Deuteronomy 32:1-52 - Arthur Peake's Commentary on the Bible

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Moses'song is a didactic poem, a theodicy in which Yahweh's ways are vindicated. In its sentiments and artistic form it is unsurpassed in the poetry of the OT. Its dominant theme is Yahweh's justice and lovingkindness to Israel notwithstanding the nation's sinfulness. It is impossible to fix the date of this poem with any confidence. But points of contact with Jer., Isaiah 40-55, Ezek., and the Wisdom literature suggest the closing years of the Exile (say 550 B.C.). Moses is certainly not the author, for to the latter the Exodus belongs to his distant past (Deuteronomy 32:7-12), and the Israelites are already in Canaan (Deuteronomy 32:13 f.). The words translated doctrine (Deuteronomy 32:2), abominations (Deuteronomy 32:16), vanities (Deuteronomy 32:21), and many others, together with several expressions, the day of their calamity (Deuteronomy 32:35), as I live (Deuteronomy 32:40, etc.), are common in exilic and post-exilic, but hardly exist in pre-exilic writings (see Driver, p. 348).

Deuteronomy 32:1. heaven. earth: see Isaiah 1:2.

Deuteronomy 32:3. name: Deuteronomy 28:58 *.

Deuteronomy 32:4. Rock: when a name of Yahweh, the LXX almost uniformly translates by God to obviate any suggestion of idolatry (see Cent. B on Psalms 75:5). Render A God faithful and without iniquity.

Deuteronomy 32:5. Read (with Driver, etc.), those not His sons have corrupted their faithfulness to Him, a perverse, etc.

Deuteronomy 32:6. bought: render begotten.

Deuteronomy 32:8. children of men: a Hebraism, meaning men.

Deuteronomy 32:9. Read, But Yahweh's portion is His people Jacob; Israel is the lot which He inherited (i.e. possessed); so essentially LXX.

Deuteronomy 32:10. the apple: lit. the little man; so called because it reflects an onlooker's face; so in Arabic and Assyrian.

Deuteronomy 32:11. For the imagery, see ET, xxvi. pp. 101ff.

Deuteronomy 32:12. strange: better foreign (see Deuteronomy 31:16).

Deuteronomy 32:14. Render, of rams. of goats. Kidney-fat is the richest (Leviticus 3:4; Isaiah 34:6). blood: Genesis 49:11 *.

Deuteronomy 32:15. Prefix the following (found in the LXX, Sam., etc.), Jacob ate and was satisfied, then continue, and Jeshurun waxed fat. Jeshurun: i.e. the upright one, an ideal designation of Israel (Deuteronomy 33:5; Deuteronomy 33:26; Isaiah 44:2, cf. Numbers 23:10 *, Joshua 10:13 mg.).

Deuteronomy 32:17. demons: so LXX daimonia; heathen deities are meant. The Heb. shç d = the Assyrian shidu = any Assyrian deity (see Cent.B on Psalms 106:37).

Deuteronomy 32:20. froward: Heb. perverse (plural of intensity). faith: render faithfulness.

Deuteronomy 32:21. not God: what is no live god. not a people, lit. a not people; i.e. a mere rabble or crowd.

Deuteronomy 32:22. the lowest Sheol (mg.): i.e. the lowest part of Sheol.

Deuteronomy 32:24. burning heat: Heb. the fire bolt, supposed to bring pestilence and death.

Deuteronomy 32:26. Render, I should have said (i.e. to myself) I will scatter (so LXX).

Deuteronomy 32:29. Read, They are not wise, nor do they understand this or consider their latter end (cf. Sam. LXX). This verse continues the description of Deuteronomy 32:28. latter end: the issue of their present conduct (cf. Deuteronomy 32:20).

Deuteronomy 32:31. their rock: i.e. the god of the heathen (Deuteronomy 32:4 *).

Deuteronomy 32:32. vine: Israel is the genuine vine (see Hosea 10:1; Jeremiah 2:21). Sodom and Gomorrah are often types of wickedness (Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 3:9; Jeremiah 23:14; Ezekiel 16:46-49). It is the sin of Israel's foes, not that of Israel, that is referred to in Deuteronomy 32:32 f.

Deuteronomy 32:33. dragons in Old English = serpents. asps: better cobras.

Deuteronomy 32:34. treasures: mg. is better. The sin of Israel's enemies will be stored up (see Job 14:17; Hosea 13:12).

Deuteronomy 32:35. Read (with LXX, Sam.), for the day of vengeance and of recompense, for the time, etc., joining immediately to Deuteronomy 32:34 and continuing the question to slide. Another reading is implied in Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30, where Deuteronomy 32:35 a is quoted.

Deuteronomy 32:36. shut up or left at large: a Hebraism meaning all; cf. 1 Kings 14:10. In the original the words are alliterative: cf. fettered and free.

Deuteronomy 32:40. to lift the hand: in Arabic and Heb. means to make an oath appealing to deity (Genesis 14:22). As I live: Yahweh swears by Himself (see Genesis 22:16, and cf. Hebrews 6:13-18).

Deuteronomy 32:42. The blood is that which oozes from the head: render as RV.

Deuteronomy 32:43. Render, Sing joyously of this people, O ye nations (i.e. the heathen).

Deuteronomy 32:44. Hoshea read (with VSS) Joshua: cf. Deuteronomy 31:19.

Deuteronomy 32:45-47. Moses-' last words commending the song.

Deuteronomy 32:46. law: read (with Staerk, Steuernagel and Bertholet), song. If the MT is retained this section attaches immediately to Deuteronomy 31:29, the intervening verses being an interpolation.

Deuteronomy 32:48-52. See Numbers 27:12-14 (P), on which it seems based.

Related Commentaries of Deuteronomy 32:1

Deuteronomy 32:1-52

1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of manya generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.

9 For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lotb of his inheritance.

10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.

17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorredc them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.

21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burnd unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat,e and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

25 The sword without, and terror within,f shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this.

28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?

31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

32 For their vine is of the vineg of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:

33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their powerh is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.

41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

43 Rejoice,i O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

44 And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hosheaj the son of Nun.

45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:

46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.

47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

48 And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,

49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:

50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:

51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.

52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.