indicated that both sides suffer, but the vanquished more than the victors. In the invasion of Palestine, the Canaanites were to be vanquished because of their disobedience. It was judgment to them God"s judgment, and thoroughly deserved.
III IT MATTERS NOT TO GOD, AND SHOULD NOT TO HIS SERVANTS, HOW GREAT HIS ENEMIES MAY BE. The Canaanites were men of gigantic size, with great cities, fenced up to heaven. They were outwardly much more than a match for Israel. And this was doubtless to try the faith of Israel, and to see if they would live by sight in this matter, or trust in their Almighty King. It is for the Lord"s people to remember that "greater is he that is for them than all that be against them," and that with God they are sure of ultimate victory.
IV SUCCESS IS INTENDED TO TEST THE PEOPLE OF THE Lorry. Israel is told expressly that they are a stiffnecked people. The conquest is not to be on account of any merit of theirs. But it will test their loyalty to God. It has been observed that conquest has generally exercised a retributive influence upon the conquerors (Goldwin Smith, in Fortnightly Review for July, 1877). It was for Israel to determine whether their stiffneckedness would continue or would succumb. If they interpreted their triumph properly, as the gift of free grace, they would settle down after it to grateful obedience.
V THE INVASION IS A TYPE OF DIVINE GRACE MANIFESTED STILL. Sinners are like the Israelites, with nothing in the way of merit to recommend them. But God comes in his gospel and offers them a complete victory over sin, Satan, and the world, as a free gift.
These enemies seem gigantic like the Canaanites. We could not overcome them in our own strength; but greater is he that is for us than all that be against us. We find ourselves coming off more than conquerors through him that loved us. And every spiritual victory is meant to test and strengthen us. It should increase our gratitude and ensure increased obedience.
It is well, moreover, to remember that the triumphs now are granted as free gifts, not as rewards of merit. After we have as disciples done our very best, we should be ready to acknowledge that we are only unprofitable servants, we have only done what it was our duty to do.
God is able to give us the victory over our greatest enemies, but he will do so in such a way as to secure the heartfelt gratitude and homage of his believing people. He is a faithful Promiser; having made the promise to Abrabam, Isaac, and Jacob, he will not forsake their seed, but give the victory in his own time and way to all who trust him. R.M.E.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Hear, O Israel.
Deu_9:1-6
Hear, O Israel.
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The call to attention
I. He represents to them the formidable strength of the enemies which they were now to encounter (Deu_9:1-2). This representation is much the same with that which the evil spies had made (Num_13:28-29; Num_13:31-33), but made with a very different intention: that was designed to drive them from God, and to discourage their hope in Him; this, to drive them to God, and engage their hope in Him, since no power less than that which is almighty could secure and succeed them.
II. He assures them of victory, by the presence of God with them, notwithstanding the strength of the enemy (Deu_9:3). Observe, He shall destroy them, and then, thou shalt drive them out. Thou canst not drive them out unless He destroy them, and bring them down; but He will not destroy them, and bring them down, unless thou set thyself in good earnest to drive them out. We must do our endeavour in dependence upon Gods grace; and we shall have that grace, if we do our endeavour.
III. He cautions them not to entertain the least thought of their own righteousness, as if that had procured them this favour at Gods hand (Deu_9:4-6). In Christ we have both righteousness and strength; in Him, therefore, we must glory, and not in ourselves, or any sufficiency of our own.
IV. He intimates to them the true reasons why God would take this good land out of the hands of the Canaanites and settle it upon Israel.
1. He will be honoured in the destruction of idolaters (Deu_9:4-5).
2. He will be honoured in the performance of His promise to those that are in covenant with Him (Deu_9:5). (Matthew Henry, D. D.)
Thou art to pass over Jordan this day.
The Jordan
Be the day weary, or be the day long, it ringeth at length to evensong. So the weary wanderings of Gods people, long though they had been, were coming to an end at last. It has been a weary struggle to reach this river--the stream which lay between the wilderness and the promised land; just as, for that part of mankind who do not die young, the river of death is gained only through a long life, in which, while joys and sorrows are strangely mixed up, the sorrows form the largest portion. Everyone ought to be looking forward to this time; a time when all personal activities will cease, when we shall have to loose our hold on those things which engross us now, and which we imagine could not go on without us. And one great value of this looking forward to our death will be that we must at the same time look to our life, on which depends our death. Here, then, we are helped by meditating on the record which is left us of Israels journeyings towards the river of Jordan. Bear in mind that they travelled on, filled with a steadfast faith and hope as to the reality of the promised inheritance, and led by the Spirit of God. It was not ever thus with them. At one time they hankered after old sins--after the bondage of Egypt; they thought at one time that life might hold joys enough for them, without the future hope. But God quietly taught them by what looked like anger--but which was really love--the vanity of all earthly things; and from that time forward the promised land was their loadstar, which guided all their life. Nor were they left without the direct guidance of the law of God. How many lives amongst us are wrecked, how many of us are marching in a circle, because we have no settled principle to guide us! Every side path, every enticing glade, invites us to leave the strait way, and we follow it and find ourselves further from home than ever. Moreover, in addition to this law of God, Israel had the guidance of the ark, which was to them as the very presence of God Himself; The ark was to Israel as the Church of Christ is to ourselves, interpreting Gods will, giving point to His law, making that law not merely a set of rules, but a great guiding principle in truest touch with our whole lives. And Israel had all this time battles to fight, which in their varied characteristics fitly represent the perpetual conflicts which we are called to endure. But while Amalek represents the attacks of the world and Satan, which all must expect and be prepared for, Edom, Israels brother, who comes against him with a great force, reminds us that we may be attacked and thwarted in our heavenward course by those who should speed us on our way. It is no new or uncommon thing for the ardent young Christian to feel, not only want of sympathy, but positive opposition from those near and dear to him in earthly relationship. Again, in the attack of Moab we see the very Word of God attempted to be used as a weapon against the faithful people. And is it not true that many a young Christian, whom no enticement of sin can influence, who cannot be tempted to rebel against Gods moral laws, is assailed with awful effect by someone who comes bringing Gods own Word in his hand, and suggesting doubts and difficulties and problems, which, once suggested, cannot be ignored by a truth-loving, ardent spirit? Through all these trials, there was ever before the eyes and thoughts of Israel the entering on the promised land--the crossing of the river. As they wandered on, they knew them from the first will be with them still. The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you. All that made the wilderness a home shall go with them, so that they shall not be afraid, though, as Joshua says, ye have not passed this way heretofore. And as an earnest of what shall be, we have in our last hours the ministrations of Christs holy Church to speed us on our way, even as the ark of God went before Israel. On this side, the manna to support us on our journey; and then no more types, but the old corn of the land--even Jesus Himself, the very true Bread of Life. (E. Smith, B. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Deuteronomy 9-11
ISRAELS ELECTION, AND MOTIVES FOR FAITHFULNESS
Deuteronomy 9-11
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THE remaining chapters of this special introduction to the statement of the actual laws beginning with chapter 12 contain also an earnest insistence upon other motives why Israel should remain true to the covenant of Yahweh. They are urged to this, not only because life both spiritual and physical depended upon it, as was shown in the trials of the wilderness, but they are also to lay it to heart that in the conquests which assuredly await them, it will be Yahweh alone to whom they will owe them. The spies had declared, and the people had accepted their report, that these peoples were far mightier than they, and that no one could stand before the children of Anak. But the victory over them would show that Yahweh had been among them like a consuming fire, before which the Canaanite power would wither as brushwood in the flame.
Under these circumstances the thought would obviously lie near that, as they had been defeated and driven back in their first attempt upon Canaan because of their unrighteousness and unbelief, so they would conquer now because of their righteousness and obedience. But this thought is sternly repressed. The fundamental doctrine which is here insisted on is that Israels consciousness of being the people of God must at the same time be a consciousness of complete dependence upon Him. If His gifts were ultimately to be the reward of human righteousness, then obviously that feeling of complete dependence could not be established. They are to move so completely in the shadow of God that they are to see in their successes only the carrying out of the Divine purposes. Instead of feeling fiercely contemptuous of the Canaanites they destroy, because they stand on a moral and spiritual height which gives them a right to triumph, the Israelites are to feel that, while it is for wickedness that the Canaanite people are to be punished, they themselves had not been free from wickedness of an aggravated kind. Their different treatment, therefore, rests upon the fact that they are to be Yahwehs chosen instruments. In the patriarchs he chose them to become the means, the vehicle, by which salvation and blessing were to be brought to all nations. While, therefore, the evil that comes upon the peoples they are to conquer is deserved, the good they themselves are to receive is equally undeserved. That which alone accounts for the difference is the faithfulness of God to the promises He made for the sake of His purposes. He needs an instrument through which to bless mankind. He has chosen Israel for this purpose, partly doubtless because of some qualities, not necessarily spiritual or moral, which they have come to have, and partly because of their historical position in the world. These taken together make them at this precise moment in the history of the worlds development the fittest instruments to carry out the Divine purpose of love to mankind. And they are elected, made to enter into more constant and intimate communion with God than other nations, on that account. In the words of Rothe, "God chooses or elects at each historical moment from the totality of the sinful race of mankind that nation by whose enrollment among the positive forces which are to develop the kingdom of God the greatest possible advance towards the complete realization of it may be attained, under the historical circumstances of that moment." Whether that completely covers the individual election of St. Paul, as Rothe thinks, or not, it certainly precisely expresses the national election of the Old Testament, and exhausts the meaning of our passage. Israelite particularism had universality of the highest kind as its background, and here the latter comes most insistently to its rights.
It was not only the election of Israel to be a peculiar people which depended upon the wise and loving purpose of God; the providences which befell them also had that as their source. To fit them for their mission, and to give them a place wherein they could develop the germs of higher faith and nobler morality which they had received, Yahweh gave them victory over those greater nations, and planted them in their place. This, and this only, was the reason of their success; and with scathing irony the author of Deuteronomy stamps under his feet {Deu_9:7 ff.} any claim to superior righteousness on their part. He points back to their continuous rebellions during the forty years in the wilderness. From the beginning to the end of their journey towards the Promised Land, they are told, they have been rebellious and stiff-necked and unprofitable. They have broken their covenant with their God. They have caused Moses to break the tables of stone containing the fundamental conditions of the covenant, because their conduct had made it plain that they had not seriously bound themselves to it. But the mercy of God had been with them. Notwithstanding their sin, Yahweh had been turned to mercy by the prayer of Moses (Deu_9:25 ff.), and had repented of His design to destroy them. A new covenant was entered into, with them (chapter 10) by means of the second tables, which contained the same commands as were engraven on the first. The renewal, moreover, was ratified by the separation of the tribe of Levi {Deu_10:8 ff.} to be the specially priestly tribe, "to bear the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto Him and to bless in His name." From beginning to end it was always Yahweh, and again Yahweh, who had chosen and loved and cared for them. It was He who had forgiven and strengthened them; but always for reasons which reached far beyond, or even excluded, any merit on their part.
The grounds of Moses successful, intercession for them {Deu_9:25 ff.} are notable in this connection. They have no reference at all to theneeds, or hopes, or expectations of the people. These are all brushed aside, as being of no moment after such unfaithfulness as theirs had been. The great object before his mind is represented to be Yahwehs glory. If this stiff-necked people perish, then the greatness of God will be obscured and His purposes will be misunderstood. Men will certainly think, either that Yahweh, Israels God, attempted to do what He was not able to do, or that He was wroth with His people, and drew them out into the wilderness to slay them there. It is Gods purpose with them, Gods purpose for the world through them, which alone gives them importance. Were it not for that, they would be as little worth saving as they have deserved to be saved. For his people, and, we may be sure, for himself, Moses recognizes no true worth save in so far as he or they were useful in carrying out Divine purposes of good to the world. Nor is the absence of any plea on Israels behalf, that it is miserable or unhappy, due merely to a desire to keep the rebellious people in the background for the moment, and to appeal only to the Divine self-love for a pardon which would, on the merits of the case, be refused. It is the God of the whole earth, before whom "the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers," who is appealed to; a God removed far above the petty motives of self-interested men, and set upon the one great purpose of establishing a kingdom of God upon the earth into which all nations might come. If His glory is appealed to, that is only because it is the glory of the highest good both for the individual and for the world. If fear lest doubt should be cast upon His power is put forward as a reason for His having mercy, that is because to doubt His power is to doubt the supremacy of goodness. If the Divine promise to the patriarchs is set forth here, it is because that promise was the assurance of the Divine interest in and Divine love of the world.
Under such circumstances it would need a very narrow-hearted literalism, such as only very "liberal" theologians and critics could favor, to reduce this appeal to a mere attempt to flatter Yahweh into good-humor. It really embodies all that can be said in justification of our looking.for answers to prayer at all; and rightly understood it limits the field of the answer as strictly as the expressed or implied limitations of the New Testament, viz. that effectual prayer can only be for things according to the will of God. Moreover it expresses an entirely natural attitude towards God. Before Him, the sum of all perfections, the loving and omniscient and omnipresent God, what is man that he should assert himself in any wise? When the height and the depth, the sublimity and the comprehensiveness of the Divine purpose is considered, how can a man do aught save fall upon his face in utter self-forgetfulness, immeasurably better even than self-contempt? The best and holiest of mankind have always felt this most; and the habit of measuring their attainments by the faithfulness and knowledge, the virtue and power which is in God, has impressed some of the greatest minds and purest souls with such humility, that to men without insight it has seemed mere affectation. But the pity, the condescension, the love of Christ has so brought God down into our human life, that we are apt at times to lose our awe of God as seen in Him. Were we children of the spirit we should not fall into that sin. We cannot, consequently, be too frequently or too sharply recalled to the more austere and remote standpoint of the Old Testament. For many even of the most pious it would be well if they could receive and keep a more just impression of their own worthlessness and nullity before God.
In the section from the twelfth verse of chapter 10 {Deu_10:12} to the end of chapter 11 the hortatory introduction is summed up in a final review of all themotives to and the results of obedience and love to God. The fundamental exhortation as to love to God is once more repeated; only here fear is joined with love and precedes it; but the necessity of love to God is expanded and dwelt upon, as at the beginning, with a zeal that never wearies. The Deuteronomist illustrates and enforces it with old reasons and new, always speaking with the same pleading and heartfelt earnestness. He does not fear the tedium of repetition, nor the accusation of moving in a narrow round of ideas. Evidently in the evil time when he wrote this love towards God had come to be his own support and his consolation; and it had been revealed to him as the source of a power, a sweetness, and a righteousness which could alone bring the nation into communion with God. In affecting words resembling very closely the noble exhortation in Micah 6, "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth Yahweh require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" he teaches much the same doctrine as his contemporary: "And now, Israel, what doth Yahweh thy God require of thee, but to fear Yahweh thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve Yahweh thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of Yahweh and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?" {Deu_10:12}
In spirit these passages seem identical; but it is held by many writers on the Old Testament that they are not so that they represent, in fact, opposite poles of the faith and life of Israel. Micah is supposed by Duhm, for instance, to mean by his threefold demand that justice between man and man, love and kindliness and mercy towards others, and humble intercourse with God are, in distinction from sacrifice, true religion, and undefiled. Robertson Smith also considers that these verses in Micah contain a repudiation of sacrifice. In Deuteronomy, on the contrary, fear and love of God and walking in His ways are placed first, but they are joined with a demand for the heartfelt service of God and the keeping of His statutes as about to be set forth. Now these certainly include ritual and sacrifice. The one passage, written by a prophet, excludes sacrifice as binding and acceptable service of God; the other, written perhaps by a priest, certainly by a man upon whom no prophetic lessons of the past had been lost, includes it. To use the words of Robertson Smith in discussing the requisites of forgiveness in the Old Testament, "According to the prophets Yahweh asks only a penitent heart and desires no sacrifice; according to the ritual law, He desires a penitent heart approaching Him in certain sacrificial sacraments." The author of Deuteronomy teaches the second view; the author of Micah, chapter 6, who is probably his contemporary, teaches the former. How is such divergence accounted for? The answer generally made is that Deuteronomy was the product of a close alliance between priests and prophets. A common hatred of Manassehs idolatry and a common oppression had brought them together as never perhaps before. With one heart and mind they wrought in secret for the better day which they saw approaching, and Deuteronomy was a reissue of the ancient Mosaic law adapted to the prophetic teaching. It represented a compromise between, or an amalgamation of, two entirely distinct positions.
But even on this view it would follow that from the time of Josiah, when Deuteronomy was accepted as the completest expression of the will of God, the doctrine that ritual and sacrifice as well as penitence were essential things in true religion was known, and not only known but accepted as the orthodox opinion. Putting aside, then, the question whether sacrifice was acknowledged by the prophets before this or not, they must have accepted it from this point onward, unless they denied to Deuteronomy the authority which it claimed and which the nation conceded to it. Jeremiah clearly must have assented to it, for his style and his thought have been so closely molded on this book that some have thought he may have been its author. In any case he did not repudiate its authority; and all the prophets who followed him must have known of this view, and also that it had been sanctioned by that book which was made the first Jewish Bible.
We have here, at all events, the keynote of the supremacy of moral duty over Divine commands concerning ritual which distinguishes the prophetic teaching in Micah and elsewhere, joined with the enforcement of ritual observances. But there are few purely prophetic passages which raise the higher demand so high as it is raised here.
To love and fear God are anew declared to be mans supreme duties, and the author presses these home by arguments of various kinds. Again he returns to the election of Israel by Yahweh, without merit of theirs; and to bring home to them how much this means, the Deuteronomist exhibits the greatness of their God, His might, His justice, and His mercy, which, great as it is to His chosen people, is not confined to them, but extends to the stranger also. This most gracious One they are to serve by deeds, to Him they are to cleave, and they are to swear by Him only, that is, they are solemnly to acknowledge Him to be their God in return for His undeserved favor. For their very existence as a nation is a wonder of His power, since they were only a handful when they went down to Egypt, and now were "as the stars of heaven for multitude."
Then once more, in chapter 11, he repeats his one haunting thought that love is to be the source of all worthy fulfillment of the law; and he endeavors to shed abroad this love to God in their hearts by reminding them once more of all the marvels of their deliverance from Egypt, and of their wilderness journey. Their God had delivered them first, then chastised them for their sins, and had trained them for the new life that awaited them in the land promised to their fathers.
Even in the security of the land they were to find themselves not less dependent upon God than before. Rather their dependence would be more striking and more impressive than in Egypt. As we have seen repeatedly, this inspired writer belonged in many respects to the childhood of the world, and the people he addressed were primitive in their ideas. Yet his thoughts of God in their highest flight were so essentially true and deep, that even today we can go back upon them for edification and inspiration. But here we have an appeal based upon a distinction which today should have almost entirely lost its meaning. The Deuteronomist yields quite simply and unreservedly to the feeling that the regular, unvarying processes of nature are less Divine, or at least are less immediately significant of the Divine presence, than those which cannot be foreseen, which vary, and which defy human analysis. For he here contrasts Egypt and Canaan, in both of which he represents Israel as having been engaged in agricultural pursuits, and speaks as if in the former all depended upon human industry and ingenuity, and might be counted upon irrespective of moral conduct, while in the latter all would depend upon Divine favor and a right attitude towards God. It is quite true that in preceding chapters he has been teaching that, even for worldly material success, the higher life is necessary, that man nowhere lives by bread alone; and that we may assuredly assume is his deepest, his ultimate thought. But he has a practical end in view at this moment. He wishes to persuade his people, and he appeals to what both he and they felt, though in the last resort it might hardly perhaps be justified. In Egypt, he says, your agricultural success was certain if only you were industrious. The great river, of which the land itself is the gift, came down in flood year after year, and you had only to store and to guide its waters to ensure you a certain return for your labor. You had not to look to uncertain rains, but could by diligence always secure a sufficiency of the life-giving element, In Canaan it will not be so. It "drinketh water only of the rain of heaven." Gods eye has to be upon it continually to keep it fertile, and the sense of dependence upon Him will force itself upon you more constantly and powerfully in consequence. They could hope to prosper only if they never forgot, never put away His exhortations out of their sight. Otherwise, he says, the life-giving showers will not fall in their due season. Your land will not yield its fruits, and "ye shall perish quickly off the good land which Yahweh giveth you."
Now what are we to say of this appeal? There can be no doubt that the Divine omnipotence was really, in the Deuteronomists view as well as in ours, as irresistible in Egypt as in Canaan. Fundamentally, no doubt, life or death, prosperity or adversity, were as much in the hand of God in the one case as in the other; and the Deuteronomist, at least, had no doubt that rebellion against God could and would destroy Egypts prosperity as much as Canaans. But he felt that somehow there was a tenderer and more intimate communion of love between Yahweh and His people under the one set of circumstances than under the other. We are not entitled to impute to him a questionable distinction which modern minds are apt to make, viz. that where long experience has taught men to regard the course of providence as fixed, there the sphere of prayer for material benefit ends, and that only in the region where the Divine action in nature seems to us more spontaneous and less capable of being foreseen, can prayer be heartily, because hopefully, made. But the feeling that suggests that was certainly in his mind. He felt the difference between the fixed conditions of life in Egypt and the more variable conditions in Canaan, to be much the same as the difference between the circumstances of a son receiving a fixed yearly allowance from his father, in an independent and perhaps distant home, and those of a son in his fathers house, who receives his portion day by day as the result and evidence of an ever-present affection. Both are equally dependent upon the fathers love, and both should theoretically be equally filled with loving gratitude. But as a fact, the latter would be more likely to be so, and would be held more guilty if he were not so. Upon that actual fact the Deuteronomist takes his stand. As they were now to enter into Yahwehs land, His chosen dwelling-place, he sees in the different material conditions of the new country that which should make the union between Yahweh and His people more intimate and more secure, and He presses home upon them the greater shame of ingratitude, if under such circumstances they should forget God and His laws.
Finally {Deu_11:22-25} he promises them the victorious extension of their dominion if they will love Yahweh and keep His laws. From Lebanon to the southern wilderness, from the Euphrates to the western sea, they should rule, if they would cleave unto their God. At no time was this promise fulfilled save in the days of David and Solomon. For only then had Lebanon and the wilderness, the Euphrates and the sea, been the boundaries of Israel. This must, then, be regarded as the time of Israels greatest faithfulness. But it is striking that it is in Josiahs day, after the adoption of Deuteronomy as the national law, that we meet with a conscious effort to realize this condition of things once more. There would seem to be little doubt that the good king took an equally literal view of what the book commanded and of what it promised. He inaugurated a period of complete external compliance with the law, and like the young and inexperienced man he was, he regarded that as the fulfillment of its requirements, and looked for a similar instantaneous fulfillment of the promises, Bit by bit he had absorbed the ancient territory of the Northern Kingdom; and in the decay of the Assyrian power he saw the opportunity for the enlargement of his dominion to the limit here defined. He consequently went out against Pharaoh Necho in the full confidence that he would be victorious. But if the Divine promise and its conditions were taken up too superficially by him, Divine providence soon and terribly corrected the error. The defeat and death of Josiah revealed that the reformation had not been real and deep enough, and that the nation was not faithful enough to make such triumph possible. Indeed, so far as we can see, the time for any true fulfillment of Israels calling in that fashion had then passed by. The harvest was past, and Israel was not saved, and could not now be saved, for it was in its deepest heart unfaithful.
It may be questioned by some, of course, whether an Israel faithful even in the highest degree could at any time have kept possession of so wide a dominion in the face of the great empires of Assyria and Egypt. These were rich, and had a far larger command both of territory and men: how then could the Israelites ever have maintained themselves in face of them? But the question is how to measure the power of the higher ideas they held. It is not force but truth that rules the world; and absolutely no limit can be set to the possibilities which open out to a free, morally robust, and faithful people, who have become possessed of higher, spiritual ideas than the peoples that surround them. Even in this skeptical modern day the transformation as regards physical strength which takes place when certain classes of Hindus become either Mohammedans or Christians is so startling and so rapid that it appears almost a miracle. As regards courage, too, it is even more rapid and equally remarkable. The great majority of the struggles of nations are fought out on the level of mere physical force and for material ends, and the strongest and richest wins: but whenever a people possessed of higher ideas and absolutely faithful to them does appear, the opposing power, however great it may be in wealth and numbers, is whirled away in fragments as by a tornado, or it dissolves like ice before the sun. What Israel might have been, therefore, had it been penetrated by the principles of the higher religion, and been passionately true to it, can in no way be judged by that which it actually was. Among the untried possibilities which it was too unfaithful to realize, the possession of such an empire as Deuteronomy promises would seem to be one of the least.
Our chapter sums up what precedes with the declaration on the part of Yahweh, "See, I am setting before you this day a blessing and a curse," according as they might obey or disobey the Divine command. It is stated, in short, that the whole future of the people is to be determined by their attitude to Yahweh and the commands He has given them. In these two words "blessing" and "curse," as Dillmann observes, He sets before them the greatness of the decision they are called upon to make. Just as at the end of chapter 3 the vision of Yahwehs stretched-out hand, which has strewn the world with the wrecks and fragments of destroyed nations, is relied on to prepare the people for contemplating their own calling, so here the: gain or loss which would follow their decision is solemnly set before them. By Dillmann and others it is supposed that Deu_11:29 and Deu_11:31, which instruct the people to "lay the blessing upon, Mount Gerizim and the curse upon Mount Ebal," have been transferred by the later editor from chapter 27, where they would come in very fittingly after Deu_27:3. But whether that be so or not, they are evidently so far in place here that they add to the solemnity with which the fate of the nation in the future is insisted upon. Their "choice is brief and yet endless"; it can be made in a moment, but in its consequence it will endure.
But here a difficulty arises. Dr. Driver in his "Introduction" says of this hortatory section of our book that its teaching is that "duties are not to be performed from secondary motives, such as fear or dread of consequences; they are to be the spontaneous outcome of a heart from which every taint of worldliness has been removed, and which is penetrated by an all-absorbing sense of personal devotion to God." Yet in these later chapters we have had little else but appeals to the gratitude and hopes and fears of Israel. Chapters 8 to 11 are wholly taken up with incitements to love and obey God, because He has been immeasurably good to them, never letting their ingratitude overcome His loving-kindness; because they are wholly dependent upon Him for prosperity and the fertility of their land; and because evil will come upon them if they do not. That would seem to be the opposite of what Driver has declared to be the informing spirit and the fundamental teaching of Deuteronomy.
Yet his view is the true one. Even if the Deuteronomist had added these lower motives to attract and gain over those who were not so open to the higher, that would not deprive him of the glory of having set forth disinterested love as the really impelling power in true religion. We are not required to lower our esteem of that achievement, even if, like the reasonable and wise teacher he is, he boldly uses every motive that actually influences men, whether it should do so or not, to win them to the higher life. But it is not necessary to suppose that he does so. His demand is that men shall love Yahweh their God with all their heart and strength, and to win them to that he sets forth what their God has revealed Himself to be. Men cannot love one whom they do not know: they cannot love one who has not proved himself lovable to them. As his whole effort is to get men to love God, and show their love by obedience to His expressed will, the Deuteronomist brings to mind all His loving thoughts and acts towards them, and so continually keeps his appeal at the highest level. He does not ask men to serve God because it will be profitable to them, but because they love God: and he endeavors to make them love God by reciting all His love and friendliness and patience to His people, and by pointing out the evil which His love is seeking to ward off. The plea is not the ignoble one that they must serve Yahweh for what they can gain by it, but that they should love Yahweh for His love and graciousness, and that out of this love continual obedience should flow as a necessary result. That is his central position; and if he points out the necessary results of a refusal to turn to God in this way he does not thereby set forth slavish fear or calculating prudence as in themselves religious motives. They are only natural and reasonable means of turning men to view the other side. He uses them to bring the people to a pause, during which he may win them by the love of God. That is always the true appeal; and Christianity when it is at its finest can do nothing but follow in this path. Having before his mind the results of evil conduct, he does urge men to escape from the wrath that may rest upon them. But the only means so to escape is to yield to the love of God. No self-restraint dictated by fear of consequences, no turning from evil because of the lions that are seen in the path, satisfies the demand of either Old Testament or New Testament religion. Both raise the truly religious life above that into the region of self-devoting love; and they both deny spiritual validity to all acts, however good they may be in themselves, which do not follow love as its free and uncalculating expression. Yet they both deal with men as rational beings who can estimate the results of their acts, and warn them of the death which must be the end of every other way of supposed salvation. In this manner they keep the path between extremes, ignoring neither the inner heart of religion nor winding themselves too high for sinful men.
How hard it is to keep to this reasonable but spiritual view is seen by popular aberrations both within and without the Church. At times in the history of the Church Christian teachers have allowed their minds to be so dominated by the terror of judgment that judgment has seemed to the world to be the sole burden of their message. As a reaction from that again, other teachers have arisen who put forward the love of God in such a one-sided way as to empty it of all its severe but glorious sublimity; as if, like Mohammed, they believed God was minded mainly "to make religion easy" unto men. Outside the Church the same discord prevails. Some secular writers praise those religions which declare that a mans fate is decided at the judgment by the balance of merit over demerit in his acts; while others mock at any judgment, and commit themselves with a light heart to the half-amused tolerance of the Divine good nature. But the teaching which combines both elements can alone sustain and bear up a worthy spiritual life. To rely upon terror only, is to ignore the very essence of true religion and the better elements in the nature of man; for that will not be dominated by fear alone. To think of the Divine love as a lazy, self-indulgent laxity, is to degrade the Divine nature, and to forget that the possibility of wrath is bound up in all love that is worthy of the name.
One other point is worthy of remark. In these chapters, which deal with the history of Gods chosen people in their relations with Him, there come out the very elements which distinguish the personal religion of St. Paul. The beginning and end of it all is the free grace of God. God elected His people that they might be His instrument for blessing the world, not because of any goodness in them, for they were perverse and rebellious, but because He had so determined and had promised to the fathers. He had delivered them from the bondage of Egypt by His mighty power, and dwelt among them thenceforth as among no other people. He gave them a land to dwell in, and there as in His own house He watched and tended them, and strove to lead them upwards to the height of their calling as the people of God by demanding of them faith and love. It is a very enlightening remark of Robertson Smiths that the deliverance out of Egypt was to Israel in the Old Testament what conversion is to the individual Christian according to the New Testament. Taking that as our starting-point, we see that the thought of Deuteronomy is precisely the thought of Romans. It is said, and truly enough, that the Pauline theology was a direct transcript of Pauls own experience; but we see from this that he did not need to form the moulds for his own fundamental thoughts. Long before him the author of Deuteronomy had formed these, and they must have been familiar to every instructed Jew. But the recognition of this is not a loss but a gain. If St. Paul had founded a theory of the universal action of God upon the soul only on the grounds of his own very peculiar experience, it might be argued that the basis of his teaching had been too personal to permit us to feel sure that his view was really as exhaustive as he thought. We see, however, that what he experienced the Deuteronomist had long before traced in the history of his people; and most probably he would not have traced it with so firm a hand had he not himself had experience of a similar kind in his personal relations with God. This method of conceiving the relation of God to the higher life of man, therefore, is stated by the Scriptures as normal. The free grace of God is the source and the sustainer of all spiritual life, whether in individuals or communities. Ultimately, behind all the successful or unsuccessful efforts of the human heart and will, we are taught to see the great Giver, waiting to be gracious, willing that all men should be saved, but acting with the strangest reserves and limitations, choosing Israel among the nations, and even within Israel choosing the Israel in whom alone the promises can be realized. Made to serve by human sin, He waits upon the caprices of the wills He has created. He does not force them; but with compassionate patience He builds up His Holy Temple of such living stones as offer themselves, and "without haste as without rest" prepares for the consummation of His work in the redemption of a people that shall be all prophets, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation unto whom all nations shall join themselves when they see that God is in them of a truth. That is the Old Testament conception of the source, and guarantee, and goal of all spiritual life in the world, and St. Pauls view is merely a more mature and definite form of the same thing. And wherever spiritual life has manifested itself with unusual power, the same consciousness of utter unworthiness on the part of man, and entire dependence upon the grace and favor of God, has also manifested itself. The intellectual difficulties connected with this view, great as they are, have never suppressed it; the pride of man and his faith in himself have not been able permanently to obscure it. The greater men are, the more entirely do they dread any approach to that self-exaltation which puts away as unnecessary the Divine hand stretched out to them. As Dean Church points out, "not Hebrew prophets only, but the heathen poets of Greece looked with peculiar and profound alarm upon the haughty self-sufficiency of men." Nothing can, they think, ward off evil from the man who makes the mistake of supposing, even when carrying out the Divine will, that he needs only his own strength of brain and will and arm to succeed, that he is accountable to no one for the character which he permits success to build up within him.
Even the agnostic of today, as represented by Professor Huxley, cannot do without some modicum of "grace" in his conception of mans relation to the powers of nature, though to admit this is to run a rift of inconsistency through his whole system of thought. "Suppose," he says in his "Lay Sermons," "it were perfectly certain that the life and future of every one of us would, one day or other, depend on his winning or losing a game at chess…The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, patient. But we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid with that overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength, and one who plays ill is checkmated without haste, but without remorse. My metaphor will remind you of the famous picture in which the Evil One is depicted playing a game of chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel, playing, as we say, for love, and who would rather lose than win, and I should accept it as the image of human life." Even in a world without God, therefore, the facts of life suggest "justice," "patience," "generosity," and a pity which "would rather lose than win." With all the inexorable rigor and hardness of mans lot there is mingled something that suggests "grace" in the power that rules the world; and from the Deuteronomist to St. Paul, from Augustine to Calvin and Professor Huxley, the resolutely thorough thinkers have found, in the last analysis, these two elements, the rigor of law and the election of grace, working together in the molding of mankind.
The statement of these facts in Deuteronomy is as thorough as any that succeeded it. The rigor of law could not be more precisely and pathetically declared than in this insistence on the blessing or the curse which must inevitably follow right choice or wrong. But the tenderness of grace could not be more attractively displayed than in this picture of Yahwehs dealings with Israel. Love never faileth here, no more than elsewhere. It persists, notwithstanding stiff-necked rebellion, and in spite of coarse materialism of nature. Even a childish fickleness, more utterly trying than any other-weakness or defect, cannot wear it out. But inexorable blessing or curse is blended with it, and helps to work out the final result for Israel and mankind. That is the manner of the government of God, according to the Scriptures. History in its long course as known to us now confirms the view; and the author of Deuteronomy, in thus blending love and law together in the end of this great exhortation, has rested the obligation to obedience on a foundation which cannot be moved.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses dissuadeth them from self-righteousness by recital of…
CRITICAL NOTES.—Moses dissuadeth them from self-righteousness by recital of past sins and rebellion.
Deu_9:1. This day, this time. Once before they had been at the borders of Canaan; but did not enter. Fenced Oriental cities surrounded with high walls; cf. Deu_1:28.
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Deu_9:2. Anak, cf. Num_13:22-33; Jos_11:21.
Deu_9:3. He, emphatic, consuming, cf. Deu_4:24; Heb_12:29. Swift and complete destruction.
Deu_9:4. My right. The land given not on account of their own merits, they must not pride themselves, therefore, in success.
Deu_9:5. The wickedness of the Canaanites, and the word uttered by oath to patriarchs were the reasons for giving the land to Israel.
Deu_9:6. Instead of meriting anything they were stiff-necked, hard of neck, obstinate and rebellious cf. Exo_32:3; Exo_33:3.
Deu_9:7-8. To prevent boasting of righteousness, acts of disobedience are rehearsed, in wild, as soon as free from Egypt. Also (even) in Horeb, “the conjunction introduces a special example of a general statement. The time and circumstances made the apostasy at Horeb particularly inexcusable.” (Sp. Com.)
Deu_9:9-12. These circumstances should be remembered. Moses up in the mountain, fasting, receiving the tables of the law, specially written with the finger of God. When God was speaking in fire. In the day of assembly, when all the people were called out of the camp to the foot of Sinai (Exo_19:17); amid stupendous displays of divine majesty they corrupted themselves with the golden calf, cf. Exo_31:18; Exo_32:6.
Deu_9:12-14. Almost verbatim from Exo_32:7-10. Let me alone, desist from me, i.e., do not by intercession try to hinder me from destroying them. In Exo_32:10, “let me rest,” i.e., cease to urge me.
Deu_9:15-17. The tables broken not as a mere outburst of indignation on his part, but as a declaration that they had broken the covenant by apostasy.
Deu_9:18-19. Moses briefly mentions the first intercession, Exo_32:11-13. Afterwards another 40 days were spent, and a second intercession (Exo_34:9) given here, “not only that he might make the people thoroughly aware that at that time Israel could not boast even of the righteousness of its eminent men (cf. Isa_43:27), but also to bring out the fact, which is still more fully described in Deu_10:6 sqq., that Aaron’s investure with the priesthood, and the maintenance of this institution, was purely a work of Divine grace.” (Delitz.)
Deu_9:20. Aaron left responsible, guilty, and proved unfit to lead.
Deu_9:22-24. Not only at Horeb, but at Tab., Num_11:1-3; Massah, Exo_17:1 sqq.; Kib., Num_11:34; Num_33:16-17, and Kedesh, Num_13:26; Num_32:8. “The list is not arranged chronologically, but advances gradually from the smaller to more serious forms of guilt.” (Keil.)
Deu_9:25. Fell down second intercession, in fuller detail.
Deu_9:26-29. Essential points given. Israel were God’s people; He redeemed them, and must not look upon their sins, i.e., punish them; but remember His oath to their ancestors. His honour was concerned.
Deu_9:28. Not able, through incapacity or hatred (cf. Num_14:16), neither of which would hinder God from saving a people redeemed, and especially His own.
A MEMORABLE DAY.—Deu_9:1-3
Israel forty years before had reached the borders of the promised land, but to their mortification were driven back (cf. Hom. Deu_2:1-3). Now they were certain to enter it and nothing could hinder them. “Thou art to pass over Jordan this day.”
I. A day displaying Divine goodness. They had been fed, defended and guided. Goodness and mercies had followed them and that day crowned all.
II. A day reminding of Divine faithfulness. Long before had the promise been given to those who left all to follow Him. This promise was not forgotten, though delayed in its fulfilment. “God cannot lie.”
III. A day to be improved. “Hear” (Deu_9:1) and learn duty. “Understand” how to practise it. “Drive them out,” and thus co-operate with God (Deu_9:3.) When we appreciate and improve our privileges God will assure us of His presence and help. “As the Lord hath said unto thee”—
DIVINE FAVOUR NOT HUMAN MERIT.—Deu_9:4-6
God assures them of victory over enemies, and of possession of Canaan. But they were not to think that it was on account of their own righteousness—because good in their character or obedient in their service—that this favour was given to them. Israel were a stiff-necked and the Canaanites a corrupt people, all, therefore, must be ascribed to God’s grace.
I. In gaining earthly possessions. Health and strength, houses and lands, family possessions and social distinctions are God’s gifts and not human acquisitions. If we boast of our prudence and skill, from whence do these come? The means and the materials of prosperity must be ascribed to God’s favour. Success in any undertaking, positions in life are not deserved, not given to merit, but in sovereign mercy. No credit whatever is due to us. “They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them (Psa_44:3.)
II. In conflict with mighty foes. The Anakims were famous in report and mighty in stature. Israel could not “stand before” them in the field. God alone could destroy them. Many foes array themselves against the Christian. Doubts and fears within; dangers and difficulties without, make him shrink from the encounter. Sinful habits, giant evils of every degree and strength oppose his efforts and progress. But faith in God makes “valiant in fight” He remembers the promise, the scenes of conflict and triumph in past experience and the victories of God’s people in every age. Then his trembling heart takes courage, he goes into the combat, and the foe is vanquished or retreats. With God it is “Athanasius against the world,” Luther against Popedom. Not by our own valour and numbers, in God’s strength alone can we overcome. “One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the Lord your God, He it is that fighteth for you. (Jos_23:10; cf. Lev_26:8.)
III. In the bestowment of religions privileges. Christian ordinances and residence in a Christian country—pardon of sin a fruitful life—perfect peace and the joys of heaven spring from grace and not from “works of righteousness which we have done (Tit_3:5). There is no worth, no merit or cause in us. Hence Wickliffe’s prayer: “Lord, save me gratis.”“If by grace then is it, no more (longer) of works (as a moving cause), otherwise (in that case) grace is no more (longer) grace (i.e. it ceases to be grace)” (Rom_2:6).
“Tis not by works of righteousness
Which our own hands have done,” etc.
PENITENT REMEMBRANCE OF PAST SIN.—Deu_9:7-8; Deu_9:22-23
To make it evident that they had no reason to boast of their own righteousness, Moses reviews their sins. Generally they had provoked God, specially in certain places, and it was a mercy they had not been destroyed long before this. We forget our sins, think only of our good deeds, and become self-righteous, and self-satisfied. “Remember and forget not.”
I. Remember sin in its aggravating circumstances. Sin at any time is risky, but peculiar circumstances intensify its guilt.
1. Aggravated by the special places in which it was committed. Even at the Red Sea (cf. Exo_14:11, and Psa_106:7), when starting in their pilgrimage; also in Horeb Deu_5:8, amid flames of fire and awful darkness (Exo_32:3-4). At Taberah they were discontented (Num_11:1-3); at Massah they murmured (Exo_17:1); at Kibroth-hattaavah they lusted (Num_11:4); and at Kadesh-barnea, on the very borders of the land of promise, they reproached God and sought to return to Egypt (Num_14:1). The list begins with lower forms, and advances to more aggravating evils. How often have we on solemn occasions and in holy places “been rebellious against the Lord.”
2. Aggravated by the frequency of its commission. “From the day thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place” (Deu_9:7.) Time after time were they warned, and check after check was given, but “they believed not His Word” (Psa_106:24). Can we not remember solemn vows on beds of sickness, deep impressions in the House of God, followed up by forgetfulness and acts of wilful sin? “All their transgressions in all their sins” (Lev_16:21).
II. Remember sin in bitter experience. In the light of inward feelings we may read the guilt of sin. Outward acts make deep impressions within us, and our own memory records the fruits of past disobedience. Israel had seen the death of arrogant Egyptians and wicked idolators—the miraculous power and gracious rewards of Jehovah. They knew the rewards of obedience, and the consequences of disobedience. They had been chastised and delivered, and sin in them had impaired memory, and blotted out all remembrance of God and His goodness. Most bitter is the fruit of sin in conscience and life. Its remnants are corruption, shame, and death. “What fruit (moral results) had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed (self reproached), for the end of these things as death (in its widest and most solemn sense” (Rom_6:21).
“Our pleasant vices make instruments to scourge us.”—Shakespeare.
III. Remember sin in its consequences before God. Sin not only brings bitter experience, but exposes to serious consequences before God.
1. God was provoked. “Ye provoked the Lord to wrath.” He is not insensible, does not overlook sin. It is opposition to His nature, authority, and government. “Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate.”
2. Death was threatened. “Angry with you to have destroyed you.” Sin kindled the fire of Jehovah against them; but He was slow, very slow, to destroy them. They escaped, as we must escape, by a Mediator. “Had not Moses, His chosen, stood before Him in the breech to turn away His wrath.”
THE SIN OF HOREB.—Deu_9:8-12
Israel continually sinned, and therefore deserved not the land into which they were about to enter. But some sins were specially provoking and shameful. The molten calf at Horeb must never be forgotten.
I. It was a violation of God’s covenant. They had solemnly pledged themselves to obey God, and ratified the covenant with blood. “All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient” (Exo_24:3-8). Feelings soon change, and emotions die away. Men are not cultured, not spiritual enough to worship an invisible (Rom_1:20-25; Col_1:15; Heb_11:27), they become sensual and demand a visible God. When we substitute anything for God, we practically deny Him. “They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image.”
II. It was a provocation in most solemn circumstances. The purpose of assembling, the scenes around them, and the reason for the absence of their leader, lent solemnity to the occasion. Moses contrasts the levity and guilt of the people, with his interview with God and his fasting on the mount. God was near, but they forgot Him. They defied every barrier. Moses was fasting, praying, and receiving the law; God was appearing in awful signs, yet they “quickly turned aside out of the way.” “Also (even) in Horeb ye provoked the Lord.”
III. It was most corrupting in its influence. They “have corrupted themselves” (Deu_9:12). All sin debases body and mind. It is a moral putrefaction, and offensive to God. It renders men unprofitable (i.e. corrupt, useless, unfit for the end of their creation), Rom_3:12; Psa_14:1-3. Man, once the high priest of Nature, the glorious link between the material and the spiritual, has forsaken his Maker, thrown off his holy robes and “corrupted his way.” “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy.”
GOD PROVOKED AT HOREB
On this part of Israel’s history we copy from Spurgeon’s Treasury of David (Psa_106:7).
To provoke, is an expression setting forth a peculiar and more than ordinary degree of misbehaviour, and seems to import an insolent daring resolution to offend. A resolution not contented with one single stroke of disobedience, but such as multiplies and repeats the action till the offence greatens and rises into an affront; and as it relates to God, so I conceive it aimed at Him in a threefold respect.
1. It rises up against the power and prerogative of God. An assault upon God sitting upon the throne, snatching his sceptre, defiance of his royalty and supremacy. He that provokes God, dares Him to strike to revenge the injury and invasion upon His honour—considers not the weight of His arm, but puffs at all and looks the terrors of revenging justice in the face.
2. Provoking God imports an abuse of His goodness. God clothed with power is the object of fear; but as He displays goodness, of love. By one He commands, by the other He wins, courts our obedience. An affront on His goodness, tenderness and love, as much exceeds an affront of His power as a wound at the heart transcends a blow on the hand. For when God works miracles of mercy to do good upon a people as He did upon the Israelites, was it not a provocation, infinitely base and insufferable, a degree of ingratitude, higher than the heavens struck at, and deeper than the sea that they passed through.
3. Provoking God imports an affront upon His long suffering and his patience. The musings of Nature in the breast tell us how keenly, how regretfully, every man resents the abuse of His love; how hardly any prince, but one, can put up an offence against His mercy; and how much more affrontive to despise majesty ruling by the golden sceptre of pardon, than by the iron rod of penal law. But patience is a further, a higher advance of mercy—mercy drawn out at length, wrestling with baseness, and striving if possible even to weary and outdo ingratitude; therefore sin against this is the highest pitch of provocation. For when patience is tired, let all the inventions of mankind find something further upon which to hope, or against which to sin. The Israelites sinned against God’s patience, one offence following upon another, the last rising highest, until the treasures of grace and pardon were so far drained and exhausted, that they provoked God to swear; and what is more to swear in His wrath and with a full purpose of revenge, that they should never enter into His rest.—Robert South.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_9:1. Go in.
1. Land to be possessed.
2. Go in and possess it—with courage in conflict—in dependence upon God’s presence, not upon self-righteousness and human prowess. Israel were not casual invaders, forsaken of God, but now emboldened, and must no longer delay (cf. Num_13:25.) “Fight the good fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life.”
Deu_9:2. Great and tall.
1. Men of stature physically.
2. Mentally of gigantic mind.
3. Spiritually “the measure of the stature of the fulness in Christ Jesus.” (Eph_4:13.)
Deu_9:4. Speak not. Man apt to be proud in heart. When proud in heart he speaks, boasts of self-righteousness and good deeds. God seeks to check this spirit by His Word and providence—“Many had proved wise if they had not thought themselves so.” Bp. Hall.
Deu_9:4-6. God doth drive them out—in sovereign power—on account of their constant wickedness, therefore nothing due to you, fear lest you forfeit possessions and God’s favour.
Deu_9:7. Grievous sins.
1. Forgetfulness of God, “forget not.”
2. Rebellion. “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord.
3. Continual provocation. “From the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt.”
Deu_9:8. The Lord was angry. God is said to be angry when he doeth as an angry man useth to do: viz.
(1) chide;
(2) smite; revenge being the next effect of anger.—Trapp.
1. A charge. “Ye provoked the Lord,” by impenitence, forgetfulness, and disobedience.
2. A consequence. “The Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you.” We are under deep obligations to God as Creator, Benefactor, and Saviour; but too often unfaithfully forget his benefits, ungratefully murmur against his dealings and live in habitual rebellion. (Isa_1:2-3.)
Deu_9:8-12. I. The absent leader. “I was gone up into the mount.” a. The purpose of his absence “to receive the tables of stone.” b. The length of his absence, “forty days and forty nights.” II. The Apostate People, “turned aside out of the way.” (Deu_9:12.) III. The sacrilegious act. “They have made them a molten calf.” (Exo_32:7.) IV. The fearful consequences. God forsaken and self corruption. There is intimate connection between idolatry and self corruption.
Corrupted themselves.
1. Sin self debasing.
2. God’s service our honour and adornment. God should be our glory, and we should not be a shame or dishonour to him. “Adorn the doctrine of God; make it trim, neat, and lovely in the sight of others. (Tit_2:10.) Let there be beautiful harmony between profession and practice.
The sin of Horeb. I. The sin remembered.
1. Idolatry. Not merely forgetting, or disowning God, but setting up an idol in his place.
2. Idolatry of the worst kind: changing the glory of God into the similitude of an ox.
3. The idolatry of Egypt under which they had suffered, and from which they had been delivered.
4. Idolatry after many wonderful interpositions of the true God in their behalf. II. The remembrance of sin.
1. For humiliation. It was the sin of their fathers.
2. For self condemnation. “We have sinned with our fathers.” It was our nature in them, and it is their nature in us that has committed this great sin.—Treasury of David.
THE GREAT INTERCESSION—Deu_9:13-20
This is a second mediation on the Mount. A mediation most remarkable and instructive. The crisis was terrible and trying to the great leader. But Moses stood “in the breach” and warded off the danger.
I. The need of intercession. Read these verses with Exodus 32, and we have the whole story.
1. The people had sinned. They had openly broken the law they solemnly vowed to keep. They had bowed to a calf in pretence of worshipping Jehovah. The contagion spread. The noise in the camp was not the noise of war, but of riot and dancing. “Ye have sinned a great sin.”
2. The people were exposed to death through sin. God was provoked to “anger and not displeasure” (Deu_9:19). Sin is no trifle; it rouses Divine wrath, and this wrath burns sometimes like a fire. “Let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them” (Exo_32:10). “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
3. Aaron’s life was endangered. “The Lord was angry with Aaron to have destroyed him” (Deu_9:20). Too weak to resist, he yielded to the people, received their gifts, and helped them to make the golden calf. He was a partaker in the guilt of idolatry, and would have suffered the penalty but for the intercession of Moses. “Neither be partaker of other men’s sins.”
II. The intercessor provided. “I fell down before the Lord.” The spirit in which Moses pleaded, the arguments which he used, and the results which he gained, are special features in this intercession. In Moses we have—
1. Great earnestness. “I fell down,” not in mere formal attitude, but with intense feeling and energy. He was humble, but earnest.
2. Great sympathy. Formerly he had chosen their lot (Heb_11:25), and notwithstanding their unworthiness he does not forget them. His feeling for his people is a type of the sympathy of Jesus, our Mediator.
3. Great disinterestedness. He wished not for greatness at their expense, but refused an offer most tempting. His self-sacrifice is seen—(a) In abstaining from food. “I did neither eat bread nor drink water, because of all your sins.” (b) In his willingness to sacrifice life itself for their sake. “Blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book” (Exo_32:32).
4. Great boldness. His seemed a hopeless case, and “the odds were against him;” yet he ventures near, and pleads with boldness at God’s feet.
5. Great perseverance. Many say, “You might as well give it up, it is all lost labour;” out Moses intercedes though repelled, “Let me alone;” intercedes though he himself “was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the Lord was wroth.” Long and perseveringly did he plead. I fell down “as at the first, forty days and forty nights.”
III. The results of the intercession. Disheartening as were the circumstances, blessed results were gained.
1. God hearkened to Moses. What a change from, “Let me alone, that my wroth may wax hot against them.”
2. The people were delivered. They were not consumed for their sins. “The Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people” (Exo_32:14).
3. Aaron’s life was spared. “I prayed for Aaron also at the same time” (Deu_9:20). What encouragement for us to plead for our friends and fellow-sinners. Never despair, for God is omnipotent and “delighteth in mercy.” “Is there anything too hard for the Lord” (Deu_9:2). If Moses prevailed, how much more does Jesus “who ever lives to intercede for us.”
AARONS SIN.—Deu_9:20
While Moses was up in the Mount, Aaron was left in charge to advise, direct and control the people. But how did he act? (cf. Exo_24:14; Exo_32:21-23).
I. Aaron’s sin. Weak-minded, he was easily drawn into sin, aided and abetted it. We must neither bring sin upon others nor encourage them in it. His excuses were insufficient and false. “What did this people unto thee, that thou has brought so great a sin upon them?”
II. Aaron’s exposure to danger. His whole conduct so angered God that he would have been destroyed but for the intercession of Moses. “The Lord was angry, very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him.” No man’s character and position can shelter him from the wrath of God.
III. Aaron’s deliverance. “I prayed for Aaron also the same time.” The most eminent and eloquent men sin and need an intercessor. Moses mildly rebuked his brother, but retaliates not. He prays for him and delivers him from death. What value, what power in the prayers of God’s people. “The effectual fervent (in thought) prayer of a righteous man availeth (energizes) much.” (Jas_5:16.)
What are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,
Both for themselves and those who call them friend!
For so the whole round earth is, every way
Bound by gold chains about the fact of God.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_9:13. A stiff-necked people. A metaphor taken from a horse that stiffens his neck against the reins and will not be guided by the rider. Hence it denotes a people obstinate, rebellious, who will not submit to God (cf. Exo_32:9; Exo_33:3; 2Ch_30:8; Psa_75:5; Jer_17:23; Act_7:51).
Deu_9:14. Let me alone.
1. God’s indignation and apparent refusal to bless.
2. The power of prayer to change circumstances, if not the purpose of God. “The Lord repented of the evil.”
“I will make” of thee a nation.
1. The promise—a nation, mightier and greater than they.
2. The condition of its fulfilment. To obtain self aggrandisment at the sacrifice of the people.
3. The refusal of this condition. The test was severe, but the spirit in which it was met redounds to the honour of Moses.
Deu_9:15-17. The broken tables.
1. An expression of righteous indignation. Perhaps a revival of the spirit which had formerly led him astray (Exo_2:12).
2. A symbol of the broken covenant.
3. A witness to exclusion from Divine favour. This was a solemn sight, which should have deeply impressed their hearts when they saw the blessings which they had lost.
Deu_9:18 to Deu_19:1. Fear of Divine anger.
2. Prayer for Divine help.
3. Interposition of Divine mercy.
Deu_9:20. Learn.—
1. That a good man may very grievously sin.
2. That his good deeds cannot save him from the consequences of his sin.
3. That there is no sin which does not require atonement and mediation.
THE IDOL DESTROYED.—Deu_9:21
Israel in Egypt had some leaning towards idolatry; but miraculous events since the exodus had checked this tendency. Now in the absence of Moses, the cry was raised “Make us a god.” The god was made and then destroyed. In this we see—
1. The Anger of Moses. The gospel enjoins broadest love to the sinner, but deepest indignation against sin. Pity not only makes benevolent and charitable, but imparts strength and zeal to resist Satan. Yet like all other passions, “righteous indignation,” needs controlling grace and must not be unwisely exercised. “That anger is without sin; that is, against sin.” (Mason). “Be ye angry and sin not.”
2. The courage of Moses. The meekest man may be firm and courageous. Six hundred thousand seem paralyzed before one man who stands up for God (Deu_32:30). When conscious of right and our cause good we need not fear. “The righteous are bold as a lion” (Pro_28:1; Psa_53:5). Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.
3. The vanity of the idol. How impotent this God before Moses. How stupid the people and how foolish their conduct! How irrational to adore idols less valuable, less honoured than their makers! The golden idols of self, and worldly pleasure are blind and senseless. Their worship is folly, wickedness and death. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
GRIEVOUS REBELLIONS.—Deu_9:22-24
Moses here reminds them of minor sins, of other places besides Horeb, in which they rebelled against God. These memorials of sin and punishment should humble them and enhance God’s mercy to them. Notice—
I. The Divine Command. “Go up and possess the land.” This direction had been given many times—given with emphasis and detail. God repeats directions in “line upon line” to satisfy reasonable doubt and stimulate to hearty obedience. Let us say with the prophet, “I will watch to see what he will say unto me.”
II. Israel’s disobedience to this command. “Ye rebelled against the commandment.”
1. Unbelief was the source of this rebellion. “Ye believed Him not.” Without faith no impression can be made upon the heart by sense, reason, or miracle. Stones are rounded and smoothed by the friction of water; but the heart of unbelief is hard and insensible to Divine goodness and Divine threatening.
2. Refusing to hear was the sign of unbelief. “Nor hearkened to His voice.” Listless inattention to the word is sure proof of unbelief. If we believe not the word of God, we cannot esteem His gifts nor “possess the land.” “When pilgrims to the celestial city begin to doubt the Lord of the way, they soon come to think little of the rest at the journey’s end, and this is the surest way to make them bad travellers” (Spurgeon). “They could not enter in because of unbelief.”
III. The rebellion which resulted from this disobedience. Stubborn refusal was repeated, and rebellion, open and long-continued, was the sad result. Continuance in sin and unbelief always go together. There is reflex influence upon faith and character. First unbelief, then disobedience to the word, and, lastly, open defiance. “Man knows the beginning of sin; but who bounds the issues thereof?” says one. “He addeth rebellion unto his sin” (Job_34:37).
PROLONGED INTERCESSION.—Deu_9:25-29
Moses retires to his mediation on account of apostasy at Sinai (cf. Deu_9:18-20). Whether the forty days mean a second, or only describe the first period, we see how earnest and prolonged the intercession was.
I. The intercession of Moses for his people. The sin at Horeb was most provoking—the climax of one long rebellion. God threatened destruction, and Moses goes between to intercede and save.
1. In the agony of prayer. “I fell down “in profound humility and intense anxiety. The best of men have thus pleaded for others. Knox cried, “O Lord, give me Scotland, or I die.” It is said that Latimer was so constant and earnest in prayer during his imprisonment, that he was unable to rise up without help.
2. With symbols of grief (Deu_9:18). His soul was stirred within him, and he fasted in grief. Personal need and personal advancement were forgotten. “I sat down and wept, and mourned certain days, and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven” (Neh_1:4).
II. The pleas which Moses urged in this intercession. He was obliged to own their wickedness, and could only bow his head in solemn prayer. “Their character was bad indeed,” says Matthew Henry, “when he that appeared an advocate for them could not give them a good word, and had nothing else to say on their behalf, but that God had done great things for them, which really did but aggravate their crime.”
1. He pleads God’s ownership of them. “Thy people and thine inheritance.” After creating and purchasing them wilt Thou destroy them! “Remember Thy congregation which Thou has purchased of old.”
2. He pleads God’s goodness to them. They were redeemed and brought out of Egypt. He knew them; had taken great care of them and worked miracles on their behalf. How strange, how inconsistent now to forsake them! No man is willing to lose his property and no king will relinquish his dominions. God will, therefore, keep his own and maintain His right over His people.
3. He pleads God’s covenant with their fathers. “Remember Thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The people are still the posterity of Jacob, and their rebellion does not alter Thy purpose to give them the land. God desires to be reminded of His promise, that a sense of His faithfulness and our unworthiness may be deepened within us.
4. He pleads the honour of God Himself. (Deu_9:28.) We should ever be jealous for the glory of God and the interests of His people. If God destroyed Israel what would the Egyptians say! How the enemy would rejoice and sound aloud their triumph. (cf. Exo_32:12-13.) They would say:
1. God was unable to help. “The Lord was not able to bring them into the land.” Was Divine energy spent. Had God been overcome or lost His omnipotence to save. Oh never let this be said! That mighty hand is not shortened that it cannot save. (Isa_59:1.) “Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? (Isa_50:2), or,
2. God hated His people. “Because He hated them.” Stiffnecked and most provoking had they been; but Divine love was unchangeable. God will never cast off His people. “For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.”
HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS
Deu_9:21. Dust in the brook. The dregs of sin. No other water to drink, and this most bitter and unsatisfactory. Sin curses our blessings and embitters our enjoyments. (Mal_2:2.) As Moses destroyed the form, calcined the material of this idol and reduced it to powder, so must all idols be destroyed. The people seemed to swallow their own sin, so bitterness follows indulgence. “The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways.” “He shall drink as he brews,” says Mt. Henry.
Deu_9:24-26. The great sin. The terrible danger. The power of a righteous man in turning away danger. Mighty as was the sin of Israel, the prayer of Moses was mightier. How earnestly should we plead for a backsliding people and a guilty world! “I prayed, and he had a hard tug of it; but prayer is the best lever at a dead lift.”—Trapp.
Deu_9:26; Deu_27:1. A people enslaved, wicked and rebellious; yet chosen, redeemed and purchased.
2. God’s remembrance and faithfulness. “Thou O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy name; leave us not.” (Jer_14:9; cf. Psa_90:7; 1Ki_8:51.)
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 9
Deu_9:1-3. Mightier. Never covet easy paths. The Lord keep you and me from that sin, beloved. (J. H. Evans.) A soldier in battle should feel as if the whole battle depended upon himself. Pass over. We are afraid of being desperate Christians. Oh, let us be desperate! The Church needs extremity—a great tug out of the world. (Lady Powerscourt.) Stand before. A passionate desire and unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or what seem to be such to the old and feeble. If we do but go on some unseen path will open up the hills. We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent disproportion between the result of the single efforts and the magnitude of the obstacles to be overcome.—Sharp.
Deu_9:4-6. My righteousness. It is the peculiar glory of gospel grace to humble every believer in the dust, and from gratitude and love to produce the best obedience. This grace will carry us, if we do not wifully betray our trust, victoriously through all difficulties (2Co_12:9).
“The greatest attribute of Heav’n is mercy;
And ’tis the crown of justice, and the glory
Where it may kill with right, to save with pity.”—Beaumont and Fletcher.
Deu_9:7. Forget. The sin of the understanding leads on to the sin of the memory. What is not understood will soon be forgotten. Men feel little interest in preserving husks; if they know nothing of the inner kernel they will take no care of the shells. It was an aggravation of Israel’s sin that when God’s mercies were so numerous they yet were able to forget them. Surely some out of such a multitude of benefits ought to have remained engraven upon their hearts; but if grace does not give us understanding, nature will soon cast out the memory of God’s great goodness.—Spurgeon.
Deu_9:8-17. Horeb. The ox image here is sarcastically called “a calf;” idols are worthy of no respect, scorn is never more legitimately used than when it is poured upon all attempts to set forth the Invisible God.—Spurgeon.
Molten image. They had given up the true God whom it had been their glory to adore, and had set up a rival to Him, not a representation of Him; for how should He be likened to a bullock? False gods, attempts to represent the true God, and indeed, all material things which are worshipped are so much filth upon the face of the earth, whether they be crosses, crucifixes, virgins, wafers, relics, or even the Pope himself. God abhors them and so do we.—Spurgeon.
Deu_9:12. Arise from off thy knees, the petitioner’s posture. St. James, they say, had knees as hard as camels’ knees, with continual kneeling; and Hilarion was found dead in his oratory with knees bent, eyes and hands lifted up.—Trapp.
Deu_9:17. Cast them. Drive away nature and back it comes at a gallop (French proverb). Whosoever is out of patience is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn bees and kill themselves in stinging others.—Bacon.
Deu_9:22-24. From the day that I knew you. To fall out at starting was a bad sign. Those who did not begin well can hardly be expected to end well. Israel is not quite out of Egypt, and yet begins to provoke the Lord by doubting His power and questioning his faithfulness to his promise.—Spurgeon.
Deu_9:26-29. Prayed. “The gift of the knees.” “The impotence of man with the omnipotence of God.” It is not the length but the strength of prayer that is required, not so much the labour of life, as the travail of the heart.
“Pleads he in earnest? look upon his face;
His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest;
His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast:
He prays but faintly, and would be denied;
We pray with heart and soul, and all beside.”
Shakespeare.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. Although God be not far from every one…
Deu 9:1
I. Although God be not far from every one of us, yet many of us have no consciousness of His presence; for a large portion of our lives we do not think of Him, and when we do it is rather an uncertain feeling after Him amidst thick darkness than the seeing Him in the clear light revealed in and by His Son Jesus Christ. And these two states, the seeing God constantly in Christ and the not so seeing Him, are the great and eternal differences which will divide all of us from one another, the differences which will make and do make our lives holy or unholy, which will make our deaths blessed or cursed.
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II. It is quite true that many who live without thinking of God do yet intend to keep, and do keep actually, many of God’s laws. It is precisely because there can be, and is up to a certain point, good without God, because men feel that even without a lively sense of God Himself they can love His moral works, as they can love His natural works, that therefore they are blind themselves, and we too often are blind for them, to their infinite danger; they speak peace to themselves, and we echo the word till the true peace is hidden from them for ever.
III. What strength amidst weakness, what decision amidst endless wavering, what joy in life, what hope in death, are to be found in this consciousness of God in Christ! It is the life of Christ’s people, the life of the children of God.
T. Arnold, Christian Life: Sermons, vol. v., p. 305.
References: Deu 9:1.—Parker, vol. v., p. 7. Deu 9:4, Deu 9:5.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 222.
Deu 9:6
I. The address of Moses is very different from the addresses of most captains of armies under similar circumstances. (1) He makes no attempt to underrate the power of the enemies with whom the Israelites had to contend. He begins his address by telling the people that they are that day to pass over Jordan, to go in and possess nations greater and mightier than themselves. The reason for his giving such information was that the design of God was not merely to conquer the Canaanites, but to educate Israel, to teach them that by God’s power weakness may be made strength and the mighty vanquished by the feeble. (2) Moses assures the people in plain language that no righteousness of theirs had gained them the land. They might be ready enough to admit that it was not their own courage or their own bodily strength, but they might still be disposed to think that they had deserved God’s favour, that if they had not been deserving of the victory, God would not have given it to them. Self-flattery is easy, and therefore Moses very wisely and decidedly protested once for all against such a view of God’s doings.
II. The principle of spiritual life with ourselves is precisely that which Moses laid down as the principle of national life for the Israelites. God gives us the land of promise for no righteousness of our own. Everything depends on God’s mercy, God’s will, God’s purpose; the certainty of victory depends, not upon any feelings, or experiences, or conflicts of ours, but upon the ever-present help of the almighty God.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons, 5th series, p. 78.
References: Deu 9:18, Deu 9:19.—J. D. Coleridge, Sermons for Sundays: Festivals and Fasts, edited by A. Watson, 1st Series, p. 40; Parker, vol. v., p. 8.
Deu 9:26-29
This prayer brings out in its greatest strength a contrast which goes through the Book of Deuteronomy, and through the whole Bible. The Israelites are the people of God, His inheritance redeemed by His mighty hand. They are stubborn, stiff-necked, wicked. We become so familiar with passages which contain both these descriptions of them, that we attach little meaning to either.
In seeking for a resolution of this difficulty we notice:
I. That the Scriptures do not set forth the history of a man seeking for God, but of God seeking for men. To separate Moses the righteous man from Moses the deliverer of the Israelites is impossible. He could not have been righteous if he had not fulfilled that task; he could not have been righteous if he had not testified in all his acts and words that God, not he, was the Deliverer. If we once see upon what ground the holiness of Moses stood, we must admit that the nation of which he was a member was holy in precisely the same sense and for precisely the same reason as he was; nay, that it had a title prior to his, a title from which his own was derived. It was a holy nation because God had called it out, had chosen it to be His; He had put His name upon it.
II. See then how reasonable was the prayer of the text. Because Moses regarded the Israelites as a holy and chosen people, redeemed by God’s own hand, because he believed that this description belonged to the whole covenant people at all time, therefore he felt with intense anguish their stubbornness, their wickedness, and their sin. It was the forgetfulness of their holy state which he confessed with such shame and sorrow before God; it was because they had gone out of the right way, each man preferring a selfish way of his own, that they needed his intercession and God’s renewing and restoring mercy.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 53.
References: Deu 9:29.—Bishop Lightfoot, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 63. Deut 9—Parker, vol. iv., p. 195. Deu 10:14-16.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 303. Deu 10:16.—Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times" vol. v., p. 9 (see also Keble, Sermons for the Christian Year: Christmas and Epiphany, p. 193); Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. viii., p. 12; Parker, vol. v., p. 8. Deut 10, Deut 11—Parker, vol. iv., p. 204. Deu 11:10-12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. ii., p. 58.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Practical Exhortations (continued)
Practical Exhortations (continued)
The rebellions and provocations of the wilderness are recalled, to show the people that it is not of their own merit that they are to inherit the promises, nor by their own strength that they are to dispossess the inhabitants of Canaan, but by the grace and power of God.
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8. Also in Horeb] Even at Horeb, in view of those awe-inspiring tokens of the divine majesty, and at the very time when the Law was being promulgated, the people corrupted themselves: see Exodus 32 and notes.
9. I neither did eat bread nor drink water] In Exo_34:28 this fact is recorded in connexion with the second writing of the Law.
17. And brake them] The action symbolised the breaking of the covenant through the sin of the people.
18. I fell down] i.e. in intercession: see on Num_16:4. The words as at the first refer probably to the intercession on the mount spoken of in Exo_32:11 : cp. Exo_32:31.
22-24, giving other instances of the people's rebellion, seem to be a parenthesis. Deu_9:25 takes up the thread of Deu_9:21.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 5. Warning Against Self-Righteousness and Their Previous Failures
5. Warning Against Self-Righteousness and Their Previous Failures
CHAPTERS 9:1-10:11
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1. The warning (Deu 9:1-6)
2. The failures of the past (Deu 9:7-24)
3. The intercession of Moses (Deu 9:25-29)
4. The results of the intercession (Deu 10:1-11)
This chapter and the first eleven verses of the tenth are aimed against the spirit of self righteousness. First there is the warning. This is followed by their shameful history of the past, which showed that a boast of being righteous, or having any righteousness had to be positively excluded in their case. They had been rebels and they owed their existence wholly to the mercy of God and that was secured by the intercession of Moses. They were, therefore, to understand that the good land was not given to them for their righteousness; they were a stiffnecked people. How humbling the recital of their failures, their rebellion and murmuring against Jehovah, must have been! And Moses added to it, which must have cut them to the very heart. “Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you” (verse 24). Mercy alone had saved them and had effected their restoration. How easy it is for our poor hearts, not different from theirs, to forget all we were and that we owe all we are to the grace of God. Self righteousness is an abomination in God’s sight. True faith and obedience means a true humility.
The chronological order is not followed by Moses in the first part of the tenth chapter. That is known by the historical account. Verses 6 and 7 are a parenthesis. The beginning of verse 8, “At that time,” does therefore not stand in connection with the death of Aaron, but it refers to the time when the broken covenant was restored. Higher critics have made much of this as a glaring contradiction. There is no such contradiction here and the apparent difficulty is easily solved by understanding the parenthetical character of verses 6 and 7. But why should such an historical statement be here introduced by Moses by way of a parenthesis? The answer is not difficult to find. Moses describes the gracious results of the intercession. Not only was the covenant restored, but also the institution and maintenance of the priesthood. Moses reminds the people of this gracious gift on the part of their God, by recalling to their memory the time when Aaron died and his son Eleazar was invested with the high priesthood in his stead.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Self-Righteousness Denounced. —
Self-Righteousness Denounced. —
v. 1. Hear, O Israel! Moses calls out to them to attend, to heed his warning. Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, all arrangements and preparations having been made at this present time, the entry into the country west of Jordan was to be expected at any time, in the very near future, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thy self, both more numerous and more warlike, cities great and fenced up to heaven, to all appearances unconquerable on account of the strength of their fortifications,
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v. 2. a people great and tall, of giant stature and strength, the children of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak! They had the reputation of being invincible.
v. 3. Understand, therefore, this day (or: Thou understandest) that the Lord, thy God, is he which goeth over before thee, as the Leader and Champion of the people; as a consuming fire He shall destroy them, as a great fire might devour a handful of tinder, and He shall bring them down before thy face, humble them by taking their courage from them; so shalt thou drive them out and destroy them quickly, that is, when any nation would be attacked, their aim should be its extermination in the shortest possible space of time, as the Lord hath said unto thee, Exo 23:23-27. In this connection Moses issues his warning against self-righteousness, for it is not only the pride and presumption which ascribes good fortune and wealth to one’s own strength and ingenuity that must be curbed, but also that attitude which accepts success as due the merits of one’s own virtue and perfection.
v. 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, that being the manner in which smirking self-satisfaction expresses itself; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee.
v. 5. Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart, for that imaginary personal excellence, dost thou go to possess their land, this factor, if it existed, did not enter into the Lord’s calculations; 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. The wickedness of the Canaanites alone would have been reason enough for the Lord to exterminate them and to give their land to the children of Israel, but His chief reason was founded upon His faithfulness, since He wanted to fulfill the promise given to the patriarchs. It is a fact which should be kept in remembrance at all times, that all blessings and benefits of Jehovah are expressions of His unmerited kindness and mercy, this being true especially of all spiritual gifts.
v. 6. Understand, therefore, that the Lord, thy God, giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people, Exo 32:9; Exo 33:3; Exo 34:9. That was the Lord’s estimate of the children of Israel, and that is His judgment regarding all men by nature, Joh 3:6. The fact that all gifts of God come to us through His love and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us, should serve to keep us humble in His sight.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 General Information:
General Information:
Moses continues to speak to the Israelites as if they are one person. (See: Forms of You)
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Hear, Israel
The word "Israel" is a metonym for the people of Israel. AT: "Listen, people of Israel" (See: Metonymy)
to dispossess
"to take the land from"
fortified up to heaven
This is an exaggeration that emphasizes how frightened the people were because the cities were so large and strong. See how you translated similar words in Deuteronomy 1:28. AT: "have walls so high it is like they reach up to the heavens" (See: Hyperbole and Generalization)
sons of the Anakim
Descendants of the Anak people who were very large and fierce. See how you translated similar words in Deuteronomy 1:28. (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information and How to Translate Names)
Who can stand before the sons of Anak?
This means that the sons of Anak were powerful and people were afraid of them. This rhetorical question can be translated as a statement. AT: "There is no one who can defend himself against the sons of Anak." (See: Rhetorical Question)
translationWords
Israel
Jordan River
nation
might
heaven
people group
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3 9:1 walls that reach to the sky: This figurative…
9:1 walls that reach to the sky: This figurative language emphasizes the impossibility of breaching these walls by human effort alone (Num 13:28). If Israel were to enjoy success, God must lead the way and fight the battle (Deut 9:5).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.