Deuteronomy 9:8-18

8 Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you.

9 When I climbed up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, without eating bread or drinking water;

10 and the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was written according to all the words which the LORD spoke with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

11 And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant.

12 And the LORD said unto me, Arise, go down quickly from here, for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image.

13 Furthermore, the LORD spoke unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people.

14 Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they.

15 So I turned and came down from the mount with the two tables of the covenant in my two hands and the mount burned with fire,

16 and I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God and had made yourselves a molten calf; ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you.

17 Then I took the two tables and cast them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes.

18 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sins in which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

Deuteronomy 9:8-18 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 9

In this chapter the Israelites are assured of the ejection of the Canaanites, though so great and mighty, to make room for them, De 9:1-3, and they are cautioned not to attribute this to their own righteousness, but to the wickedness of the nations which deserved to be so treated, and to the faithfulness of God in performing his promise made to their fathers, De 9:4-6, and that it might appear that it could not be owing to their righteousness, it is affirmed and proved that they had been a rebellious and provoking people from their coming out of Egypt to that time, as was evident from their idolatry at Horeb; a particular account of which is given, and of the displeasure of the Lord at it, De 9:7-21, and of their murmurings, with which they provoked the Lord at other places, De 9:22-24, and the chapter is closed with an account of the prayer of Moses for them at Horeb, to avert the wrath of God from them for their making and worshipping the golden calf, De 9:25-29.