1Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; Thou earth shalt hear the words of my mouth. 2My doctrine shall drop as the rain; My word shall pour out as the dew, As the showers upon the herbage, And as the rains upon the green herb: 3For I will call the name of Jehovah: Give ye greatness to our God. 4The Rock, his work complete: For all his ways judgment: A God of faithfulness and not of iniquity Just and right is he. 5He acted wickedly to him; not his sons their blot: A generation perverted and crooked. 6To Jehovah will ye recompense this, A people foolish and not wise? He thy father: did he not buy thee? He made thee, and he will protect thee. 7Remember the days of eternity; Discern the years of generation and generation: Ask thy father, and he will announce to thee; Thy old men, and they shall say to thee. 8The Most High distributing the nations, In his dispersing the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel. 9For Jehovah the portion of his people; Jacob the cord of his inheritance. 10He will find him in the land of the desert, In a waste howling desolation: He will encompass him about; he will teach him, He will keep him as the pupil of the eye. 11As the eagle he will arouse his young brood, He will brood over his young birds; He will spread out his wings, and will take them; He will lift them up upon his wings: 12Jehovah alone will lead him, And no strange god with him. 13He will cause him to ride upon the heights of the land; He shall eat the produce of the field; And he shall suck honey from the rock, And oil from the flint of the rock 14Curdled milk of the cow, and milk of the sheep, With the fat of lambs, And rams, sons of Bashan, and he goats, With the fat of kidneys of wheat; Thou shalt drink wine, the blood of the grape. 15And Jeshurun will be fat and will tread down: Thou wert fat, thou wert thick, thou wert covered; And he will reject God having made him, And he will despise the Rock of his deliverance. 16He will cause him to be jealous with strangers, With abominations they will irritate him. 17They will sacrifice to demons, not God; Gods they have not known them New ones came out from the midst; Your fathers not having feared them. 18Thou wilt forsake the Rock begetting thee, And thou wilt forget God setting thee free. 19And God will see and will reject, From the irritating of his sons and his daughters 20And he will say, I will hide my face from them; I will see what shall be after them: For they a generation of perverseness, Sons no faith in them. 21They made me jealous with not God; They irritated me with their vanities: And I will make them jealous with not a people; With a foolish nation will I irritate them. 22For a fire was kindled in mine anger. And it shall burn to the lowest hades, And it shall consume the land and its produce, And it shall burn the foundations of the mountains. 23I will gather evils upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. 24Exhausted with hunger, consumed with burning, And bitter destruction: And I will send upon them the tooth of beasts, With the wrath of those crawlers of the dust 25The sword shall bereave without, And terror from the chambers, Also the youth, also the virgin, The suckling, with the man of gray hair. 26I have said I will blow them away, I will turn away their remembrance from man; 27Unless I shall fear the enemy's their adversaries shall dissemble, Lest they shall say, Our high hand And not Jehovah did all this 28For they a nation destroying counsels, And no understanding in them. 29Would they were wise ! will they look at this? Will they discern to their latter part? 30How shall one chase a thousand; And two shall cause ten thousand to flee, If that their Rock had not sold them, And Jehovah delivered them up? 31For their rock not as our Rock, And our enemies judging. 32For their vine from the vine of Sodom, And from the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes the grapes of poverty, The clusters of bitterness to them. 33Their wine the wrath of dragons, And the fierce head of asps. 34Is not this laid up with me, Sealed up in my treasuries? 35To me vengeance and requital; At the time their foot shall waver: For the day of their destruction is near, And he hastened things prepared for them 36For Jehovah will judge his people, And upon his servants will he have compassion; When he shall see that the hand has failed, And nothing detained and left 37And he said, Where their gods, The rock they trusted in it? 38Whose fat of their sacrifices they shall eat; They shall drink the wine of their libations They shall rise up, and they shall succor you, It shall be for you protection. 39See ye now, that I, I am he, And no God with me: I will kill, and I will preserve alive; I struck through and through, and I will heal; And none takes away out of my hand. 40For I will lift up my hand to the heavens, And I said, I live forever. 41If I sharpened the lightning of my sword, And my hand shall lay hold upon judgment, I will turn back vengeance to mine adversaries, And to those hating me I will requite, 42I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, And my sword shall eat flesh, From the blood of the wounded and the captivity, From the head of the enemy's leaders. 43Rejoice ye nations with him, For he will raise up the blood of his servants, And he will turn back vengeance to his adversaries, And he will expiate for his land, his people. 44And Moses will come and speak all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua, son of Nun. 45And Moses will finish speaking all these words to all Israel: 46And he will say to them, Set your hearts to all the words which I call upon you to witness this day, which ye shall command your sons to watch and to do, all the words of this law. 47For it is not an empty word for you, but it is your life; and in this word ye shall prolong the days upon the land which ye pass through Jordan there to inherit it 48And Jehovah will speak to Moses in this self-same day, saying, 49Come up to this mountain Abarim, the mountain Nebo, which is in the lend of Moab against the face of Jericho; and see the land of Canaan which I gave to the sons of Israel for a possession. 50And die in the mountain which thou earnest there, and be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount for and was gathered to his people: 51Because ye acted treacherously against me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of contradiction, of Kadesh in the desert Zin; because. ye consecrated me not in the midst of the sons of Israel. 52But thou shalt see the land from before, and thou shalt not come in there to the land which I gave to the sons 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.
