Judgment Is Passed By Moses And Faithful Israel On Faithless Israel (Deuteronomy 32:31-33).
For their rock is not as our Rock,
Even our enemies themselves being judges.
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
And of the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are grapes of gall,
Their clusters are bitter.
Their wine is the poison of serpents,
And the cruel venom of asps.'
Here there is a brief interlude where the singer, and the author Moses, have their word. The enemy who are being so successful do not have a Rock like Yahweh. Their rock cannot even compare. Yet they trust in it. Thereby do they act as judges of Israel who have turned away from their so great a Rock (compare Deuteronomy 29:24-27).
How ashamed we should be that other people whose hopes are in something transient and passing will often reveal more dedication to it than we do to God. Many a football supporter shows more dedication to his team, than Christians do to Christ.
For Israel's vines and fields have also been destroyed just like those of Sodom and Gomorrah. Their grapes have become wild grapes and taste bitter, their clusters of grapes are inedible. Their very wine, that which should make glad the heart of man, is like poison and venom. And it is because they have forsaken God.
Alternately, and possibly more likely, the thought may more be moral, that these products are the product of sin and corruption like that of Sodom and Gomorrah producing its bitter fruit in them. The picture of a degenerate vine became a regular one among the prophets (e.g. Isaiah 5:2; Jeremiah 2:21; Hosea 10:1; Psalms 80:9).
It should be noted in this regard that throughout the Old Testament it is the moral corruption and ungodliness of the Israelites, and never the vices of the nations, which are compared with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Israelites who were forsaken by Yahweh, were designated by Isaiah as a people of Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:10), and their rulers as rulers of Sodom (compare Isaiah 3:9); the inhabitants of Jerusalem were all of them like Sodom and Gomorrah (Jeremiah 23:14); and the sin of Jerusalem was greater than that of Sodom (Ezekiel 16:46).
Some relate the ideas in Deuteronomy 32:32-33 to the enemies, seeing the mention of Sodom and Gomorrah as signifying that they are the product of corruption, and what follows as a description either of the fact that in spite of their success the fruits of it are bitter and poisonous to them, or refer to their poisonous effect on Israel.