Deuteronomy 9

De 9:1-25.

MOSES

DISSUADES

THEM FROM THE

OPINION OF

THEIR

OWN

RIGHTEOUSNESS.

1. this day--means this time. The Israelites had reached the

confines of the promised land, but were obliged, to their great

mortification, to return. But now they certainly were to enter it. No

obstacle could prevent their possession; neither the fortified defenses

of the towns, nor the resistance of the gigantic inhabitants of whom

they had received from the spies so formidable a description.

cities great and fenced up to heaven--Oriental cities generally cover

a much greater space than those in Europe; for the houses often stand

apart with gardens and fields intervening. They are almost all

surrounded with walls built of burnt or sun-dried bricks, about forty

feet in height. All classes in the East, but especially the nomad

tribes, in their ignorance of engineering and artillery, would have

abandoned in despair the idea of an assault on a walled town, which

to-day would be demolished in a few hours.

4-6. Speak not thou in thine heart, . . . saying, For my righteousness

the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land--Moses takes special

care to guard his countrymen against the vanity of supposing that their

own merits had procured them the distinguished privilege. The

Canaanites were a hopelessly corrupt race, and deserved extermination;

but history relates many remarkable instances in which God punished

corrupt and guilty nations by the instrumentality of other people as

bad as themselves. It was not for the sake of the Israelites, but for

His own sake, for the promise made to their pious ancestors, and in

furtherance of high and comprehensive purposes of good to the world,

that God was about to give them a grant of Canaan.

7. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord--To dislodge

from their minds any presumptuous idea of their own righteousness,

Moses rehearses their acts of disobedience and rebellion committed so

frequently, and in circumstances of the most awful and impressive

solemnity, that they had forfeited all claims to the favor of God. The

candor and boldness with which he gave, and the patient submission with

which the people bore, his recital of charges so discreditable to their

national character, has often been appealed to as among the many

evidences of the truth of this history.

8. Also in Horeb--rather, "even in Horeb," where it might have been

expected they would have acted otherwise.

12-29. Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people . . .

have corrupted themselves--With a view to humble them effectually,

Moses proceeds to particularize some of the most atrocious instances of

their infidelity. He begins with the impiety of the golden calf--an

impiety which, while their miraculous emancipation from Egypt, the most

stupendous displays of the Divine Majesty that were exhibited on the

adjoining mount, and the recent ratification of the covenant by which

they engaged to act as the people of God, were fresh in memory,

indicated a degree of inconstancy or debasement almost incredible.

17. I took the two tables, . . . and broke them before your eyes--not

in the heat of intemperate passion, but in righteous indignation, from

zeal to vindicate the unsullied honor of God, and by the suggestion of

His Spirit to intimate that the covenant had been broken, and the

people excluded from the divine favor.

18. I fell down before the Lord--The sudden and painful reaction which

this scene of pagan revelry produced on the mind of the pious and

patriotic leader can be more easily imagined than described. Great and

public sins call for seasons of extraordinary humiliation, and in his

deep affliction for the awful apostasy, he seems to have held a

miraculous fast as long as before.

20. The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him--By

allowing himself to be overborne by the tide of popular clamor, Aaron

became a partaker in the guilt of idolatry and would have suffered the

penalty of his sinful compliance, had not the earnest intercession of

Moses on his behalf prevailed.

21. I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the

mount--that is, "the smitten rock" (El Leja) which was probably

contiguous to, or a part of, Sinai. It is too seldom borne in mind that

though the Israelites were supplied with water from this rock when they

were stationed at Rephidim (Wady Feiran), there is nothing in the

Scripture narrative which should lead us to suppose that the rock was

in the immediate neighborhood of that place

(see on

Ex 17:5).

The water on this smitten rock was probably the brook that descended

from the mount. The water may have flowed at the distance of many miles

from the rock, as the winter torrents do now through the wadies of

Arabia-Petræa

(Ps 78:15, 16).

And the rock may have been smitten at such a height, and at a spot

bearing such a relation to the Sinaitic valleys, as to furnish in this

way supplies of water to the Israelites during the journey from Horeb

(De 1:1, 2).

On this supposition new light is, perhaps, cast on the figurative

language of the apostle, when he speaks of "the rock following" the

Israelites

(1Co 10:4)

[WILSON, Land of the Bible].

25. Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I

fell down at the first--After the enumeration of various acts of

rebellion, he had mentioned the outbreak at Kadesh-barnea, which, on a

superficial reading of this verse, would seem to have led Moses to a

third and protracted season of humiliation. But on a comparison of this

passage with

Nu 14:5,

the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act

of intercession

(De 9:18)

is now described in fuller detail.