Deuteronomy 9-10

Moses is continuing his salutation as Israel is about to enter the promised land of Canaan.  He speaks to Israel telling them about the conquest that they are about to experience.  They are going into a land with greater, resources, more people, and more devastating military forces.  This is something that God delighted in and that he said he would do forty years prior.  Moses brings this up and it initially sounds like a celebratory remark.  You are about to get something that you do not deserve and that you literally cannot win on your own.  He pretty much says, "God is giving this to you.  You need to know what you are getting."  So how do you know if a gift is great?  How do we measure that up?  Moses displays the enormity of the gift that they are about to receive by telling Israel what they deserve.

“Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people."  It is this statement that Moses elaborates upon the next two chapters.  It is not because you are good.  It is not because you are wiser.  It is not because of you.  You are stubborn, ungrateful cowards.  You deserve nothing.  These are the statements that Moses makes.  To add salt on the wound, he then unpacks their history of their actions against God.  Moses then turns his speech directed at Israel and uses their failures to show the goodness of God.  We see this through the renewing of the ten commandments and the creation of the priesthood to make intercession on behalf of their nation.  

The response that Moses calls them to is to circumcise their heart.  What was circumcision?  Well, I will not divulge into the nuances of the procedure, but I will say it was the sign of Abraham's covenant with the Lord.  Remove the uncleanness from your heart, remove the stubbornness from your thoughts, and remember who the Lord is and what he has done.  We learn a lot about God from the passage.  We learn that he is good, we are not, and that we need to walk remembering what he has done for us in spite of who we are.