Deuteronomy 7:17-26, What Made Israel Great?

There were seven nations in the land greater than Israel.  Yet the LORD led them in and they were to dispossess those nations.  What was it then that made Israel so special, so great, in the eyes of God, that He would have this plan for them?

The first fact is that Israel was not chosen by God because she was great (7:7).  Size wise, Israel was the least of all peoples.  Instead, Israel’s greatness lay in the greatness of her God who loved her and who was faithful in keeping His promise to the fathers (v8).  Hear what the LORD says: Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God … (v9).  Israel’s greatness was based on the greatness of God.  She was a perfect illustration of what Paul would say several centuries later:   I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. … when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:9-10). 

God’s plan for Israel in today’s passage shows that He desires Israel to be the testimony to the nations of His greatness.  First, they were to exude a confidence in the LORD.  You shall not be afraid of them (v18).  You shall not be terrified of them (v21).  This confidence was based in what God had already done in Egypt, and the fact that He was “among” them (v21).  In other words, He was on their side. 

But the next part of the plan was that they would not drive out the nations immediately.  It would be “little by little” (v22).  There would be generations that would each have to learn the lesson of God’s greatness.  You may remember that Gideon, after Joshua and the others who had seen God’s great works had died, that he (Gideon) had to learn God’s greatness.  Oh my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?  And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites (Jud. 6:13). 

The Deut. 8-10 this theme of God being exalted by a not-so-great nation continues.

·       Dt. 8:3: The point of the manna was to humble Israel so they would know that they must live on the word of God.  They had to have daily obedience to God’s word in order to experience His great blessing.

·       Dt. 8:9: Then He brought them into the land He had promised, where there was bread without scarcity.

·       Dt. 9:4: Israel needed to be sure to remember, as they experienced great victories in the land, that their greatness was not the result of their righteousness.  God then reminds them of how they provoked Him in the wilderness by the golden calf, the rebellion at Kadesh Barnea, and other “provocations” (Dt. 9:7-24).

·       In Dt. 10:17,21 God proclaims, The LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords … He is your praise, and He is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things which your eyes have seen.  Let us remember as well.  Our confidence is in God who made us and redeemed us in Christ!