---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible -  Deuteronomy 9"
description: "CHAPTER 9   :-. MOSES
DISSUADES THEM
FROM THE OPINION OF
THEIR OWN
RIGHTEOUSNESS. 1. this day—means this
time. The Israelites had reached the confines of"
image: "/images/missing.jpg"
url: "https://realbiblebelievers.com/commentaries/commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/deuteronomy/9"
---

CHAPTER 9

. 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.

**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.

**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 ). 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 ([Psalms 78:15](../../../kjv/psalms/78/15);
[Psalms 78:16](../../../kjv/psalms/78/16)). 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 by the way of mount
Seir and Kadesh-barnea ([Deuteronomy 1:1](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/1/1);
[Deuteronomy 1:2](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/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 ([Deuteronomy 1:2](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/1/2)) [WILSON, *Land
of the Bible*].

**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.

**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 , the subject and language of this prayer show that only the
second act of intercession ([Deuteronomy 9:18](../../../kjv/deuteronomy/9/18))
is now described in fuller detail.

**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.

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