Deuteronomy 9:26

26 I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy them. They are your own people. They are your special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand.

Deuteronomy 9:26 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 9:26

And I prayed therefore unto the Lord
What follows is a different prayer from that in ( Exodus 32:31 Exodus 32:32 ) and agrees better with that in ( Deuteronomy 9:11 Deuteronomy 9:10 Deuteronomy 9:13 ) , delivered before he came down from the mount, yet could not be the same, because delivered at another forty days and nights:

and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people, and thine inheritance:
because they were his inheritance, a people whom he had chosen for his peculiar treasure; this is the first argument used, another follows:

which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness;
redeemed out of the house of bondage, the land of Egypt, by his great power, as next explained:

which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand:
inflicting plagues on the Egyptians, particularly destroying their firstborn, which made them the Israelites urge to depart.

Deuteronomy 9:26 In-Context

24 Yes, you have been rebelling against the LORD as long as I have known you.

25 “That is why I threw myself down before the LORD for forty days and nights—for the LORD said he would destroy you.

26 I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, do not destroy them. They are your own people. They are your special possession, whom you redeemed from Egypt by your mighty power and your strong hand.

27 Please overlook the stubbornness and the awful sin of these people, and remember instead your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

28 If you destroy these people, the Egyptians will say, “The Israelites died because the LORD wasn’t able to bring them to the land he had promised to give them.” Or they might say, “He destroyed them because he hated them; he deliberately took them into the wilderness to slaughter them.”