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Deuteronomy 9 Bible study: Not for your righteousness
Moses tells Israel not to say, "For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in" (9:4), and proves it with the calf. Deuteronomy adds what Exodus doesn't: he went without bread or water both times (9:9, 9:18), the LORD was angry enough to destroy Aaron and Moses prayed for him (9:20), and his plea never pointed to the people's goodness (9:27).
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“Know therefore that the LORD your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Deuteronomy 9, Moses says he neither ate bread nor drank water during the forty days when he went up to receive the first tablets.”
Is that in Deuteronomy 9, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
"Not for your righteousness"
Moses has already warned Israel against saying in their heart, "My power and the might of my hand has gotten me this wealth" (8:17). Now he names a second thing not to say: "Don’t say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out from before you, ‘For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’" (9:4). He rules it out three times in three verses (9:4, 9:5, 9:6), with the same Hebrew word each time (tap righteousness). In its place he gives two reasons. One is the nations: "for the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you" (9:5). The other is a promise: "that he may establish the word which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob" (9:5). Two chapters back he ruled out their numbers the same way: "The LORD didn’t set his love on you nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people" (7:7), "but because the LORD loves you, and because he desires to keep the oath which he swore to your fathers" (7:8). Then he says why not: "for you are a stiff-necked people" (9:6). The rest of the chapter shows it, from the wilderness (9:7) to Horeb (9:8) and beyond.
Where it leads to Jesus
Convinced of their own righteousness
Deuteronomy 9:4leads toLuke 18:9-11
Moses warns, "Don’t say in your heart… ‘For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land’" (9:4). Jesus "spoke this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others" (Luke 18:9). In it, "The Pharisee stood and prayed by himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men’" (Luke 18:11). Jesus doesn't cite Deuteronomy 9, so this is a reading. Some hear the same warning in both: against what a person says in the heart about his own righteousness before God. Others note that Moses speaks to a whole people about the land they were to receive, with the reasons the LORD gives (9:5), while Jesus tells of two men praying in the temple (Luke 18:10), and read the two as sharing a theme without one pointing to the other.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Deuteronomy 9
That was a taste
The rest of Deuteronomy 9 is waiting in Favor
- The calf, told by the man who was there
- Forty days without bread or water, told twice
- A prayer for Aaron, and a plea that never points to their goodness
- "From the day that I knew you"
- Stiff-necked, from the calf to Stephen
- 12 questions as you read
- 12 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
צְדָקָהtsedaqahsay tse-da-KAH
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "righteousness", with senses including "righteousness, as ethically right". Strong's: "rightness (abstractly)". Three times in three verses, and each time it is what the land is not given for: "For my righteousness" (9:4), "Not for your righteousness" (9:5), and "the LORD your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess for your righteousness" (9:6). Three chapters back, the answer to the son's question ends, "It shall be righteousness to us, if we observe to do all these commandments" (6:25). The word's first use in the Hebrew Bible is of Abraham, one of the fathers named in 9:5: "He believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).
For your group
Deuteronomy 9 Bible study questions
- 1Moses warned, "Don’t say in your heart… ‘For my righteousness the LORD has brought me in’" (9:4). When things go well for you, what do you catch yourself saying in your heart about why?
- 2Aaron made the calf, and Moses says, "I prayed for Aaron also at the same time" (9:20). Who is someone you'd find it hard to pray for right now, and what might it look like to pray for them this week?
- 3Before Israel crossed, Moses told them to remember how they had failed: "Remember, and don’t forget, how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath" (9:7). How can remembering where you've failed keep you humble without crushing you?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Deuteronomy 9 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home