My commentary added in red -
Deut. 9:1 “Hear, O Israel: You are to cross over the Jordan today, (OK, so today they are to begin taking the Promised Land, but what will it be like and how will they be victorious?) and go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the descendants of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the descendants of Anak?’ (What will it be like? It will be impossible for them, the people and their cities are too big and strong, but...)
3 Therefore understand today that the Lord your God is He who goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord has said to you. (Israel is weak, but God is strong, so victory is assured, if they trust in His strength, not theirs! Why would He do this for them?)
4 “Do not think in your heart, after the Lord your God has cast them out before you, saying, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land’; but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is driving them out from before you. (The first reason God gives for driving out the inhabitants of the land and giving it to Israel, is to punish the sins of the current inhabitants, but wait there is more - )
5 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Ok, so the nations that are being driven out are wicked, but so is Israel, God is giving it to them as an inheritance, not because they have earned it, but because of the promises He made to their ancestors!)
Lest they forget, a repeat of an important fact -
6 Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Lest they forget, Moses reminds them again -
7 “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord.
How can a "stiff-necked people" or people who are "rebellious against the Lord" enter and keep the land God promised? By seeing it as an inheritance given and kept by God!
How can I, as a believer in Jesus Christ who still sins, expect to enter and stay in God's eternal Promised Land? By trusting in God's ability to deliver and keep it for me, as an inheritance earned by Jesus, not by me!
"Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
“Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord."
ReplyDeleteThanks you Lord for for remembering us when we are rebellious!