Deuteronomychapter 9

29 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 289 cross-references outward and receives 303 — heaviest partner: Deuteronomy.

Chapter summary

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.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Deuteronomy overview for the book's full setting.

1 Hear, O Israel: thou art to pass over the Jordan this day, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven,

2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?

3 Know therefore this day, that Jehovah thy God is he who goeth over before thee as a devouring fire; he will destroy them, and he will bring them down before thee: so shalt thou drive them out, and make them to perish quickly, as Jehovah hath spoken unto thee.

4 Speak not thou in thy heart, after that Jehovah thy God hath thrust them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness Jehovah hath brought me in to possess this land; whereas for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah doth drive them out from before thee.

5 Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thy heart, dost thou go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations Jehovah thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may establish the word which Jehovah sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

6 Know therefore, that Jehovah thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

7 Remember, forget thou not, how thou provokedst Jehovah thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou wentest forth out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against Jehovah.

8 Also in Horeb ye provoked Jehovah to wrath, and Jehovah was angry with you to destroy you.

9 When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which Jehovah made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights; I did neither eat bread nor drink water.