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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.”

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7 Remember the days of old. This is an explanation of the preceding verse, for Moses again shows how God had acquired this people, viz., because he had chosen to separate them from other nations according to His own good pleasure. But, since the Israelites might be inflated by their present superiority, they are reminded of their origin, and Moses commands them not to consider what they now are, but also from whence they had been taken, and with this view he says, Remember the old times; ask the elders, etc. For we know how men, when they do not reflect that whatever they have, proceeded from God, and is held, as it were, at will, are blinded by their dignity, so as not only to despise others, but also to exalt themselves against, the Author of all good things. Moses, in order to subdue this arrogance, says that all peoples were alike under the hand and power of God, and thus that their diversity was not in their original nature, but derived from elsewhere, i.e., from God’s free choice. In the word בהנחל, behanchel, there is some ambiguity: for some translate it, When the Most High divided the earth to the nations; and, though I do not reject this, still I have preferred the meaning more in accordance with the context; 256256     Ver. 8. C.’s application of this expression, בהנחל, can scarcely be deemed admissible; for כחל does not mean to divide, unless with reference to an inheritance, or, at least, to property. — W for Moses says the same thing twice over, and the second clause is the explanation of the first. He says, therefore, that God distributed the nations, as an inheritance is divided; and then this is more clearly repeated, when he mentions the separation of the sons of Adam. When, in the latter part of the verse, it is said, that He set bounds to the nations according to the number of the children of Israel, it is commonly explained that He set bounds to the nations in such sort, that the habitation of the sons of Abraham was secured to them. Some of the Hebrews take it in a more restricted sense, viz., that in the distribution of the world, so much was given to the seven nations of Canaan as should be sufficient for the children of Israel. In my opinion, however, his meaning is, that in the whole arrangement of the world, the object which God had in view was to provide for His elect people: for, although His bounty extended to all, still He had such regard for His own, that, chiefly on their account, His care also extended to others. The word number is expressly employed; as if Moses had said, that, however small a portion of the human race the posterity, of Abraham might be, nevertheless that number was before God’s eyes, when He ordered the state of the whole world; unless it be preferred to take the word מספר, misphar, 257257     A noun heemantic: like our word tale, as used in Milton’s time, and account, as still used, it may either mean a narrative, or an enumeration, or a number, which is the result of an enumeration. — W. I have not ventured to translate C.’s very ambiguous word ratio. In the Fr. it is “Facon ou regle.” for a ratio; but it will not be unsuitable to the passage to understand it that this small body was so precious to God, that he arranged the whole distribution of the world with a view to their welfare. Some refer it to the calling of the Gentiles, as if Moses had said that the empire of the whole world was destined to the seed of Abraham, because it was to be propagated through all the regions of the world; but this is altogether erroneous, for nothing is here indicated but the distinction, formerly conferred upon one nation. 258258     “La distinction du peuple eleu d’avec les autres nations, du temps qu’ils estoyent comme retranchez de l’Eglise;” the distinction of the elect people from the other nations, from the time when these last were, as it were, cut off from the Church.” — Fr.

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