Deuteronomy/Davarim 9: "YHVH your God, he is the one who is crossing over before you, a consuming fire"

[Commentary from the best of Jewish minds are collected in our excellent resource book Pentateuch and Haftorahs, ed. Dr. J.H. Hertz; translation is EF/Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses.—Admin1.]

 

Deuteronomy/Davarim 9

WARNING AGAINST SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

Israel’s victories over the Canaanites are due not to any exceptional merits of Israel, but to the wickedness of those nations, and because of the Divine promise to the Patriarchs.

1-7.  ISRAEL’S VICTORY DUE TO GOD

 

1 Hearken, O Israel: 

You are today crossing the Jordan

to enter to dispossess nations greater and mightier (in number) than you:

towns great and fortified up to heaven;

this day. i.e. in the immediate future.

2 a people great and tall, the Children of the Anakites, 

of whom you yourself know, of whom you have heard (it said): 

Who can take-a-stand before the Children of Anak?-

whom thou knowest.  Having come in contact with Og, King of Bashan, who belonged to a race of giants (III,11).

thou hast heard. From the report of the spies; Num. XIII,28.

3 You are to know today

that YHVH your God, 

he is the one who is crossing over before you,

a consuming fire; 

he will destroy them, he will subjugate them before you,

so that you dispossess them, so that you cause them to perish quickly,

as YHVH promised you.

He will.  The He is emphatic.  The victory is God’s, not Israel’s.

hath spoken. See Exodus XXIII,27,31.

4 Do not say in your heart 

when YHVH has pushed them out before you,

saying:

Because of my righteous-merit did YHVH bring me in to possess this land,

and because of the wickedness of these nations is YHVH dispossessing them from before you!

for my righteousness.  ‘Because of my deserts.

whereas for the wickedness.  Better, and for the wickedness.  The meaning of this and v. 5 is as follows:  Do not imagine that there are two reasons for thy possession of the Land; viz. thy righteousness, and the wickedness of the inhabitants.  True the wickedness of the inhabitants lost them their land; but the reason why the Israelites were taking their place was not their righteousness, but the fulfillment of the Divine promise made to the Fathers (Rashi, Rashbam).

the wickedness of these nations.  Recent excavations bear gruesome testimony to the savagery and foul uncleanness of their rites.

5 Not because of your righteous-merit, or because of the uprightness of your heart, are you entering to possess their land,

but rather because of the wickedness of these nations 

is YHVH your God dispossessing them from before you, 

and in order that he might uphold the word that YHVH swore to your fathers, to Avraham, to Yitzhak, and to Yaakov.

not for thy righteousness.  This is illustrated in v. 8 by the outstanding example of Israel’s sin, the Golden Calf.

or for the righteousness of thy heart. This refers to Israel’s unbelief and rebellion.

6 You are to know 

that not because of your righteous-merit is YHVH your God giving you this good land to possess, for a people hard of neck are you!

stiffnecked people.  obstinate; persisting in idolatry; figure taken from a stubborn ox that refuses to submit to the yoke.

7 Bear-in-mind, do not forget

how you infuriated YHVH your God in the wilderness;

from the day that he took you out of Egypt until your coming to this place, 

you have been rebellious against YHVH!

IX,8-X,11.  PROOF FROM HISTORY OF ISRAEL’S REBELLION

But for the intercession of Moses, and the gracious forgiveness of God, Israel would have been destroyed for the Golden Calf apostasy.

8 And at Horev you infuriated YHVH, 

so that YHVH was incensed (enough) with you to
destroy you!

also in Horeb.  Better, even in Horeb, or especially in Horeb. The sin of the Golden Calf is singled out as the most notorious offence committed by the Israelites.

9 When I went up the mountain

to receive the tablets of stone, 

the tablets of the covenant that YHVH had cut with you, 

I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights:

food I did not eat, water I did not drink;

I did neither eat.  While the Revelation imposed upon Moses a long abstinence, they treated it so lightly that they indulged in a heathenish orgy.

10 but God gave to me the two tablets of stone, written on by the finger of God, 

and upon them, corresponding to all the words that YHVH spoke with you on the mountain, from the midst of the fire,

on the day of the Assembly.

written with the finger of God.  Exodus XXXi,18: And He gave unto Moses, when He had made an end of speaking with him upon mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. finger of God.  An expression for the ineffable sanctity of the Tables, and for the Divine source of their Message to the children of men.  [This] connects with the narrative of the Golden Calf, relates that Moses had the Tablets in his hands, this verse tells how he received them.

the assembly.  Heb. kahal; any assembly or its representatives, for organized national action.

11 Now it was, 

 at the end of forty days and forty nights, 

 YHVH gave to me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant.

12 And YHVH said to me:

 Arise, go down quickly from here,

 for they have wrought-ruin, your people, whom you took out of Egypt, 

 they have quickly turned-aside from the path that I commanded them,

 they have made themselves something-molten!

get thee down quickly.  Exod. XXXII,7 note:  thy people. God disowns the sinful Israelites. He refuses to acknowledge them as His people.  The Rabbis, on the other hand, understand ‘thy people which thou broughtest up out of the land of Egypt‘ as an allusion to the mixed multitude.  It was not God who had brought these out of Egypt, but Moses had allowed them to accompany the Israelites.

thy people.  God repudiates Israel because of their treachery—‘thy (Moses) people,’ ‘thou (Moses) hast brought forth out of Egypt.’

blot out their name. Exodus XXXII,32.  blot me.  Moses lived only for his people.  If they were destroyed, he had no desire for life.  ‘This verse is one of the most beautiful and impressive in the whole of Scripture, strikingly depicting Moses’ affection and self-devotion for his people’ (Driver).

15 And I faced about and went down from the mountain

-now the mountain was burning with fire-

the two tablets of the covenant in my two arms,

In this historical retrospect, Moses does not follow the strict chronological order as recorded in Exod. XXXII, and the narrative here is much condensed.

16 and I saw: 

here, you were sinning against YHVH your God, you had made yourselves a molten calf;

you had turned-aside quickly from the way that YHVH had commanded you!
17 Now I grasped the two tablets 

and threw them from my two arms 

and smashed them before your eyes.

broke them before your eyes.  As a sign that God’s Covenant with Israel was at an end.

18 I lay-fallen before YHVH as at the beginning (of the) forty days and forty nights; 

food I did not eat, water I did not drink, 

because of all your sins that you sinned, by doing what was ill in the eyes of YHVH, to vex him.

I fell down. Better, I cast myself down. 

as at the first. A condemnation of the narrative in Exod. XXXII, and a rearrangement of the details, as in v. 15.

19 For I was in dread of the anger and the venom with which YHVH was furious with you, to destroy you; 

and YHVH hearkened to me, also on that occasion.

that time also.  His prayer on their behalf was heard, as on previous occasions; Exod. XIV,15; XV,25 (Ibn Ezra).

20 But with Aharon, YHVH was exceedingly incensed, (enough) to destroy him,

but I interceded also on behalf of Aharon at that time.

very angry with Aaron. Aaron as leader had lacked strength; his, therefore, was much of the responsibility of what had happened.

21 Now as for your sinful-thing that you had made, the calf: 

I took (it) and burned it with fire, 

I beat it, well ground-up, until it was crushed (into) fine-dust, 

and I threw its dust into the stream that comes down the mountain.

and I took your sin . . . made.  The destruction of the sin, i.e. of the idol that was the occasion of the sin, must precede the removal of the guilt.

I cast the dust thereof.  The fact is here omitted that Moses made the people drink of the mingled water and dust, because the point on which he is dwelling is his intercession on their behalf.  He is not recapitulating the history of the Golden Calf in detail.

22 -And at Tav’era/Blazing and at Massa/Testing, and at Kivrot Ha-Taava/Burial-sites of Craving, you were infuriating YHVH,
23 and (also) when YHVH sent you on from Kadesh Barne’a, saying:

Go up, possess the land that I am giving to you, 

you rebelled against the order of YHVH your God, and did not trust him and did not hearken to his voice.
24 Rebellious have you been against YHVH from the (first) day that I knew you!
25 Now when I lay-fallen before YHVH

for the forty days and the forty nights that I was fallen,

when YHVH said he would destroy you,
26 I interceded to YHVH and said: 

My Lord, YHVH, 

do not bring-ruin on your people, your inheritance 

whom you redeemed in your greatness, 

whom you took out of Egypt with a strong hand!
27 Bear-in-mind your servants, Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov; 

do not face toward the hard-heartedness of this people or toward their wickedness or toward their sin,
28 lest the (people of the) land out of which you took them say:

Because of YHVH’S inability to bring them to the land which he had promised to them 

and because of his hatred for them 

did he take them out, to cause-their-death in the wilderness!

lest the land. i.e. the inhabitants of the land.  In Exod. XXXII, 12, the Egyptians are named.

29 -And they are your people, your inheritance

whom you took out in your great power and with your outstretched arm!