Deuteronomy 32:1-47

Song of Moses

1 Pay attention, heavens, and I will speak; listen, earth, to the words of my mouth.^[a]

2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my word settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass and showers on tender plants.

3 For I will proclaim the Lord's name. Declare the greatness of our God!

4 The Rock-His work is perfect; all His ways are entirely just. A faithful God, without prejudice, He is righteous and true.

5 His people have acted corruptly toward Him; this is their defect^[b]-they are not His children but a devious and crooked generation.

6 Is this how you repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Isn't He your Father and Creator? Didn't He make you and sustain you?

7 Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will teach you.

8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance^[c] and divided the human race,^[d] He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the people of Israel.^[e]

9 But the Lord's portion is His people, Jacob, His own inheritance.

10 He found him in a desolate land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, cared for him, and guarded him as the pupil of His eye.^[f]

11 He watches over His nest like an eagle and hovers over His young; He spreads His wings, catches him, and lifts him up on His pinions.^[g]

12 The Lord alone led him, with no help from a foreign god.^[h]

13 He made him ride on the heights of the land^[i] and eat the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from flintlike rock,

14 cream from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat; you drank wine from the finest grapes.^[j]

15 Then^[k] Jeshurun^{[l] [m]} became fat and rebelled- you became fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with detestable practices.^[n]

17 They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your fathers did not fear.^[o]

18 You ignored the Rock who gave you birth; you forgot the God who brought you forth.

19 When the Lord saw [this], He despised [them], provoked [to anger] by His sons and daughters.

20 He said: "I will hide My face from them; I will see what will become of them, for they are a perverse generation- unfaithful children.

21 They have provoked My jealousy with [their] so-called gods;^[p] they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will provoke their jealousy with an inferior people;^[q] I will enrage them with a foolish nation.^[r]

22 For fire has been kindled because of My anger and burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the land and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will pile disasters on them; I will use up My arrows against them.

24 They will be weak from hunger, ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will unleash on them wild beasts with fangs, as well as venomous snakes that slither in the dust.

25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, there will be terror; the young man and the virgin [will be killed], the infant and the gray-haired man.^[s]

26 I would have said: I will cut them to pieces^[t] and blot out the memory of them from mankind,

27 if I had not feared insult from the enemy, [or feared] that these foes might misunderstand and say: Our own hand has prevailed; it wasn't the Lord who did all this."

28 Israel is a nation lacking sense with no understanding at all.^[u]

29 If only they were wise, they would figure it out; they would understand their fate.

30 How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up?

31 But their "rock" is not like our Rock; even our enemies concede.

32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.

33 Their wine is serpents' venom, the deadly poison of cobras.

34 "Is it not stored up with Me, sealed up in My vaults?

35 Vengeance^[v] belongs to Me; I will repay.^{[w] [x]} In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly."

36 The Lord will indeed vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that [their] strength is gone and no one is left-slave or free.

37 He will say: "Where are their gods, the 'rock' they found refuge in?

38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let it^[y] be a shelter for you.

39 See now that I alone am He; there is no God but Me.^[z] I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal. No one can rescue [anyone] from My hand.^[aa]

40 I raise My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

41 when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold of 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."^[ab]

43 Rejoice, you nations, over His people,^[ac] for He will avenge the blood of His servants.^[ad] He will take vengeance on His adversaries;^{[ae] [af]} He will purify His land and His people.^[ag]

44 Moses came with Joshua^[ah] son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the presence of the people.

45 After Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

46 he said to them, "Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law.

47 For they are not meaningless words to you but they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."

Deuteronomy 32:1-47 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 32

This chapter contains the song mentioned and referred to in the former, the preface to it, De 32:1-3; the character of the divine and illustrious Person it chiefly respects, De 32:4; the ingratitude of the people of the Jews to him, who were a crooked and perverse generation, aggravated by his having bought, made, and established them, De 32:5,6; and which is further aggravated by various instances of divine goodness to them, first in providing and reserving a suitable country for them, at the time of the division of the earth to the sons of men, with the reason of it, De 32:7-9; then by what the Lord did for them in the wilderness, De 32:10-12; after that in the land of Canaan, where they enjoyed plenty of all good things, and in the possession of which they were, when the illustrious Person described appeared among them, De 32:13,14; and then the sin of ingratitude to him, before hinted at, is fully expressed, namely, lightly esteeming the rock of salvation, the Messiah, De 32:15; nor could they stop here, but proceed to more ungodliness, setting up other messiahs and saviours, which were an abomination to the Lord, De 32:16; continuing sacrifices when they should not, which were therefore reckoned no other than sacrifices to demons, and especially the setting up of their new idol, their own righteousness, was highly provoking; and by all this they clearly showed they had forgot the rock, the Saviour, De 32:17,18; wherefore, for the rejection of the Messiah and the, persecution of his followers, they would be abhorred of God, De 32:19; who would show his resentment by the rejection of them, by the calling of the Gentiles, and by bringing the nation of the Romans upon them, De 32:20,21; whereby utter ruin and destruction in all its shapes would be brought upon them, De 32:22-25; and, were it not for the insolence of their adversaries, would be entirely destroyed, being such a foolish and unwise people, which appears by not observing what the enemies of the Messiah themselves allow, that there is no rock like him, whom they despised, De 32:26-31; which enemies are described, and the vengeance reserved for them pointed out, De 32:32-35; and the song closed with promises of grace and mercy to the Lord's people, and wrath and ruin to his and their enemies, on which account all are called upon to rejoice in the latter day, De 32:36-43; and this song being delivered by Moses, the people of Israel are exhorted seriously to attend to it, it being of the utmost importance to them, De 32:44-47; and the chapter is concluded with a relation of Moses being ordered to go up to Mount Nebo and die, with the reason of it, De 32:48-52.

Footnotes

• [a]. Isa 1:2
• [b]. Or Him; through their fault; Hb obscure
• [c]. Or Most High divided the nations
• [d]. Gn 11:1-9
• [e]. One DSS reads number of the sons of God; LXX reads number of the angels of God
• [f]. Pr 7:2
• [g]. Ex 19:4; Ps 91:4
• [h]. Lit him, and no foreign god with Him
• [i]. Isa 58:14
• [j]. Lit the blood of grapes
• [k]. DSS, Sam, LXX add Jacob ate his fill;
• [l]. Upright One, referring to Israel
• [m]. Isa 44:2
• [n]. Ps 78:58
• [o]. 1 Co 10:19-20
• [p]. Lit with no gods
• [q]. Lit with no people
• [r]. Rm 10:19; 11:14
• [s]. Isa 5:8-30; Jr 9:17-21
• [t]. LXX reads will scatter them
• [u]. Lit understanding in them
• [v]. Sam, LXX read On a day of vengeance
• [w]. LXX, Tg, Vg read Me; and recompense I will recompense
• [x]. Rm 12:19; Heb 10:30
• [y]. Sam, LXX, Tg, Vg read them
• [z]. Isa 40:25; 43:11-13; 46:9; Ezk 36:23
• [aa]. 1 Sm 2:6-8
• [ab]. Lit the long-haired heads of the enemy
• [ac]. LXX reads Rejoice, you heavens, along with Him, and let all the sons of God worship Him; rejoice, you nations, with His people, and let all the angels of God strengthen themselves in Him; DSS reads Rejoice, you heavens, along with Him, and let all the angels worship Him; Heb 1:6
• [ad]. DSS, LXX read sons
• [ae]. DSS, LXX add and He will recompense those who hate Him; v. 41
• [af]. Ps 79:10
• [ag]. Syr, Tg; DSS, Sam, LXX, Vg read His people's land
• [ah]. LXX, Syr, Vg; MT reads Hoshea; Nm 13:8,16