Deuteronomychapter 9

A.Not for your righteousnessvv. 1-6

1 Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. 2 The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?” 3 But understand that today the LORD your God goes across ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will destroy them and subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them swiftly, as the LORD has promised you. 4 When the LORD your God has driven them out before you, do not say in your heart, “Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land.” Rather, the LORD is driving out these nations before you because of their wickedness. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or uprightness of heart that you are going in to possess their land, but it is because of their wickedness that the LORD your God is driving out these nations before you, to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

B.The calf, the broken tables, the ground powdervv. 7-21

7 Remember this, and never forget how you provoked the LORD your God in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place, you have been rebelling against the LORD. 8 At Horeb you provoked the LORD, and He was angry enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water. 10 Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. 11 And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 And the LORD said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.” 13 The LORD also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave Me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation mightier and greater than they are.” 15 So I went back down the mountain while it was blazing with fire, with the two tablets of the covenant in my hands. 16 And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, shattering them before your eyes. 18 Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger. 19 For I was afraid of the anger and wrath that the LORD had directed against you, enough to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me this time as well. 20 The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I also prayed for Aaron. 21 And I took that sinful thing, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust, and I cast it into the stream that came down from the mountain.

C.Rebellious from the day he knew youvv. 22-24

22 You continued to provoke the LORD at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah. 23 And when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh-barnea, He said, “Go up and possess the land that I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You neither believed Him nor obeyed Him. 24 You have been rebelling against the LORD since the day I came to know you.

D.Forty days and forty nights on his facevv. 25-29

25 So I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, because the LORD had said He would destroy you. 26 And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin. 28 Otherwise, those in the land from which You brought us out will say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29 But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.”

Commentary on this chapter: read the Exposition

← Back: Deuteronomy 8 Continue: Deuteronomy 10 →

Chapter summary

Israel not righteous.

Read the rest, the context and the outline ▾Show less ▴

Israel not righteous. A hard chapter to hear. The LORD will drive out nations greater than Israel, but ‘not for thy righteousness … doth the LORD thy God give thee this good land to possess it: for thou art a stiffnecked people’. Moses recalls the golden calf, the breaking of the tables, the forty days on his face pleading, the grinding of the calf to powder, the waters drunk in judgment. Taberah, Massah, Kibroth-hattaavah, Kadesh. The catalogue of rebellions. ‘Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness.’ The inheritance is not wages; it is covenant. Henry: repentance is the door of inheritance, not merit.

Drawn from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory, Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary, John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and John Calvin, Commentaries.

Context

Law · Moses — Deuteronomy overview

A. 1–6 Not for your righteousness
B. 7–21 The calf, the broken tables, the ground powder
C. 22–24 Rebellious from the day he knew you
D. 25–29 Forty days and forty nights on his face

Top cross-references8 chapters ▾

Exodus 328 verses
- Exodus 32:7Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.
- Exodus 32:10Now leave Me alone, so that My anger may burn against them and consume them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
- Exodus 32:11But Moses sought the favor of the LORD his God, saying, “O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people, whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
- Exodus 32:12Why should the Egyptians declare, ‘He brought them out with evil intent, to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth’? Turn from Your fierce anger and relent from doing harm to Your people.
- Exodus 32:14So the LORD relented from the calamity He had threatened to bring on His people.
- Exodus 32:16The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets.
- Read Exodus 32: 2 more there →
Deuteronomy 95 verses
- Deuteronomy 9:6Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
- Deuteronomy 9:9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
- Deuteronomy 9:16And I saw how you had sinned against the LORD your God; you had made for yourselves a molten calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the LORD had commanded you.
- Deuteronomy 9:18Then I fell down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you had committed in doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD and provoking Him to anger.
- Deuteronomy 9:26And I prayed to the LORD and said, “O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
- Read Deuteronomy 9 →
Deuteronomy 103 verses
- Deuteronomy 10:4And the LORD wrote on the tablets what had been written previously, the Ten Commandments that He had spoken to you on the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly. The LORD gave them to me,
- Deuteronomy 10:10I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, like the first time, and that time the LORD again listened to me and agreed not to destroy you.
- Deuteronomy 10:16Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
- Read Deuteronomy 10 →
Deuteronomy 43 verses
- Deuteronomy 4:11You came near and stood at the base of the mountain, a mountain blazing with fire to the heavens, with black clouds and deep darkness.
- Deuteronomy 4:24For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
- Deuteronomy 4:38to drive out before you nations greater and mightier than you, and to bring you into their land and give it to you for your inheritance, as it is this day.
- Read Deuteronomy 4 →

4 more chapters this one speaks with

Psalms 1063 verses
- Psalms 106:19At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.
- Psalms 106:23So He said He would destroy them— had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach to divert His wrath from destroying them.
- Psalms 106:24They despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His promise.
- Read Psalms 106 →
Deuteronomy 312 verses
- Deuteronomy 31:27For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you are already rebelling against the LORD while I am still alive, how much more will you rebel after my death!
- Deuteronomy 31:29For I know that after my death you will become utterly corrupt and turn from the path I have commanded you. And in the days to come, disaster will befall you because you will do evil in the sight of the LORD to provoke Him to anger by the work of your hands.”
- Read Deuteronomy 31 →
Deuteronomy 182 verses
- Deuteronomy 18:9When you enter the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not imitate the detestable ways of the nations there.
- Deuteronomy 18:16This is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God or see this great fire anymore, so that we will not die!”
- Read Deuteronomy 18 →
Numbers 112 verses
- Numbers 11:1Soon the people began to complain about their hardship in the hearing of the LORD, and when He heard them, His anger was kindled, and fire from the LORD blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp.
- Numbers 11:34So they called that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.
- Read Numbers 11 →

Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.