1Give ear, O Heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as raindrops on the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass. 3For I proclaim the name of Jehovah; ascribe greatness to our God. 4He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a Mighty God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. 5They have corrupted themselves; they are not His children, because of their blemish: a perverse and crooked generation. 6Do you deal thus with Jehovah, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you? 7Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will say to you: 8When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9For Jehovah's portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. 10He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the pupil of His eye. 11As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, 12so Jehovah alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him. 13He made him ride in the heights of the earth, that he might eat the produce of the fields; He made him suck honey from the rock, and oil from the rock of flint; 14butter from the cattle, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs; and rams of the sons of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of wheat; and you drank wine, the blood of the grapes. 15But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, you grew thick, you are gorged! And he forsook the God who had made him, and treated with contempt the Rock of his salvation. 16They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. 17They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to new gods come lately, that your fathers had not feared. 18Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the Mighty God who brought you forth. 19And when Jehovah saw it, He spurned them, because of the provocation of His sons and His daughters. 20And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. 21They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not the Mighty God; they have moved Me to anger by their vanities. So I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a people; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation. 22For a fire has been kindled in my anger, and shall burn to the lowest Sheol; it shall consume the earth with her produce, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23I will heap evil upon them; I will use up My arrows upon them. 24They shall be wasted with hunger, devoured by burning heat and bitter destruction; I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, with the poison of the serpents of the dust. 25The sword from outside, and the terror from within, shall bereave the young man and virgin, the nursing child and the man of gray hairs. 26I have said, I will dash them in pieces, I will bring to an end the memory of them from among men, 27had I not feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, our hand is high; and Jehovah has not done all this. 28For they are a nation void of counsel, nor is there any understanding in them. 29Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Jehovah had delivered them up? 31For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter. 33Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of vipers. 34Is this not laid up in store with Me, sealed up among My treasures? 35Vengeance is Mine, and recompense; their foot shall slip in due time; for the day of their calamity is near, and the things prepared have made haste upon them. 36For Jehovah will judge His people and have compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone, and there is no one remaining, bond or free. 37He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they sought refuge? 38Who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, and be your refuge. 39See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; nor is there any who can deliver out of My hand. 40For I raise My hand to the heavens, and say, As I live forever, 41if I whet My glittering sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies, and repay those who hate Me. 42I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the heads of the commanders of the enemy. 43Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people. 44And Moses came with Joshua the son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people. 45And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel, 46and He said to them: Set your hearts on all the words which I am testifying against you today, that you command your children to take heed to do all the Words of this Law. 47For these are not empty words to you, for it is your life; and by this Word you shall prolong your days in the land where you are crossing over the Jordan to possess. 48And Jehovah spoke to Moses that same day, saying: 49Go up into this mountain of Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel as a possession; 50and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, even as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people; 51because you have trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not honor Me in the midst of the children of Israel. 52Yet you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 MOSES' SONG, WHICH SETS FORTH THE PERFECTIONS OF GOD. (Deu. 32:1-43)
Give ear, O ye heavens; . . . hear, O earth--The magnificence of the exordium, the grandeur of the theme, the frequent and sudden transitions, the elevated strain of the sentiments and language, entitle this song to be ranked amongst the noblest specimens of poetry to be found in the Scriptures.
2 My doctrine shall drop, &c.--The language may justly be taken as uttered in the form of a wish or prayer, and the comparison of wholesome instruction to the pure, gentle, and insinuating influence of rain or dew, is frequently made by the sacred writers (
Isa 5:6;
Isa 55:10-
Isa 55:11).
4 He is the Rock--a word expressive of power and stability. The application of it in this passage is to declare that God had been true to His covenant with their fathers and them. Nothing that He had promised had failed; so that if their national experience had been painfully checkered by severe and protracted trials, notwithstanding the brightest promises, that result was traceable to their own undutiful and perverse conduct; not to any vacillation or unfaithfulness on the part of God (
Jas 1:17), whose procedure was marked by justice and judgment, whether they had been exalted to prosperity or plunged into the depths of affliction.
5 They have corrupted themselves--that is, the Israelites by their frequent lapses and their inveterate attachment to idolatry.
their spot is not the spot of his children--This is an allusion to the marks which idolaters inscribe on their foreheads or their arms with paint or other substances, in various colors and forms--straight, oval, or circular, according to the favorite idol of their worship.
6 is not he thy father that hath bought thee--or emancipated thee from Egyptian bondage.
and made thee--advanced the nation to unprecedented and peculiar privileges.
8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance--In the division of the earth, which Noah is believed to have made by divine direction (
Gen 10:5;
Deut 2:5-
Deut 2:9;
Acts 17:26-
Acts 17:27), Palestine was reserved by the wisdom and goodness of Heaven for the possession of His peculiar people and the display of the most stupendous wonders. The theater was small, but admirably suited for the convenient observation of the human race--at the junction of the two great continents of Asia and Africa, and almost within sight of Europe. From this spot as from a common center the report of God's wonderful works, the glad tidings of salvation through the obedience and sufferings of His own eternal Son, might be rapidly and easily wafted to every part of the globe.
he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel--Another rendering, which has received the sanction of eminent scholars, has been proposed as follows: "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam and set the bounds of every people, the children of Israel were few in numbers, when the Lord chose that people and made Jacob His inheritance" (compare
Deut 30:5;
Gen 34:30;
Ps 105:9-
Ps 105:12).
10 found him in a desert land--took him into a covenant relation at Sinai, or rather "sustained," "provided for him" in a desert land.
a waste howling wilderness--a common Oriental expression for a desert infested by wild beasts.
11 As an eagle . . . fluttereth over her young--This beautiful and expressive metaphor is founded on the extraordinary care and attachment which the female eagle cherishes for her young. When her newly fledged progeny are sufficiently advanced to soar in their native element, she, in their first attempts at flying, supports them on the tip of her wing, encouraging, directing, and aiding their feeble efforts to longer and sublimer flights. So did God take the most tender and powerful care of His chosen people; He carried them out of Egypt and led them through all the horrors of the wilderness to the promised inheritance.
13 He made him ride on the high places, &c.--All these expressions seem to have peculiar reference to their home in the trans-jordanic territory, that being the extent of Palestine that they had seen at the time when Moses is represented as uttering these words. "The high places" and "the fields" are specially applicable to the tablelands of Gilead as are the allusions to the herds and flocks, the honey of the wild bees which hive in the crevices of the rocks, the oil from the olive as it grew singly or in small clumps on the tops of hills where scarcely anything else would grow, the finest wheat (
Ps 81:16;
Ps 147:14), and the prolific vintage.
15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked--This is a poetical name for Israel. The metaphor here used is derived from a pampered animal, which, instead of being tame and gentle, becomes mischievous and vicious, in consequence of good living and kind treatment. So did the Israelites conduct themselves by their various acts of rebellion, murmuring, and idolatrous apostasy.
17 They sacrificed unto devils--(See on
Lev 17:7).
21 those which are not a people--that is, not favored with such great and peculiar privileges as the Israelites (or, rather poor, despised heathens). The language points to the future calling of the Gentiles.
23 I will spend mine arrows upon them--War, famine, pestilence (
Ps 77:17) are called in Scripture the arrows of the Almighty.
29 Oh, . . . that they would consider their latter end--The terrible judgments, which, in the event of their continued and incorrigible disobedience, would impart so awful a character to the close of their national history.
32 vine of Sodom . . . grapes of gall--This fruit, which the Arabs call "Lot's Sea Orange," is of a bright yellow color and grows in clusters of three or four. When mellow, it is tempting in appearance, but on being struck, explodes like a puffball, consisting of skin and fiber only.
44 Moses . . . spake all the words of this song in the ears, &c.--It has been beautifully styled "the Song of the Dying Swan" [LOWTH]. It was designed to be a national anthem, which it should be the duty and care of magistrates to make well known by frequent repetition, to animate the people to right sentiments towards a steadfast adherence to His service.
48 Get thee up . . . and die . . . Because ye trespassed . . . at Meribah--(See on
Num 20:13).
52 thou shalt see the land, but thou shalt not go thither-- (
Num 27:12). Notwithstanding so severe a disappointment, not a murmur of complaint escapes his lips. He is not only resigned but acquiescing; and in the near prospect of his death, he pours forth the feelings of his devout heart in sublime strains and eloquent blessings.