Deuteronomy · chapter 9 of 34
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Deuteronomy 9 declares that Israel does not receive the land for its righteousness but because of the wickedness of the nations and God's promise to the patriarchs. Moses proves it by recalling that Israel is a stiff-necked people: the golden calf at Horeb, other rebellions and his own forty days of intercession before the Lord.
After warning against pride in chapter 8, Moses applies the lesson to the coming conquest. Israel might think they enter Canaan because they are better than its inhabitants. Chapter 9 dismantles that idea with the people's own history. It also shows Moses as an intercessor, a figure that points to the mediating work fulfilled by Christ.
Moses tells Israel they are about to cross the Jordan to dispossess nations greater and stronger than they, with cities fortified up to heaven and giant Anakim. But the Lord will go ahead as a consuming fire and subdue them. Israel must not say in their heart that the Lord brought them in because of their righteousness: it is because of the wickedness of those nations and the oath made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses says it plainly: Israel is a stiff-necked people.
To prove it, he reviews their history. At Horeb they provoked the Lord to anger. Moses went up the mountain for forty days and forty nights, without eating bread or drinking water, to receive the tablets written by the finger of God. There the Lord told him to go down, because the people had corrupted themselves by making a molten calf. Moses went down, saw the sin and broke the two tablets before their eyes.
He fell down again for forty days and forty nights, without eating or drinking, because of the people's sin. The Lord was also angry with Aaron enough to destroy him, and Moses prayed for him. He took the calf, burned it, ground it to dust and threw it into the brook that came down from the mountain. Moses adds other rebellions: at Taberah, at Massah, at Kibroth-hattaavah and at Kadesh-barnea.
The chapter ends with Moses' prayer. He asks the Lord not to destroy his people and his inheritance, to remember his servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and not look at the people's stubbornness, so that the Egyptians would not say the Lord was not able to bring them into the land. They are his people and his inheritance, whom he brought out by great power and an outstretched arm.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Israel must not say the Lord brings them into the land because of their righteousness. The victory comes from the wickedness of the nations and the promise to the patriarchs. God's grace, not merit, is the foundation of the inheritance.
Moses says plainly that Israel is a stiff-necked people. The Bible does not idealize its people: it presents them as they are so that salvation is seen as a gift.
Moses falls down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, without bread or water, for Israel's sin. It is a costly act of intercession, in which one man carries the weight of a whole people.
Moses prays that the Lord not destroy his people and his inheritance, recalling Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and his own reputation among the nations. The prayer appeals to God's character and covenant, not to the people's merits.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Because of the wickedness of those nations and to fulfill the oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. — Deuteronomy 9:5
Answer: As a stiff-necked people. — Deuteronomy 9:6
Answer: Forty days and forty nights. — Deuteronomy 9:9
Answer: They corrupted themselves and made a molten calf. — Deuteronomy 9:12-16
Answer: He burned it, ground it to dust and threw it into the brook that came down from the mountain. — Deuteronomy 9:21
Answer: His servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. — Deuteronomy 9:27
Deuteronomy 9 destroys the idea that we deserve God's blessings. Anyone who feels secure because of their record, achievements or family needs to hear that everything is grace. In a small group we can talk about the times we have confused God's goodness with our own merits.
Moses is also a model of intercession. He prays for a people who have given him many troubles, without using the moment for himself. Asking whom God calls us to hold up in prayer, even when it is hard, is a direct application of the text.
Deuteronomy 9 leaves Israel humble before its own history and before God's grace. In chapter 10, Moses continues the account: the Lord writes the tablets anew and it will be shown what he really asks of his people.
It is an image taken from an animal that resists the yoke. It describes a stubborn people who will not be led by God. Moses uses it to remind Israel that their history is full of resistance, and that the inheritance is an act of grace.
They were inhabitants of Canaan known for their great height, who had frightened the spies at Kadesh-barnea. Moses mentions them to remind Israel that, however great they were, the Lord would go ahead of Israel as a consuming fire.
When he came down the mountain and saw the calf, he broke the tablets before the people's eyes. It was a symbolic act: the people had in fact broken the covenant, and the broken tablets showed it. The Lord would renew them afterward, as the next chapter shows.