Bible Strands
Deuteronomy 9:27
Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Overlook the stubbornness of this people and the wickedness of their sin.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses prays to the LORD on behalf of the Israelites after they rebelled, pleading that God not destroy His redeemed inheritance. He appeals to God’s past faithfulness to the patriarchs to prevent the surrounding nations from concluding that God lacked power or harbored hatred.
The words — The Hebrew verb זְכֹר (ze.Khor) commands God to “remember” His covenant servants, while אַל־ תֵּפֶן (al- te.fen) literally means “may not you turn,” urging God not to turn away from His people despite their stubbornness and sin.
The thread — This appeal to patriarchal covenant memory runs through Jeremiah 14:21 and Micah 7:18, where intercessors and worshippers alike ground their pleas in God’s historical faithfulness to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to anchor their appeals in God’s past commitments rather than present human merit, demanding prayer that relies on divine faithfulness instead of self-justification.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 14:21 For the sake of Your name do not despise us; do not disgrace Your glorious throne. Remember Your covenant with us; do not break it.
- Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?
- Exodus 3:6 Then He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
- Exodus 3:16 Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.
- Exodus 6:3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD I did not make Myself known to them.
- Exodus 13:5 And when the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites—the land He swore to your fathers that He would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you shall keep this service in this month.
- Exodus 32:13 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom You swore by Your very self when You declared, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give your descendants all this land that I have promised, and it shall be their inheritance forever.’”
- Exodus 32:31 So Moses returned to the LORD and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made gods of gold for themselves.
- 1 Samuel 25:25 My lord should pay no attention to this scoundrel Nabal, for he lives up to his name: His name means Fool, and folly accompanies him. I, your servant, did not see my lord’s young men whom you sent.
- Psalms 78:8 Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.