Deuteronomy 9
HAWEISDeuteronomy 9:1-6
- Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath call them out from before thee, saying, ‘For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but ‘for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. ‘Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart doft thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD swore unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God given thee not this good land to possess it, for thy righteousness, for thou art a thief-necked people.
With awakening calls to attention, after some pause, he returns his dislousible. They were shortly to pass over Jordan, and to enter the land of Canaan, fortified indeed with the greatest art, and defended by the most mighty warriors. But the greater their strength, the more conspicuous would be the power of God in the certain victory to which he led them. They must beware hereupon not to abridge their conscripts to their own defects, for they were a thief-necked people, but to the wickedness of the people, on whom God would by them execute vengeance, and to the promise made to their fathers, wherein God would have his faithfulness appear. Note. (1.) The greater our enemies are, the more shall the power of God be magnified in our salvation. (2.) The people of God can never have too mean an opinion of their own righteousness, nor too high a case of the riches and sovereignty of God’s grace. When we come to the possession of eternal glory, every faint will with delight call down his crown before the throne of Jesus, and own, that all the praise and glory are due to him alone. (3.) God will find instruments to execute his wrath upon a devout people. Though he beat long, he will not bear always. (4.) However God’s promises loom delayed, he is faithful, and we shall see them fulfilled at the fall. They who patiently wait shall see the salvation of our God.
- Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: ‘from the day that thou disft depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD. 8. ‘Allo in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you, to have destroyed you. 9. ‘When I was gone up into the mount, to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: 10. ‘And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and on them our service according to all the words which the LORD spake with you in the mount, out of the midst of fire,’ in the day of the assembly. 11. And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant. 12. And the LORD said unto me, ‘Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image. 13. Furthermore, the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have been this people, and behold, ‘it is a thief-necked people. 14. Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they. 15. So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant turn in my two hands. 16. And ‘I looked, and behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you. 17. And I took the two tables, and call them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes. 18. And ‘I fell down before the LORD as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water, because of all your fine which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. 19. (For I was afraid of the anger, and not displeasure wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you) But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also. 20. And the LORD was very angry
with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for before Christ Aaron also the same time. 21. And ‘I took your fin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I call the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. 22. And at ‘Taberah, and at ‘Maffah, and at ‘Kibroth-hattawah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath. 23. Likewise, ‘when the LORD sent you from Kadeh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then you rebeised against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. 24. ‘You have been rebellious against the LORD, from the day that I knew you. 25. Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you. 26. ‘I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people, and thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: 28. Left the land whence thou broughteth 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 say them in the wilderness. 29. ‘Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughteth out by thy mighty power, and by thy threshed out arm.
Deuteronomy 9:7-29
As nothing is more difficult than to be put out of a good concert with ourselves, Moses brings to their remembrance abundant proof how little reason they had to value themselves on their own righteousness. Their whole conduct, from the day of their coming from Egypt, had been a succession of rebellious; many of which are particularly specified, and many more there were probably during their sojourning in the wilderness. The capital of them was the calf in Horeb; a scene so shocking, that after that they should never dare to lift up their eyes to God but with shame and confusion. Then were they in danger to have been abandoned for ever of God, and he had been justified in rejecting them. In fear of such a righteous doom, Moses with fervent prayer interpose, if possible to avert the but displeasure which was awakened against them. Nor had he one plea to make for them of their desert, but acknowledges their aggravated guilt, and only begs their fathers might be remembered, and that their enemies might not be tempted to blaspheme God, if they should be destroyed. Nor had they been able to themselves, but even Aaron had been drawn or forced into compliance with them, and thereby also provoked God much highly, even to threaten to destroy him. And when the calf, their bates, was destroyed, and undelivered mercy vouchsafed to them, the burning of Taberah, the plague of Maffah, the graves of Kibroth-hattawah, and the Sain at Kadeh-barnea, were awful monuments against them, how deep their rebellions were routed, and how undereiving they were of the least of the mercies vouchsafed to them. Note. (1.) Whoever reviews carefully his own conduct towards God, cannot but stand assured, that after such repeated provocations there should be any mercy in Hore for him, and own how vile and unworthy he is of it. (2.) It is obituate blindness of heart alone, which can ever support in us a good opinion of ourselves.