Israel Provoked God
9 “Hear, O Israel! You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess nations greater and mightier than you, great cities [a]fortified to heaven, 2 a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, ‘Who can stand before the sons of Anak?’ 3 Know therefore today that it is the Lord your God who is crossing over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the Lord has spoken to you.
4 “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before [b]you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you. 5 It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the [c]oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Here we see confirmation that God was clearing the promised land of all these nations because of their wickedness, but we see something else also. It was not because of the righteousness of the Israelites in comparison that God was giving them this land.
For as we have seen, they were a stubborn and rebellious people, and will continue to be that way. No, God was giving them the land because He had made a promise to Abraham.
Therein is the lesson, God always keeps his promises, even when we are fickle, or disobedient. He is still faithful, in all things, to do what He has promised.