Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

32. The Song of Moses

¹ Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
   hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
² Let my teaching fall like rain
   and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
   like abundant rain on tender plants.

    ³ I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
   Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
⁴ He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
   and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
   upright and just is he.

    ⁵ They are corrupt and not his children;
   to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.
⁶ Is this the way you repay the LORD,
   you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator, Or Father, who bought you
   who made you and formed you?

    ⁷ Remember the days of old;
   consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
   your elders, and they will explain to you.
⁸ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
   when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples
   according to the number of the sons of Israel. Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint) sons of God
⁹ For the LORD’s portion is his people,
   Jacob his allotted inheritance.

    ¹⁰ In a desert land he found him,
   in a barren and howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
   he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
¹¹ like an eagle that stirs up its nest
   and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
   and carries them aloft.
¹² The LORD alone led him;
   no foreign god was with him.

    ¹³ He made him ride on the heights of the land
   and fed him with the fruit of the fields.
He nourished him with honey from the rock,
   and with oil from the flinty crag,
¹⁴ with curds and milk from herd and flock
   and with fattened lambs and goats,
with choice rams of Bashan
   and the finest kernels of wheat.
You drank the foaming blood of the grape.

    ¹⁵ Jeshurun Jeshurun means the upright one, that is, Israel. grew fat and kicked;
   filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.
They abandoned the God who made them
   and rejected the Rock their Savior.
¹⁶ They made him jealous with their foreign gods
   and angered him with their detestable idols.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—
   gods they had not known,
   gods that recently appeared,
   gods your ancestors did not fear.
¹⁸ You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
   you forgot the God who gave you birth.

    ¹⁹ The LORD saw this and rejected them
   because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
²⁰ “I will hide my face from them,” he said,
   “and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
   children who are unfaithful.
²¹ They made me jealous by what is no god
   and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
   I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.
²² For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
   one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
   and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

    ²³ “I will heap calamities on them
   and spend my arrows against them.
²⁴ I will send wasting famine against them,
   consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
   the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
²⁵ In the street the sword will make them childless;
   in their homes terror will reign.
The young men and young women will perish,
   the infants and those with gray hair.
²⁶ I said I would scatter them
   and erase their name from human memory,
²⁷ but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
   lest the adversary misunderstand
and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed;
   the LORD has not done all this.’”

    ²⁸ They are a nation without sense,
   there is no discernment in them.
²⁹ If only they were wise and would understand this
   and discern what their end will be!
³⁰ How could one man chase a thousand,
   or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
   unless the LORD had given them up?
³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock,
   as even our enemies concede.
³² Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
   and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison,
   and their clusters with bitterness.
³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents,
   the deadly poison of cobras.

    ³⁴ “Have I not kept this in reserve
   and sealed it in my vaults?
³⁵ It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
   In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
   and their doom rushes upon them.”

    ³⁶ The LORD will vindicate his people
   and relent concerning his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
   and no one is left, slave or free. Or and they are without a ruler or leader
³⁷ He will say: “Now where are their gods,
   the rock they took refuge in,
³⁸ the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
   and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up to help you!
   Let them give you shelter!

    ³⁹ “See now that I myself am he!
   There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
   I have wounded and I will heal,
   and no one can deliver out of my hand.
⁴⁰ I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear:
   As surely as I live forever,
⁴¹ when I sharpen my flashing sword
   and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
   and repay those who hate me.
⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
   while my sword devours flesh:
the blood of the slain and the captives,
   the heads of the enemy leaders.”

    ⁴³ Rejoice, you nations, with his people, Or Make his people rejoice, you nations Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint) people, / and let all the angels worship him, /
   for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
   and make atonement for his land and people.

⁴⁴ Moses came with Joshua Hebrew Hoshea, a variant of Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. ⁴⁵ When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶ he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law. ⁴⁷ They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Moses to Die on Mount Nebo

⁴⁸ On that same day the LORD told Moses, ⁴⁹ “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. ⁵⁰ There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. ⁵¹ This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites. ⁵² Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”

30. How should one chase a thousand. Of all the many tokens of God’s wrath, he selects one which was peculiarly striking; for as long as God was on their side, they had put to flight mighty armies, nor had they been supported by any multitude of forces. Now, when, though in great numbers, they are conquered by a few, this change plainly shows that they are deprived of God’s aid, especially when a thousand, who were wont before, with a little band, to rout the greatest armies, gave way before ten men. Moses, therefore, condemns the stupidity of the people, in that it does not occur to their minds that they are rejected by God, when they are so easily overcome by a few enemies, whom they far exceed in numbers. Moses, however, goes still further, and says, that they were sold and betrayed; ²⁷⁹²⁷⁹ “Shut them up.” — A. V. inasmuch as God, having so often found them to be unworthy of His aid, not only deserted them, but made them subject to heathen nations, and, as it were, sold them to be their slaves. This threat is often repeated by the prophets: and Isaiah, desiring to awake in them a hope of deliverance, tells them that God would redeem the people whom He had sold. ²⁸⁰²⁸⁰ The reference is here generally to Isaiah 52:3, however, to which C. probably alludes, hardly bears out the statement in the text: “Ye have sold yourselves for nought, etc. The Fr. stands thus, ”Isaie, en parlant du retour de la captivite de Babylone, dit que Dieu rachetera le peuple qu’il a vendu.” But, in case any should object that it was no matter of wonder, if the uncertain chance of war should confer on others the victory which often, as a profane poet says,

“Hovers between the two on doubtful wings,” ²⁸¹²⁸¹
diuque
Inter utrumque volat dubiis Victoria pennis.
Ovid, Metam. viii. 11, 12.

Moses anticipates the objection by declaring that, unless the people should be deprived of God’s aid, they could not be otherwise than successful. A comparison is therefore instituted between the true God and false gods: as though Moses had said that, where the God of hosts presides, the issue of war can never be doubtful. Hence it follows, that God’s elect and peculiar people are exempted from the ordinary condition of nations, except in so far as it deserves to be rejected on the score of its ingratitude. He calls the unbelievers themselves to be the arbiters and witnesses of this, inasmuch as they had often experienced the formidable power of God, and knew assuredly that the God of Israel was unlike their idols. It is, then, just as if he had said, that this was conspicuous even to the blind, or were to cite as witnesses those who are blessed with no light from on high. In thus inviting unbelievers to be judges, it is not as if he supposed that they would pronounce what was true, and thoroughly understood by them, but because they must needs be convinced by experience: for, if any one had asked the heathen whether the supreme government and power of heaven and earth were in the hands of the One God of Israel, they never would have confessed that their idols were mere vanity. Still, however malignantly they might detract from God’s glory, Moses does not hesitate to boast, even themselves being judges, that God had magnificently exerted His unconquered might; although he refers rather to the experience of facts themselves, than to their feelings. Other commentators extract a different meaning, viz., that although unbelievers might be victorious, still God remained unaffected by it: neither was his arm broken, because he permitted them to afflict the apostate Israelites: ²⁸²²⁸² This is the view of S.M. “Although our enemies now be our judges, this they have not from their own gods, but from our God, who has delivered us into their hands.” the former exposition, however, is the more appropriate one.