Deuteronomy 9 explained: Not Because You Deserve It

Strong enemies ahead (vv. 1-3)

The Anakites were remembered as a race of huge warriors, the same people whose size had once frightened Israel's scouts into turning back. Moses says the LORD will go ahead of them like a fire that burns everything, and the language of wiping out whole nations is stark and hard for modern readers.

Not your own goodness (vv. 4-6)

Moses gives two reasons Israel will take the land: the other nations' wickedness, and God keeping his old promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Israel itself is called stiff-necked, a picture of an animal that refuses to turn when led, and Christians have often read this as an early picture of a gift that cannot be earned.

The golden calf (vv. 7-17)

While Moses was on the mountain called Horeb receiving the covenant, God's formal agreement with Israel written on stone, the people made a metal calf to worship. Moses smashed the tablets in front of them, which many interpreters take as a sign that the agreement had been broken almost as soon as it was made.

Moses pleads and destroys the idol (vv. 18-21)

Moses lay face down without food or water for forty days, asking God to spare the people and even his brother Aaron, who had made the calf. He burned the idol, ground it to dust and threw it into a stream, leaving nothing of it to keep or rebuild.

A long record of rebellion (vv. 22-24)

Each place name recalls a past failure: complaining at Taberah, demanding water at Massah, and craving meat at Kibroth Hattaavah. At Kadesh Barnea the people refused to enter the land at all, and that generation spent the rest of their lives in the wilderness.

What Moses prayed (vv. 25-29)

Moses appeals to God's promise to the ancestors and to his reputation, so that Egypt would not say the LORD was unable to bring the people into the land, or had led them out to die in the desert because he hated them. Scholars are unsure whether these forty days are the same as in verse 18 or a separate period, though many think it is the same time told in more detail.

Key verse: Deuteronomy 9:6

Something to think about

When something good comes your way, how much do you think it reflects on you, and how much on other people, circumstances, or things beyond your control?