In this chapter, Moses cuts off another opportunity to transgress the first commandment, which is called spiritual pride, which boasts of righteousness and merit. This is the trust in one's own works, which is the most harmful corruption and the greatest adversary of faith or trust in the mercy of God. Therefore Moses destroys the same with many words in this whole chapter. For this is a robbery of God's honor, since it cannot exist at the same time that we boast of God because of mercy, and seek glory in ourselves 1) because of our righteousness and our works. But he refutes this righteousness with three strong reasons.
First, that those Gentiles deserved to be cast out because of their ungodliness. This he says [v. 5.], "For thou comest not in to take their land, because of thy righteousness and uprightness of heart; but the LORD thy GOD doth drive out these heathen because of their ungodliness." By this word we also are to be instructed, when we see that others are smitten, either by us or by others. For it does not follow: You or others will strike that one, therefore you and others are righteous before them. Otherwise the tower in Siloah, which slew many in Jerusalem, Luc. 13, 4, would also have to be declared righteous. But it is God who strikes the wicked;
1) We have adopted the reading of the Wittenberg: btorisri in Dsv äs rnissriooräia, st Aloriari in nobis ipsis. In the Jena and in the Erlangen the words st givriari are erroneously placed before äs inissrisvräis.
Whether he does it by a tower, by fire, by water, by wild animals, by your hand or by the hand of another man, there is nothing to it but that the righteous God strikes the wicked.
By the way, you should also fear this example, because the wicked will be struck down for your terror, as Christ explains it in Luc. 13, 5. when he says: "All of you will also perish in this way," and Paul says Rom. 11, 21. 22. when he forbids with the same reason that the Gentiles should not rise up because of the fall of the Jews: "See to it that he does not spare you"; "otherwise you will also be cut off. And Rom. 2:3: "But thinkest thou, O man, who judgest them that do these things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?" It is therefore an excellent saying of St. Gregory, who says: "If we see anyone sinning, we should first of all weep for ourselves in their misfortune, because in the same way we have either already fallen or can fall, which someone has summarized in this verse:
Aut sumus, aut fuimus, aut possumus esse, quod hic est [either we are, or were, or can be, what this one is].
And in the descriptions of the lives of the fathers, when he heard that a brother had fallen, he said: Yesterday that one, today me. Therefore, when another is struck, one must remember this:
Tunc tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet [This concerns you when the next wall is burning].
Yes, with a heart full of mercy and compassion, the wicked shall be destroyed or beaten by us, signifying that we are the instrument of God, who may also be thrown into the fire ourselves like a rod, after the evildoers have been punished by us.
Second, [Moses refutes his own righteousness] 1) by the prestige of the divine promise. [V. 5.:] "The LORD hath driven them out to perform his oath and his word, which he promised unto thy fathers." Nothing stronger could be said against confidence in one's own righteousness. For where were the children of Israel when GOD promised their father Abraham the land of Canaan, since he was still barren and had no hope of offspring? Thus, when they receive and possess the land through the promise of GOD, they have it not through their own merits or their own righteousness, but out of pure grace and goodness of GOD poured out on the unworthy, who themselves were not yet born. For why does he give the promise? Is it because those who are to come after 430 years should deserve it in such a way? Let that be far away, but he who promised it out of pure goodness, he also fulfilled his word out of pure mercy. This reason is also used by Paul in his letters to the Galatians [Cap. 2, 16. ff. 3, 2. ff.] and to the Romans [Cap. 4, 1. ff.], where he most powerfully proves that righteousness does not come from merit, but from the mercy of God, which he once promised.
Third, [he refutes their own righteousness] from their own experience, since he says [v. 6.], "Because you are a stiff-necked people" 2c. By this stiff-neckedness they did not deserve the land so much that it was close to it, because God was angry that He destroyed them in the wilderness rather than the Gentiles, as the Psalm [Ps. 106, 26.] says: "And He lifted up His hand against them, to strike them down in the wilderness," and would have turned His promise elsewhere, namely to the descendants of Mosiah, 4 Mos. 14, 12. Yes, He struck all of them until
1) Added by us.
down to the last man in the wilderness, except Joshua and Caleb, so that neither Moses nor Aaron entered the land. So much is lacking in the fact that they were supposed to enter the land through their merit that the opposite should have happened to them, as it really did if they were to be dealt with according to their merit. This reason is also used by Paul in Rom. 4, 14. f., where he says: "For where those who are heirs of the law are, faith is nothing and the promise is lost, since the law only causes wrath", so that you can see that Moses and Paul use the same reasoning (dialectica) of the spirit against the righteousness of works, for the grace and mercy of God.
Therefore, all this is also written for our instruction, so that we may learn that the misfortune that befalls the wicked does indeed come upon them deservedly, but that if it does not befall us, but we enjoy good days, we do not have to thank our righteousness for this, but the goodness of God, through which it has been provided and promised to us from eternity before, since we also deserve the opposite by far. For the verdict is clear that we are not given anything good because of our righteousness, but so that God may fulfill His word that He has willed from eternity that we should not be puffed up and make an idol out of our righteousness, but should know that we have One God from whom we receive everything for free out of pure goodness that has been poured out on us unworthy ones, as the patriarch Jacob also confesses when he says, Gen. 32, 10: "I am too little of all the mercies which thou hast done to thy servant," that is, not only of one mercy, which may be great, but of any mercy, however small and small it may be.
Furthermore, Moses applies a salutary antidote against this harmful plague (for this monster of one's own righteousness is so powerful that one cannot do enough against it). For he sets before their eyes all the past misdeeds of the people, and commands them to remember them, and the sin that they worshipped the calf at Mount Sinai he brings before them with powerful words.
on. For what can cure this disease of pride more swiftly and better (praesentius) than to remember past ungodliness and shameful deeds? For what else has the people but such things, because of which they must be ashamed to lift up their eyes to heaven? As Paul says to his Romans [Cap. 6, 21.], "Of which ye are now ashamed." For this is why God also caused David, Moses, Peter and Paul and other great men to fall, so that they would be humbled and ashamed before God, basing themselves on His goodness alone. Therefore Peter, 2 Petr. 1, 9, severely punishes those who let the forgiveness of their former sins be forgotten and become sure and cold, and then stiff-necked and hopeful.
At last he concludes [v. 24.], "Ye have always been disobedient to the LORD as long as I have known you." O what fine praise is this, what merit, what righteousness of the holy people, namely, that they have been disobedient to the voice of GOD! Now go and boast, boast, boast that the land is given to you because of your righteousness, since you deserve to hear nothing but that you are a stiff-necked people and always disobedient to the Lord: indeed, to these merits belongs that royal wealth, and not rather a thousandfold death and cross! What more frightening can be said than that one is disobedient to the Lord? And yet this disobedience
the praised (laudata) and blessed land. What is there left for Israel to hope for, but rather to put its mouth in the dust and say: I am worse than all the heathen, and great and undeserved is thy mercy, that I should receive this land. Furthermore, if this holy Israel and the chosen (peculiaris) people are like this before God, what are we Gentiles and sinners?
See, with how powerful words Moses accuses the people even in the prayer, in which he prays for them, because he says [v. 27. 28.]: "Do not look at the hardness, and the godlessness and sin of this people, lest the inhabitants of the land say" 2c. Here nothing is told of the people but such things because of which they deserved death. There was only the one thing that served to save them, that the name of the LORD was in danger if they were cut off. Therefore, so that the name of God would not be blasphemed, grace (venia) is given to them, which otherwise would not have been given to them, but they would have had to be exterminated altogether, if the name of God, after which they were called [Jer. 15, 16.], could have remained unharmed. Therefore also many others, especially David in the Psalter, took this quite sure and reliable pretext, that they said [Ps. 25, 11.]: "For thy name's sake, O LORD, be merciful to my iniquity," 2c., and Joshua [Cap. 7, 9.]: "What wilt thou then do by thy great name," after which we are called?