Deuteronomy 9:21

Deu. 9:21. "And I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount." This brook in all probability was the water out of the rock, for that rock was in Mount Horeb (Exodus 17:1-8), the mount that is here spoken of in verse 8. If there had been any other brook there before, it would not be said that there was no water to drink, as Exodus 17:1. There would have been no such murmuring for want of water, nor would there have been occasion to fetch water out of the rock. From the dryness of the place the mountain was called Horeb, which signifies dryness. This brook that came forth out of the rock, and that descended out of the mount of God, was a type of the Holy Spirit; the same with Ezekiel's waters that came out of the Temple, and the same with the pure river of water of life that proceeded out of the throne of God and the Lamb, and the same with those rivers of "living water" spoken of, John 7:38; John 7:39, which, we are there told, is meant of the Holy Spirit. The idol of the children of Israel is ground to powder, and the dust of it cast into this brook, to signify that it is by God's Spirit that God consumes idols and destroys the kingdom of Satan. The same seems to be signified by Hezekiah's casting the idolatrous altars into the brook that watered Jerusalem, God's holy city (2 Chronicles 30:14, and also 2 Chronicles 29:16). We are told (Exodus 32:20) that Moses made the children of Israel drink of the water; but that was no otherwise than as he strewed the dust on that brook which the congregation wholly depended on for drink, and so were obliged to drink of it. Their drinking that water in which their idol was consumed was a type of repentance, in which men are made partakers of, and have the influences of that Spirit that destroys those sins and consumes those idols that they formerly were devoted and addicted to. There is another thing also, that perhaps is more especially intended by that which we have here an account of. There seems to be a special respect to this (Psalms 99:8) speaking of Moses and Aaron - "Thou answeredst them, O Lord our God: Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions," which is agreeable to the history of this affair in chap. 32 of Exodus, where we have an account of God's pardoning the people on Moses's intercession; but vengeance was taken on the calf they had made. The idols of the people are called "their inventions," so Psalms 106:28; Psalms 106:29, and verses Psalms 106:38; Psalms 106:39. They sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. Thus they were defiled with their own works, and went a-whoring with their own inventions. God's fierce wrath and vengeance was typically executed to the full on the golden calf; three things were done to it that are made use of to signify the merciless executions of God's wrath in the perfect destruction of him that is under guilt. Moses burnt it with fire, and stamped and ground it to powder, beat it very small, even till it was as small as dust; and that brook that this dust was mixed with signified the blood of Christ, for it was as it were the bleeding of the Rock that had been wounded by the rod that smote it, and "that rock was Christ." The calf, in thus having vengeance executed upon it, being cast in its utter destruction into this brook, signifying that the sin of those who are pardoned of God has full vengeance taken on it in the blood of Christ. Their calf is here called "their sin." The water of this brook was the drink of the children of Israel, with this destroyed and ruined calf in it; and thus it is that believers do by faith drink the blood of Christ - viz., as an atonement for their sins, or as that in which their sin is fully punished and perfectly destroyed, and justice fully satisfied.