And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all good things, wells digged, vineyards and olive-gardens, and fruit trees in abundance. And they did eat and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
In the Levites' long prayer of confession, this verse is the high point of the good news. It lists what Israel received in Canaan — fortified cities, stocked houses, ready-made cisterns, orchards — and leaves them full and satisfied, one word away from the rebellion that follows.
Up to this point, the people are not describing what they achieved. They are listing what God handed them. One writer sums up the history they have just retold:
So far, it is a tale of grace — of a giving God. He had chosen Abraham, redeemed His people, guided, spoken to, and sustained them. All had been given from the heart of God — in His own pure and sovereign grace.
The conquest belongs to the same list. Israel did not clear the land. God cleared it for them, and that leaves them without excuse:
The Levites then recalled God's grace in giving Israel victory over various enemies. God had already decided that their land would belong to Israel... God made the nation grow large and brought them into the land He had promised (v. 23). He subdued the people living in the land before Israel, so that Israel could take possession of it. God's power and grace were so clear here that Israel had even more reason to obey God fully, and no excuse for disobeying.
Notice what the verse names: not raw materials, but finished things. The houses came furnished; the cisterns were already cut; the vines and olive trees were already bearing. One writer draws out what all this was meant to do to their hearts:
Cities built and houses furnished, flowing wells, fruitful vineyards and olive groves — all ready for them, the free gift of sovereign grace and covenant mercy. All they had to do was take possession, in simple faith, and always keep the generous Giver of it all in their thoughts... Wherever they turned their eyes they saw the signs of His great goodness, the rich fruit of His wonderful love.
Being full and delighting in His goodness is not, by itself, a fault. God had told Israel what fullness was for:
"And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land He has given you." How simple! How lovely! How fitting! Filled with the fruit of the LORD's goodness, they were to bless and praise His holy Name. He loves to surround Himself with hearts that overflow with the sweet sense of His goodness, and that pour out songs of praise and thanksgiving.
The same word "fat" turns up elsewhere as an accusation. Once the gifts were in hand, the Giver slipped out of view:
In Deuteronomy 32:15 God said, "But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked... then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation." ("Jeshurun" means "the righteous people.") It simply means this: the nation received all the blessings God gave them. They entered the land and had the vineyards, the cornfields, the minerals, the supplies of water. After they had everything that God gave them in His sovereign grace and mercy, they forgot Him.
The danger is not ancient only. God's gifts can become raw material for pride:
Unless they obeyed, the very wealth of their blessings would lead them to pride of heart, and to forgetting the Lord God their Redeemer. With that would come the claim that their prosperity came from their own power and their own strength... Nothing shows the perversity of our hearts more clearly than our tendency to turn the blessings God so kindly gives us into a way of exalting ourselves.
The people praying here no longer live in that abundance. They are back in the land, but under foreign rule, and they recite the fat years to measure their own failure against God's giving. One writer notes where they take their stand — and what is still ahead:
Notice that they do not stand on the ground of promise, though they recount the covenant made with Abraham. They take their stand on the legal conditions of Sinai, as their fathers did before them. The generation to come will be different. They will have the Messiah and the new covenant, and their subjection to Gentile power will pass away forever. For now, all was only temporary; yet God is always God, and good to all who call on Him.
- Given, not gained — God handed over every item ready-made: cities He took, houses already full, wells already dug.
- Filled — God's aim was not bare survival but satisfaction; they ate and lacked nothing.
- Delighted — being full should end in blessing the Giver; He loves hearts that overflow with praise.
- Fattened — the same plenty bred forgetfulness; once they held the gifts, they forsook the Giver.
- Remembered — generations later they recite these good days as evidence against themselves; God's mercy still outlasts their failure.
But they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets who testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.
Nehemiah 9 is one long prayer in which the people look back over their whole story and confess it. Verse 26 is the low point: God had given them the land, and they answered with rebellion, a law thrown away, and murdered prophets.
The prayer moves in stages, and verse 26 belongs to the stage about life in the land. One writer follows that path and finds one sin under every setting.
Having given God His place, the people review their path in the light of all that God is, and this leads to the confession of their utter failure. They review their history in the wilderness (16-21); in the Land (22-27); and in captivity to their enemies (28-31). Their failure increased with the passing of time, expressing itself in different forms of evil. But one failure was common to every position — their constant disobedience to the word of God. In the wilderness they did not listen to the Lord's commandments, and refused to obey (16). In the Land they were disobedient and cast the Lord's law behind their backs (26).
The gift of the land was pure grace, not payment. That is what makes the speed of the collapse so striking.
At last they took possession of the promised land through pure grace, as we see in the last chapters of Numbers, and by the great mercy of God they "delighted themselves" (v. 25). Yet they had hardly entered the land when they rebelled. Despite all the earlier judgments, they once again "committed great provocations" against the Lord (v. 26). Then He delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, and even so, He still rescued them in part through the judges.
Older translations read "great provocations" here; the ESV reads "great blasphemies."
God sent prophets to a people who had thrown His law away. Their errand was to bring the people back — and it cost them their lives.
Again, after God had blessed Israel so wonderfully, they became completely disobedient. They rebelled and despised the law He had so graciously given them. God sent prophets to testify against their evil with the object of turning them back to Him, but they not only refused to listen: they went as far as to kill such faithful messengers (v. 26). Provocations like this moved God to deliver them into the hand of their enemies who oppressed them. We see this in the Book of Judges and in the history of the kings.
Killing a messenger looks senseless until you see what a prophet did. His work made him hated most of all at home.
The prophets dealt with the people's sin. They exposed it without fear in the light of truth, righteousness, and God's judgment. At the same time they looked on to the kingdom of God, which would set aside all evil, and to the suffering Messiah, who would be exalted and lifted very high. This is what drew out Israel's hatred: the prophet set the light of God against the wicked will of man, and that light condemned it. So the prophet met dishonour and hostility, nowhere so much as in his own country. God was brought near; and guilty man will not have God at any price.
The killing of the prophets was one stage in a longer sequence. One writer counts the steps, and the last of them falls in the New Testament.
You get these four steps. He gives the law — they did not keep it. Then the prophets: "Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute?" Then His Son: "whom you have now betrayed and murdered." Then the Holy Spirit: "You always resist the Holy Spirit." Everything in which God could deal with man had to be gone through and tried, and that is the way it turned out.
This record of Israel's heart is also a record of God's heart.
It is the revelation of the heart of God and of the heart of man. But it is the revelation of the heart of man under divine cultivation — man as the object of sovereign mercy and love. The Lord had been seeking fruit from His fig tree all these centuries, and by His own people's confession He found none. Yet with untiring grace He had borne with them in His endless long-suffering and patience.
- Gift. The land came by grace, not by earning — and the rebellion started almost as soon as they had it.
- Disobedience. Wilderness, land, captivity: the setting changed, the sin did not. They refused God's word at every stage.
- Silencing. They pushed the law out of sight, and killed the prophets who brought it back into view.
- Enmity. Man hated the prophets for holding God's light against his own will — guilty man will not have God at any price.
- Patience. Law, prophets, the Son, the Spirit — God tried man at every point, and man failed. Still He sought fruit from His fig tree and bore with them in patience.