NOTES for Deu 9:6

When reading the Bible, it is not hard to see that the whole history of God's relationship with His people is full of contradictions. On the one hand, there is the covenant-union, the giving of the Torah, the promises made long ago to Abraham and fulfilled by God in all the fullness possible for our world. On the other hand, there is apostasy, spiritual falls, the violation of the commandments given by God, without observance of which the covenant-union loses all meaning. But God does not abandon His people even when the people turn their back on Him.

Why is that so? Out of pity? Or in the hope that the next attempt will be more successful than the previous one? Hardly: God knows His people as a whole and each person individually; He sees what each is capable of and understands that indulgence toward human sinfulness will not help in the struggle against sin. To Him, as to no one else, it is clear that the people will not become different until He Himself remakes them. And yet God remains faithful to the union once concluded. What, then, makes Him keep faith with those who often think of faithfulness last of all? Only one thing is clear: love for those whom He once chose, whom He raised from a tribe into a people, to whom He gave the land promised long ago to Abraham. Otherwise what is happening cannot be explained.

And the same love, perhaps, makes God unwilling to exclude His people from the plan of which, by His election, they once became a part. That is apparently why He often carries out His design not thanks to, but in spite of, the spiritual and moral qualities and efforts of His people. So that He may still save everyone who can be saved.

Describing the situation, Moses sets the accents with complete clarity: the people receive the land not because of their own righteousness, but because of the wickedness of the peoples who inhabit it at the moment. Here we have the logic of history that stands behind many events, especially conquests, coups, and revolutions. Most often what stands behind all these is not the will of God but, as theologians usually say in such cases, His allowance. In the overwhelming majority of cases God does not take the side of one group against another. He simply steps aside, withdraws, not because He is indifferent to everything, but because, as a rule, He supports neither side. And this is no surprise: in the same overwhelming majority of cases the parties involved in the events have no concern either for God or for His will. God takes no one's side because no one is on His side, and God will not force Himself on those who do not need Him.

With His people, however, the situation is unusual. The people of God are included in history just like all other peoples, and at the same time they are no better, no more righteous, no more spiritual than any other people. But God has a special plan, a special intention concerning His people, and that is what makes His people unusual, distinguishing them from all other peoples of the earth. Of course, the people themselves do not become better merely because God has a particular plan for them, but their path will still differ from the path of any other people on earth. God needs to bring His people to the place where He wants to see them, where He has appointed a meeting with Himself for them.

The path of any other people may be determined by a chain of God's allowances, which for the people themselves will look like accidents and turns of their historical fate, just as happens with a person who, not knowing the way, moves from one accident to another and calls such movement fate. The path of the people of God, however, is in any case determined by God; but it runs among ordinary peoples, such as the peoples who inhabited pre-Israelite Palestine. They were no worse, but also no better, than any other people, and therefore they were subject to the same changes and chances of fallen history as all other peoples. Yet God deprives them of the land not for their special sins, but for the ordinary wickedness characteristic of all fallen peoples. Likewise, He gives His own people the land not for their special righteousness, but because that is His plan. Yet the wickedness of the peoples whom God drives from the land makes such expulsion possible, allowing God to carry out His plan concerning His people.

How does God respond to human unfaithfulness? With rebuke? Yes. With punishment? Yes, that too. But not only these. Perhaps His most unexpected and most important response is the call to keep going. Stubborn, “stiff-necked,” unfaithful Israel must nevertheless cross the Jordan and enter the land God promised it. How are we to understand this? Does God really place His trust once more in people who have already deceived Him so many times—and will do so more than once again? Or does He intend to fulfill His design at any cost? In trying to answer these questions, we will draw closer to understanding who He is and how He relates to us.