Deuteronomy 9:29

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

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(29) Thy people . . . which thou broughtest out.—So Exodus 32:11. It is noticeable that God said to Moses, “Thy people which thou broughtest out . . . have corrupted themselves” (Exodus 32:7). Moses said, “Lord, why doth thy wrath wax hot against thy people which thou hast brought forth?”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

9:7-29 That the Israelites might have no pretence to think that God brought them to Canaan for their righteousness, Moses shows what a miracle of mercy it was, that they had not been destroyed in the wilderness. It is good for us often to remember against ourselves, with sorrow and shame, our former sins; that we may see how much we are indebted to free grace, and may humbly own that we never merited any thing but wrath and the curse at God's hand. For so strong is our propensity to pride, that it will creep in under one pretence or another. We are ready to fancy that our righteousness has got for us the special favour of the Lord, though in reality our wickedness is more plain than our weakness. But when the secret history of every man's life shall be brought forth at the day of judgment, all the world will be proved guilty before God. At present, One pleads for us before the mercy-seat, who not only fasted, but died upon the cross for our sins; through whom we may approach, though self-condemned sinners, and beseech for undeserved mercy and for eternal life, as the gift of God in Him. Let us refer all the victory, all the glory, and all the praise, to Him who alone bringeth salvation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

See the marginal reference. Taberah was the name of a spot in or near the station of Kibroth-hattaavah, and accordingly is not named in the list of encampments given in Numbers 33:16. The separate mention of the two is, however, appropriate here, for each place and each name was a memorial of an act of rebellion. The instances in this and the next verse are not given in order of occurrence. The speaker for his own purposes advances from the slighter to the more heinous proofs of guilt.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first—After the enumeration of various acts of rebellion, he had mentioned the outbreak at Kadesh-barnea, which, on a superficial reading of this verse, would seem to have led Moses to a third and protracted season of humiliation. But on a comparison of this passage with Nu 14:5, the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act of intercession (De 9:18) is now described in fuller detail.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thy people, whom thou hast chosen to thyself out of all mankind, and publicly owned them for thine, and hast purchased and redeemed them from the Egyptians.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Yet they are thy people,.... Though they had sinned against him:

and thine inheritance; which he would not forsake and cast off; at least Moses hoped on this account he would not, and makes use thereof as an argument with him why he should not, and which he repeats, adding in effect what he had said before:

which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and stretched out arm; even out of the land of Egypt; the doing of which was plainly the effect of his almighty power, and an evidence of it, considering the weakness of Israel and the strength of Egypt, and the manner in which the Lord brought about this surprising event.

Geneva Study Bible

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

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Deuteronomy 9:29

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

After vindicating in this way the thought expressed in Deuteronomy 9:7, by enumerating the principal rebellions of the people against their God, Moses returns in Deuteronomy 9:25. to the apostasy at Sinai, for the purpose of showing still further how Israel had no righteousness or ground for boasting before God, and owed its preservation, with all the saving blessings of the covenant, solely to the mercy of God and His covenant faithfulness. To this end he repeats in Deuteronomy 9:26-29 the essential points in his intercession for the people after their sin at Sinai, and then proceeds to explain still further, in Deuteronomy 10:1-11, how the Lord had not only renewed the tables of the covenant in consequence of this intercession (Deuteronomy 10:1-5), but had also established the gracious institution of the priesthood for the time to come by appointing Eleazar in Aaron's stead as soon as his father died, and setting apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant and attend to the holy service, and had commanded them to continue their march to Canaan, and take possession of the land promised to the fathers (Deuteronomy 10:6-11). With the words "thus I fell down," in Deuteronomy 9:25, Moses returns to the intercession already briefly mentioned in Deuteronomy 9:18, and recalls to the recollection of the people the essential features of his plea at the time. For the words "the forty days and nights that I fell down," see at Deuteronomy 1:46. The substance of the intercession in Deuteronomy 9:26-29 is essentially the same as that in Exodus 32:11-13; but given with such freedom as any other than Moses would hardly have allowed himself (Schultz), and in such a manner as to bring it into the most obvious relation to the words of God in Deuteronomy 9:12, Deuteronomy 9:13. אל־תּשׁחת, "Destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance," says Moses, with reference to the words of the Lord to him: "thy people have corrupted themselves" (Deuteronomy 9:12). Israel was not Moses' nation, but the nation and inheritance of Jehovah; it was not Moses, but Jehovah, who had brought it out of Egypt. True, the people were stiffnecked (cf. Deuteronomy 9:13); but let the Lord remember the fathers, the oath given to Abraham, which is expressly mentioned in Exodus 32:13 (see at Deuteronomy 7:8), and not turn to the stiffneckedness of the people (קשׁי equivalent to ערף קשׁה, Deuteronomy 9:13 and Deuteronomy 9:6), and to their wickedness and sin (i.e., not regard them and punish them). The honour of the Lord before the nations was concerned in this (Deuteronomy 9:28). The land whence Israel came out ("the land" equals the people of the land, as in Genesis 10:25, etc., viz., the Egyptians: the word is construed as a collective with a plural verb) must not have occasion to say, that Jehovah had not led His people into the promised land from incapacity or hatred. יכלת מבּלי recalls Numbers 14:16. Just as "inability" would be opposed to the nature of the absolute God, so "hatred" would be opposed to the choice of Israel as the inheritance of Jehovah, which He had brought out of Egypt by His divine and almighty power (cf. Exodus 6:6).