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32. The Song of Moses

¹ Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
   hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
² Let my teaching fall like rain
   and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
   like abundant rain on tender plants.

    ³ I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
   Oh, praise the greatness of our God!
⁴ 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.

    ⁵ They are corrupt and not his children;
   to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.
⁶ Is this the way you repay the LORD,
   you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator, Or Father, who bought you
   who made you and formed you?

    ⁷ 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.
⁸ 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. Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint) sons of God
⁹ For the LORD’s portion is his people,
   Jacob his allotted inheritance.

    ¹⁰ 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,
¹¹ like an eagle that stirs up its nest
   and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
   and carries them aloft.
¹² The LORD alone led him;
   no foreign god was with him.

    ¹³ 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,
¹⁴ 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.

    ¹⁵ Jeshurun Jeshurun means the upright one, that is, Israel. grew fat and kicked;
   filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.
They abandoned the God who made them
   and rejected the Rock their Savior.
¹⁶ They made him jealous with their foreign gods
   and angered him with their detestable idols.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—
   gods they had not known,
   gods that recently appeared,
   gods your ancestors did not fear.
¹⁸ You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
   you forgot the God who gave you birth.

    ¹⁹ The LORD saw this and rejected them
   because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
²⁰ “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.
²¹ 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.
²² For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
   one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
   and set afire the foundations of the mountains.

    ²³ “I will heap calamities on them
   and spend my arrows against them.
²⁴ 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.
²⁵ In the street the sword will make them childless;
   in their homes terror will reign.
The young men and young women will perish,
   the infants and those with gray hair.
²⁶ I said I would scatter them
   and erase their name from human memory,
²⁷ 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.’”

    ²⁸ They are a nation without sense,
   there is no discernment in them.
²⁹ If only they were wise and would understand this
   and discern what their end will be!
³⁰ 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?
³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock,
   as even our enemies concede.
³² 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.
³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents,
   the deadly poison of cobras.

    ³⁴ “Have I not kept this in reserve
   and sealed it in my vaults?
³⁵ 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.”

    ³⁶ The LORD will vindicate his people
   and relent concerning his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
   and no one is left, slave or free. Or and they are without a ruler or leader
³⁷ He will say: “Now where are their gods,
   the rock they took refuge in,
³⁸ 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!

    ³⁹ “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.
⁴⁰ I lift my hand to heaven and solemnly swear:
   As surely as I live forever,
⁴¹ 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.
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.”

    ⁴³ Rejoice, you nations, with his people, Or Make his people rejoice, you nations Masoretic Text; Dead Sea Scrolls (see also Septuagint) people, / and let all the angels worship him, /
   for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
   and make atonement for his land and people.

⁴⁴ Moses came with Joshua Hebrew Hoshea, a variant of Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people. ⁴⁵ When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶ 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. ⁴⁷ 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.”

Moses to Die on Mount Nebo

⁴⁸ On that same day the LORD told Moses, ⁴⁹ “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. ⁵⁰ 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. ⁵¹ 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. ⁵² Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”

1. Give ear, O ye heavens. Moses commences in a strain of magnificence, lest the people should disdain this song with their usual pride, or even reject it altogether, being exasperated by its severe censures and reproaches. For we well know how the world naturally longs to be flattered, and that no strain can be gratifying to it unless it tickles and soothes the ear with praise. But Moses here not only inveighs bitterly against the vices of the people, but with the utmost possible vehemence stigmatizes their perverse nature, their utterly corrupt morals, their obstinate ingratitude, and incorrigible contumacy. Moreover, he desired that these accusations, whereby he rendered their name detestable, should daily echo from their tongues; and thus they became still more offensive. It was, therefore, requisite that their impatience should be bridled, as it were, in order that they might patiently and humbly receive these just reproofs, however severe they might be. If, therefore, they should repudiate this song, or should turn a deaf ear to it, he declares at the outset that heaven and earth would be witnesses of their prodigious obtuseness; nay, he turns and addresses himself to heaven and earth, and thus signifies that it was worthy of the attention of all creatures, even although they were without intelligence or feeling. For it is a hyperbolical mode of expression, when he assigns the faculty of hearing, and being instructed, to the senseless elements; just as Isaiah, when he would intimate that he found none to give heed to him amongst the whole people, in like manner appeals to the heavens and the earth, and even summons them to bear witness to the prodigious iniquity, that there should be less of intelligence amongst the whole people than in oxen and asses. (Isaiah 1:2, 3.) For it is but a meager exposition, which some give of these words, that they are used, by metonymy, for angels and men. ²⁴⁷²⁴⁷ See ante, on Deuteronomy 4:26, vol. 3, p. 269, and note.

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain. Some, as I think improperly, here resolve the future tense into the optative mood, ²⁴⁸²⁴⁸ So the LXX., V., Vatablus, Junius, and others. Ainsworth combines the two, and says, “shall drop, or let it drop, as being a wish, and also a promise, that his doctrine should be profitable and effectual,” etc. for in this splendid eulogium he rather celebrates, in order to commend his doctrine, the fruitfulness ²⁴⁹²⁴⁹ “L’eloquence.” — Fr. which is actually imparted to it by the Holy Spirit, than asks for it to be given to him; and my readers must at once perceive that such a request would have been by no means seasonable. He therefore compares his speech to rain or dew, as if he had said that, if only the people were like the soil in a state of softness and preparation, he would deliver doctrine to them which would irrigate them unto abundant fruitfulness.

Although this expression refers especially, and κατ ᾿ ἐξοχὴν to the Song, still its force and propriety extends to all divine teaching; for God never speaks except to render men fruitful in good works, just as, by instilling succulency and vigor into the earth by means of rain, He makes it fertile for the production of fruit. But, like the rocks and stones, which imbibe no moisture from the most abundant rains, so many are hindered by their own perversity from being fertilized by spiritual irrigation. Wherefore Moses indirectly throws the blame upon the Israelites, if the doctrine of this Song should drop upon them in vain.