Deuteronomy 9 – Study

For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Ch.8 – 11   Maintaining a Right Perspective

Passage: Deut 9:1-6

1 Hear, Israel: you are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities that have walls up to the sky. 2 The people are strong and tall – Anakites! You know about them and have heard it said: ‘Who can stand up against the Anakites?’ 3 But be assured today that the Lord your God is the one who goes across ahead of you like a devouring fire. He will destroy them; he will subdue them before you. And you will drive them out and annihilate them quickly, as the Lord has promised you.

4 After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ No, it is on account of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is going to drive them out before you. 5 It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.

A. Find Out:

1. What is the task before them? v.1,2
2. Why don’t they need to worry? v.3
3. What wrong assessment might they make? v.4a,b,5a,6a
4. Why IS the Lord doing this? v.4c,5b
5. Why also is He doing this? v.5c
6. What is His assessment of them? v.6b

B. Think:

1. What does v.3 teach us about WHO is going to clear this land?
2. How may Israel make themselves over important?
3. What is the reality of the situation?

C. Comment:

     This is a passage of sharp reality! Talk about being put in your place! Moses starts with an awesome picture – of the land and peoples that they are just about to take. Stronger nations, big cities, sounds bad! But don’t worry, he carries on, the Lord is going to sort them out so that you can clear them out. There is a partnership here: the Lord will destroy them but Israel will clear them out. The Lord will undermine the confidence of these peoples so that Israel can easily deal with them.

      The trouble with all this is that the Lord’s work is invisible and so Israel, after they have cleared them out might start patting themselves on their backs and start thinking how good they were. More than that, they will start reasoning that they must be good for God to have chosen them to do this job.

      No, says the Lord through Moses, it’s nothing like that. Actually, you’re a stubborn people who are difficult to handle. No, it’s simply that God wants to bring judgement on the terrible things these nations are doing and it just so happens that it coincides with His plan to give you this particular land. Oh no, it’s not you! If anything, it’s because He simply promised this land to Abraham long back and He’s simply fulfilling His promise to His friend.

D. Application:

1. Everything we have is by the mercy of God. Worship Him.
2. Everything we achieve is by the grace of God. Thank Him

Passage: Deut 9:7-17

7 Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the Lord your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 At Horeb you aroused the Lord’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you. 9 When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water. 10 The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.

11 At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord told me, ‘Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves.’

13 And the Lord said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’

15 So I turned and went down from the mountain while it was ablaze with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 16 When I looked, I saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made for yourselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took the two tablets and threw them out of my hands, breaking them to pieces before your eyes.

A. Find Out:

1. How does Moses summarize their past activity? v.7
2. What had Moses been doing up Mount Sinai ? v.9-11
3. Meanwhile what had the people done? v.12
4. What had the Lord apparently wanted to do? v.13,14
5. How did Moses confirm the Lord’s words? v.15,16
6. What had he done in his anger? v.17

B. Think:

1. How do these verses flow on from the previous ones?
2. Why do you think Moses is recounting this episode?
3. Why do we sometimes need such reminders?

C. Comment:

      Moses has recently warned the people against complacency and pride once they enter the land ( 8:17 ), has said that it is not because of their righteousness that the Lord is using them (9:4-6), for indeed they are a stiff-necked people (9:6). Thus he now proceeds to justify this claim (we suggest) to help them keep perspective about themselves and keep on a right relationship with the Lord.

      He proceeds to remind them that they have been like this from the moment they left Egypt right through to the present (v.7). He then starts to give illustrations of this and starts with the account of what had happened back at Horeb (Sinai). He had gone up the mountain to receive the most precise and succinct law ever given to man, the Ten Commandments, but while this incredible thing was happening the people down below were already making an idol.

      They were aware of God on the mountain but preferred to have some poor animal representation of Him that could be handled. Already they were showing signs of their rejection of Him even at the very meeting with Him! For this they nearly received the death penalty. Indeed when Moses himself had seen with his eyes this crass stupidity his anger carried him away and he smashed the very stone slabs that had been a gift from God. Could anything have displayed their sin-based stupidity more?

D. Application:

1. The presence of sin in us leads us to do the most stupid of things.
2. Our need of a saviour is very obvious. Abide in him today.

Passage: Deut 9:18-29

18 Then once again I fell prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and so arousing his anger. 19 I feared the anger and wrath of the Lord, for he was angry enough with you to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me. 20 And the Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him, but at that time I prayed for Aaron too. 21 Also I took that sinful thing of yours, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. Then I crushed it and ground it to powder as fine as dust and threw the dust into a stream that flowed down the mountain.

22 You also made the Lord angry at Taberah, at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah.

23 And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, ‘Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.’ But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.

25 I lay prostrate before the Lord those forty days and forty nights because the Lord had said he would destroy you. 26 I prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, do not destroy your people, your own inheritance that you redeemed by your great power and brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin. 28 Otherwise, the country from which you brought us will say, “Because the Lord was not able to take them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to put them to death in the wilderness.” 29 But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.’

A. Find Out:

1. What 3 things had Moses done? v.18-21
2. Where also had they angered the Lord? v.22
3. When next had they failed? v.23
4. What was his summary of them? v.24
5. On what 2 past grounds did he intercede? v.25-27
6. On what future grounds did he intercede? v.28,29

B. Think:

1. How many failures does Moses mention in this passage?
2. What is the main incident he is speaking about?
3. How had he saved them?

C. Comment:

     Continuing his point that they will never be able to take pride and call themselves a righteous people, Moses continues to recall the saga of the episode at Sinai. Having smashed the two tablets of stone he went back up the mountain and spent a further miraculous forty days praying and fasting, interceding for the people and for Aaron. The Lord had so revealed His anger that Moses feared for their future. Had God really intended to destroy Israel ? No, otherwise He would have done it. What appears more likely is that He wanted to convey to Moses, and subsequently the people, the awfulness of the situation as a result of their behaviour. As Moses interceded, the nature of what he prays shows us the dynamics of God’s plans.

      He reminds the Lord (if He needed reminding!!! – but Moses did!) they Israel are His chosen people, the people He promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, a people who are to reveal the glory of the Lord to the rest of the world. For these reasons the plan must go ahead – but is was at the cost of the lives of all over the age of 20 except Moses and Caleb. These he speaks to now had all been under 20 then. He also reminds them of 3 other failures and the failure to enter the land originally. Oh no, there will be no grounds for this people to think they have done this because they are special. It’s because of grace & mercy!

D. Application:

1. Remind yourself: I am what I am because of the Lord alone.
2. I am alive simply because of the mercy and grace of God.