Deuteronomy - Lesson 15

We’re moving now into Deuteronomy chapter 9, The Sheer Grace of Covenant Relationship. If we haven’t got that so far, I hope we have it by the time we’re through this chapter. Actually, once again, the chapter division is out of place. It should be 9:1 to 10:11.  Chapter 9:1 begins with, “Hear O Israel,” there’s that third shema in this address, “Today you are crossing the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you.” And of course, in Moses’ vocabulary, ‘today’ is not literally this 24-hour period. It’s, ‘the moment has come now.’ Now, today, we’re going. 

But then turn to chapter 10 verse 12. Then you have a new signal, “And now Israel, listen. What does the Lord your God ask of you?” The vᵊyāḏaʿtā in Hebrew is a little particle that signals a shift in the rhetoric from a presentation of the case to a presentation of the implications of the case. “I beseech you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.” That ‘therefore,’ in light of all that we’ve talked about, how then should we live? Well, that’s what we’re noticing here. 

Now, as you look at this section, 9:1 to chapter 10, verse 11, you will see the dominance of the number 40. It takes 40 days and 40 nights for the Lord to deliver the written copy of the covenant to Moses, 9:9-10. It takes 40 days and nights for the Israelites to prove the shallowness of their covenant commitment, verses 9:11-17. It takes 40 days and nights for Moses to deal with the sin of the people, including his confession of sin before the Lord and His destruction of the sin. 9:18-21. And then it takes 40 days or nights for Moses to wrestle with God concerning Israel’s future, until God declares a renewal of the covenant through the remaking of the covenant tablets. 

40, 40, 40, 40. Four times. My goodness, Has he been going without food and water this whole time? This is no soft spot in the life of Moses. This is the most intense moment of his life and 40, 40, 40; four pilings on. And then finally, it takes 40 days and nights to complete the work of atonement and to hear Yahweh’s marching orders to renew the trek to the Promised Land. Get going. 

Well, the logic of this chapter. This is what we call in prophetic studies a ‘disputation address.’ In prophetic disputations, the prophet begins an oracle by quoting what people are saying as representative of their disposition. And what he then has to do is debunk the theory and recast it in terms of a new theory; expose the falsehood, and declare the truth. And that’s what happens in this chapter. 

The hypothesis that we have in verses 1-6, Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh, is based on the nation’s intrinsic moral superiority over the Canaanites. The Lord is giving us the land because we are more righteous than they are. And Moses’ answer, “Oh yeah?” That’s what he disputes. Israel’s history exhibits no evidence of moral superiority over the Canaanites. That’s what we will work on here. 

Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh is based entirely on sovereign grace. Or I prefer actually, gracious sovereignty. That’s the new hypothesis. And confirming the new hypothesis, Israel is the undeserving beneficiary of Yahweh’s grace as demonstrated by the tablets. We got a new set of tablets, which means the covenant is back on. We’re back on track again. It’s all of grace. 

So, let’s start with Israel’s desperate need for grace. The golden calf affair, 9:1-24. So, this session will take us to 24, and then in our next session we will actually deal with Moses’ prayer of intercession and that will take us through the end of 10 verse 11. 

The hypothesis. This is the first section in the introduction, verses 1-3. Moses calls attention and he announces the fact, verses 1-3, and here are some important little details. “Today you are crossing the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you.” Notice nothing has changed. “The towns are huge with fortifications reaching up to the sky. The people are great and tall, descendants of the Anakites, the giants about whom you know and of whom you have heard. And you are saying, ‘Who can stand firmly before the descendants of the Anakites?’” 

So of course, that’s 40 years ago. That’s what they said, We can’t do this. It’s impossible. That is his call to attention. And apparently the fact is nothing has changed. The apparently invincible strength of the enemy is still there. Nothing has changed. But the key to victory turns out to be the actions of Yahweh. Trust God. “You should know today that Yahweh your God, is ’ēš ’ōḵlâ, a consuming fire. The word ’ōḵlâ means consuming; ’āḵal to eat, He is a fire that eats. 

Well, we tend to think of consuming fire as a judgmental fire. If you go after other gods, His fire will burn. His passion will be ignited and He will burn you and the other gods who have seduced you away from Him. Well, here it’s actually a different function. It’s the ’ēš ’ōḵlâ, the consuming fire goes ahead of you across the Jordan. He will devour them and subdue them before you. That’s the promise. Notice Yahweh is the consuming fire. He is the one crossing over before you. He will destroy them. He will subdue them before you. This is the key to a victory. The enemy is invincible. He doesn’t say, Well, yeah, their fortifications are high, but you can do this. It’s in you to do this. No, the answer is not in the people. The answer is in Yahweh. 

Then in verse 3, we have his highlighting of what is Israel’s role in this. Yahweh goes before you as that consuming fire but, “He will drive them out, He will subdue them, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as He has spoken.” You must dispossess them and annihilate them. God is not simply taking it away from them and handing it over to you. In your receipt, acceptance of the gift you’ve got to take care of your business, too. So, you will see from this, that this is a synergistic project. God is doing His work; Israel must do theirs. And that’s why that external test of chapter 7 is in the background of this: testing the faith. You must do what God asks you to do. 

Well, then we’ve had that announcement. But then in verse 4a, you have the people’s explanation of the fact. The fact is the land is ahead of you, the enemy is great, but God is walking before you. God will take care of the enemy and you must drive them out. Their hypothesis, verse 4a, “When Yahweh your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘It is because of my righteousness that Yahweh has brought me here to possess this land.’” There’s the theory. This is the Jack Horner theology: ‘See, what a good boy am I.’ God is rewarding me because I’m such a good guy.

Well, Israel’s covenant relationship with Yahweh and with it, they’re entitled to the Promised Land, is based on the people’s intrinsic moral superiority over the Canaanites. That’s the thesis. God is giving it to us because we deserve it. The Canaanites are wicked. Now, Moses will not deny that. In fact, he will say they are wicked and it’s time for the judgment to come. But the issue is your explanation is quite wrong. 

Which leads in 4b to 6, Moses’ alternative interpretation of the facts 4b, “No, it is because of the wickedness of the nations that Yahweh is dispossessing them before you, but it is not because of your righteousness or your inner moral uprightness that you are going in to possess the land. Indeed, because of the wickedness of these nations, Yahweh your God will dispossess them before you, but to fulfill the covenant word that He swore to the ancestors: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” It’s not rewarding you for your piety and righteousness. No, it’s to fulfill His promise. It is to punish the evils of the Canaanites. But it is also, “So you must know that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you the good land to possess for you are stiff-neck people.” That’s how we edit at this point. You are stiff-neck people. 

Well, this is Moses’ alternative explanation of that fact. His point here is I’ve got to poke a hole in this balloon of the sense of moral superiority. God is giving it to us. Well, his alternative explanation, while Yahweh’s act of driving out the Canaanites has nothing to do with Israel’s righteousness, it does indeed have something to do with the wickedness of the Canaanites, but that does not mean you’re better than they are.

B. While Yahweh’s determination to drive out the Canaanites says nothing about Israel’s integrity, it says a great deal about God’s integrity, because He has made a promise. 

And then, saving the most devastating argument for last, he declares that far from claiming ṣᵊḏāqâ, righteousness, as their intrinsic fundamental quality, the Israelites are intrinsically qᵊšêh ōref, stiff of neck. 

Well, of course we have to talk about these two expressions. What does ṣᵊḏāqâ mean? We talked about this yesterday in an earlier session. Sᵊḏāqâ is human behavior, not just human behavior, divine behavior. It is behavior in accordance with an established standard. And in this case, it is the standard of the covenant. We are righteous, which means we are the epitome of that which the covenant calls for. We are that. 

But the other thing we have to define here is ‘stiff of neck.’ And of course, now he is setting the stage for what is about to happen. This is a bovine metaphor. It has to do with cattle, oxen specifically, that you use to pull your plows or to pull your wagons. And when you put a yoke on an ox and their neck stiffens, you have trouble putting the yoke on them. And if their neck is stiff, even once the yoke is on them, a stiff neck refuses to go the direction that the owner wants it to go. That’s the problem. You guys are oxen. We’ll see how this comes back to haunt them. The metaphor, the bovine metaphor, is quite dominant in this ‘stiff of neck.’ 

Well, in verses 7-24, he tests the people’s hypothesis. It’s a long section in which he gives the reasons. He denies the thesis, and he gives the reasons for its rejection. This is verses 7-24. Notice the literary frame, verse 7, “Remember, do not forget that you ignited Yahweh your God’s wrath in the desert.” And then he adds, “From the day you came out of Egypt until you arrived at this place from the day I knew you, you have been rebellious against Yahweh.” 

Talk about righteousness. That’s not how I know you. Of course, this could be simply Moses, the bitter old man. I mean, he’s in a sour mood in the first one here. And in the first address, he was in a very sour mood, but he used a slightly different expression there. There he is just complaining about you guys are such a load, I can’t carry you anymore. And you’re bickering and all the rest. Now, here, it’s stronger, “You’ve been rebellious against Yahweh.” It’s not Moses’ problem. It’s not because they are a heavy load for him to carry. It’s rebellious. 

And then in verse 24, he ends this last section by renewing this. “You have been in a rebellious state against Yahweh from the day I knew you.” As long as I can remember. It is the opposite of righteousness. 

And then he presents the case and he begins with recollections of Israel’s rebellion at Horeb. We’ve been to Horeb before. The book opened up with recollections from Horeb, but now he takes us back even farther on the other side of those recollections. There is a memory here that we’ve got to bring to mind. And he recalls, verse 8, “Already at Horeb, you ignited Yahweh’s wrath and He was furious enough with you to destroy you.” And then he elaborates. It’s interesting to watch what Moses does with that memory by putting it alongside the Exodus narrative of this one. And so in the slides that follow, you will see what Exodus says and Moses’ recollection. And of course, he puts it into first person, “When I went up the mountain to receive the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh made with you, I remained on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate bread nor drink water.” (Exodus is in third person, “Moses entered the cloud and went up the mountain.”) “I neither ate bread nor drank water. Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were the words that Yahweh had spoken with you on the mountain, out of the midst of the fire. On the day of the assembly, at the end of 40 days and 40 nights, Yahweh gave me the two tablets of the covenant.” 

Everything is going hunky dory. This is what he went up there for. The Lord had said, Come up to the mountain so I can give you the tablets of the covenant document. And that’s what’s happening here. Everything is quite correspondent to what you have in Exodus. But there are some interesting differences in the presentation and the contrast between Moses and the people, and the reason for being on the mountain. There are some interesting things happening here. 

But this is the moment we’re talking about the golden calf. And of course, artists have played with this a lot and you’ve got all kinds of imaginations of this. But if you go to the Israel Museum, you’ll see replicas of this golden calf everywhere. I mean, there are three or four. This one they discovered, Daniel Master, my colleague, and his guys at Ashkelon, they discovered this one, complete with a barn. It’s now there. Here’s another one. And here’s the one. This one they found near Dalton Northern. These bovine figures are quite dominant in the iconography of Canaanite religion. So that in Canaanite mythology, El, the high god, the guy seated on the throne that you saw, we will see him again, he is called Bull El. Of course, it’s a symbol of strength, but also of fertility. 

And so, but now we are talking about this calf, the Lord’s response to what happened at Sinai. “Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Get up, go down quickly from here for your people whom you brought out of Egypt.’” Did you hear that? “The people you brought out of Egypt.” Moses is rarely, if ever, the subject of the verb with Egypt as the origin. What is God doing? And of course, it’s in the Exodus narrative, “‘…whom you brought out of the land of Egypt. They have acted corruptly. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They’ve made themselves a metal image.’ Furthermore, Yahweh said to me, ‘I have seen this people and look, it’s a stiff-necked people.’” Talk about a calf. “And he said, ‘Let me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.’” 

Now, if you would have been Moses, what would you have done? 

Student: Amen!

Dr. Block: Amen, It’s about time! Of course, this is at the beginning of the journey, isn’t it? But the amazing thing is what Moses does. If Moses had said, That’s a good idea, why don’t we go with that program? To this day, we would not be talking about Israelites. We’d be talking about Mushites. The Hebrew word name is Moshe and it would be Mushites. This is what God offers Moses. He says to Moses, “I will make you the replacement of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You will become the patriarch.” Which is what makes Moses’ response so remarkable. Moses says, “I don’t want that.” “I will make of you, Moses, a nation mightier and greater than they.” 

But there are a couple of things here we notice in the Lord’s statements to Moses. First, Yahweh distances himself from the Israelites, “Whom you brought.” They are your people. “Your people, whom you brought.” They should be My people whom I brought out of Egypt. But the Lord says here, “Moses, what’s wrong with your people?”

I’ll never forget, shortly after we moved across the border, I was at Bethel Seminary and Reagan was president then and they had just bombed Libya, the capital, Gadhafi. And the next day in class, we get there and of course, they know on the one hand, I’m Canadian, I just come down from the north and they know, secondly, that my roots are Mennonite and we don’t do that. 

So, before the class had begun, they’re just waiting for it to begin, and they’re waiting for the rest of the students. They asked me casually, “Well, what do you think about what happened last night?” And I just said, “I’m not really in a position to judge what your president is doing.” I mean, it’s just a casual, casual response. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t anti-anything, I just said it. I had a green card. We’re not a citizen of this country and we have no guarantee we’re going to be here for a long time. We’re an alien in this foreign land. He’s not my president. I mean, I am a guest of him and the rest of you. But I just said, “I’m not in a position to judge what your president is doing.” 

Well, at the end of the semester, when the term papers came in at the bottom of one of the papers one of the students wrote, “Dr. Block, You have three options. You are a guest in this country. You can either get with the program and identify with us and our president. Two, you can keep your mouth shut. Or three, you can go back home where you came from. All because I used that little pronoun, “I’m not in a position to assess what your president has done.” I have distanced myself subtly from it. I’ve been here long enough to identify with everything that’s going on. 

But in any case, it was sort of and that’s what’s happening here. That’s what having what your people, your stiff-necked people whom you brought out of Egypt and Moses. Well, we’ll hear what Moses has to say in the next session. 

He distances himself from the Israelites. The Lord is reticent about the people’s specific actions. He doesn’t actually describe exactly what they did. It’s just that what they have done. He threatens to blot out Israel’s name and start over with a new name. He begs Moses to leave Him alone, “Leave me alone. Leave me alone so I may destroy them and blot their name out from under heaven; and I will make of you a greater nation than they.” Now that is really something. God asks Moses, “Don’t butt in. Leave it to me.” But of course, you understand that by saying that he’s actually opened the door for intervention. Just a crack. He begs Moses to leave Him. 

Moses responds to the rebellion at Horeb. What does he do? “So I turned and I went down from the mountain. Meanwhile, the mountain was burning with fire. And the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. And I looked and…” see, there’s that ubiquitous ‘Behold!’ “You had sinned against Yahweh your God, you had made yourself a golden calf, and you had turned aside quickly from the way Yahweh had commanded.” And he was shocked. He had no idea this was going on down there. “So, I took hold of the two tablets and I threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.” 

Now, the red in all of this is what’s not in the parallel text. You pick that up. So now he inserts. We wouldn’t have known this from Exodus, but he’s remembering from his own perspective. This is how serious. “Then I lay prostrate before Yahweh as before; 40 days and 40 nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water because of the sin you had committed by doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” And again here, ‘what was evil.’ That should be different, because you had done the evil in the sight of the Lord. As always, has the article, ‘the evil,’ and it’s always the violation of the first command, “You shall have–” 

I actually think this has implications for the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as in heaven and lead us not into temp, testing, but deliver us from the evil…” The article is on there, isn’t there? And so, we say, so the alternative in the margins are always, “Deliver me from evil generically, or the ‘evil one.’” 

Well, I actually think neither of them is right. It’s ‘deliver me from the great evil,’ which is turning to any other God. A false allegiance. That’s the test. That’s the test. Will you worship other gods? 

The whole Lord’s Prayer is Deuteronomic from beginning to end. I’m waiting for an occasion to actually do a paper on that. It is Deuteronomic. “Our Father in heaven.” All the rest of it; it’s Deuteronomic from beginning to end. And in this case, the great evil: “deliver us from the temptation of idolatry of any sort.” Well, here's what happened here, to provoke him to anger. 

And now he–look at the long stretch of his own insertions–Moses is remembering. Remember. I was afraid of the anger. Very, rarely in biblical narrative, Robert Alter has taught us this, do the characters in the narrative explain or define their disposition. You are left to judge what they are feeling, thinking or whatever their mental and spiritual state from their actions and their words. But here, Moses is as transparent as can be. He lets us know. “For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that Yahweh bore against you so that He was ready to destroy you and Yahweh listened to me at that time as well. And Yahweh was so angry with Aaron that He was ready to destroy him. And I prayed for Aaron also at that time.” If he hadn’t told us this, we would never have known that because this isn’t in Exodus. And now we discover that the reason why Aaron survived that event–and remember, they haven’t built a tabernacle yet. They haven’t ordained the Levites as the official tribe. Aaron as high priest, that’s still a future event. This is Exodus 32 and 33. That happens later on. If it hadn’t been for Moses’ intercession, Aaron would have been out of the picture. 

Well, “then I took the sin.” The Hebrew here is very interesting, ‘the sin.’ He took the object, the sinful thing. “I took the sin that you, the calf that you had made,” that’s the sin. “And I burned it with fire. I crushed it, grinding it very small until it was fine as dust. And I threw the dust into the brook that ran down from the mountain.” Well, that’s Moses’ response. 

Let’s review what has happened here. First, there’s the symbolic gesture of smashing the tablets. Of course. What does that mean? The covenant to which you have just signed on is off. It’s over even before we’re down with the covenant document. I mean, he’s got it in his hand, but he hasn’t even made it down to the bottom of the mountain to show the people, Look here, this is the covenant God made with us. It aborts right at the beginning. The symbolic gesture of smashing the tablets. 

Then there’s the symbolic gesture of intercession before Yahweh. “I was prostrate before the Lord all those days.” 

And then you have the intercessory gesture on behalf of Aaron. “I prayed for Aaron, too.” 

And finally, another symbolic gesture of disposing of the calf, verse 21. Of course, that is a way of declaring that if you worship an idol, you become like the idol. It becomes a part of you. It is an abomination to God. And like the idol itself, the sin, you become an abomination to God. So here he grinds it to powder and he pours it in the water, pours the powder into the river, and then he forces the people to drink it.

Well, in versus 15-19, you have further evidence of his counter thesis, “For I was afraid of the anger. The Lord was angry. And I did this. I took that thing.” But it should be versus 22 to 24, “Also at Taberah and Massah and Kiroth-hattaavah you ignited God’s wrath.” What’s interesting, he tells only one story. But he says, “Hey, this has been the pattern. I could tell lots of stories.” And so, in shorthand, he says, “At Taberah and Massah and Kiroth-hattaavah, you ignited God’s wrath,” and of course, speaking of when, “Yahweh sent you out from Kadesh Barnea saying, ‘Go up and possess the land that I have given you,’ you rebelled against the command of Yahweh your God, you didn’t trust Him and you didn’t listen to His voice.” 

But of course, now he’s talking to a new generation. These people weren’t there. But remember earlier, he had taken this generation back to Horeb for the covenant. Well, now he’s taking this generation back to Kadesh Barnea. You guys, you didn’t trust Him. You didn’t listen to His voice. You’re idolaters. But of course, we understand what breaking the covenant means. That is replacing Yahweh as the object of our devotion, the object of our allegiance, the object of our trust with our own man-made gods. 

And speaking of the bull, El, we have our own problems, don’t we? Whom do we trust? Where do we go? Do we go to the golden calf? We didn’t talk about where did the people get the idea for of the golden calf? We don’t know exactly why the golden calf. But we know that in Egypt, bovines were viewed sacred, they worshiped them. In Canaan, bovines were metaphors for the divinities.

So, it’s everywhere. We don’t have to answer the question, where did they get this specific idea from? But what they have done is, they have replaced Yahweh, who brought them out of Egypt with another idol. 

And of course, he doesn’t even talk about Aaron’s complicity in his memory. This is what fascinates me. In a sense, he shields Aaron. But Aaron is no longer here anymore. When Moses is giving this address, Aaron’s been buried. Aaron’s gone. But he could have talked about it. Of course, at that point, Moses was up on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights and receiving the tablets, and the people say, “We don’t know what has happened to this guy, Moses.” And they feel lost without Moses. And they say, “Make us a god who will lead us out from here.” That tells you what they think about Moses. The only replacement for Moses will be a god. That’s how highly they have esteemed him by now, apparently. And then when they create this calf, and the way it is created, Aaron asks for all this–their jewelry and whatever, he melts it down. And then when Moses asks, “‘What have you done? And he says, ‘They gave me the stuff and I threw it into the fire and out came the calf.’” Of course, that’s a lamest explanation you ever heard of. 

But in the ordination ceremony, or shall we say, dedication ceremony of this, remember, Aaron’s absolutely orthodox speech. The words are orthodox. ‘Behold,’ ESV, “Behold your God O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” This is your god who brought you? It wasn’t even there! I mean, the folly of idolatry. It wasn’t even there 20 minutes ago. This is the god to whom Aaron attributes the Exodus. And Moses prayed for him. Would you have prayed for your brother? I mean, he’s supposed to be in charge while Moses is away. He absolutely betrayed his trust. 

Well, the need for grace and the point of this whole business is, if there is a covenant relationship, as Moses stands here on the plains of Moab with these people, if they are in covenant relationship with God, guess what? It’s all of grace. Because ever since I knew you, everything you have done has been to demerit you, to disenfranchise you and you say it’s because of our superior righteousness? Give us a break. Look at yourselves. Look in the mirror. This is who you really are. But guess what? Here we are. 

And so, in the next session, we’ll talk about. How did we get here? And that will be the point of the next session.