Deuteronomy 32
Deuteronomy 32:1 Pay attention, sky, and I will speak; listen, land, to the words from my mouth.
Deuteronomy 32:2 Let my teaching fall like rain and my word settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass and showers on tender plants.
Deuteronomy 32:3 You see, I will proclaim Yahveh’s name. Declare the greatness of our God!
Deuteronomy 32:4 The Rock – his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.
Deuteronomy 32:5 His people have acted corruptly toward him; this is their defect – they are not his children but a devious and crooked generation.
Deuteronomy 32:6 Is this how you repay Yahveh, you foolish and senseless people? Isn’t he your Father and Creator? Didn’t he make you and sustain you?
Deuteronomy 32:7 Remember the ancient days; consider the years of past generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will teach you.
Deuteronomy 32:8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance and divided the human race, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the people of Israel.
Deuteronomy 32:9 But Yahveh’s portion is his people, Jacob, his inheritance.
Deuteronomy 32:10 He found him in a desolate land, in a barren, howling open country; he surrounded him, cared for him, and protected him as the pupil of his eye.
Deuteronomy 32:11 He watches over his nest like an eagle and hovers over his young; he spreads his wings, catches him, and carries him on his feathers.
Deuteronomy 32:12 Yahveh alone led him, with no help from a foreign god.
Deuteronomy 32:13 He made him ride on the heights of the land and eat the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty rock,
Deuteronomy 32:14 curds 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.
Deuteronomy 32:15 Then Jeshurun became fat and rebelled– you became fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
Deuteronomy 32:16 They provoked his jealousy with illegitimate gods; they enraged him with repulsive practices.
Deuteronomy 32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your fathers did not fear.
Deuteronomy 32:18 You ignored the Rock who gave you birth; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
Deuteronomy 32:19 When Yahveh saw this, he despised them, angered by his sons and daughters.
Deuteronomy 32:20 He said: “I will hide my face from them; I will see what will become of them, for they are a changed generation – unfaithful children.
Deuteronomy 32:21 They have provoked my jealousy with what is not a god; they have enraged me with their worthless idols. So I will provoke their jealousy with what is not a people; I will enrage them with a foolish nation.
Deuteronomy 32:22 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.
Deuteronomy 32:23 “I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows against them.
Deuteronomy 32:24 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.
Deuteronomy 32:25 Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, there will be terror; the young man and the young woman will be killed, the infant and the gray-haired man.
Deuteronomy 32:26 “I would have said: I will cut them to pieces and blot out the memory of them from humanity,
Deuteronomy 32:27 if I had not been intimidated by provocation from the enemy, or thought that these foes might misunderstand and say: ‘Our hand has prevailed; it wasn’t Yahveh who did all this.'”
Deuteronomy 32:28 Israel is a nation which has lost its sense with no understanding at all.
Deuteronomy 32:29 If only they were wise, they would comprehend this; they would understand their fate.
Deuteronomy 32:30 How could one pursue a thousand, or two cause ten thousand to run away, unless their Rock had sold them unless Yahveh had given them up?
Deuteronomy 32:31 But their “rock” is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.
Deuteronomy 32:32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.
Deuteronomy 32:33 Their wine is serpents’ venom, the deadly poison of cobras.
Deuteronomy 32:34 “Is it not stored up with me, sealed up in my vaults?
Deuteronomy 32:35 Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay. In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”
Deuteronomy 32:36 Yahveh 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.
Deuteronomy 32:37 He will say: “Where are their gods, the ‘rock’ they found refuge in?
Deuteronomy 32:38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise and help you; let it be a shelter for you.
Deuteronomy 32:39 See now that I alone am he; there is no God but me. I bring death, and I give life; I wound, and I heal. No one can rescue anyone from my power.
Deuteronomy 32:40 I raise my hand to the sky and declare: As surely as I live permanently,
Deuteronomy 32:41 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.
Deuteronomy 32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours meat – the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”
Deuteronomy 32:43 Rejoice, you nations, concerning his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries; he will absolve his land and his people.
Deuteronomy 32:44 Moses came with Joshua, son of Nun, and recited all the words of this song in the presence of the people.
Deuteronomy 32:45 After Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
Deuteronomy 32:46 he said to them, “Place in your heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to follow all the words of this instruction carefully.
Deuteronomy 32:47 You see, 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 take possession of.”
Deuteronomy 32:48 On that same day, Yahveh spoke to Moses, and this is what he said:
Deuteronomy 32:49 “Go up Mount Nebo in the Abarim range in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan I am giving the Israelites as a possession.
Deuteronomy 32:50 Then you will die on the mountain that you go up, and you will be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
Deuteronomy 32:51 For both of you betrayed[1] me among the Israelites at the Water of Meribath-Kadesh in the open country of Zin by failing to treat me as sacred in their presence.
Deuteronomy 32:52 Although from a distance you will view the land that I am giving the Israelites, you will not go there.”
[1]מָעַל = betray.
Deuteronomy 32 quotes:
“A law-book stored beside the ark may be forgotten. What the people needed was something short enough to be committed to (longterm) memory that would make the same point as Moses’ sermons (Wenham 2003: 141). This is what the Song of Moses offers in its highly individual way, especially as a witness to the deep and abiding love of Yahweh for his people (McConville 2002: 461). Best viewed as a song or hymn containing a form of covenant lawsuit against God’s people, it takes up a number of important themes relating to primeval times, including creation leading to the table of nations (vv. 8–9: cf. Gen. 10:1–32). But there is no explicit reference to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt, and the twin covenants of Horeb and Moab are passed over, as are the promises made with the Patriarchs. These are no doubt assumed, making way for exposure of the sin of idolatry. The song moves from the chaotic barren and howling waste of the desert (v. 10), to the contrasting rich fare of the Promised Land, where Jeshurun (‘the upright one’) abandoned the Rock (mentioned seven times in the chapter), his Creator and Saviour (v. 15), in preference to the gods of the land (vv. 16–17, 21). As a result, Yahweh will hide his face from them (v. 20), and Israel will experience the full fury of his fire and wrath by sword and various plagues, as a display of his protecting jealous love (v. 21; cf. 4:23–24). However, lest the enemy should say, Our hand has triumphed; the LORD has not done this (v. 27), the Lord will bring judgment upon the enemy (vv. 34–35) and have compassion upon his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone (v. 36). Israel’s restoration will not come without a final reminder of their apostasy (vv. 37–38), at the same time establishing Yahweh’s uniqueness and incomparability as the only true God, who alone is able to judge his enemies and avenge the blood of his servants, and make atonement for his land and people (vv. 39–43; cf. 4:35).
Woods, Edward J.. Deuteronomy: An Introduction and Commentary (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries Book 5) . InterVarsity Press. Kindle Edition.
“When Moses had finished his last address to Israel, once again the Lord addressed words personally to Moses. With this passage, compare Num. 27:12–14. The Lord instructed Moses to climb Mount Nebo, a peak in the Abarim range of mountains to the east of the north end of the Dead Sea; from there he would be able to see the promised land which he was not permitted to enter (see also 3:25–27). On the prohibition of Moses’ entering the promised land, see 1:37 and commentary; commentary; in this context (v. 51), however, there is a more explicit allusion to the incident described in Num. 20:10–13. Having seen the promised land, Moses would die; on the death of Moses, see the fuller account in 34:1–8.”
Craigie, Peter C.. The Book of Deuteronomy (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament) (p. 390). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Deuteronomy 32 links:
“To be gathered to his people”
bloom or shrivel
fire from God
forgotten parent
his last summit
his wings
in retrospect- leaving a legacy
in retrospect- no empty word
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Thursday, June 13, 2019
Maranatha Daily Devotional – Thursday, June 15, 2023
monotheon
not meaningless words
poisonous grapes
provider and pretenders
rock contest
Sheol in the Bible- The Old Testament Consensus
swept away
The consequences of separation
the death penalty
The sky above – shamayim, the land beneath – erets
three Solomons
time travel song
vengeance on his adversaries
The DEUTERONOMY shelf in Jeff’s library.
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