The Mystery of Esau and Ephraim

Deuteronomy 9

¹ “Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over the Jordan this day to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fortified up to heaven, — nations greater and mightier than thyself; the conquest does not rest with Israel; they were of Divine power; the glory of it to God alone, and not to themselves;

² a people great and tall, the children of the Anakim, whom thou knowest and of whom thou hast heard say, ‘Who can stand before the children of Anak!’ — the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest; by report, having had an account of them by the spies;

— who described them as very large bodied men, and of a gigantic stature, the descendants of one Anak, a giant; and so the Targum of Jonathan, “a people strong and high like the giants;” from these Bene Anak, children of Anak, or Phene Anak, as the words might be pronounced;

³ Understand therefore this day that the Lord thy God is He who goeth over before thee as a consuming fire. He shall destroy them, and He shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee. — as a consuming fire; before whom thine enemies shall be as easily consumed as stubble before the flames;

— so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee; that is, the far greater part of them, and so many as to make room for the Israelites, and which was quickly done.

⁴ Speak not thou in thine heart, after 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. — Speak not thou in thine heart; never once think within thyself, or give way to such a vain imagination, and please thyself with it

— after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee; to make way for the Israelites, and put them into the possession of their land; which is to be ascribed not to them, but to the Lord;

— saying, for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land; such a thought as this was not to be secretly cherished in their hearts, and much less expressed with their lips; nothing being more foreign from truth than this, and yet a notion they were prone to entertain;

— but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee; namely, their idolatry, incest, and other notorious crimes;

⁵ Not for thy righteousness or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord swore unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

— not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart; neither for your external righteousness before men, or outward conformity to the law, nor for the inward sincerity of your hearts, and your upright intentions in doing good, in which they were all defective;

— dost thou go to possess their land; this is repeated, and enlarged on, and explained, that this notion might be entirely removed from them, and not entertained by them; similar to which is that of men, who fancy that their sincere obedience, though imperfect, will be accepted of God;

— and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it was to fulfil his covenant, and make good his word of promise to their fathers, and not on account of any righteousness of theirs; for there were none; —

⁶ “Understand, therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiffnecked people.

— understand therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; this is again repeated to impress it upon their minds, that it was not for any goodness of theirs, but as a gift of divine goodness to them;

— a stiffnecked people; this metaphor seems to be taken from a camel or other beast of burden, a buffalo perhaps, who hardens his neck, and will not bend left or right for the driver.

⁷ Remember, and forget not, how thou provoked the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord.

— remember, and forget not how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness; this was after they journeyed from Horeb; and even as soon as, they were in the wilderness, they provoked the Lord, as by their murmuring for water at Marah;

— from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord; yet their life was a continued course of rebellion against the Lord: so that they were far from being righteous in themselves, nor was there any reason to conclude it was for their righteousness the land of Canaan was given them.

⁸ Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was so angry with you as to have destroyed you. — even in Horeb; even when your miraculous deliverance out of Egypt was fresh in your memories; when God had but newly manifested himself to you,

— and delivered you the law in so stupendous and awful a manner, and with such visible displays of his divine majesty; when he had just taken you into covenant with himself, and was actually conferring still further mercies upon you.

⁹ When I had gone up into the mount to receive the tablets of stone, even the tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode on the mount forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

— and he wrote them upon two tables of stone; the Targum of Jonathan says on tables of sapphire; or as in Deuteronomy 4:13, “which He wrote upon sapphire tablets”

— then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights; and this long stay was one reason of their falling into idolatry, not knowing what was become of him, Exodus 24:18.

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

— and the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone, written with the finger of God; on tablets of sapphire, the letters were of his devising and forming, the writing was his, the engraving them on the stones was his own making;

¹¹ And it came to pass, at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, even the tablets of the covenant. — the Targum Jonathan says “the two tables of marble, the tables of the covenant,” written with the finger of God;

¹² And the Lord said unto me, ‘Arise, get thee down quickly from hence, for thy people whom thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten image.’

— for thy people, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves; their way, as the Targum of Jonathan says;

— that is, by idolatry, than which nothing is more corrupting and defiling; the Lord calls them not his people, but the people of Moses, being highly displeased with them; and ascribes their coming out of Egypt to Moses the instrument, and not to himself, as if he repented of bringing them from thence;

¹³ “Furthermore the Lord spoke unto me, saying, ‘I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiffnecked people. — and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people; unwilling to submit and bear the yoke of my commandments;

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.’ — Let me alone, that I may destroy them; do not say one word to me on their behalf, or entreat me to spare them, and not destroy them;

—and blot out their name from under heaven; that no such nation may be heard of, or known by the name of Israel; and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they; whereby the Lord’s promise to Abraham would not have been made void; but equally firm and sure, since this mightier and greater nation would have been of his seed;

¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire; and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. — and the mount burned with fire; as it had for six weeks past, ever since the Lord’s descent upon it; and so it continued, for the words may be rendered, “and the mount was burning” and yet this did not deter the Israelites from idolatry;

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

— that plainly appeared by what they had done, and at which he was amazed; and therefore a behold is prefixed to it, it being such a gross sin, having so much impiety and ingratitude, and stupidity in it;

¹⁷ And I took the two tablets, and cast them out of my two hands, and broke them before your eyes. — I took the two tables; and broke them before your eyes; in righteous indignation and in wrath, 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; and brake them before your eyes; as an emblem of their breach by transgressing them.

¹⁸ And I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights as at the first; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sins which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to anger. — besides idolatry, they were guilty of unbelief, ingratitude, stupidity, which were notorious and flagrant;

— and were done openly and publicly, in sight of his glory and majesty on the mount; all which must be very provoking to him, and on account of these Moses prayed and fasted.

¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was wroth against you to destroy you. But the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also. — for I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure wherewith the Lord was wroth against you; which was exceeding vehement, as appeared by his words to Moses;

— forbidding to intercede for them, that he might consume them, and make of him a greater nation; wherefore he dreaded the issue of it, lest it should be to destroy you;

— but the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also; as he had at other times, when this people had sinned, and he entreated for them; in which he was a mediator, whom the Father always hears.

²⁰ And the Lord was very angry with Aaron so as to have destroyed him, and I prayed for Aaron also the same time. — Aaron became a partaker of idolatry and would have suffered the penalty of death; had not the earnest intercession of Moses on his behalf prevailed;

²¹ And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burned it with fire and stamped it and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust; and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount.

— and burnt it with fire, and stamped it; with his feet after it was burnt, to bring it into small pieces: and ground it very small; or as the Targum of Jonathan says, “and crushed it well with crushing until I had bruised it into dust”

²² “And at Taberah and at Massah and at Kibrothhattaavah ye provoked the Lord to wrath. — these places are not mentioned in the strict order in which the provocations were made;

— for they provoked the Lord at Massah by murmuring for water, before they provoked him at Taberah, by complaining as it should seem of their journeying; for Massah was before they came to Sinai, and Taberah after they departed from thence;

²³ Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadeshbarnea, saying, ‘Go up and possess the land which I have given you,’ then ye rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and ye believed Him not nor hearkened to His voice.

— Likewise when the Lord sent you from Kadeshbarnea; from whence the spies were sent to search the land, though previous to it they had the following order to go up and possess it; Numbers 32:8.

²⁴ Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you. — you have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that Moses knew them; from the time he first visited them, before his departure from Egypt to the land of Midian;

²⁵ “Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first, because the Lord had said He would destroy you. — I fell down before the Lord was translated by Jonathan as “I bowed down in prayer before the Lord”

²⁶ I prayed therefore unto the Lord, and said: ‘O Lord God, destroy not Thy people and Thine inheritance whom Thou hast redeemed through Thy greatness, whom Thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

— that the Israelites might have no pretence to think that God brought them to Canaan for their righteousness, Moses shows what a miracle of mercy it was, that they had not been destroyed in the wilderness.

²⁷ Remember Thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness nor to their sin, — remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the covenant he had made with them, the promises he had made to them of the multiplication of their seed;

²⁸ lest the land whence Thou broughtest us out say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He promised them, and because He hated them, He hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.” — lest the inhabitants says: because the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them;

— the inhabitants of it being so mighty, and their cities so strongly fortified. Here Moses expresses his concern for the glory of God, and the honour of his perfections, and makes that a fourth argument why he should not destroy them:

²⁹ Yet they are Thy people and Thine inheritance, whom Thou broughtest out by Thy mighty power and by Thy stretched out arm.’ — which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and stretched out arm; even out of the land of Egypt;

— the doing of which was plainly the effect of his almighty power, and an evidence of it, considering the weakness of Israel and the strength of Egypt, and the manner in which the Lord brought about this surprising event.

Deuteronomy 10

¹ “At that time the Lord said unto me, ‘Hew thee two tablets of stone like unto the first, and come up unto Me onto the mount, and make thee an ark of wood. — hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first, of the same sort of stone;

— of the same size and form with those God gave him in the mount the first time he was there, and which he broke in his descent from thence; they were the work of God, but these were to be hewed by Moses;

² And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets which thou didst break, and thou shalt put them in the ark.’ — and I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest; though they were hewn by Moses, the writing on them was the Lord’s; and the very same laws, in the same words, without any alteration or variation;

³ And I made an ark of shittim wood and hewed two tablets of stone like unto the first, and went up onto the mount, having the two tablets in mine hand. — and hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; two marble ones, as the Targum of Jonathan says on tables of sapphire;

⁴ And He wrote on the tablets, according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord spoke unto you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them unto me.

— the ten commandments which the Lord spake unto you in the mount; in Mount Sinai, on which he descended, and from whence he delivered the decalogue by word of mouth in an audible manner, that all the people could hear it:

— out of the midst of the fire; in which he descended, and where he continued, and from whence he spoke, so that it was indeed a fiery law;

⁵ And I turned myself and came down from the mount, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they be, as the Lord commanded me.” — or  “I put the tables in the ark which I had made, and they remained there,”

⁶ (And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan to Mosera. There Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest’s office in his stead.

— and since Aaron, according to this account, that was thirty eight years after their departure from Mount Sinai; there Aaron died, and there he was buried on Mount Hor in the desert of Mosera, Numbers 20:23;

⁷ From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah, and from Gudgodah to Jotbathah, a land of rivers of waters. — and by this description of it, it was a place where there was much water, Numbers 21:16

⁸ At that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister unto Him, and to bless in His name, unto this day.

— at that time the Lord separated the tribe of Levi; that of the encampment at Sinai, at the time that Moses came down from the mount with the tables of the law;

— to bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord; even that into which the law; and therefore called the ark of the covenant: when this was carried from place to place, as it was especially in the wilderness, it was the business of the Levites to bear it, particularly the Kohathites; Numbers 3:31,

⁹ Therefore Levi hath no part nor inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy God promised him.) — the Lord is his inheritance, as the Lord thy God promised him; for so the Lord was an inheritance and portion of other Israelites; though these being taken off of worldly employments, and devoted to sanctuary service;

¹⁰ “And I stayed on the mount, according to the first time, forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also, and the Lord would not destroy thee. — and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time also; to his prayer on the behalf of the people; that the Lord would not destroy thee; though he had threatened them, and their sin had deserved it.

¹¹ And the Lord said unto me, ‘Arise, take thy journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore unto their fathers to give unto them.’ — take thy journey before the people; that is, the Lord was pleased not only to hear him and forgive the people, but ordered him to go before them, and lead them on towards the land of Canaan he had promised them;

¹² “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, — but to fear the Lord thy God; to fear him with a filial fear, to fear him and his goodness, and him for his goodness sake, and particularly for his pardoning grace and mercy vouchsafed to them;

— to walk in all his ways; prescribed and directed to by him, every path of duty, whether moral, ceremonial, or judicial; and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul;

¹³ to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good? — to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes; both the ten commandments, the feasts and all others, which I command thee this day for thy good;

¹⁴ Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord’S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. — Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, are the Lord’s thy God; made and possessed by him; the airy and starry heaven, the third heaven, which is the heaven of heavens, the seat of the Majesty, the habitation of angels and any glorified saints;

— Moses shows that God had no particular reason nor obligation to their fathers any more than to other persons or people, all being equally his creatures, and that his choice of them out of and above all others proceeded only from God’s good pleasure and free love.

¹⁵ Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them; and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day. — and he chose their seed after them, even you above all the people, as it is this day; to be a special people to him; and particularly to have his law given to them, his tabernacle and worship set up among them.

¹⁶ Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked. — Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart; here he teaches them the true and spiritual meaning of that rite; and be no more stiffnecked; froward, obstinate, and disobedient.

¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a fearsome, who regardeth not persons nor taketh reward. — regardeth not persons, whether Jews or Gentiles, but deals justly and equally with all sorts of men; and as whosoever fears and obeys him shall be accepted of him, so all incorrigible transgressors shall be severely punished, and you no less than other people;

¹⁸ He doth execute judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth stranger in giving him food and raiment. — he doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, who have none to help them, and whose patron and defender he is, and will do them justice himself, and take care that it is done them by others;

— or avenge their injuries, for he is a Father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widow; and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment; one that is in a foreign country, at a distance from his native land, and destitute of friends;

¹⁹ Love ye therefore the stranger, for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. — love ye therefore the stranger, because the Lord loves him; and another reason follows, particularly binding on the Israelites,for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt;

²⁰ Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave and swear by His name. — thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, which includes the worship of him, external and internal; him shalt thou serve; heartily and sincerely, according to his revealed will, and him only;

²¹ He is thy praise, and He is thy God, who hath done for thee these great and fearsome things which thine eyes have seen. — he is thy praise, the object and matter of it, who deserves the praises of all his creatures, because of his perfections, works, and blessings of goodness;

²² Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons, and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude. — thy fathers went down into Egypt with seventy persons, and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude; as he promised they should be, Genesis 15:5.

~ by Japheth on April 29, 2024.

Posted in Books of Moses