CHAPTER 9 Apr. 24 
Israel Not Given the Land for Their Righteousness
Hear, Israel: you are to pass over the Jordan this day to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than yourself, cities great and walled up to the sky, 2a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard say, Who can stand before the sons of Anak? 3Know therefore this day that Yahweh your God is He who goes over before you as a devouring fire. He will destroy them and He will bring them down before you; so you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as Yahweh has spoken to you. 4Don’t say in your heart, after Yahweh your God has thrust them out from before you, For my righteousness Yahweh has brought me in to possess this land; because Yahweh drives them out before you because of the wickedness of these nations. 5Not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart do you go in to possess their land, but for the wickedness of these nations Yahweh your God drives them out from before you, and that He may establish the word which He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. 6Know therefore that Yahweh your God doesn’t give you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7Remember, don’t forget, how you provoked Yahweh your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you went forth out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place you have been rebellious against Yahweh. 
The Golden Calf
8Also in Horeb you provoked Yahweh to wrath and Yahweh was angry with you to destroy you. 9When I had gone up onto the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant which Yahweh made with you, then I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water. 10Yahweh delivered to me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words which Yahweh spoke with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. 11At the end of forty days and forty nights Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. 12Yahweh said to me Arise, get down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made themselves a molten image. 13Furthermore Yahweh spoke to me saying, I have seen this people and truly it is a stiff-necked people; 14let Me alone, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the sky, and I will make of you a nation mightier and greater than they. 15So I turned and came down from the mountain, and the mountain was burning with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands. 16I looked and truly, you had sinned against Yahweh your God; you had made yourselves a molten calf; you had turned aside quickly out of the way which Yahweh had commanded you. 17I took hold of the two tablets and cast them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18I fell down before Yahweh as at the first, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all your sin which you sinned, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh to provoke him to anger. 19For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure with which Yahweh was angry against you to destroy you. But Yahweh listened to me that time also. 20Yahweh was very angry with Aaron to destroy him, and I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. 21I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it with fire and stamped it, grinding it very small until it was as fine as dust, and I cast its dust into the brook that descended out of the mountain. 22(At Taberah and at Massah and at Kibroth Hattaavah you provoked Yahweh to wrath. 23When Yahweh sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of Yahweh your God, and you didn’t believe Him, nor listen to His voice. 24You have been rebellious against Yahweh from the day that I knew you). 
Moses Begs God Not to Destroy Israel
25So I fell down before Yahweh the forty days and forty nights because Yahweh had said He would destroy you. 26I prayed to Yahweh and said Lord Yahweh, don’t destroy Your people and Your inheritance that You have redeemed through Your greatness, that You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 27Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Don’t look at the stubbornness of this people, nor at their wickedness, nor their sin, 28lest the land You brought us out from say, ‘Because Yahweh was not able to bring them into the land which He promised to them and because He hated them He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness’. 29Yet they are Your people and Your inheritance, which You brought out by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm.

Commentary

9:3 Moses uses the name "Yahweh" over 530 times in Deuteronomy, often with some possessive adjective, e.g. "Yahweh your God" or "Yahweh our God". Now at the end of his life, he saw the wonder of personal relationship between a man and his God. Jacob reached a like realization at his peak.
9:14 Despite knowing their weakness and his own righteousness, Moses showed a marvellous softness and humility in this speech which is recorded in Deuteronomy. Here he does not mention how fervently he prayed for them, so fervently that God changed His expressed intention; and note deeply how Moses does not mention how he offered his physical and eternal life for their salvation. That fine, fine act and desire by Moses went unknown to Israel until the book of Exodus came into circulation. And likewise, the depth of Christ's love for us was unrecognised by us at the time. Moses had such humility in not telling in Israel in so many words how fervently he had loved them; for this really is love. The spiritual culture and love of the Lord Jesus is even greater. 
Let Me alone- This reflects the amazingly close relationship between God and Moses. It’s as if God is saying: ‘I know you might persuade me to change My mind on this one, but please, don’t try, I might give in, when really they do need to be destroyed’. We too can have this level of intimacy with God.
Blot out their name- Moses prayed that his name would be ‘blotted out’ instead (Ex. 32:32). To be blotted out of the book God had written may have been understood by Moses as asking for him to be excluded from an inheritance in the promised land; for later, a ‘book’ was written describing the various portions (Josh. 18:9). The connection is made explicit in Ez. 13:9. If Israel were to be blotted out there and then in the wilderness, then Moses wanted to share this experience, such was his identity with his ungrateful people; and yet this peak of devotion is but a dim shadow of the extent of Christ’s love for us. In 9:18 he says that his prayer of Ex. 32:32 was heard- in that he was not going to enter the land, but they would. Hence his urging of them throughout Deuteronomy to go ahead and enter the land- to experience what his self-sacrifice had enabled. In this we see the economy of God, and how He works even through sin. On account of Moses’ temporary rashness of speech, he was excluded; Moses didn't enter the land. And yet by this, his prayer was heard. He was temporarily blotted out of the book, so that they might enter the land. This is why Moses stresses now at the end of his life that he wouldn’t enter the land for Israel’s sake (1:37; 3:26; 4:21). He saw that his sin had been worked through, and the essential reason for him not entering was because of the offer he had made. It “went badly with him for their sakes” (Ps. 106:32).