Deuteronomy 9

Listen, Israel. Today you are about to cross the Jordan River to go in and take over nations that are greater and stronger than you. Their cities are large, with walls so high they seem to reach the sky.

1Hear, 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,

Note"Listen, Israel" addresses the whole nation as if it were one person; through much of this chapter the Hebrew "you" is singular, spoken to the people as a single body. Cities "fortified to the sky" was a standard way of saying the walls were impossibly high, not a measurement, the same expression turns up in Egyptian and Mesopotamian reports of enemy strongholds.

2They are a strong, tall people, the descendants of Anak. You know about them, and you have heard people say, "Who can stand up against the sons of Anak?"

2A 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!

NoteAnak and his descendants, the Anakim, were remembered as an unusually tall population living around Hebron in the southern hill country. The scouts sent into Canaan a generation earlier reported them as giants beside whom the Israelites felt like grasshoppers, and the saying quoted here ("Who can stand up against the sons of Anak?") was evidently a proverb about hopeless odds.

3So understand today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over ahead of you. Like a fire that burns up everything, he will destroy them and bring them down in front of you. So you will drive them out and wipe them out quickly, just as the LORD told you.

3Understand 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.

4After the LORD your God has driven them out ahead of you, do not say to yourself, "The LORD brought me in to take this land because I am righteous." No, the LORD is driving these nations out ahead of you because of their wickedness.

4Speak 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.

5You are not going in to take their land because you are righteous or because your heart is honest. The LORD your God is driving these nations out ahead of you because of their wickedness. He is also doing it to keep the promise he swore to your ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

5Not 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.

NoteThe promise sworn to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the pledge in Genesis that their descendants would be given the land of Canaan. To "swear" it is legal language: a binding oath, not a hope or an intention.

6So understand this: the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to own because you are righteous. You are a stiff-necked people.

6Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people.

Note"Stiff-necked" is an image from farming. An ox that stiffens its neck refuses the yoke and will not be steered by the plowman. Applied to people it means obstinate and unmanageable, not proud in the modern sense.

7Remember this, and never forget it: you made the LORD your God angry in the desert. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have kept rebelling against the LORD.

7Remember, 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.

8At Horeb too you made the LORD angry, angry enough to destroy you.

8Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

NoteHoreb is the other name used in the Bible for Mount Sinai, the mountain where the covenant was made after the escape from Egypt. Deuteronomy consistently calls it Horeb.

9When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets that held the covenant, the binding agreement the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.

9When 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:

NoteA covenant was a formal, binding agreement of the kind kings made with each other or with the peoples under them: it named the parties, set out obligations, and was written down and stored. The stone tablets are that written document, which is why they matter so much in what follows. "Forty days and forty nights" is a conventional biblical span for a long, complete period, not necessarily an exact count.

10Then the LORD handed me two stone tablets, written on by the finger of God. On them were all the words the LORD had spoken to you on the mountain, out of the middle of the fire, on the day you were all gathered there.

10And 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.

Note"Written by the finger of God" is a figure of speech for something done directly by God rather than through a human hand; the same phrase is used elsewhere for acts no human could perform. "The day of the assembly" refers to the one occasion when the entire nation was summoned to stand at the foot of the mountain and hear the commandments spoken aloud.

11At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

11And 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.

12And the LORD said to me, "Get up and go down from here quickly, because your people, the ones you brought out of Egypt, have ruined themselves. They have turned aside so fast from the way I commanded them. They have made themselves an image of melted metal."

12And 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.

NoteAn "image of melted metal" is a cast idol: metal melted down and poured into a mold. The incident being recalled is the making of the golden calf at Sinai while Moses was on the mountain, told at length in Exodus 32.

13The LORD also said to me, "I have seen this people, and look, they are a stiff-necked people.

13Furthermore the LORD spake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:

14Leave me alone, so I can destroy them and wipe their name out from under the sky. Then I will make you into a nation stronger and greater than they are."

14Let 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.

Note"Wipe their name out from under the sky" means to leave no descendants and no memory, in a culture without a strong idea of individual afterlife, having your name continue through your children was how a person and a people survived. The offer that follows, to build a nation out of Moses instead, would transfer to him the promise made to Abraham.

15So I turned and came down the mountain while it was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

15So 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.

16I looked, and there it was: you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a calf of melted metal. You had turned aside quickly from the way the LORD had commanded you.

16And 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.

NoteA young bull was a standard image of strength and fertility across the ancient Near East, and was often used to represent a god or to serve as the pedestal a god was imagined to stand on. The offense is not the choice of animal but the making of a physical image at all.

17So I took the two tablets, threw them out of my hands, and smashed them while you watched.

17And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes.

18Then I lay face down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, as I had done the first time. I ate no bread and drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed. You had done evil in the LORD's sight and made him angry.

18And 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.

NoteLying face down on the ground was the posture of a subject before a king or a petitioner begging for a life. Combined with going without food and water, it is the standard bodily language of urgent pleading and mourning.

19I was afraid of the anger and burning displeasure the LORD felt against you, enough to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.

19For 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.

20The LORD was very angry with Aaron, angry enough to destroy him, but at that same time I prayed for Aaron too.

20And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time.

NoteAaron was Moses' older brother and the head of the priesthood. According to Exodus 32 it was Aaron who collected the people's gold and made the calf, which is why he is singled out here.

21I took the thing you had sinned with, the calf you had made, and burned it in the fire. I crushed it and ground it down until it was as fine as dust. Then I threw the dust into the stream that ran down from the mountain.

21And 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.

NoteBurning, grinding to powder, and scattering the remains in running water destroys the object beyond any possibility of recovering or reusing the gold, a thorough, deliberate erasure rather than simple disposal. The parallel account in Exodus 32 adds that the water was then given to the people to drink.

22At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah you made the LORD angry as well.

22And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibrothhattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath.

NoteThese three place names are all named for what went wrong there, and the names carry their meanings openly in Hebrew: Taberah means "burning," Massah means "testing" or "quarreling," and Kibroth-hattaavah means "graves of craving." The list is a shorthand reminder of episodes the hearers already knew.

23It was the same when the LORD sent you out from Kadesh-barnea and said, "Go up and take the land I have given you." You rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. You did not trust him and did not listen to what he said.

23Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadeshbarnea, 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.

NoteKadesh-barnea was an oasis on the southern edge of Canaan and the staging point for the invasion. From there scouts were sent into the land; when they came back with reports of fortified cities and giants, the people refused to go up, and that refusal cost them a generation in the wilderness.

24You have been rebelling against the LORD ever since the day I first knew you.

24Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.

25So I lay face down before the LORD for forty days and forty nights, just as I had done the first time, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.

25Thus 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.

26I prayed to the LORD and said, "Lord GOD, do not destroy your people, the people who belong to you. You bought them back by your greatness. You brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand.

26I 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.

Note"Redeemed" translates a legal term for buying something back: paying the price to free a slave, or to recover family land or a relative sold into debt. "Inheritance" is likewise a property word, land or possessions permanently held within a family and not to be sold off. Calling Israel God's inheritance says they are his own permanent holding, and the argument is that an owner does not destroy what he has just paid to get back. "With a mighty hand" is a stock phrase, borrowed from Egyptian royal language, for overwhelming force.

27Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look at how stubborn this people is, or at their wickedness, or at their sin.

27Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:

28If you do, the people of the land you brought us out of will say, 'The LORD was not able to bring them into the land he promised them, and he hated them, so he brought them out to kill them in the desert.'

28Lest 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.

Note"The land you brought us out of" means Egypt, and the argument turns on reputation: if the people die in the desert, the watching Egyptians will read it as a failure of power or as spite, not as punishment. Ancient prayers commonly appealed to what other nations would say about a god who could not deliver.

29But they are your people, the people who belong to you. You brought them out by your great power and your outstretched arm."

29Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.

Note"Outstretched arm," like "mighty hand," comes from the imagery of a warrior or king with arm raised to strike. The two phrases together are a fixed expression used throughout Deuteronomy for the rescue from Egypt.