1 Hear, Israel: you are to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky,
2 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?
3 Know therefore this day, 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 shall you drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you.
4 Don't speak in your heart, after that Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, saying, For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh does drive them out from before you.
5 Not for your righteousness, or for the uprightness of your heart, do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
6 Know therefore, that Yahweh your God doesn't give you this good land to possess it for your righteousness; for you are a stiff-necked people.
7 Remember, don't forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that you went forth out of the land of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.
8 Also in Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath, and Yahweh was angry with you to destroy you.
9 When I was gone up onto the mountain to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water.
10 Yahweh delivered to me the two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them [was written] according to all the words, which Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
11 It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that Yahweh gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.
12 Yahweh said to me, Arise, get you down quickly from hence; for your people whom you have brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.
13 Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people:
14 let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.
15 So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16 I looked, and, behold, you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made you a molten calf: you had turned aside quickly out of the way which Yahweh had commanded you.
17 I took hold of the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.
18 I fell down before Yahweh, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water; because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger.
19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also.
20 Yahweh was very angry with Aaron to destroy him: and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
21 I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust: and I cast the dust of it into the brook that descended out of the mountain.
22 At Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked Yahweh to wrath.
23 When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn't believe him, nor listen to his voice.
24 You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you.
25 So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because Yahweh had said he would destroy you.
26 I prayed to Yahweh, and said, Lord Yahweh, don't destroy your people and your inheritance, that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; don't look to the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin,
28 lest the land whence you brought us out say, Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.
29 Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Deuteronomy 9
Commentary on Deuteronomy 9 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 9
De 9:1-25. Moses Dissuades Them from the Opinion of Their Own Righteousness.
1. this day—means this time. The Israelites had reached the confines of the promised land, but were obliged, to their great mortification, to return. But now they certainly were to enter it. No obstacle could prevent their possession; neither the fortified defenses of the towns, nor the resistance of the gigantic inhabitants of whom they had received from the spies so formidable a description.
cities great and fenced up to heaven—Oriental cities generally cover a much greater space than those in Europe; for the houses often stand apart with gardens and fields intervening. They are almost all surrounded with walls built of burnt or sun-dried bricks, about forty feet in height. All classes in the East, but especially the nomad tribes, in their ignorance of engineering and artillery, would have abandoned in despair the idea of an assault on a walled town, which to-day would be demolished in a few hours.
4-6. Speak not thou in thine heart, … saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land—Moses takes special care to guard his countrymen against the vanity of supposing that their own merits had procured them the distinguished privilege. The Canaanites were a hopelessly corrupt race, and deserved extermination; but history relates many remarkable instances in which God punished corrupt and guilty nations by the instrumentality of other people as bad as themselves. It was not for the sake of the Israelites, but for His own sake, for the promise made to their pious ancestors, and in furtherance of high and comprehensive purposes of good to the world, that God was about to give them a grant of Canaan.
7. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord—To dislodge from their minds any presumptuous idea of their own righteousness, Moses rehearses their acts of disobedience and rebellion committed so frequently, and in circumstances of the most awful and impressive solemnity, that they had forfeited all claims to the favor of God. The candor and boldness with which he gave, and the patient submission with which the people bore, his recital of charges so discreditable to their national character, has often been appealed to as among the many evidences of the truth of this history.
8. Also in Horeb—rather, "even in Horeb," where it might have been expected they would have acted otherwise.
12-29. Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people … have corrupted themselves—With a view to humble them effectually, Moses proceeds to particularize some of the most atrocious instances of their infidelity. He begins with the impiety of the golden calf—an impiety which, while their miraculous emancipation from Egypt, the most stupendous displays of the Divine Majesty that were exhibited on the adjoining mount, and the recent ratification of the covenant by which they engaged to act as the people of God, were fresh in memory, indicated a degree of inconstancy or debasement almost incredible.
17. I took the two tables, … and broke them before your eyes—not in the heat of intemperate passion, but in righteous indignation, from zeal to vindicate the unsullied honor of God, and by the suggestion of His Spirit to intimate that the covenant had been broken, and the people excluded from the divine favor.
18. I fell down before the Lord—The sudden and painful reaction which this scene of pagan revelry produced on the mind of the pious and patriotic leader can be more easily imagined than described. Great and public sins call for seasons of extraordinary humiliation, and in his deep affliction for the awful apostasy, he seems to have held a miraculous fast as long as before.
20. The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him—By allowing himself to be overborne by the tide of popular clamor, Aaron became a partaker in the guilt of idolatry and would have suffered the penalty of his sinful compliance, had not the earnest intercession of Moses on his behalf prevailed.
21. I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount—that is, "the smitten rock" (El Leja) which was probably contiguous to, or a part of, Sinai. It is too seldom borne in mind that though the Israelites were supplied with water from this rock when they were stationed at Rephidim (Wady Feiran), there is nothing in the Scripture narrative which should lead us to suppose that the rock was in the immediate neighborhood of that place (see on Ex 17:5). The water on this smitten rock was probably the brook that descended from the mount. The water may have flowed at the distance of many miles from the rock, as the winter torrents do now through the wadies of Arabia-Petræa (Ps 78:15, 16). And the rock may have been smitten at such a height, and at a spot bearing such a relation to the Sinaitic valleys, as to furnish in this way supplies of water to the Israelites during the journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir and Kadesh-barnea (De 1:1, 2). On this supposition new light is, perhaps, cast on the figurative language of the apostle, when he speaks of "the rock following" the Israelites (1Co 10:4) [Wilson, Land of the Bible].
25. Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first—After the enumeration of various acts of rebellion, he had mentioned the outbreak at Kadesh-barnea, which, on a superficial reading of this verse, would seem to have led Moses to a third and protracted season of humiliation. But on a comparison of this passage with Nu 14:5, the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act of intercession (De 9:18) is now described in fuller detail.