Commentaria in Deuteronomium
Chapter 9
Moses reminds the Hebrews of their murmurings and sins, chiefly the adoration of the golden calf, the punishment of which, namely the destruction of the nation, he himself deprecated, and that to the end that they may humble themselves and beware of them thereafter.
1. Hear, O Israel: Thou shalt pass over the Jordan this day, to possess nations very great and stronger than thyself, cities great and walled up to the sky, 2. A great and tall people, the sons of the Enacims, whom thou hast seen and heard, against whom no man is able to stand. 3. Know therefore this day that the Lord thy God himself will pass over before thee, a devouring and consuming fire, to destroy and extirpate and bring them to nothing before thy face quickly, as he hath said to thee. 4. Say not in thy heart, when the Lord thy God shall have destroyed them in thy sight: For my justice hath the Lord brought me in to possess this land, whereas these nations are destroyed for their wickedness. 5. For it is not for thy justices, and the uprightness of thy heart, that thou shalt go in to possess their lands: but because they have done wickedly, they are destroyed at thy coming in: and that the Lord might accomplish his word, which he promised by oath to thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 6. Know therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this excellent land for thy justices, for thou art a very stiffnecked people. 7. Remember, and forget not how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou camest out of Egypt, until you came to this place, you have always strove against the Lord. 8. For in Horeb also you provoked him, and he was angry, and would have destroyed you, 9. When I went up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you: and I continued in the mount forty days and nights, neither eating bread nor drinking water. 10. And the Lord gave me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and containing all the words that he spoke to you in the mount from the midst of the fire, when the assembly of the people was gathered together. 11. And when forty days were passed, and as many nights, the Lord gave me the two tables of stone, the tables of the covenant, 12. And said to me: Arise, and go down from hence quickly; for thy people, which thou hast brought out of Egypt, have quickly forsaken the way that thou hast shewn them, and have made to themselves a molten idol. 13. And again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiffnecked: 14. Let me alone that I may destroy him, and abolish his name from under heaven, and make thee ruler over a nation that is greater and stronger than this. 15. And when I came down from the burning mount, and held the two tables of the covenant with both hands, 16. And saw that you had sinned against the Lord your God, and had made you a molten calf, and had quickly forsaken his way which he had shewn you: 17. I cast the tables out of my hands, and broke them in your sight. 18. And I fell down before the Lord as before, forty days and nights neither eating bread nor drinking water, for all your sins which you had committed against the Lord, and had provoked him to wrath. 19. For I feared his indignation and anger, wherewith being moved against you he would have destroyed you. And the Lord heard me this time also. 20. And he was exceedingly angry against Aaron also, and would have destroyed him, and I prayed likewise for him. 21. And your sin which you had made, that is, the calf, I took and burnt with fire, and breaking it into pieces, and grinding it altogether to dust, I cast it into the torrent that cometh down from the mount. 22. At the burning also, and at the Temptation, and at the Graves of Lust you provoked the Lord: 23. And when he sent you from Cadesbarne, saying: Go up and possess the land which I have given you, and you slighted the commandment of the Lord your God, and did not believe him, neither would you hearken to his voice: 24. But were always rebellious from the day that I began to know you. 25. And I lay prostrate before the Lord forty days and nights, in which I humbly besought him that he would not destroy you, as he had threatened. 26. And praying I said: O Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thy inheritance, which thou hast redeemed in thy greatness, whom thou hast brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. 27. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: look not upon the stubbornness of this people, nor upon their wickedness and sin: 28. Lest perhaps the inhabitants of the land, out of which thou hast brought us, say: The Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and he hated them: therefore he brought them out, that he might kill them in the wilderness. 29. Who are thy people and thy inheritance, whom thou broughtest out by thy great power, and by thy stretched out arm.
1. YOU SHALL PASS OVER THE JORDAN THIS DAY.—“This day,” that is, now, shortly, namely within a few weeks; for the Hebrews did not cross the Jordan on that precise day, but after two months; for Moses said this on the first day of the eleventh month, as is plain from chapter i, verse 3. But the Hebrews crossed the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month of the following year, as is plain from Josue iv, 19.
Some think that Moses fasted three forties of days: namely the first before the first tables, Exodus xxiv, 18; the second before the second, Exodus xxxiv, 28; the third between the two, in which he besought the Lord to spare the people who had adored the golden calf, as is said here, verse 25. So think the Hebrews, Hugh the Cardinal and Cajetan on Exodus xxxii [chapter x], Adrichomius, Marzilla on this chapter of Deuteronomy. Lyranus on chapter x of Deuteronomy also thinks the same probable, and Abulensis (though he himself embraces the contrary) on chapter xxxiii of Exodus, Question III, Dionysius on Exodus xxxiv, Salianus in the year of the world 2544. They prove it because Moses in this chapter names three times forty days of his fast, namely verses 9, 18 and 25;
but the forty days of verse 25 are the same as those of verse 18, as is plain to anyone who looks.
AND WALLED UP TO THE SKY,—that is, walled with very high walls; it is a hyperbole, such as is that of the Poet:
The golden stars are grazed by the women’s cry.
With a like hyperbole Christ says that in the destruction of Jerusalem not one stone shall remain upon another: for so we commonly speak when we wish to set before the mind some horrible and complete destruction; and Holy Scripture accommodates itself to common speech.
3. THE LORD THY GOD HIMSELF WILL PASS OVER BEFORE THEE,—namely devouring and destroying, as follows, thine enemies, as effectually and quickly as fire consumes wood or straw.
5. THE UPRIGHTNESS (in Hebrew, rectitude) OF THY HEART,—namely of thy mind and will.
6. FOR THOU ART A VERY STIFFNECKED PEOPLE,—as if to say: Since thou art exceedingly stiffnecked, rebellious and disobedient.
10. WITH THE FINGER OF GOD,—with his finger. For the Hebrews often put the absolute pronoun for the reflexive.
THE ASSEMBLY,—the gathering of the people.
18. I FELL DOWN BEFORE THE LORD,—not immediately after the breaking of the tables of the law; for first Moses slew 23 thousand who adored the calf, rebuked the people gravely, ground the calf to powder, etc.; which things are narrated here afterwards, but were done earlier, namely before Moses again ascended Sinai, and there fell down before the Lord. For this was done after all the things already said, namely the next day, as is plain from Exodus xxxii and following.
Some think that Moses fasted three forties of days, or three Lents, on Sinai before the Lord, namely the first, before he received from God the first tables of the law, Exodus xxiv, 18; the second, before the second tables, Exodus xxxiv, 28; the third between the two, in which he besought the Lord to spare the people who had adored the golden calf, as is said here, verse 25. But the more common opinion of Doctors is that Moses fasted only two forties, and therefore that the third already named is the same as the second. For Moses, praying for pardon for the people’s adoration of the calf, at the same time disposed himself to receive the second tables of the law, to be communicated to the same penitent people. The reason is that Moses in Exodus, where he narrates these things at length, names only twice forty days of his fast, namely the first before the first tables of the law, Exodus xxiv, 15; the second before the second, Exodus xxxiv, 28. See Abulensis in the place already cited.
22. AT THE BURNING ALSO.—This place was spoken of in verse 22.
The Burning, in which the Hebrews murmured on account of the labour of the journey, and therefore God sent fire upon them, as is said in Numbers xi, 1.
AT THE TEMPTATION,—where the Hebrews tempted God by asking for water, in Raphidim, and therefore the place was called in Hebrew Massah, that is, Temptation, Exodus xvii, 7; as also the following place was called the Graves of Lust, Numbers xi, 34.
Note: There is here a hysteron proteron, or inverted order; for Moses joins these temptations with that in Horeb, that by heaping together many temptations and murmurings of the Hebrews he may exaggerate their hardness, and afterwards, verse 25, returns to the second abode of forty days on mount Horeb or Sinai, which happened before the Burning, and before the Graves of Lust, and before the sending of the spies.