Chapter 9
Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Deuteronomy 9:5 ESV
We can never do enough good to deserve God's favors. But we can do enough evil to deserve his wrath. And when God does us good, and makes us stronger than our enemies or enriches us, in our pride we think we did it ourselves. These chapters are written about Israel as a nation, not about his dealing with individuals.
2026 - Deuteronomy 9:5 LSB
[5] It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that Yahweh your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to confirm the oath which Yahweh swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Not our righteousness, their evil, and God is the only judge.
2024 - Having a high opinion of ourselves, thinking that we have what we have because we are such shining examples of what God wants all those OTHER people to be like, seems to be about the worst thing we can do in God's eyes. God doesn't care much for pride or self-esteem either one.
The other side of that coin is that we also do not suffer because of what terrible examples we are. Sin has consequences, yes, but we all know that bad things happen to good people, and we have seen in these last few posts that sometimes, the bad things are to test us so that we learn what it is that we really trust. We are not successful because we are so good, but are instead recipients of things previously given to those who are so bad. Careful with this one...
Possible FB post in a series.
2021 - Again, vs 5 doesn't speak of killing them every one, but of driving them out ahead of the invading Israeli's. You don't drive dead people. And the point is made again that this is not about how good Israel is, but about how evil the Canaanites are.
The nation of Israel is about two things. It is about justice, in that the extreme wickedness of the inhabitants of Canaan, like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, has reached the end of God's patience, and God has sent Israel to dispense that justice. In so doing, secondly, Israel begins the fulfillment of God's unconditional promises to Abraham. So we have here an overlap in the Abrahamic Covenant and the Sinai Covenant. Hmm...it is interesting to note that an unconditional covenant is being fulfilled by a nation operating under a conditional covenant. If Israel does not remain faithful to the conditions from which their benefits derive, then God can remove them - under the conditions of their contract - without diminishing the underlying covenant with Abraham at all. These two covenants are layered on each other, not dependent on each other, not "mixed" with each other. The two covenants have NOT become one in the nation of Israel. Why then would we expect the New Covenant to become one with the Law of Moses, or the Abrahamic Covenant? If God didn't put Abraham and Israel together as one - which he did not, but in fact annulled the Sinai Covenant - why would we think promises made to Abraham or to Israel are incorporated into the New Covenant. The church, like Israel, is a layer atop the Abrahamic. If the church failed, the Abrahamic would survive. We know that the church does not fail completely, else there would be no reason for the rapture, which we know will come. When the church is raptured out, the underlying Abrahamic Covenant will still be here, and it is the children of Abraham - in the form of the remnant of Israel - who will be used to fulfill that covenant in and through the Tribulation and Great Tribulation.
There is no way whatever that such an intricate, interconnected 1500 year long story could be written by so many different people. No man or men are capable of weaving a "tale" like the one the Bible unfolds and reveals. How can anyone ever doubt???
Moses reminds them of the first days at Sinai. He reminds them that he was on the mountain forty days and got the tablets written with the finger of God. But the people made the golden calf while they waited, angering God. Moses says he came down, saw them, destroyed the tablets, and then went back up for another forty days, this time to plead with God to not destroy the whole nation of Israel and start over with Moses. In light of where Israel ends up, this might actually have been better. Moses also pleads for Aaron during this second forty days. So Aaron did not escape God's notice! Exodus doesn't mention how angry God was with Aaron, but Moses tells us here that were it not for his intervention, God would have destroyed Aaron for what he did.
Beginning in 21, we get sort of an accounting of all the times Israel rebelled. The calf, Taberah, Massah, Kibroth-hatta-avah. When they were to enter Canaan the first time. This chapter runs to where Moses is on the mountain the second time praying for God to refrain from destroying all Israel.