23 and in Jehovah's sending you from Kadesh-Barnea, saying, Go up, and possess the land which I have given to you, then ye provoke the mouth of Jehovah your God, and have not given credence to Him, nor hearkened to His voice;
And they kick against the desirable land, They have not given credence to His word. And they murmur in their tents, They have not hearkened to the voice of Jehovah.
And all the company say to stone them with stones, and the honour of Jehovah hath appeared in the tent of meeting unto all the sons of Israel. And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Until when doth this people despise Me? and until when do they not believe in Me, for all the signs which I have done in its midst? I smite it with pestilence, and dispossess it, and make thee become a nation greater and mightier than it.' And Moses saith unto Jehovah, `Then have the Egyptians heard! for Thou hast brought up with Thy power this people out of their midst, and they have said `it' unto the inhabitant of this land, they have heard that Thou, Jehovah, `art' in the midst of this people, that eye to eye Thou art seen -- O Jehovah, and Thy cloud is standing over them, -- and in a pillar of cloud Thou art going before them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night. `And Thou hast put to death this people as one man, and the nations who have heard Thy fame have spoken, saying, From Jehovah's want of ability to bring in this people unto the land which He hath sworn to them -- He doth slaughter them in the wilderness. `And now, let, I pray Thee, the power of my Lord be great, as Thou hast spoken, saying: Jehovah `is' slow to anger, and of great kindness; bearing away iniquity and transgression, and not entirely acquitting, charging iniquity of fathers on sons, on a third `generation', and on a fourth; -- forgive, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of Thy kindness, and as Thou hast borne with this people from Egypt, even until now.' And Jehovah saith, `I have forgiven, according to thy word; and yet, I live -- and it is filled -- the whole earth -- `with' the honour of Jehovah; for all the men who are seeing My honour, and My signs, which I have done in Egypt, and in the wilderness, and try Me these ten times, and have not hearkened to My voice -- they see not the land which I have sworn to their fathers, yea, none of those despising Me see it; and My servant Caleb, because there hath been another spirit with him, and he is fully after Me -- I have brought him in unto the land whither he hath entered, and his seed doth possess it. `And the Amalekite and the Canaanite are dwelling in the valley; to-morrow turn ye and journey for yourselves into the wilderness -- the way of the Red Sea.' And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, and unto Aaron, saying, `Until when hath this evil company that which they are murmuring against Me? the murmurings of the sons of Israel, which they are murmuring against Me, I have heard; say unto them, I live -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- if, as ye have spoken in Mine ears -- so I do not to you; in this wilderness do your carcases fall, even all your numbered ones, to all your number, from a son of twenty years and upward, who have murmured against Me; ye -- ye come not in unto the land which I have lifted up My hand to cause you to tabernacle in it, except Caleb son of Jephunneh, and Joshua son of Nun. `As to your infants -- of whom ye have said, A spoil they are become -- I have even brought them in, and they have known the land which ye have kicked against; as to you -- your carcases do fall in this wilderness, and your sons are evil in the wilderness forty years, and have borne your whoredoms till your carcases are consumed in the wilderness; by the number of the days `in' which ye spied the land, forty days, -- a day for a year, a day for a year -- ye do bear your iniquities, forty years, and ye have known my breaking off; I `am' Jehovah, I have spoken; if I do not this to all this evil company who are meeting against me; -- in this wilderness they are consumed, and there they die.' And the men whom Moses hath sent to spy the land, and they turn back and cause all the company to murmur against him, by bringing out an evil account concerning the land, even the men bringing out an evil account of the land die by the plague before Jehovah; and Joshua son of Nun, and Caleb son of Jephunneh, have lived of those men who go to spy out the land. And Moses speaketh these words unto all the sons of Israel, and the people mourn exceedingly, and they rise early in the morning, and go up unto the top of the mountain, saying, `Here we `are', and we have come up unto the place which Jehovah hath spoken of, for we have sinned.' And Moses saith, `Why `is' this? -- ye are transgressing the command of Jehovah, and it doth not prosper;
`And we journey from Horeb, and go `through' all that great and fearful wilderness which ye have seen -- the way of the hill-country of the Amorite, as Jehovah our God hath commanded us, and we come in unto Kadesh-Barnea. `And I say unto you, Ye have come in unto the hill-country of the Amorite, which Jehovah our God is giving to us; see, Jehovah thy God hath set before thee the land; go up, possess, as Jehovah, God of thy fathers, hath spoken to thee; fear not, nor be affrighted. `And ye come near unto me, all of you, and say, Let us send men before us, and they search for us the land, and they bring us back word `concerning' the way in which we go up into it, and the cities unto which we come in; and the thing is good in mine eyes, and I take of you twelve men, one man for a tribe. `And they turn and go up to the hill-country, and come in unto the valley of Eshcol, and spy it, and they take with their hand of the fruit of the land, and bring down unto us, and bring us back word, and say, Good is the land which Jehovah our God is giving to us. `And ye have not been willing to go up, and ye provoke the mouth of Jehovah your God, and murmur in your tents, and say, In Jehovah's hating us He hath brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorite -- to destroy us; whither are we going up? our brethren have melted our heart, saying, A people greater and taller than we, cities great and fenced to heaven, and also sons of Anakim -- we have seen there. `And I say unto you, Be not terrified, nor be afraid of them; Jehovah your God, who is going before you -- He doth fight for you, according to all that He hath done with you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where thou hast seen that Jehovah thy God hath borne thee as a man beareth his son, in all the way which ye have gone, till your coming in unto this place. `And in this thing ye are not stedfast in Jehovah your God, who is going before you in the way to search out to you a place for your encamping, in fire by night, to shew you in the way in which ye go, and in a cloud by day.
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.