Old Testament Commentary - Deuteronomy 9

by Don R. Hender


Scriptural Text [& Editorial]
Commentary & Explanation
Footnotes ~ References ~ JST
             CHAPTER 9            

Other nations driven out of Canaan because of their wickedness—Moses rehearses rebellions of Israel, and tells how he mediated between them and the Lord—On two occasions he has gone without food and water for forty days.

  1 HEAR, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to apossess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and bfenced up to heaven,
  2 A people great and tall, the children of the aAnakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!
  3 Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over abefore thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bbring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
  4 Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my arighteousness the LORD hath bbrought me in to possess this land: but for the cwickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
  5 Not for thy arighteousness, 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 that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
  6 Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a astiffnecked people.
  7 ¶ 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 arebellious against the LORD.
  8 Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you ato have bdestroyed 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 aforty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
  10 And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone awritten with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD bspake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the cday 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 acorrupted 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 seen this people, and, behold, it is a astiffnecked people:
  14 Let me alone, that I may adestroy them, and bblot 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 were in my two hands.
  16 And I alooked, and, behold, ye had bsinned 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 cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.
  18 And I afell 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 bwickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to canger.
  19 For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to adestroy you. But the LORD bhearkened unto me at that time also.
  20 And the LORD was very aangry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.
  21 And I took your asin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and bstamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
  22 And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye aprovoked the LORD to wrath.
  23 Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye arebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.
  24 Ye have been arebellious 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 aprayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine binheritancea, 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 astubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:
  28 Lest the aland 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.
  29 Yet they are thy apeople and thine binheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.
 26a thy people and thine inheritance To be able to understand this concept it is necessary to have such understanding as is given and revealed in the that vision had by Zechariah in chapter 3 of his book. For there in that council in heaven which was both a determination against Lucifer as Satan and a confirming proclamation of the covenant and mission of our Savior Jesus/Jehoshua. For therein did God the Eternal Father of Spirits charge Jehovah/Jesus that he would judge God's house and people and that they were 'his fellows', that though Christ taken upon himself the sins of the world, through the work of the atonement, those sins of iniquity would be removed from Christ and his people in one day, that great day of forgiveness and judgment (See commentary Zechariah 3).