Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Deuteronomy 1:37
Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither.
37. Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes ] The Heb. order is more emphatic, also with me was Jehovah angry hith’annaph, peculiar in the Pent. to D, and to its passages in the Pl. address, here, Deu 4:21, Deu 9:8; Deu 9:20 for your sakes, big e lal e kem. So in different terms Deu 3:26, was angry, yith‘abber, for your sakes, l e ma‘an e kem; and Deu 4:21, hith’annaph and ’al dibrkem.
Thou also shalt not go in thither ] Heb. even thou or for thy part thou, etc.
Further Note to Deu 1:36-38. Because Moses has just been described as seeking to turn the people from their sin, Deu 1:29 ff., and it is therefore unreasonable to include him in their punishment; because Deu 1:37-38 needlessly anticipate Deu 3:26; Deu 3:28 and Deu 4:21; and because Deu 1:39 in whole or part follows suitably on Deu 1:36; therefore Deu 1:37-38 are taken by many (Dillm., W. R. Smith, Steuern., Berth, etc.) as a later addition to the text. And indeed the beginning of Deu 1:39 shows that the original has been disturbed by an editorial hand (see below). Steuern. would also omit Deu 1:36 on the ground that Kaleb has not been previously mentioned in this survey. But Kaleb is mentioned in JE on which this survey otherwise depends. In whatever way these textual questions may be decided, the parallel passages Deu 3:26 ff. and Deu 4:21 confirm the fact of a D tradition or statement that Jehovah was angry with Moses for the people’s sake. This can only mean, their guilt was great enough to include the very leader who had done his best to dissuade them from their disaffection! Now neither JE nor P gives any hint of so remarkable a judgement. On the contrary, P accounts for the exclusion of Moses by his own sin in striking the rock at adesh 37 years after this disaffection of Israel, Num 21:10 ff; Num 27:13 f.; Deu 32:50 f. The most reasonable explanation of such discrepancies is that they are discrepancies not of fact but or opinion. The earliest tradition, JE, merely held the facts that Kaleb survived and that Moses died on the eve of the possession of the Promised Land. The problem, which arose from this contrast of fortune, the deuteronomic writers solved by the statement that Moses was included in the guilt of the people when, startled by the report of the spies, they refused to invade Canaan from the S. in the second year of the wandering; and this agrees with the deuteronomic principle of the ethical solidarity of Israel. But the later priestly writer or writers, under the influence of the idea, first emphasized in the time of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer 31:29 f., Ezekiel 18), that every man died because of his own sin, found a solution for the problem in Moses’ own guilt in presumptuously striking the rock at adesh, 37 years later. In this double engagement, from two different standpoints, with so difficult a problem, note the strong evidence that the survival of Kaleb and the death of Moses before Israel’s entrance to the Land were regarded as irremoveable elements of the early tradition.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The sentence on Moses was not passed when the people rebelled during their first encampment at Kadesh, but some 37 years later, when they had re-assembled in the same neighborhood at Meribah (see the Num 20:13 note). He alludes to it here as having happened not many months previously, bearing on the facts which were for his purpose in pricking the conscience of the people.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 37. The Lord was angry with me] See on Clarke “Nu 20:12“, &c., where a particular account is given of the sin of Moses.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For your sakes; upon occasion of your wickedness and perverseness, by which you provoked me to speak unadvisedly, Psa 106:32,33.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
37. Also the Lord was angry with mefor your sakesThis statement seems to indicate that itwas on this occasion Moses was condemned to share the fate of thepeople. But we know that it was several years afterwards that Mosesbetrayed an unhappy spirit of distrust at the waters of strife(Psa 106:32; Psa 106:33).This verse must be considered therefore as a parenthesis.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes,…. Not at the same time, though, as some think, at the same place, near thirty eight years afterwards, they provoking him to speak unadvisedly with his lips; see Nu 20:10,
saying, thou shalt not go in thither: into the land of Canaan; and though he greatly importuned it, he could not prevail; see De 3:25.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Verses 37-39:
Moses too was denied the privilege of entering the Land of Canaan. He was not partaker of Israel’s sin at Kadesh-barnea, in refusing to invade the Land. His sin was in smiting the rock rather than striking it at God’s command, Num 20:1-13.
Israel feared that their children would become prey to the fierce inhabitants of Canaan. This was one reason they gave for not following God’s command to invade the Land. But these very children became the ones to enter the Land at God’s command, and to possess it.
This illustrates a principle applicable today: the blessings which God’s child forfeits in unbelief, are often given to those who will trust God and obey Him.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
37. Also the Lord was angry with me. It is in no cowardly spirit that he transfers to them the guilt of unfaithfulness, which he had confessed for himself; but, since he had only fallen in consequence of being overwhelmed by their obstinate wickedness, he justly reproaches them with the fact that God was wroth with him on account of their sin. If under this pretext he had attempted to extenuate his guilt before God, or to substitute their criminality for his own, he would have done nothing else than double the evil: but, in reproving the people, he rightly and appropriately complained that the cause of his sin had arisen from them. As if he had said that they were so perverse that even he had been corrupted by them, and drawn into association with their guilt and its punishment. He here, however, adds respecting Joshua what he had before passed over in silence. His appointment as successor to Moses served to encourage the people; for it was a notable ground for hope that they should hear a provision already made, that after the death of Moses they should not be destitute of a leader, who would rule them under the auspices of God.
Why God preferred this man to all others, especially when Caleb is more highly praised elsewhere, is only known to Himself. We know that He chooses according to His own will those whom He destines to any charge, so that the dignity of men may depend upon His gratuitous favor. “To stand before” a person is equivalent to being at hand to do his bidding; and it seems that this was stated to be the condition of Joshua, in order that the punishment might be more manifest; inasmuch as, by an entire inversion, a successor is given to Moses, who had been his servant.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(37) Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes.Here, again, Moses combines his own rejection. an event of the fortieth year of the exodus, with the rejection of the people in the second year. The reason was the sameunbelief. Because ye believed me not was the reason given to Moses in Num. 20:12. Ye did not believe the Lord your God is the reason for the rejection of the people, given above in Deu. 1:32. As the spies presumed to investigate the route and order of the conquest, a matter of Divine guidance, so Moses presumed to alter the prescribed order for the miracle in Kadesh. Like transgressions incurred like penalties. The fault for which the people had suffered could not be overlooked in the leader. (See also Notes on Deu. 3:23-28; Deu. 32:49.) This and Deu. 1:38 should be taken as a parenthesis.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
37. Also the Lord was angry with me for your sakes The occasion here referred to was during the second stay at Kadesh. Looking back over the forty years of wandering, after speaking of the rebellion of the people which excluded them from entering the land, how natural that Moses should also mention the occasion of his own exclusion. “Moses,” says Keil, “did not intend to teach the people history and chronology, but to set before them the holiness of the judgments of God.” By using the expression for your sakes we are not to understand that he seeks to exculpate himself, for in Deu 32:48-51, his sin is related. Compare Psa 106:32-33: “They angered him also at the waters of strife, so that it went ill with Moses for their sake: because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Deu 1:37-38
‘ Also Yahweh was angry with me for your sakes, saying, “You also shall not go in there, Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall go in there. Encourage you him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.” ’
But Moses own right to enter the land had also later been lost. He reminds them of what to him was a harsh fact. That he too now could not enter the land. And the reason that he could not enter the land was because he himself had sinned, partly as a result of Israel’s disobedience. This disobedience is the connecting point with the previous verse. For in the end he too was forbidden entry into the land because of his later sin at Meribah (Num 20:12) when they were coming to Kadesh for the second time. That was due to the people’s unbelief as well. And it was the possible unbelief of the people that he was speaking to now! Let them remember what their unbelief has done to him, and learn from it.
Such an abbreviated reference fits well with these being Moses’ actual words to the actual people who had been the cause of his behaviour. He did not need to remind them of the circumstances. They remembered them all too well. No one who had been present in the camp would forget that dreadful day when the news spread around of God’s judgment on Moses because he had got annoyed at their intransigence. With all their mutterings he was the one figure on whom they knew that they could always rely. And Moses knew that they would still feel guilty about it. But he wants them to recognise that his loss is Joshua’s gain, so that they must faithfully support Joshua in order to demonstrate their sorrow at what they had done to him.
Up to that point at Meribah then (humanly speaking) it had been in God’s mind that he should enter the land to possess it for Yahweh. But then he had lost that privilege. Now that privilege was to go to Joshua, the one who ‘stood before him’, that is, was his second in command. That being so there had been no need to mention Joshua previously because all knew that he was destined to lead them into the land, and he, with Moses, would also have been responsible for giving the command to go forward in the previous situation. Thus he did not have to debate the question like Caleb did. He was firmly with Moses in his actions, and was the one who was to cause Israel to inherit (receive as a gift) the land. He does not want Joshua to be seen as having been just another scout. His appointment was from Yahweh.
Forgetting that this is a speech in which he is seeking to get over basic facts without worrying about the chronology causes some commentators difficulties. But Moses is simply bringing out salient facts. Their father’s could not enter because of unbelief, he cannot enter because he had sinned when he was provoked. Both were excluded because of sin. Thus it is Joshua who will lead them forward. Joshua’s official appointment was not until Num 27:18, although Moses was no doubt aware that he was grooming him for leadership right from his appointment of him as his ‘servant’, and from his success against the Amalekites in Exodus 17. However this is a speech and he would not hesitate to put everything together without regard to time. It was the facts which mattered not when they happened. That is why he ignores Aaron. He is irrelevant to the point he is making.
(It is, of course, psychologically possible as some have suggested that Moses had a guilt feeling about his failure to persuade the unbelievers to go forward at that time, and dated his rejection back to that fact, but there is no other indication of it and it is not required as an explanation in a context like this).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Ver. 37. The Lord was angry with me for your sakes This might be rendered more agreeably to the original, and more consistently with the history, through, or by means of you; i.e. “You were the cause of that offence in me, which raised the Lord’s anger against me.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Deu 1:37 Also the LORD was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither.
Ver. 37. The Lord was angry with me. ] The saint’s afflictions proceed oft from love displeased, from love offended. “Fury is not in God.” Isa 27:4
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
This and the next verse are put in a Parenthesis (App-6).
angry. See Num 20:12.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Deu 3:23-26, Deu 4:21, Deu 34:4, Num 20:12, Num 27:13, Num 27:14, Psa 106:32, Psa 106:33
Reciprocal: Num 32:5 – bring us Deu 3:26 – the Lord