120 Days No Food or Water Deuteronomy 9

Deuteronomy 9:15 "So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands."

Moses recounts the giving of the ten commandments. He was on the mount 40 days and 40 nights without food or water. v9 "...I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water."

He came down and found the people had made themselves a golden calf. The Lord was angry and was about to destroy them but Moses prayed for them. v18 Again he did not eat or drink.

v18 And I fell down before the Lord as at the first forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger."

Moses begged the Lord not to destroy all the people. v19 In verse 12 when the Lord told Moses the people were sinning he called them thy people meaning they were Moses' people. For a moment there, it seems the Lord had disowned them. But in verse 29 Moses in begging for the people to be spared... Moses reminds the Lord that they are his people.

v29 "Yet they are thy people, and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm."

The Lord hearkened unto Moses' pleading and spared the people. In the next chapter we will see that Moses had to take two more tablets to the mount where the Lord again wrote the commandments but this time Moses was to put them in a box which became the ark of the covenant. We have to jump over to chapter 10 verse 10 to see where Moses stayed 40 more days and nights without food or water. So the Lord sustained him for 120 days.

Moses' point in this chapter (9) is that the Lord and Moses have had extreme patience with the children of Israel in bringing them to this point. They have multiplied and have become a mighty force. But it is not their doing, for they are rebellious and stiffnecked and Moses wants them to give the Lord the praise for that and not take glory on themselves.

v6 "Understand therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness: for thou art a stiffnecked people.
v24 "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew you."

This is a good lesson for the Christian life. We come to the Lord, lost in sin and helpless to save ourselves, just as Israel was in Egypt's bondage and needed a redeemer. It is Christ who made the ultimate sacrifice for us. We owe it all to Him that we have the desire to do right. Any accomplishments, from church attendance to the highest leadership position, is not because we are bright or above any other Christian in ability. It is by God's grace. But for this grace we would be lost in our sins and doing no telling what.

Psalm 40:1-2 "I waited patiently for the Lord and he inclined unto me and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings."