Deuteronomy Chapters 7, 8, and 9

These next few chapters of Deuteronomy revolve around many of God’s promises along with a better understanding of the love that God has for us and why he tests us the way He does and so on. Of course there are some differences as to how the Israelites were the chosen ones, but after Jesus’ death on the cross all who believe become the chosen ones (Gentiles, Greeks, and Jews as Paul sometimes writes about) – Gentiles being the key word because it means to be not Jewish.

God tells His people that when they enter their new homeland (Canaan) that there will be 7 mighty nations already residing there and God wants them completely destroyed! These 7 nations were: the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. A couple of these groups will be mentioned in my previous posts (King Og). God wants to keep encouraging His people that He will protect them and He wants them to flourish! If they continue to love God then He will lead them against these 7 strong nations and He will protect His people. God does not want them to covet the wealth of these 7 mighty nations that are in the land because that means that they are honoring another nation’s gods and it is an abomination. God does not want His people to covet these nations, for the Israelites are already the wealthiest since they have God on their side and God is already giving them a land of milk and honey (Deuteronomy 6:3).

God also promises that He will humble and test you when He deems it necessary.

“’And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.’” Deuteronomy 8:2.

The Israelites would not prosper if it were not for God’s word that has saved them. God wanted His people to realize that without Him, these people would not be out of slavery. All the strength and power that these people will have will only come because God has given it to them, and because of this they should be honoring and worshipping Him like nothing else that they have before. Does “Trust in the LORD with all your heart,” sound familiar? This is what Moses was trying to preach to the people in this chapter of Deuteronomy.

God wanted to make it clear to His people that He didn’t choose them to go into the promise land because they were the most righteous, but because He made covenants with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would do this. To have the Israelites believe that they were righteous would mean that they would probably think they were not dependent on God, when in fact they are solely dependent on God. As Christians we are solely dependent on God and Jesus, yet sometimes we start to believe that we can take care of everything ourselves, and this is when God will make us weak to show how we need Him. Throughout the Bible God helps the weak grow strong, and this is just another one of these instances. God acknowledges how weak and stubborn His people are in chapter 9 and gives an example. He mentions the golden calf incident. When God was giving the two tablets of the commandments to Moses, He could see the Israelites below worshipping a golden calf, and He told Moses to return to the bottom of the mountain. God felt so much anger and wrath (jealousy) against His people because they rather worship an object rather than Him. God was so angry at His people and especially Aaron, but Moses continued to pray and fast for his people because he did not want God to put His wrath on them. Moses had to remind Him of the covenant that existed between Him and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – that is how angry God was. The covenant is what saved the Israelites from God’s wrath just like our new covenant in Christ’s blood saves us from our sins and the wrath that we so rightfully deserve.