Deuteronomy 9:4
Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee.
Moses forbids Israel to think in its heart that the Lord gives it possession of the land because of its own righteousness, for the Lord drives the nations out before it because of their wickedness. The possession promised is the literal land of Canaan as the second blessing in the covenant promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the New Earth. That wickedness was transgression of God's commandments, which bound all men from the beginning, so the Canaanites were guilty and justly punished though they were not Israel and lived before Sinai. Their iniquity filled up unto the fourth generation as foretold of the Amorites, fulfilling the word that God visits the iniquity of them that hate Him upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. It showed itself in idolatry and cruel human sacrifice such as the worship of Moloch, and in abounding wrongs and injustice without truth, equity, mercy, or peace, for which Israel executed God's judgment upon them as God judged the world by the flood and judged Sodom and Egypt.
Meaning and Historical Setting
Israel was forbidden to say in the heart, after the Lord had cast the nations out from before it, that for its own righteousness the Lord had brought it in to possess the land, for the Lord drove those nations out from before it for their wickedness. The warning was against crediting or claiming possession of the land to Israel's own righteousness, while the dispossession was ascribed to the wickedness of the nations of Canaan whom God drove out.
The gift described is the literal land of Canaan as the second blessing included in the promissory covenant made to Abraham, to be possessed as the literal land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not the New Earth. The verse stands in the brief record of Moses' second forty days and forty nights with the Lord after beholding His glory, time spent in intercession that God would not destroy the people for their sin.
The verse belongs to the account of Moses receiving the law a second time after Israel's golden-calf sin and transgression, which places the repeated giving of the law in the context of Israel's wrongdoing rather than its righteousness. The same chapter recounts Moses breaking the stone tablets in righteous indignation at that transgression.
Divine Judgment and Warning
The driving out of the Canaanites fulfills the appendage to the second commandment that God visits the iniquity of fathers who hate Him upon children to the third and fourth generation. It had been foretold that Israel would return in the fourth generation because the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. The Amorites who hated God filled up their iniquity by the fourth generation and were then dispossessed, showing the commandment was made appropriate to Israel's peculiar circumstances with particular reference to the Canaanites. The wickedness for which the nations were driven out was transgression of God's commandments, which proves the commandments existed and bound all men from the beginning. The Canaanites were therefore guilty of breaking the moral law even though they were not Israel and lived before the law was given at Sinai, and God was just in taking vengeance on them for violating it.
That wickedness included idolatry and cruel human sacrifices. Canaanite worship of Moloch is presented as justification for the Israelite conquests, and is compared to the bloody rites of the Aztecs as a similar form of cruelty. Israel in dispossessing them carried out God's judgment against criminals against Him, and God took responsibility for the deaths involved. God's judgment of the Canaanites for that wickedness did not justify protecting Israel if Israel likewise practiced idolatry.
The driving out of the Canaanites was an act of divine judgment provoked by abounding wrongs, outrages, injustice, and lack of truth, equity, mercy, and peace. It stands with the flood, the confusion of languages, the destruction of Sodom, the destruction of Egypt, and the overthrow of other guilty peoples and empires. The prevalence of such evils even among intelligent and professed Christians shows the world is not being renovated and the millennium is not at the door, but that judgment is due as in those past cases.