The Anatomy of Presumptuous Repentance Text: Deuteronomy 1:41-46
Introduction: Two Ditches, One Road
The Christian life is a straight and narrow road, and on either side of this road, there is a ditch. The devil, frankly, does not care which ditch you drive into. He is just as happy to see you wrecked by legalism as he is by license. He is delighted when men turn God's commands into a buffet, picking what they like and leaving the rest. And he is equally delighted when they, in a fit of false piety, decide to obey a command that God has, for the moment, rescinded.
The scene before us in Deuteronomy is a master class in this second kind of disobedience. It is the ditch of presumptuous obedience. Israel has just committed the great sin of unbelief at Kadesh Barnea. They refused to go up and take the land when God commanded it. They saw the giants, they heard the evil report of the ten spies, and their hearts melted. For this, God judged them. That entire generation would die in the wilderness. They would not enter the land. The command to advance was revoked, and a new command was issued: turn around, go back into the wilderness.
What happens next is a perfect illustration of counterfeit repentance. It looks like the real thing. It has the vocabulary of repentance. It has the outward actions of repentance. But it is rotten to the core, because it is still fueled by the same engine of rebellion that got them into trouble in the first place: unbelief in the present word of God. They disbelieved God's command to go up, and now they disbelieve His command to go back. They have swapped the sin of cowardice for the sin of presumption. They jump out of the frying pan of "we will not" and into the fire of "we will, whether you like it or not." This is the repentance of Cain, the sorrow of Esau, the regret of Judas. It is a sorrow for the consequences, not a hatred of the sin. And it is a lesson we must take to heart, because our age is awash in this kind of cheap, self-willed repentance.
The Text
Then you said to me, ‘We have sinned against Yahweh; we will indeed go up and fight, just as Yahweh our God commanded us.’ And every man of you girded on his weapons of war and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country. And Yahweh said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you, so that you are not defeated before your enemies.” ’ So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of Yahweh and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country. And the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out to meet you and pursued you as bees do and crushed you from Seir to Hormah. Then you returned and wept before Yahweh; but Yahweh did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you. So you remained in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained there.
(Deuteronomy 1:41-46 LSB)
The Confession of Rebels (v. 41)
We begin with their seemingly pious confession:
"Then you said to me, ‘We have sinned against Yahweh; we will indeed go up and fight, just as Yahweh our God commanded us.’ And every man of you girded on his weapons of war and regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country." (Deuteronomy 1:41)
On the surface, this sounds good. They use the right words: "We have sinned against Yahweh." This is the beginning of any true confession. But the words that follow reveal the counterfeit nature of their repentance. "We will indeed go up and fight, just as Yahweh our God commanded us." The problem is that this is no longer what Yahweh commanded them. That command had an expiration date, and their unbelief made it expire. They are trying to obey yesterday's command in defiance of today's command.
True repentance submits to God's present word. False repentance tries to bargain with God, offering Him a form of obedience that suits the sinner. They are not sorry for their rebellion; they are sorry for the forty-year death sentence. Their solution is not to submit to the sentence but to try and reverse it through a flurry of carnal activity. They want to fix their sin of disobedience with another act of disobedience, just one that looks more zealous.
Notice their attitude: they "regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country." Just a short time before, this was the very thing they said was impossible. The giants were too big, the cities too fortified. Now, suddenly, it's easy. What changed? Nothing in the hill country changed. The giants didn't shrink. The walls didn't fall down. What changed was their motivation. Before, they were driven by fear of the enemy. Now, they are driven by fear of God's punishment. Both are forms of unbelief. They are not trusting God; they are trying to manage their circumstances. This is works-righteousness. It is an attempt to earn back God's favor through their own strength and initiative, which is the very definition of presumption.
The Explicit Prohibition (v. 42-43)
God, through Moses, makes the situation painfully clear. There is no ambiguity here.
"And Yahweh said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do not go up and do not fight, for I am not among you, so that you are not defeated before your enemies.” ’ So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the command of Yahweh and acted presumptuously and went up into the hill country." (Deuteronomy 1:42-43 LSB)
God's warning is twofold. First, the command: "Do not go up and do not fight." This is a direct, negative imperative. It cancels the previous order. Second, the reason: "for I am not among you." This is the heart of the matter. Israel's strength was never in their military prowess. Their strength was in the presence of Yahweh. When He was with them, one could chase a thousand. When He was not, they were helpless. The Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of His presence, was not going with them. Moses was not going with them. God Himself was not going with them.
To go into battle without the Lord of Hosts is not faith; it is suicide. It is the height of arrogance. Faith is not believing whatever you want to believe. Faith is believing what God has said. And right now, God was saying, "Stop." To proceed was not an act of faith, but an act of rebellion disguised as faith.
And Moses says, "So I spoke to you, but you would not listen." Their ears were closed. Their confession was hollow because it did not lead to submission. They "acted presumptuously." The Hebrew word here means to act with arrogance, insolence, and pride. It is a high-handed sin. They knew what God said, and they decided their plan was better. This is the essence of all sin. It is the creature telling the Creator that he knows best. They were trying to force God's hand, to obligate Him to bless their unauthorized mission. But God will not be manipulated.
The Inevitable Defeat (v. 44)
The result is exactly what God predicted. The consequence is swift and humiliating.
"And the Amorites who lived in that hill country came out to meet you and pursued you as bees do and crushed you from Seir to Hormah." (Deuteronomy 1:44 LSB)
Without God's presence, the once-terrifying giants are now more than a match for them. The Amorites come out and the Israelites are routed. The imagery is potent: they pursued you "as bees do." This is not the picture of a noble, orderly retreat. This is a chaotic, panicked, headlong flight. A swarm of bees is relentless, infuriating, and painful. You can't fight a swarm; you can only run, swatting wildly, as you are stung again and again. It is a picture of utter humiliation.
They are crushed all the way from Seir to Hormah. The name Hormah means "destruction" or "a devoted thing." This place would later be the site of a great victory for Israel when they acted in faith (Numbers 21:3), but for now, it is the monument to their presumptuous defeat. God is teaching them a hard lesson: the difference between faith and foolishness is the word of God. Acting on His command leads to victory. Acting against His command, even with pious-sounding motives, leads to Hormah, to destruction.
The Unheard Weeping (v. 45-46)
The final scene is one of sorrow, but it is a worldly sorrow that leads to death.
"Then you returned and wept before Yahweh; but Yahweh did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you. So you remained in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you remained there." (Deuteronomy 1:45-46 LSB)
They come back, and now they weep. But this weeping is no better than their fighting. It is still self-centered. They are not weeping over their rebellion, their pride, their presumption. They are weeping because they were defeated. They are weeping because their plan failed. They are weeping over the dead bodies and the bee stings. This is the sorrow of a child who is crying because he got caught, not because he did wrong.
And the text is stark: "Yahweh did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you." There is a kind of prayer, a kind of weeping, that God will not hear. It is the prayer of the unrepentant. It is the weeping of those who want relief from the consequences of their sin without turning from the sin itself. As Proverbs says, "If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination" (Proverbs 28:9). Their entire enterprise was an attempt to get around hearing the law, God's present command. Therefore, their prayers were an abomination.
So they simply had to sit there. "You remained in Kadesh many days." They had to absorb the lesson. They had to live with the consequences of both their cowardice and their presumption. They were right back where they started, only now with the fresh sting of a humiliating defeat and the bitter knowledge that their emotional, self-willed repentance was utterly worthless before God.
Conclusion: The Obedience of Faith
This passage is a powerful warning against two equal and opposite errors. The first is the failure to act when God commands. That is the sin of Kadesh Part One. The second is the rush to act when God has not commanded, or has commanded the opposite. That is the sin of Kadesh Part Two. Both are rooted in unbelief.
True faith listens to the now word of God. It does not live in the past, trying to obey commands that are no longer in force. Nor does it live in the future, trying to claim promises that have not yet been given. It lives in the present, asking, "Lord, what will you have me to do today?" And when the Lord answers, faith obeys, whether the command is to charge the hill country or to turn back into the desert.
We see the ultimate contrast in the Lord Jesus Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemane, He faced a cup far more bitter than anything Israel faced in the wilderness. His human will recoiled, saying, "Let this cup pass from Me." This was His Kadesh moment. But unlike Israel, He immediately added, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39). That is the obedience of faith. It submits to the present, revealed will of the Father, no matter the cost.
Our repentance must be shaped by this same submission. True repentance doesn't argue, bargain, or try to fix things on its own terms. It doesn't offer God a flurry of religious activity to make up for its sin. True repentance simply says, "I have sinned. Your judgment is just. Your command is right. What must I do?" It stops talking and starts listening. It lays down its own weapons and its own plans and waits for the command of the Captain of our salvation. Any other kind of repentance, no matter how tearful or zealous it may appear, is just another form of rebellion, another road to Hormah.