Deuteronomy 32:27
Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.
The verse belongs to the song Moses was commanded to teach Israel's children to preserve the story of God's past dealings with His people. That song recounts what God had done for Israel and foreshadows future events. Those future events include the final victory of the faithful when Christ returns in power and glory. The verse means that God restrains Israel's judgment and destruction so that its enemies cannot boast that their own power prevailed over Israel and deny that the Lord Himself brought the calamity. In this way He protects the truth about who acted, even while Israel is punished for rebellion and unfaithfulness.
In its context the verse warns persistent rebels that mischiefs will be heaped on them, with spent arrows, hunger, burning heat and bitter destruction. This warning reveals love for God's people and abhorrence of sin, as a prophecy of swift judgment that gives cause to tremble over continued apostasy. It describes them as a nation void of counsel and without understanding, who provoked God with idols and vanities and failed to be wise and to consider their latter end. It teaches that one chasing a thousand and two putting ten thousand to flight happens only because their Rock sold them and the Lord shut them up, and that even their enemies themselves are judges that their rock is not like the true Rock and that the Lord alone did this.
Israel's scattering fulfilled the warnings that followed its departure from God. That fulfillment included loss of its temple and religious services. Yet the verse shows God limited the destruction to prevent His enemies from denying His rule. Applied to the Civil War, the verse means God would not allow the Northern army to be wholly destroyed by its rebellious enemies, lest those enemies boast that their own strength had done it.