Yahweh Compares Himself With The Gods That They Have Worshipped (Deuteronomy 32:37-40).
“And he will say, Where are their gods,
The rock in which they took refuge,
Which ate the fat of their sacrifices,
Drank the wine of their drink-offering?
Let them rise up and help you,
Let them be your protection.”
But first He will face them up to what these gods in whom they had trusted were like. He asks them, where are they now? They had taken refuge in them, and these gods had been given the fat of their sacrifices as food, and had drunk their drink offerings. Why then did these gods not rise up and help them? Why were they therefore not their protection? If they were able, let them see to their situation, and help them and protect them. So Israel must see that unless they turned from these gods there was no help for them. Deliverance could only be for those who truly sought Him.
Note the sarcastic description. These gods could supposedly eat the fat of the sacrifices and drink the wine of drink offerings. Was it not strange that they could do nothing else?
The point for us is that anything that we trust in other than Christ will finally let us down. There is no one and nothing else which is totally dependable.
“See now that I, even I, am he,
And there is no god with me,
I kill, and make alive; I wound, and heal,
And there is none that can deliver out of my hand.
For I lift up my hand to heaven,
And say, As I live for ever.”
Yahweh provides His own answer to His question about these gods. It is because they are powerless. He alone can do these things. He alone can protect His people. He is the great “I am”, the One Who is, besides Whom no other can compare. He alone has the power of life and death. He alone performs His own will, wounding and healing as He will, with none being able to deliver from His hand. For He raises His hand to heaven with the purpose of making an oath, and can only swear by Himself, for there is none other. Thus He declares, ‘As I live for ever'.
The greeting to great kings was, ‘may the king live for ever'. But Yahweh declares this of Himself, for He, and He alone, is truly the Everlasting One. In the same vein a common oath was, ‘As Yahweh lives', and we may see here Yahweh taking the idea to Himself because there is no other to swear by.
In these verses the greatness of Yahweh is emphasised. He is ‘the One Who is', the only One, with power of life and death, and sickness and health, the One so supreme that there is none greater to swear by than Himself as the living God (compare Isaiah 45:23; Jeremiah 22:5; Hebrews 6:17).