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Hear, Israel! You are to pass over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and fortified up to the sky,
Verse 1. This day, very soon, ( Menochius.) within the space of a month. Calmet.—Sky: an hyperbole to denote their surprising height. Worthington.
a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard say, “Who can stand before the sons of Anak?”
Verse 2. Stand. Hebrew “who can stand before the sons of Enak?” as if this were a sort of proverb. Calmet.—The spies had formerly terrified the people with the report of the high walls and gigantic inhabitants of Chanaan. Numbers 13:18.
Know therefore today that the LORD your God is he who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and he will bring them down before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as the LORD has spoken to you.
Verse 3. Fire. See Calmet. 4:24. The conducting angel would fight for the Hebrews. Bible.
Don’t say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out from before you, “For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land;” because the LORD drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations.
Not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart do you go in to possess their land; but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you, and that he may establish the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Know therefore that the LORD your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.
Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.
Verse 7. Strove. Hebrew “irritated.” Calmet.—Septuagint “continually disbelieved the Lord.” Moses hence takes occasion to lay before the people their frequent and most heinous offences, on account of which they might justly have feared being destroyed, as much as the infamous nations whom they were about to supplant. They might thus be convinced that they had been chosen gratuitously. Bible.—For God hates nothing more than ingratitude and presumption. Calmet.
Also in Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was angry with you to destroy you.
Verse 8. Would, if He had not been appeased by earnest supplication, as verse 20.
When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water.
The LORD delivered to me the two stone tablets written with God’s finger. On them were all the words which the LORD spoke with you on the mountain out of the middle of the fire in the day of the assembly.
It came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, even the tablets of the covenant.
The LORD said to me, “Arise, get down quickly from here; for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned away from the way which I commanded them. They have made a molten image for themselves!”
Verse 12. Have quickly. Hebrew “have become corrupt; they have quickly abandoned the way which I commanded them.” Bible.—Septuagint “the people hath sinned … they have quickly transgressed,” and so forth Calmet.—Idol. Protestants have “image.” The Hebrews had called the similitude of a calf their god. Exodus 32. Bible.
Furthermore the LORD spoke to me, saying, “I have seen these people, and behold, they are a stiff-necked people.
Leave me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under the sky; and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.”
So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire. The two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.
I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the LORD your God. You had made yourselves a molded calf. You had quickly turned away from the way which the LORD had commanded you.
Verse 16. Sinned, by idolatry, which comprises every sort of sin. Hence the Scripture only specifies that Jeroboam caused Israel to sin, when it means to assert that he engaged the people in the worship of idols. Calmet.
I took hold of the two tablets, and threw them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes.
I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger.
Verse 18. Sins. Many believe that Moses spent the whole time in obtaining pardon. Hiscuni agrees herein with the other Rabbins, only he thinks Moses was all the time in the tabernacle. Other 40 days, or a third rigid fast, were requisite to obtain the second tables of the law, as the text seems to insinuate, (verse 25. Calmet. 10:10,) unless Moses repeat what he has here asserted, as many able chronologers suppose. Torneil, Usher, and so forth Calmet. Tirinus.—The former opinion is maintained, however, by Salien, and so forth Exodus 34. Bible.
For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which the LORD was angry against you to destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.
The LORD was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.
I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burned it with fire, and crushed it, grinding it very small, until it was as fine as dust. I threw its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain.
Verse 21. Sin. The Scripture designates by this name not only the evil action, but also the propensity to it, the object, matter, occasion, punishment, or victim of sin.—The calf. He broke the idol in pieces, and then ground it small. Exodus 32:20. Calmet.
At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked the LORD to wrath.
Verse 22. Burning, and so forth The places called in Hebrew “Tabera, Masa, and Kibroth Hattaavah.” Bible.—At the first, the murmurers were burnt; (Numbers 11:1) at the second or at Raphidim, ( Calmet.) the people demanded water, and were supplied from Horeb; (Exodus 17:2. 7. Menochius.) though some confound this with the former place. It seems rather to refer to the temptation, or murmur of the people, on account of quails. Numbers 11:34. Psalms 77:18. Calmet.
When the LORD sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” you rebelled against the commandment of the LORD your God, and you didn’t believe him or listen to his voice.
Verse 23. Slighted. Hebrew “rebelled against,” and so forth as verse 24. Septuagint “you were incredulous to.” See Numbers 13:3.
You have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you.
Verse 24. To know you. When Moses slew the Egyptian, and would have pacified two of his contending brethren, they refused to receive his mediation; so also, when he returned from Madian, to rescue them from slavery, they presently began to murmur against him, and continued to do so frequently for 40 years. Bible.—Septuagint refers this to God, “from the day that he was known to you,” and received you for his peculiar people. Exodus 12:25.
So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and forty nights that I fell down, because the LORD had said he would destroy you.
Verse 25. Nights. See verse 18. Calmet.—After specifying various seditions of the people, Moses returns to what he had been saying respecting the tables of the law, and shews with what difficulty he obtained pardon for the people, and the second tables. Bible.—Some people believe that Moses was thrice 40 days in the mountain. He mentions the prayer which he addressed to God before his first descent. Exodus 32:11. Menochius.
I prayed to the LORD, and said, “Lord GOD, don’t destroy your people and your inheritance that you have redeemed through your greatness, that you have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor at their sin,
lest the land you brought us out from say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised to them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’
Yet they are your people and your inheritance, which you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”