Deuteronomy 9:4-5 Speak not you in your heart, after that the LORD your God has cast them out from before you, saying… I. The address of Moses IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE ADDRESSES OF MOST CAPTAINS OF ARMIES UNDER SIMILAR CIRCUMSTANCES. 1. He makes no attempt to underrate the power of the enemies with whom the Israelites had to contend. He begins his address by telling the people that they are that day to pass over Jordan, to go in and possess nations greater and mightier than themselves. The reason for his giving such information was that the design of God was not merely to conquer the Canaanites, but to educate Israel, to teach them that by God's power weakness may be made strength and the mighty vanquished by the feeble. 2. Moses assures the people in plain language that no righteousness of theirs had gained them the land. They might be ready enough to admit that it was not their own courage or their own bodily strength, but they might still be disposed to think that they had deserved God's favour, that if they had not been deserving of the victory, God would not have given it to them. Self-flattery is easy, and therefore Moses very wisely and decidedly protested once for all against such a view of God's doings. II. THE PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL LIFE WITH OURSELVES IS PRECISELY THAT WHICH MOSES LAID DOWN AS THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONAL LIFE FOR THE ISRAELITES. God gives us the land of promise for no righteousness of our own. Everything depends on God's mercy, God's will, God's purpose; the certainty of victory depends, not upon any feelings or experiences or conflicts of ours, but upon the ever-present help of the Almighty God. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.) Parallel Verses KJV: Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. |
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