15 So turning round I came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire; and the two stones of the agreement were in my hands.
And all the mountain of Sinai was smoking, for the Lord had come down on it in fire: and the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a great burning; and all the mountain was shaking.
And you came near, waiting at the foot of the mountain; and flames of fire went up from the mountain to the heart of heaven, with dark clouds, and all was black as night.
And Moses put out his rod to heaven: and the Lord sent thunder, and an ice-storm, and fire running down on the earth; the Lord sent an ice-storm on the land of Egypt.
So the Lord let himself be turned from his purpose of sending punishment on his people. Then Moses came down the mountain with the two stones of the law in his hand; the stones had writing on their two sides, on the front and on the back. The stones were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, cut on the stones. Now when the noise and the voices of the people came to the ears of Joshua, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the tents. And Moses said, It is not the voice of men who are overcoming in the fight, or the cry of those who have been overcome; it is the sound of songs which comes to my ear. And when he came near the tents he saw the image of the ox, and the people dancing; and in his wrath Moses let the stones go from his hands, and they were broken at the foot of the mountain. And he took the ox which they had made, burning it in the fire and crushing it to powder, and he put it in the water and made the children of Israel take a drink of it. And Moses said to Aaron, What did the people do to you that you let this great sin come on them? And Aaron said, Let not my lord be angry; you have seen how the purposes of this people are evil. For they said to me, Make us a god to go before us: as for this Moses, who took us up out of the land of Egypt, we have no idea what has come to him. Then I said to them, Whoever has any gold, let him take it off; so they gave it to me, and I put it in the fire, and this image of an ox came out. And Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them loose to their shame before their haters: Then Moses took his place at the way into the tents, and said, Whoever is on the Lord's side, let him come to me. And all the sons of Levi came together to him. And he said to them, This is the word of the Lord, the God of Israel: Let every man take his sword at his side, and go from one end of the tents to the other, putting to death his brother and his friend and his neighbour. And the sons of Levi did as Moses said; and about three thousand of the people were put to death that day. And Moses said, You have made yourselves priests to the Lord this day; for every one of you has made the offering of his son and his brother; the blessing of the Lord is on you this day. And on the day after, Moses said to the people, Great has been your sin: but I will go up to the Lord, and see if I may get forgiveness for your sin. Then Moses went back to the Lord and said, This people has done a great sin, making themselves a god of gold; But now, if you will give them forgiveness--but if not, let my name be taken out of your book. And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has done evil against me will be taken out of my book. But now, go, take the people into that place of which I have given you word; see, my angel will go before you: but when the time of my judging has come, I will send punishment on them for their sin. And the Lord sent punishment on the people because they gave worship to the ox which Aaron made.
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Commentary on Deuteronomy 9 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 9
De 9:1-25. Moses Dissuades Them from the Opinion of Their Own Righteousness.
1. this day—means this time. The Israelites had reached the confines of the promised land, but were obliged, to their great mortification, to return. But now they certainly were to enter it. No obstacle could prevent their possession; neither the fortified defenses of the towns, nor the resistance of the gigantic inhabitants of whom they had received from the spies so formidable a description.
cities great and fenced up to heaven—Oriental cities generally cover a much greater space than those in Europe; for the houses often stand apart with gardens and fields intervening. They are almost all surrounded with walls built of burnt or sun-dried bricks, about forty feet in height. All classes in the East, but especially the nomad tribes, in their ignorance of engineering and artillery, would have abandoned in despair the idea of an assault on a walled town, which to-day would be demolished in a few hours.
4-6. Speak not thou in thine heart, … saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land—Moses takes special care to guard his countrymen against the vanity of supposing that their own merits had procured them the distinguished privilege. The Canaanites were a hopelessly corrupt race, and deserved extermination; but history relates many remarkable instances in which God punished corrupt and guilty nations by the instrumentality of other people as bad as themselves. It was not for the sake of the Israelites, but for His own sake, for the promise made to their pious ancestors, and in furtherance of high and comprehensive purposes of good to the world, that God was about to give them a grant of Canaan.
7. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord—To dislodge from their minds any presumptuous idea of their own righteousness, Moses rehearses their acts of disobedience and rebellion committed so frequently, and in circumstances of the most awful and impressive solemnity, that they had forfeited all claims to the favor of God. The candor and boldness with which he gave, and the patient submission with which the people bore, his recital of charges so discreditable to their national character, has often been appealed to as among the many evidences of the truth of this history.
8. Also in Horeb—rather, "even in Horeb," where it might have been expected they would have acted otherwise.
12-29. Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people … have corrupted themselves—With a view to humble them effectually, Moses proceeds to particularize some of the most atrocious instances of their infidelity. He begins with the impiety of the golden calf—an impiety which, while their miraculous emancipation from Egypt, the most stupendous displays of the Divine Majesty that were exhibited on the adjoining mount, and the recent ratification of the covenant by which they engaged to act as the people of God, were fresh in memory, indicated a degree of inconstancy or debasement almost incredible.
17. I took the two tables, … and broke them before your eyes—not in the heat of intemperate passion, but in righteous indignation, from zeal to vindicate the unsullied honor of God, and by the suggestion of His Spirit to intimate that the covenant had been broken, and the people excluded from the divine favor.
18. I fell down before the Lord—The sudden and painful reaction which this scene of pagan revelry produced on the mind of the pious and patriotic leader can be more easily imagined than described. Great and public sins call for seasons of extraordinary humiliation, and in his deep affliction for the awful apostasy, he seems to have held a miraculous fast as long as before.
20. The Lord was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him—By allowing himself to be overborne by the tide of popular clamor, Aaron became a partaker in the guilt of idolatry and would have suffered the penalty of his sinful compliance, had not the earnest intercession of Moses on his behalf prevailed.
21. I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount—that is, "the smitten rock" (El Leja) which was probably contiguous to, or a part of, Sinai. It is too seldom borne in mind that though the Israelites were supplied with water from this rock when they were stationed at Rephidim (Wady Feiran), there is nothing in the Scripture narrative which should lead us to suppose that the rock was in the immediate neighborhood of that place (see on Ex 17:5). The water on this smitten rock was probably the brook that descended from the mount. The water may have flowed at the distance of many miles from the rock, as the winter torrents do now through the wadies of Arabia-Petræa (Ps 78:15, 16). And the rock may have been smitten at such a height, and at a spot bearing such a relation to the Sinaitic valleys, as to furnish in this way supplies of water to the Israelites during the journey from Horeb by the way of mount Seir and Kadesh-barnea (De 1:1, 2). On this supposition new light is, perhaps, cast on the figurative language of the apostle, when he speaks of "the rock following" the Israelites (1Co 10:4) [Wilson, Land of the Bible].
25. Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first—After the enumeration of various acts of rebellion, he had mentioned the outbreak at Kadesh-barnea, which, on a superficial reading of this verse, would seem to have led Moses to a third and protracted season of humiliation. But on a comparison of this passage with Nu 14:5, the subject and language of this prayer show that only the second act of intercession (De 9:18) is now described in fuller detail.