YHWH has given Moses a final song. Moses sings both a praise song and a reminder of the natural brokenness of the People.
This is the second song by Moses. The other appears at the beginning of the desert wanderings, in Exodus 15, exulting over the triumph at the Sea of Reeds. This one appears at the end of their wanderings. (A third song is recorded in Psalm 90.) Carmen Imes, in her BibleProject class on Exodus, emphasizes that the real theology of the Torah occurs in the songs.
Deuteronomy 32: 1-4, "I proclaim the name of YHWH"
Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.
I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
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.
The song begins with praise, emphasizing the righteousness of YHWH. The pleasure of a desert rain is associated with attention to these teachings.
Deuteronomy 32: 5-6, and yet...
They have acted corruptly toward him;
to their shame they are no longer his children,
but a warped and crooked generation.
Is this the way you repay the LORD,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?
The people are chastised for their corruption, in the midst of YHWH's goodness.
Deuteronomy 32: 7-8, Remember
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.
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.
God has especially chosen Israel. They are to remember that they are a special possession. If they have any doubts about the history, they should ask the generations before them! (This continues a theme of Deuteronomy: the older generation should make sure to pass on the knowledge to the younger.)
Deuteronomy 32: 9-14, Allotted inheritance
For the LORD's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted inheritance.
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,
like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them on its pinions.
The LORD alone led him;
no foreign god was with him.
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,
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.
God first chose Jacob, then nourished and built up the descendants of Israel, guiding them through dry desert lands to prosperity. The images drawn here are beautiful, picturesque. The people of Israel are the apple (ie., pupil) of God's eye, ever in His vision and He acts as an eagle hovering over her young.
Deuteronomy 32: 15-18, Fat Jeshurun
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;
filled with food, he became heavy and sleek.
He abandoned the God who made him
and rejected the Rock his Savior.
They made him jealous with their foreign gods
and angered him with their detestable idols.
They sacrificed to demons,
which are not God--
gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared,
gods your fathers did not fear.
You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
Yet in their prosperity Jeshurun (Israel) has grown fat and abandoned God. (Jeshurun, a synonym for Israel, means "the upright one." A similar sounding passage occurs in Isaiah 44: 1-5.)
The result of YHWH's goodness in the previous paragraph is turned into "grew fat", "filled", "became heavy", as the people gorge themselves and turn away from the One who took care of them.
As Currid points out, the Hebrew word, lashshedim, translated "to demons" here, occurs only one other time in the Old Testament, in Psalm 106: 37, where the NIV translates the word "to false gods". There the passage explicitly describes what is sacrificed: children.
The song describes a cycle: despair, salvation, renewal, prosperity, self confidence, fall, despair....
Deuteronomy 32: 19-21, Rejected
The LORD saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
"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.
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.
The people have rejected YHWH, who is a "jealous God", and YHWH responds that he will use another people to make the Israelites jealous. The apostle Paul, in his argument to fellow Jews in Romans 10: 19, quotes verse 21.
There are echoes of this passage in the words of the prophet Hosea. (See, for example, Hosea 1: 9 and Hosea 2: 23.)
Deuteronomy 32: 22-25, Wrath
For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of death below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
"I will heap calamities upon them
and spend my arrows against them.
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.
In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
Young men and young women will perish,
infants and gray-haired men.
Destruction then follows -- descending even into Sheol. The people perish in famines, wild animal attacks, attacks by foreign armies. The last verse describes the calamity as coming upon all, from young men and women to infants and the elderly.
Deuteronomy 32: 26-27, Destruction paused
I said I would scatter them
and blot out their memory from mankind,
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.'"
As Moses reminds YHWH in Exodus 32: 11-14, He has promised Egypt and other nations that Israel is His People. For this reason, YHWH holds back the destruction of this broken nation of idolaters.
The phrase translated here "our hand has triumphed" is literally "our hand is high." A hand held high was a sign of confidence and triumph.
Deuteronomy 32: 28-35, Vine from Sodom
They are a nation without sense,
there is no discernment in them.
If only they were wise
and would understand this
and discern what their end will be!
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?
For their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies concede.
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.
Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.
"What a messed up people these are!" says YHWH. Despite God's intervention, the people of Israel lean on weak rocks, weak foundations, vines from Sodom and Gomorrah, poisonous grapes and venomous snakes.
Deuteronomy 32: 34-35, Vengeance is YHWHS
"Have I not kept this in reserve and sealed it in my vaults?
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."
Vengeance belongs to YHWH and He holds off, but only for a time. (This is a message of the future prophets of Israel.)
Deuteronomy 32: 36-38, Do the other gods help you?
The LORD will judge his people
and have compassion on his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
He will say: "Now where are their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
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!
Do the other gods really help? If the people of Israel worship them, then let those gods save Israel!
Deuteronomy 32: 39-42, Only one God, only one Savior
"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.
I lift my hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever,
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.
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.
The song now turns from despair to victory. The people of Israel have only one Savior. In the end, this Savior will destroy Israel's enemies.
Deuteronomy 32: 43, Atonement
"Rejoice, O nations, with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
and make atonement for his land and people.
At the end, YHWH avenges his people and provides atonement and salvation. At the end the nations, not just Israel, will rejoice. A version of this praise song appears in the New Testament in Revelation 15: 2-4.
Deuteronomy 32: 44-47, "They are your life"
Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, 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. 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."
The song of Moses is a summary of the book of Deuteronomy, a summary of the covenant, intended to be sung and remembered.
In verse 44 the Hebrew is "Hoshea", a variant of Joshua
Deuteronomy 32: 48-52, Land from a distance
On that same day the LORD told Moses, "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. 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. 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. Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel."
At the end of the song, on that same day, Moses is to climb Mount Nebo and look into Canaan.
At the end of the song, on that same day, Moses is to climb Mount Nebo and look into Canaan.
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