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, Deuteronomy 4:21, Deuteronomy 9:8; Deuteronomy 9:20—for your sakes, bigelalekem. So in different terms Deuteronomy 3:26, was angry, yith‘abber, for your sakes, lema‘anekem; and Deuteronomy 4:21, hith’annaph and ’al dibrêkem.

Thou also shalt not go in thither] Heb. even thou or for thy part thou, etc.

Further Note to Deuteronomy 1:36-38. Because Moses has just been described as seeking to turn the people from their sin, Deuteronomy 1:29 ff., and it is therefore unreasonable to include him in their punishment; because Deuteronomy 1:37-38 needlessly anticipate Deuteronomy 3:26; Deuteronomy 3:28 and Deuteronomy 4:21; and because Deuteronomy 1:39 in whole or part follows suitably on Deuteronomy 1:36; therefore Deuteronomy 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 Deuteronomy 1:39 shows that the original has been disturbed by an editorial hand (see below). Steuern. would also omit Deuteronomy 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 Deuteronomy 3:26 ff. and Deuteronomy 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 Ḳadesh 37 years after this disaffection of Israel, Numbers 21:10 ff; Numbers 27:13 f.; Deuteronomy 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 (Jeremiah 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 Ḳadesh, 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.

Verse 37. - The Lord was angry with me also for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither. This must be regarded as parenthetical, for what he here refers to in regard to himself occurred, not at the time of the rebellion at Kadesh, but at the time of the second arrival of the people at that place, many years later. This parenthetical reference to himself was probably thrown in by Moses for the purpose of preparing for what he was about to say respecting Joshua, in whom the people were to find a leader after he himself was gone. It may be noted also that Moses distinguishes between the anger of the Lord against him, and the wrath which broke forth upon the people - a distinction which is aptly preserved in the Authorized Version by the words "was wroth" (קָצפ) and "was angry" (אָנַפ). For your sakes; rather, because of you, on accent of you. The Hebrew word (גָלָל) comes from a root meaning to roll, and signifies primarily a turn in events, a circumstance, an occasion or reason. Moses reminds the Israelites that the misconduct of the people was what led to God's being angry also with him (see Numbers 20:7, etc.; comp. Psalm 106:32, 33). Deuteronomy 1:37Jehovah was angry, therefore, when He heard these loud words, and swore that He would not let any one of those men, that evil generation, enter the promised land, with the exception of Caleb, because he had followed the Lord faithfully (cf. Numbers 14:21-24). The hod in זוּלתי is the antiquated connecting vowel of the construct state.

But in order that he might impress upon the people the judgment of the holy God in all its stern severity, Moses added in Deuteronomy 1:37 : "also Jehovah was angry with me for your sakes, saying, Thou also shalt not go in thither;" and he did this before mentioning Joshua, who was excepted from the judgment as well as Caleb, because his ultimate intention was to impress also upon the minds of the people the fact, that even in wrath the Lord had been mindful of His covenant, and when pronouncing the sentence upon His servant Moses, had given the people a leader in the person of Joshua, who was to bring them into the promised inheritance. We are not to infer from the close connection in which this event, which did not take place according to Numbers 20:1-13 till the second arrival of the congregation at Kadesh, is placed with the earlier judgment of God at Kadesh, that the two were contemporaneous, and so supply, after "the Lord as angry with me," the words "on that occasion." For Moses did not intend to teach the people history and chronology, but to set before them the holiness of the judgments of the Lord. By using the expression "for your sakes," Moses did not wish to free himself from guilt. Even in this book his sin at the water of strife is not passed over in silence (cf. Deuteronomy 32:51). But on the present occasion, if he had given prominence to his own fault, he would have weakened the object for which he referred to this event, viz., to stimulate the consciences of the people, and instil into them a wholesome dread of sin, by holding up before them the magnitude of their guilt. But in order that he might give no encouragement to false security respecting their own sin, on the ground that even highly gifted men of God fall into sin as well, Moses simply pointed out the fact, that the quarrelling of the people with him occasioned the wrath of God to fall upon him also.

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