Deuteronomy 9
DISSUASIVES FROM
SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS (vs. 1-6)
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. 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 (vs. 7-24).
1 “Hear, O
Soon - “to go
in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities
great and fenced up to heaven,” Nations -(compare ch.7:1) - Cities
(ch.1:28).
2 “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!” Anakim (Ibid). It was a
common saying,
Who can stand before the sons of Anak? But even these
gigantic foes
should be unable to stand before
3 “Understand
therefore this day,” -
rather, And thou knowest today or
now.
The expression corresponds to v. 1, “Thou art to pass… and
thou knowest.”
In the victory they had obtained over Sihon
and Og, they had
already had experience
of
the Lord’s going before them, and leading them on in triumph. The
repetition of the
He in this verse is very
emphatic - “that the LORD thy
God is He which
goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire” - (compare ch. 4:24) -
“He shall
destroy them, and He shall bring them down before
thy face: so shalt thou
drive them out, and destroy them quickly,”
- or suddenly.
There is no
contradiction here of what is said in ch.7:22; for there the reference
is to the
possession of the land by
on
the Canaanites — the former was to be by degrees, the latter was to come
suddenly and overwhelmingly -
“as the LORD hath said
unto thee.”
Exodus 23:23, 27; ch.2:24).
4 “Speak
not thou in thine heart,” – (see ch. 8:17) – “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: but for the wickedness
of these nations the LORD doth drive them out
from before thee.
5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart,” - The
Distinction
between righteousness and uprightness (straightness) of heart, is
that the former (צֶדֶ) has
reference to rectitude of conduct, the latter (ישֶׁר) to
rectitude of motive and purpose. “By naming justice [righteousness],
he
excludeth all merit of works, and by righteousness [uprightness] of
heart,
all
inward affections and purposes. which men might plead,
notwithstanding that they fail in action. Yet these two are the chief
things
which God respecteth in men (Psalm
15:1-2; I Chronicles 29:17) -
“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 swear 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
stiffnecked people.” - hard of
neck; stubborn,
obstinate, rebellious.
In the rest of the chapter Moses reminds them of many
instances of their
rebelliousness by which they had provoked the Lord, from the time of
their
escape out of
began even before they had wholly escaped from their oppressors,
before
they had passed through the
where, amid the most affecting manifestations alike of the
Divine majesty
and
the Divine grace, just after the Lord had spoken to them directly out of
the
fire, and whilst Moses had gone up to receive the tables of the Law, on
which the covenant of God with
was
being struck, they had sinned so grievously as to make to themselves a
molten image, which they worshipped with idolatrous rites (Exodus
31:18-
32:6).
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
been rebellious against the LORD. 8 Also 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:” – The last
clause runs on as a parenthesis.
10 “And
the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with
the finger of God; and on them 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.” - the day when the people, called
out by Moses, were gathered
together in the plain at the foot of
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
have corrupted themselves; they are quickly
turned aside out of the
way which I commanded them; they have made
them a molten
image.”
A Six-Weeks Religion (vs. 6-12)
About fifty days after leaving
Sinai, to receive the Law from the Great
Supreme. They reverently
watched when Moses went up; they saw the bounds put, beyond which
they must not pass; they trembled at the majesty which was before and
above them, and awaited the words which should be spoken. The
words of
the
vow went up from their lips, “All that the
Lord hath spoken we will
do.” Having
received the Law, Moses went down and rehearsed it to them.
A second time they responded, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will
do.” This was not
enough. The Law was to be written, and read over to them,
that their vow might be neither blind nor rash. And a third time the
same response
was
returned, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.”
Whereupon
the
covenant was ratified with blood, which was sprinkled on the book and
all the
people, saying, “This is the
blood of the covenant” (see Exodus
24:3-8).
It seemed as if a fair start had been made.
had
thankfully accepted the new state of things on which they had entered, and
nothing was wanting but the carrying out of that allegiance they
had so
repeatedly
vowed. Moses, however, has
yet to be a while in solitude with God,
to
receive further instructions; hence, having made arrangements for the
conduct of
affairs in his absence, he again ascends the mount, and is there for
forty days.
Unable to understand
the reasons for so long a delay, the people think that
Moses has deserted
them, or that he is lost on the mountain, or has perished
In the flame! The thought, once conceived,
gathers strength, and the very
people who a few weeks before had seemed so impressible for good,
are
now
as inflammable for evil! They rush upon Aaron, saying, “Up, make us
gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses.....we wot not what
has become of him”
(Exodus 32:1). They wish for something to strike the
senses! (Apparently, like
many modern contemporary Christians – CY – 2012)
THE PURE CONCEPTION OF AN UNSEEN GOD they were not
cultured enough to retain.
Aaron was far too easily wrought upon by them.
The calf is made. It is
not the calf, however, that they worship, for they
proclaim a feast to
Jehovah; it is the second commandment they are
breaking, not the first. Alas! alas! their triple vow, ratified
with blood, they
break, and in
less than six weeks they are openly and riotously setting at
naught the very Law they had sworn to obey! How can such a fearfully
rapid retrogression be accounted for? If we regard it as a mere piece of
history, with which we have no concern, we shall miss the intent
of the
writer (for see I Corinthians 10:1-13).
(Hopefully, our
religion is deeper than this and that
it cannot be said that our
religion is not like “ the morning cloud
and the early dew, it goeth away!”-
Hosea 6:4 - CY – 2012)
13
Furthermore the LORD spake
unto me, saying, I have seen this
people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked
people: 14 Let
me alone,” –
(Compare Exodus 32:7-10.) Let me alone; literally, Desist from me, i.e. Do not
by
pleadings and entreaties attempt to prevent me; in Exodus 32:10 the
expression
used is, “Let me rest; leave me in quiet” (הַנָּיחָה לִי); cease to urge me”
-
“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
were 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 cast them out of my two hands, and
brake them before your eyes.” Moses cast from
him the two tables of stone
on
which God had inscribed the words of the Law, and broke them in pieces in
the
view of the people, when he came down from the mount and saw how they
had
turned aside from the right way, and were become idolaters. This was not
the
effect of a burst of indignation on his part; it was a solemn declaration that
the
covenant of God with His people had been nullified and broken by
their sinful
apostasy.
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 sins 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 hot
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 Aaron
also the same time.” Moses interceded with God for the people before he came
down from the mount (Exodus 32:11-13); but this he passes over here, merely
referring to it in the words, “as
at the first.” In the account in Exodus nothing is
said of Moses interceding for Aaron specially, as well as for the people
generally;
but
prominence is given to this here, not only that he might make the people
thoroughly aware that at that time
of
its eminent men (compare Isaiah 43:27), but also to bring out the fact, which
is
described still more fully in ch. 10:6-9, that
Aaron’s investiture with the priesthood
and
the maintenance of this institution was purely a work of Divine grace. That
Aaron,
however, was regarded as especially to be blamed in this matter is
clearly intimated
in
Exodus 32:21-22.
21 “And I
took your sin, 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 cast the dust thereof into the brook
that descended out of the mount.”
A GREAT CRISIS (vs. 13-21)
God who had brought them out of
customs of the very nation from which they had been
redeemed — dancing
before the idol, polluting themselves with unclean and
unhallowed rites,
and making the hills to reecho with their boisterous revelry
and song!
And all this beneath that very mount where they had sworn, “All
that the Lord
hath
spoken we will do!”
known to Moses, either by a silent suggestion from God, with
whom he
was in adoring fellowship, or by one of the angel bands with
whom he
was surrounded (Exodus 32:7-8; Galatians 3:19; Hebrews 2:1-4).
down and see,” but “Continue the fellowship no more; leave me
alone; I
will make of thee a great nation. Let my wrath wax hot against
them,
that I may consume
them!” Awful words (vs. 13-14)] ‘Tis a terrible crisis
in the great leader’s
experience. With agonizing heart, he comes down to see
— not
without pleading with God for
where, though even yet too far
off to see, he is near enough to hear
the shouts wildly ringing through the air.
calf, the dancing, the impure orgies as of a heathen feast! Oh, how
bitter must have been the anguish of Moses at such a sight!
entire rupture of the whole covenant between the people and
Jehovah!
Hear how the Voice on the
covenant; let me alone.” In what stronger way, ah! in
what other way,
could the people at such a time have been taught that, as they
were now
actually breaking the very covenant God was confirming with Moses
for
them, if God now dealt with them
after their sins, He would have cast them
off completely? THEY WERE NOT
NECESSARY TO THE
FULFILLMENT MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS! Moses was
of Abraham’s seed, and God might have
begun afresh with him, and have
made of him a nation greater, mightier,
more loyal than they! Was there ever
such a crisis? With all the responsibility
Moses had resting on him, he must
have been crushed had he
not been divinely sustained.
But great crises
bring out the greatness of great
men. Moses was a man “slow of speech,”
and probably slow to act, but
he had strong convictions of truth and
duty,
and when wrought up to a white
heat, he would show the true nobility of his
character.
The Reaction of Moses
the meekest of men, and well it might. It would have been wicked in
Moses
if he had not been angry! There is a wide difference between a passionate
feeling of personal resentment, and indignation at witnessing an
outrage on
right. The holier a man is, the more will he suppress the one,
the more will
he develop the other!
(Compare Ezekiel 9:4)
people that by their apostasy they had violated their covenant
vows.
(v. 21). Another symbolic
act, meaning, “This sin will
come back to
them again; it will mar their joy for long to come.”
calf.” Aaron! you, the eloquent man, making a silly speech like that! Oh,
the wonderful touches of nature in the Old Book! Moses, the
truly brave
man, though slow of speech, can speak to purpose at such a
time as this;
but Aaron, eloquent as he is, when his conscience is ill at ease,
makes the
lamest excuse.
Was it a revolt of all the
people, or had many been drawn away at
suggestion of the few? “Who is on the
Lord’s side?” The sons of
Levi come forward, and are entrusted with the
awful task of stamping
out the evil. Better for 3000 to die than for 2,000,000 to be infected
with a mortal poison! That
was a holy
defensive war. And it speaks
volumes for the grandeur of the moral power of Moses, that he could
so inspire the men of his own tribe to chastise the revolt
and save the people.
that he pleads with
God.
Ø
He acknowledges
the greatness of the sin. At first, before he
was near enough to see, he asks, “Lord, why doth thy wrath?” etc.
But afterwards, he puts no
such question. “Oh! this people have
sinned a great sin.” He cannot palliate it.
Ø
He entreats the
Lord not to consume them, but to turn
from His
fierce wrath, and to bring them yet into the Promised Land.
Ø
He pleads the
Divine promises; “remember
Abraham”
Ø
Moses prays for
Aaron (v. 20)! Aaron “can speak well,”
but he
Acted
ill. He
broke down when put in charge. Though
appointed
by God as special helper to Moses, he proved himself
unreliable.
Yet not. a word of complaint appears to
have been uttered to him,
only a prayer offered for him by the very brother who
had relied on
him in vain!
Ø
There is a more
wonderful feature still in his prayer, viz. this: a
conception which to self-seekers would have been most captivating,
has for him no charm whatever — “I
will make of thee a great
nation;” “let me alone, that I may destroy them,” and I will begin
afresh with you, and make you the head of a less unworthy
race!
Would not that have fired
his ambition,
if he had had any? But no!
see the lot which he preferred (Exodus 32:32-33): “No! I cannot
accept
any position, however elevated, if
they perish! Oh, forgive
them! If not, let us all perish together.” Noble captain he! If
the
ship sinks, he will go down with it. He would rather
not live if vessel
and passengers are beneath the waves! (compare
Romans 9:1-4, with
which Paul’s passionate fervor may well be compared.)
Ø
This intercession
was long continued (v. 25): “forty days and
Forty nights!” All this while the cry was ever and anon going up from
his heart? “Forgive them! Forgive! Forgive!”
Have we not here, in Moses, a model of intercessory prayer?
Men who can thus plead
with God are the greatest heroes of the Church. But who are the men who are
to be relied
on
when the crises come? Where was Aaron now? What of him? There is no
indication that he ever caught a glimpse of the tremendous crisis he had
helped to bring about! “There came out
this calf!” How Moses could
restrain himself at such words, we cannot imagine. But even if
Aaron had
not
shown such utter inability to perceive the seriousness of the moment,
how
could he now take any active part in vindicating the injured rights of
God before the people, or in craving
mercy for the people from God?
COMPLICITY WITH EVIL MEANS PARALYSIS OF POWER IN
THE SPEEDING OF RIGHT!
If Aaron had
not had a brother to plead for
him
with God, he would have been swept away with the BESOM OF
DESTRUCTION! He can
talk well rather than stand firm. There is a similar
contrast here between Moses and Aaron, to that between Abraham and
Abraham pleaded for the doomed city.
for him to be a pleader. And we fear there are some who, if their own
dear land
were brought to a mighty crisis, (LIKE OURS
IS TODAY IN THE UNITED
STATES OF
watch the nightly news) to
gratify curiosity, or to give them something to talk about,
but as for taking the case of a nation on their hearts before
God, THEY
COULD DO NOTHING OF THE KIND! If
they are succumbing
to the evils
of
the day, they can have no strength in intercessory prayer, (“if I regard iniquity
in my
heart the Lord will not hear me” (Psalm
66:18) - nor can they be of any
use in
national struggles. The Moses of Exodus
32, is the same self-forgetful
Moses of Exodus 2. If men want to be the heroes of their age, let them try the power
of
intercessory prayer.
Such heroism is of a kind the world cannot appreciate, but is
recorded in God’s book of remembrance; “And they shall be mine, saith
the
Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.” (Malachi 3:17)
MAY WE TRULY
APPRECIATE OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, JESUS
CHRIST “who ever liveth to make intercession for us!” (Hebrews 7:25)
22 “And at
Taberah, and at Massah, and
at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked the
LORD to wrath. 23
Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadeshbarnea,
saying, Go up and possess the land which I have
given you; then ye rebelled
against the commandment of the LORD your God, and
ye believed Him not,
nor hearkened to His voice.” Not only at Horeb, but at other places and on other
occasions, had
by
their complaining and discontent (Numbers 11:1-3); at Massah,
by their murmuring
because of the want of water (Exodus 17. l-7); at Kibroth-hattaavah, by
despising
the
manna, and lusting for flesh to eat (Numbers 11:4-35); and at Kadesh-barnea,
when on the confines of the Promised Land, they distrusted God,
reproached Him for
having brought them there to be destroyed, and sought to return
to
14:1-4; ch. 1:26). The list is not
arranged chronologically, but advances from
the
smaller to the more serious forms of guilt: For Moses was seeking to sharpen
the
consciences of the people, and to impress upon them the fact that they
had been
rebellious against the Lord (see at v. 7) from the very beginning, 24 “Ye
have been
rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.”
Having enumerated these instances of the rebelliousness of
the people, in vs. 25-29,
Moses reverts to the apostasy at Sinai, in order still more
to impress on the minds
of
the
people the conviction that not for any righteousness or merit of theirs,
but solely of His own grace, was God fulfilling to them His
covenant with
their
fathers.
25 “Thus I
fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I
fell down at the first;” - rather, the forty days and forty nights in which I fell
down. The reference is to the intercession before Moses came
down from the
mount, described in Exodus 32:11-13 - “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
27
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;
look not unto
the stubbornness of this people, nor to their
wickedness, nor to their sin:”
In these two verses the substance of Moses’ intercession is
given, and it is
substantially in agreement with the account in Exodus. Moses pleaded
with God
not
to destroy that people which was His own, which He had redeemed for Himself
and
brought out of
to
look on the stubbornness and sin of the people; and urged that the Divine honor
was
concerned in their being conducted to
wilderness.
28 “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.
29 Yet
they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou
broughtest out
by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out
arm.” The people of the land are
the
Egyptians. Were the Israelites to perish in the wilderness, the
Egyptians might
say
that God had destroyed them, either because He was unable to obtain for
them the land He had promised them, or because He had ceased to regard them
with favor, and had become their enemy. Neither of these could be, for were
they
not
the people of His inheritance, (I recommend Deuteronomy
ch 32 v 9 – God’s
Inheritance by Arthur Pink –
this web site – CY – 2012) and had He not showed
His power already in delivering them out
of
the
remembrance of
sinning, so should each OF
US often seriously reflect on his past
life! This
conduces to humility, to watchfulness, and to effort at improvement
-
"Excerpted text Copyright AGES
Library, LLC. All
rights reserved.
Materials are reproduced by
permission."
This material can be found at:
http://www.adultbibleclass.com
If this exposition is helpful, please share
with others.