Reflections on Deuteronomy 9

Deuteronomy 09 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Israel, listen to me! You will soon cross the Jordan River and go into the land to force out the nations that live there. They are more powerful than you are, and the walls around their cities reach to the sky.
   
2. Some of these nations are descendants of the Anakim. You know how tall and strong they are, and you've heard that no one can defeat them in battle.
   
3. But the LORD your God has promised to go ahead of you, like a raging fire burning everything in its path. So when you attack your enemies, it will be easy for you to destroy them and take their land.
   
4. After the LORD helps you wipe out these nations and conquer their land, don't think he did it because you are such good people. You aren't good--you are stubborn! No, the LORD is going to help you, because the nations that live there are evil, and because he wants to keep the promise he made to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
   
5. (SEE 9:4)
   
6. (SEE 9:4)
   
7. Don't ever forget how you kept rebelling and making the LORD angry the whole time you were in the desert. You rebelled from the day you left Egypt until the day you arrived here.
   
8. At Mount Sinai you made the LORD so angry that he was going to destroy you.
   
9. It happened during those forty days and nights that I was on the mountain, without anything to eat or drink. He had told me to come up there so he could give me the agreement he made with us. And this agreement was actually the same Ten Commandments he had announced to you when he spoke from the fire on the mountain. The LORD had written them on two flat stones with his own hand. But after giving me the two stones,
   
10. (SEE 9:9)
    
11. (SEE 9:9)
    
12. he said: Moses, hurry down the mountain to those people you led out of Egypt. They have already disobeyed me and committed the terrible sin of making an idol.
    
13. I've been watching the Israelites, and I've seen how stubborn and rebellious they are.
    
14. So don't try to stop me! I am going to wipe them out, and no one on earth will remember they ever lived. Then I will let your descendants become an even bigger and more powerful nation than Israel.
    
15. Fire was raging on the mountaintop as I went back down, carrying the two stones with the commandments on them.
    
16. I saw how quickly you had sinned and disobeyed the LORD your God. There you were, worshiping the metal idol you had made in the shape of a calf.
    
17. So I threw down the two stones and smashed them before your very eyes.
    
18. I bowed down at the place of worship and prayed to the LORD, without eating or drinking for forty days and nights. You had committed a terrible sin by making that idol, and the LORD hated what you had done. He was angry enough to destroy all of you and Aaron as well. So I prayed for you and Aaron as I had done before, and this time the LORD answered my prayers.
    
19. (SEE 9:18)
    
20. (SEE 9:18)
    
21. It was a sin for you to make that idol, so I threw it into the fire to melt it down. Then I took the lump of gold, ground it into powder, and threw the powder into the stream flowing down the mountain.
    
22. You also made the LORD angry when you were staying at Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-Hattaavah.
    
23. Then at Kadesh-Barnea the LORD said, "I am giving you the land, so go ahead and take it!" But since you didn't trust the LORD, you rebelled and disobeyed his command.
    
24. In fact, you've rebelled against the LORD for as long as he has known you.
    
25. After you had made the idol in the shape of a calf, the LORD said he was going to destroy you. So I bowed down in front of the sacred tent for forty days and nights,
    
26. and I prayed: Our LORD, please don't wipe out your people. You used your great power to rescue them from Egypt and to make them your very own.
    
27. Israel's ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob obeyed you faithfully. Think about them, and not about Israel's stubbornness, evil, and sin.
    
28. If you destroy your people, the Egyptians will say, "The LORD promised to give Israel land, but he wasn't powerful enough to keep his promise. In fact, he hated them so much that he took them into the desert and killed them."
    
29. But you, our LORD, chose the people of Israel to be your own, and with your mighty power you rescued them from Egypt.
    

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    We should never think ourselves deserving of God's grace and His blessings, for none are worthy. As Psalm 14:2-3 states: "The LORD looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one."  It was a truth Moses wanted Israel to be fully aware of as she prepared to enter Canaan and drive out the people. This would be accomplished only because God made it happen. It would not be because of their own might for the people they would drive out had cities "fortified to the heavens." "Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?" (9:1, 2) Moses asked. It was impossible for the Israelites. But not for God.
    
    When God did this for them they were not to think He did it because of their righteousness. Moses made it very plain that if God were acting on their merit He would have already destroyed them. He called them a "stiff-necked" people, and went into detail recalling incidents in their history to verify it. He concluded by saying, "You have been rebelling against the LORD ever since I have known you." (9:24) Moses gave two reasons God was going to drive out the people from Canaan: because of the wickedness of those people, and because He promised it to the Israelite fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We can add a third reason: because of God's grace.
    
    Over and over, scripture points to people God used for His purposes who were very obviously underserving. But by turning to God He used them in significant ways. The spiritual giants in scripture stand out partly because they were giants but also because they were few in number and were contrasted by so many who were as this hoard of Israelites of whom Moses referred as 'stiff-necked.'