1.
Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,
2.
A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!
3.
Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee.
4.
Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
5.
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
6.
Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.
GRACE, NOT MERIT
‘Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.’
Deuteronomy 9:6
I. The address of Moses is very different from the addresses of most captains of armies under similar circumstances. (1) He makes no attempt to underrate the power of the enemies with whom the Israelites had to contend. He begins his address by telling the people that they are that day to pass over Jordan, to go in and possess nations greater and mightier than themselves. The reason for his giving such information was that the design of God was not merely to conquer the Canaanites, but to educate Israel, to teach them that by God’s power weakness may be made strength, and the mighty vanquished by the feeble. (2) Moses assures the people in plain language that no righteousness of theirs had gained them the land. They might be ready enough to admit that it was not their own courage or their own bodily strength, but they might still be disposed to think that they had deserved God’s favour, that if they had not been deserving of the victory, God would not have given it to them. Self-flattery is easy, and therefore Moses very wisely and decidedly protested once for all against such a view of God’s doings.
II. The principle of spiritual life with ourselves is precisely that which Moses laid down as the principle of national life for the Israelites. God gives us the land of promise for no righteousness of our own. Everything depends on God’s mercy, God’s will, God’s purpose; the certainty of victory depends, not upon any feelings, or experiences, or conflicts of ours, but upon the ever-present help of the almighty God.
—Bishop Harvey Goodwin.
Illustration
(1) ‘Moses would live over again the eventful years since he and their fathers had left Egypt, and bring vividly before the minds of the later generation the great events which thronged these forty years. Thus he spoke to them in the plains of Moab, and recounted the more important incidents in their history from the time of the breaking up from Horeb, until they arrived in the plain over against Jericho. In these burning words we hear the tender voice of a loving father and a great master, who is at once jealous for the honour of Jehovah, and anxious for the welfare of Israel. Here, as always, but here in a special manner, he is the mediator between Israel and Jehovah. He urges them by every possible motive to cleave to the God who brought them out of the land of Egypt.’
(2) ‘Moses set himself anew to convince the people that it was not on account of any worthiness in them that God was prepared to do such great things, in driving out their enemies before them. Let God go before you, and drive out your inward foes—not for your worthiness, but for His great mercy. Boasting is for ever excluded from all share, whether in our justification or sanctification.’
(3) ‘The bane of all high spiritual experience is pride. It is the foe to be feared above all other. It creates in us an unconscious feeling and attitude of superiority. Our joy in Jesus, and our victories are too real to be denied; but pride attributes them to our diligence, prayer, earnestness, etc., and this is deadly to soul-health. Yet all the while we deem ourselves both humble and spiritual!’
7.
Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD.
8.
Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.
9.
When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:
10.
And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.
11.
And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.
12.
And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image.
13.
Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
14.
Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.
15.
So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands.
16.
And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.
17.
And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.
18.
And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.
19.
For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also.
20.
And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.
21.
And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.
22.
And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.
23.
Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice.
24.
Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
25.
Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
26.
I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
27.
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:
28.
Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.
29.
Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.