9. Yet destroyed I. The Lord here chides Israel for lack of gratitude for the favor and goodness He had shown them. The Hebrew gives emphasis to the personal pronoun, as if to say, “Yet I, even I, destroyed.” It was for the very crimes now committed in Israel that God had dispossessed the Amorites and other Canaanite nations. Could Israel expect to avoid their fate?
Amorite. A general name for the inhabitants of Canaan who were driven out when the Israelites took possession of the land (see on Gen. 15:16; Joshua 3:10; Judges 1:34; Ex. 33:2; 34:11; Deut. 1:20, 27).
Cedars. The cedar was renowned in the ancient East for its height (see Isa. 2:13; Eze. 17:22; 31:3).
Oaks. ’allonim, a word that describes, not any particular species of trees, but large trees in general.