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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.”

41 If I whet my glittering sword. The conditional particle does not leave the matter doubtful, or in suspense, but must be resolved into an adverb of time; as though He had said, As soon as He should take up arms, the destruction of the enemies would be certain; not indeed that God wants arms for the overthrow of His enemies; just as when He adds directly afterwards, “When my hand shall have taken hold of judgment,” He does not mean that it ever is taken away from Him, or escapes Him, but He thus designates its present and manifest operation. ²⁹⁵²⁹⁵ “C’est pour signifier un effet present et manifest, lequel n’estoit point apparu devant;” it is to signify a present and manifest effect, which had appeared before. — Fr. Since, therefore, God, when He spares His enemies, seems, as it were, to have thrown aside His weapons, and to be at rest, having ceased to execute the office of judge, He declares that His arms shall be ready wherewith to destroy His enemies; and again, that then He will once more take upon Him the judgment which He had seemed to lay aside; in which words He indirectly animadverts upon the foolish security of those who conceive that His power is annihilated, unless He openly exerts it, and that the judgment which He postpones is altogether extinct.

42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood. In these words He describes a horrible massacre, as though He had said, There shall be no end to my vengeance, until the earth shall be full of blood and corpses. Elsewhere ²⁹⁶²⁹⁶ Jeremiah 46:10. also, God’s sword is said to be “drunk with blood,” as here His arrows, when His wrath proceeds to inflict great acts of carnage; and in the same sense it is here said to “devour flesh.”

The second מדם, midam, some render, “on account of the blood;” and I admit that מ, mem, is sometimes the causalparticle. They understand it, then, that this would be the just recompense of their cruelty, when the wicked, who had slain the Israelites, or led them away captive, should be cut off by God. But I do not see why the same word should be expounded in two different senses; and I have no doubt but that it is a repetition of the same thing, that God will make His “arrows drunk with blood;” ²⁹⁷²⁹⁷ Addition in Fr., “pour confermer le propos avee plus grand vehemence;” to confirm the point in question with greater vehemence. but He says, “the blood both of the slain and of the captives,” since, when an army is put to the sword, some fall in the battle itself, whilst others, maimed and wounded, make an effort to escape.

The conclusion of the verse is twisted into various senses; some expound the word “head” by change of number, “heads,” as though it were said, “I will cut off the heads of the enemies;” it would, however, be more plausible to apply it metaphorically to the leaders. But others translate it more correctly, “the beginning,” not, indeed, with reference to time, but as though it were said, the flower, or best of the multitude, according to the common phrase, “from the first to the last.” My interpretation of “the revenges of the enemy” is, not those which God will inflict upon His enemies, but such as are capital, or deadly, as though He had said that He would deal as an enemy with the wicked, so that there should be no place for mercy. ²⁹⁸²⁹⁸ מראש פרעות אויב A.V., “From the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.” S.M.,”From the head of revenges of the enemy.” V. and Luther,” Of the bare head of the enemies.’ LXX., “From the head of the chief enemies.” The word ראש is either the head of a body, or the beginning of an event. פרעות comes from a verb signifying to deal out retribution, and has therefore been taken by some to mean revenge, and by others to mean chiefs or rulers, whose office it is to avenge wrongs; there are, however, instances in which פרע is acknowledged to be the hair of the head. — W.

43. Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people. The appositive reading, which some prefer, “Praise him, O nations, His people,” supplying the word “God,” is constrained. For there is no incongruity in the notion that the Gentiles should celebrate the benefits which God has conferred upon His people; at any rate, it is more simple to take it thus, that so conspicuous was the favor of God towards the Israelites, that the knowledge and favor of it should diffuse itself far and wide, and be renowned even among the Gentiles. For Scripture thus magnifies some of the more memorable exertions of God’s power, especially when reference is made to the redemption of the elect people, and commands His praise to be proclaimed among the nations, since it would be by no means fitting that it should be confined within the narrow limits of Judea. A question, however, occurs, because Paul seems to quote this passage differently; for he says, “Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people,” (Romans 15:10;) and undoubtedly the word נקם, nakam, which Moses uses, also signifies to rejoice. ²⁹⁹²⁹⁹ It would scarcely be conceded now that נקם ever means to rejoice. — W If we admit that Paul took this sentence from Moses, the same Spirit, who spoke both by Moses and Paul, is the best interpreter of His own words; nor will it be inconsistent that the Gentiles should rejoice at the felicity of God’s people. But it may have been the case that Paul did not take this testimony from any particular place, but from the general teaching of Scripture. At any rate, the dignity of the people is celebrated on the ground that God esteems their blood precious, and will deem their persecutors His own adversaries.

The word כפר, capbar, at the end of the verse, some render to expiate, others, to be propitious, which is the rendering I have preferred, although I do not reject the former meaning. The verb כפר, caphar, signifies that an expiation is made with sacrifice to appease God; and it is probable that Moses alludes to the legal mode of reconciliation; nevertheless, in my judgment, he means that God will restore His land and people to His favor.