Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 32

52 verses · Law · Old Testament

1Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. 2My doctrine will drop as the rain. My speech will condense as the dew, as the misty rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb. 3For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name. Ascribe greatness to our God! 4The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he. 5They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation. 6Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you. 7Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you. 8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. 9For Yahweh’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 10He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. 11As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers. 12Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him. 13He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock; 14butter from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. From the blood of the grape, you drank wine. 15But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation. 16They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations. 17They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread. 18Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth. 19Yahweh saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. 20He said, “I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness. 21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23“I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. 24They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust. 25Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man. 26I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men; 27were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is exalted, Yahweh has not done all this.’ ”
28For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them. 29Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up? 31For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves concede. 32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter. 33Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.
34“Isn’t this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures? 35Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them.”
36For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone; that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large. 37He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge; 38which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection.
39“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand. 40For I lift up my hand to heaven and declare, as I live forever, 41if I sharpen my glittering sword, my hand grasps it in judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me. 42I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy.”
43Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.

44Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel. 46He said to them, “Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you today, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”

48Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, 49“Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is across from Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession. 50Die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people; 51because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn’t uphold my holiness among the children of Israel. 52For you shall see the land from a distance; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.”

Commentary on this chapter

What others are saying

4 commentators · 79 notes on this chapter

Matthew HenryEnglish Puritan / Nonconformist · 1708–17147

Writes as a pastor rather than a critic. Expect devotional and practical application over historical or linguistic analysis, read through a Reformed covenantal frame — and expect the Old Testament to be read forward toward Christ throughout.

Why this voice is here: The most widely read English commentary for three centuries. Included as a baseline: where Henry and a modern voice diverge, the divergence itself is usually the interesting part.

v. 1–6

Here is, I. A commanding preface or introduction to this song of Moses, Deu 32:1, Deu 32:2. He begins, 1. With a solemn appeal to heaven and earth concerning the truth and importance of what he was about to say, and the justice of the divine proceedings…

v. 7–14

Moses, having in general represented God to them as their great benefactor, whom they were bound in gratitude to observe and obey, in these verses gives particular instances of God's kindness to them and concern for them. 1. Some instances were ancient, and…

v. 15–18

We have here a description of the apostasy of Israel from God, which would shortly come to pass, and to which already they had a disposition. One would have thought that a people under so many obligations to their God, in duty, gratitude, and interest, would…

John GillParticular Baptist / High Calvinist · 1746–176352

The most exhaustive and the most doctrinally committed here. Expect high — even supralapsarian — Calvinism applied consistently, and unusually heavy use of rabbinic and Talmudic sources for Jewish context. Where a passage bears on election or the will, Gill will read it in one direction, and knowing that in advance is the point.

Why this voice is here: The strongest Calvinist reading available in the public domain, and the best on Jewish background. Read alongside Clarke, not instead of him — between them you get both sides of the argument.

v. 1

Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. This song is prefaced and introduced in a very grand and pompous manner, calling on the heavens and earth to give attention; by which they themselves may be meant, by a…

v. 2

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew,.... Which some, as Aben Ezra, take to be a prayer or wish, that the doctrine spoken by him might fall upon men like rain and dew on the earth, penetrate into their hearts, and influence…

v. 3

Because I will publish the name of the Lord,.... Not call on his name, as some, nor call to the heaven and earth in his name, as others, but proclaim his name, even the same that was proclaimed before Moses, Exodus 34:6; and this is to be understood, not of…

Keil & DelitzschGerman Lutheran, conservative-critical · 1861–18753

The technical one, and Old Testament only. Expect Hebrew grammar, textual argument, and direct engagement with nineteenth-century critical scholarship — closer to a scholarly apparatus than a devotional read. Where a modern critic claims a text is late or composite, this is where the conservative counter-argument was made.

Why this voice is here: Old Testament only, and heavy going — but the place to look when someone asserts a passage cannot mean what it appears to.

v. 1–43

The Song of Moses. - In accordance with the object announced in Deu 31:19, this song contrasts the unchangeable fidelity of the Lord with the perversity of His faithless people. After a solemn introduction pointing out the importance of the instruction about…

v. 44–47

In Deu 32:44-47 it is stated that Moses, with Joshua, spake the song to the people; and on finishing this rehearsal, once more impressed upon the hearts of the people the importance of observing all the commandments of God. This account proceeds from the…

v. 48–52

"That self-same day," viz., the day upon which Moses had rehearsed the song to the children of Israel, the Lord renewed the announcement of his death, by repeating the command already given to him (Num 27:12-14) to ascend Mount Nebo, there to survey the land…

Jamieson, Fausset & BrownScottish Presbyterian / Reformed · 187117

The concise option. Three authors split the canon, so the voice shifts between sections. Expect brief, sober, conservative notes that resolve difficulties rather than dwelling on them — useful for orientation, thinner than Gill or Clarke where a passage is genuinely contested.

Why this voice is here: The quickest way to see what the mainstream Reformed reading of a passage is. Start here, then go to Gill or Clarke when it matters.

v. 2–3

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…

v. 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…

v. 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…

World English Bible — Public domain