Deuteronomy 32:12

12 the Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.

Deuteronomy 32:12 Meaning and Commentary

Deuteronomy 32:12

[So] the Lord alone did lead him
Out of Egypt, through the wilderness, to the land of Canaan, going before them in a pillar of fire and cloud; though this is not to be understood to the exclusion of the ministry of Moses and Aaron, by whom he led them, ( Psalms 77:20 ) ; it may be interpreted of the people being alone in the wilderness when led:

and [there was] no strange god with him;
with Israel; so Aben Ezra, no idolatry among them then; to which sense are the Targums of Jerusalem and Jonathan; but it may rather signify that the Lord alone was the leader of his people, and he had no assistant in that work, and therefore all the glory should be given to him: he is the leader of his people, in a spiritual sense, out of a state of unregeneracy, which is a state of darkness and bondage; out of the ways of sin, and from the pastures of their own righteousness, into an open state of grace, which is a state of light and liberty; in Christ the way, and in the paths of faith, truth, holiness, and righteousness, unto the heavenly glory, typified by the land of Canaan, the blessings of which are next described: the Jews say ^F26, this will be in the days of the King Messiah; when there will be no abominable thing in Israel, the Lord alone shall lead him.

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FOOTNOTES:

F26 Tikkune Zohar, Correct. 18. fol. 32. 2. 36. 2.

Deuteronomy 32:12 In-Context

10 He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye.

11 As an eagle stirs up its nest, and hovers over its young; as it spreads its wings, takes them up, and bears them aloft on its pinions,

12 the Lord alone guided him; no foreign god was with him.

13 He set him atop the heights of the land, and fed him with produce of the field; he nursed him with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock;

14 curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs and rams; Bashan bulls and goats, together with the choicest wheat— you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.