Deuteronomy — Capítulo 32

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 to be given (Deu 32:1-3), this thought is placed in the foreground as the theme of the whole: the Lord is blameless and righteous in His doings, but Israel acts corruptly and perversely; and this is carried out in the first place by showing the folly of the Israelites in rebelling against the Lord (Deu 32:6-18); secondly, by unfolding the purpose of God to reject and punish the rebellious generation (Deu 32:19-23); and lastly, by announcing and depicting the fulfilment of this purpose, and the judgment in which the Lord would have mercy upon His servants and annihilate His foes (Deu 32:34-43). The song embraces the whole of the future history of Israel, and bears all the marks of a prophetic testimony from the mouth of Moses, in the perfectly ideal picture which it draws, on the one hand, of the benefits and blessings conferred by the Lord upon His people; and on the other hand, of the ingratitude with which Israel repaid its God for them all. "This song, soaring as it does to the loftiest heights, moving amidst the richest abundance of pictures of both present and future, with its concise, compressed, and pictorial style, rough, penetrating, and sharp, but full of the holiest solemnity, a witness against the disobedient nation, a celebration of the covenant God, sets before us in miniature a picture of the whole life and conduct of the great man of God, whose office it pre-eminently was to preach condemnation" (O. v. Gerlach). - It is true that the persons addressed in this ode are not the contemporaries of Moses, but the Israelites in Canaan, when they had grown haughty in the midst of the rich abundance of its blessings, and had fallen away from the Lord, so that the times when God led the people through the wilderness to Canaan are represented as days long past away. But this, the stand-point of the ode, is not to be identified with the poet's own time. It is rather a prophetic anticipation of the future, which has an analogon in a poet's absorption in an ideal future, and differs from this merely in the certainty and distinctness with which the future is foreseen and proclaimed. The assertion that the entire ode moves within the epoch of the kings who lived many centuries after the time of Moses, rests upon a total misapprehension of the nature of prophecy, and a mistaken attempt to turn figurative language into prosaic history. In the whole of the song there is not a single word to indicate that the persons addressed were "already sighing under the oppression of a wild and hostile people, the barbarous hordes of Assyrians or Chaldeans" (Ewald, Kamphausen, etc.). (Note: How little firm ground there is for this assertion in the contents of the ode, is indirectly admitted even by Kamphausen himself in the following remarks: "The words of the ode leave us quite in the dark as to the author;" and "if it were really certain that Deuteronomy was composed by Moses himself, the question as to the authenticity of the ode would naturally be decided in the traditional way." Consequently, the solution of the whole is to be found in the dictum, that "the circumstances which are assumed in any prophecy as already existing, and to which the prophetic utterances are appended as to something well known (?), really determine the time of the prophet himself;" and, according to this canon, which is held up as "certain and infallible," but which is really thoroughly uncritical, and founded upon the purely dogmatic assumption that any actual foreknowledge of the future is impossible, the ode before us is to be assigned to a date somewhere about 700 years before Christ.) The Lord had indeed determined to reject the idolatrous nation, and excite it to jealousy through those that were "no people," and to heap up all evils upon it, famine, pestilence, and sword; but the execution of this purpose had not yet taken place, and, although absolutely certain, was in the future still. Moreover, the benefits which God had conferred upon His people, were not of such a character as to render it impossible that they should have been alluded to by Moses. All that the Lord had done for Israel, by delivering it from bondage and guiding it miraculously through the wilderness, had been already witnessed by Moses himself; and the description in Deu 32:13 and Deu 32:14, which goes beyond that time, is in reality nothing more than a pictorial expansion of the thought that Israel was most bountifully provided with the richest productions of the land of Canaan, which flowed with milk and honey. It is true, the satisfaction of Israel with these blessings had not actually taken place in the time of Moses, but was still only an object of hope; but it was hope of such a kind, that Moses could not cherish a moment's doubt concerning it. Throughout the whole we find no allusions to peculiar circumstances or historical events belonging to a later age. - On the other hand, the whole circle of ideas, figures, and words in the ode points decidedly to Moses as the author. Even if we leave out of sight the number of peculiarities of style (ἅπ. λεγόμενα), which is by no means inconsiderable, and such bold original composite words as לא־אל (not-God, Deu 32:21; cf. Deu 32:17) and לא־עם (not-people, Deu 32:21), which might point to a very remote antiquity, and furnish evidence of the vigour of the earliest poetry, - the figure of the eagle in Deu 32:11 points back to Exo 19:4; the description of God as a rock in Deu 32:4, Deu 32:15, Deu 32:18, Deu 32:30, Deu 32:31, Deu 32:37, recalls Gen 49:24; the fire of the wrath of God, burning even to the world beneath (Deu 32:22), points to the representation of God in Deu 4:24 as a consuming fire; the expression "to move to jealousy," in Deu 32:16 and Deu 32:21, recalls the "jealous God" in Deu 4:24; Deu 6:15; Exo 20:5; Exo 34:14; the description of Israel as children (sons) in Deu 32:5, and "children without faithfulness" in Deu 32:20, suggests Deu 14:1; and the words, "O that they were wise," in Deu 32:29, recall Deu 4:6, "a wise people." Again, it is only in the Pentateuch that the word גּדל (greatness, Deu 32:3) is used to denote the greatness of God (vid., Deu 3:24; Deu 5:21; Deu 9:26; Deu 11:2; Num 14:19); the name of honour given to Israel in Deu 32:15, viz., Jeshurun, only occurs again in Deu 33:5 and Deu 33:26, with the exception of Isa 44:2, where it is borrowed from these passages; and the plural form ימות, in Deu 32:7, is only met with again in the prayer of Moses, viz., Psa 90:15. Deu 32:1-5 "Introduction and Theme. - in the introduction (Deu 32:1-3), - "Give ear, O ye heavens, I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. Let my doctrine drop as the rain, let my speech fall as the dew; as showers upon green, and rain-drops upon herb, for I will publish the name of the Lord; give ye greatness to our God," - Moses summons heaven and earth to hearken to his words, because the instruction which he was about to proclaim concerned both heaven and earth, i.e., the whole universe. It did so, however, not merely as treating of the honour of its Creator, which was disregarded by the murmuring people (Kamphausen), or to justify God, as the witness of the righteousness of His doings, in opposition to the faithless nation, when He punished it for its apostasy (just as in Deu 4:26; Deu 30:19; Deu 31:28-29, heaven and earth are appealed to as witnesses against rebellious Israel), but also inasmuch as heaven and earth would be affected by the judgment which God poured out upon faithless Israel and the nations, to avenge the blood of His servants (Deu 32:43); since the faithfulness and righteousness of God would thus become manifest in heaven and on earth, and the universe be sanctified and glorified thereby. The vav consec. before אדבּרה expresses the desired or intended sequel: so that I may then speak, or "so will I then speak" (vid., Khler on Hagg. p. 44, note). Deu 32:2-3 But because what was about to be announced was of such importance throughout, he desired that the words should trickle down like rain and dew upon grass and herb. The point of comparison lies in the refreshing, fertilizing, and enlivening power of the dew and rain. Might the song exert the same upon the hearts of the hearers. לקח, accepting, then, in a passive sense, that which is accepted, instruction (doctrine, Pro 16:21, Pro 16:23; Isa 29:24). To "publish the name of the Lord:" lit., call, i.e., proclaim (not "call upon"), or praise. It was not by himself alone that Moses desired to praise the name of the Lord; the hearers of his song were also to join in this praise. The second clause requires this: "give ye (i.e., ascribe by word and conduct) greatness to our God." גּדל, applied here to God (as in Deu 3:24; Deu 5:21; Deu 9:26; Deu 11:2), which is only repeated again in Psa 150:2, is the greatness manifested by God in His acts of omnipotence; it is similar in meaning to the term "glory" in Psa 29:1-2; Psa 96:7-8. Deu 32:4-5 "The Rock - blameless is His work; for all His ways are right: a God of faithfulness, and without injustice; just and righteous is He. Corruptly acts towards Him, not His children; their spot, a perverse and crooked generation." הצּוּר is placed first absolutely, to give it the greater prominence. God is called "the rock," as the unchangeable refuge, who grants a firm defence and secure resort to His people, by virtue of His unchangeableness or impregnable firmness (see the synonym, "the Stone of Israel," in Gen 49:24). This epithet points to the Mosaic age; and this is clearly shown by the use made of this title of God (Zur) in the construction of surnames in the Mosaic era; such, for example, as Pedahzur (Num 1:10), which is equivalent to Pedahel ("God-redeemed," Num 34:28), Elizur (Num 1:5), Zuriel (Num 3:35), and Zurishaddai (Num 1:6; Num 2:12). David, who had so often experienced the rock-like protection of his God, adopted it in his Psalms (Sa2 22:3, Sa2 22:32 = Psa 18:3, Psa 18:32; also Ps. 19:15; Psa 31:3-4; Psa 71:3). Perfect (i.e., blameless, without fault or blemish) is His work; for His ways, which He adopts in His government of the world, are right. As the rock, He is "a God of faithfulness," upon which men may rely and build in all the storms of life, and "without iniquity," i.e., anything crooked or false in His nature. Deu 32:5 His people Israel, on the contrary, had acted corruptly towards Him. The subject of "acted corruptly" is the rebellious generation of the people but before this subject there is introduced parenthetically, and in apposition, "not his children, but their spot." Spot (mum) is used here in a moral sense, as in Pro 9:7; Job 11:15; Job 31:7, equivalent to stain. The rebellious and ungodly were not children of the Lord, but a stain upon them. If these words had stood after the actual subject, instead of before them, they would have presented no difficulty. This verse is the original of the expression, "children that are corrupters," in Isa 1:4. Deu 32:6-18 Expansion of the theme according to the thought expressed in Deu 32:5. The perversity of the rebellious generation manifested itself in the fact, that it repaid the Lord, to whom it owed existence and well-being, for all His benefits, with a foolish apostasy from its Creator and Father. This thought is expressed in Deu 32:6, in a reproachful question addressed to the people, and then supported in Deu 32:7-14 by an enumeration of the benefits conferred by God, and in Deu 32:15-18 by a description of the ingratitude of the people. Deu 32:6 "Will ye thus repay the Lord? thou foolish people and unwise! Is He not thy Father, who hath founded thee, who hath made thee and prepared thee?" גּמל, the primary idea of which is doubtful, signifies properly to show, or do, for the most part good, but sometimes evil (vid., Psa 7:5). For the purpose of painting the folly of their apostasy distinctly before the eyes of the people, Moses crowds words together to describe what God was to the nation - "thy Father," to whose love Israel was indebted for its elevation into an independent people: comp. Isa 63:16, where Father and Redeemer are synonymous terms, with Isa 64:7, God the Father, Israel the clay which He had formed, and Mal 2:10, where God as Father is said to have created Israel; see also the remarks at Deu 14:1 on the notion of Israel's sonship. - קונך, He has acquired thee; קנה, κτᾶσθαι, to get, acquire (Gen 4:1), then so as to involve the idea of κτίζειν (Gen 14:9), though without being identical with בּרא. It denotes here the founding of Israel as a nation, by its deliverance out of the power of Pharaoh. The verbs which follow (made and established) refer to the elevation and preparation of the redeemed nation, as the nation of the Lord, by the conclusion of a covenant, the giving of the law, and their guidance through the desert. Deu 32:7 "Remember the days of old, consider the years of the past generations: ask thy father, that he may make known to thee; thine old men, that they may tell it to thee!" With these words Moses summons the people to reflect upon what the Lord had done to them. The days of old (עולם), and years of generation and generation, i.e., years through which one generation after another had lived, are the times of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, including the pre-Mosaic times, and also the immediate post-Mosaic, when Israel had entered into the possession of Canaan. These times are described by Moses as a far distant past, because he transported himself in spirit to the "latter days" (Deu 31:29), when the nation would have fallen away from its God, and would have been forsaken and punished by God in consequence. "Days of eternity" are times which lie an eternity behind the speaker, not necessarily, however, before all time, but simply at a period very far removed from the present, and of which even the fathers and old men could only relate what had been handed down by tradition to them. Deu 32:8-9 "When the Most High portioned out inheritance to the nations, when He divided the children of men; He fixed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel: for the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob the cord of His inheritance." Moses commences his enumeration of the manifestations of divine mercy with the thought, that from the very commencement of the forming of nations God had cared for His people Israel. The meaning of Deu 32:8 is given in general correctly by Calvin: "In the whole arrangement of the world God had kept this before Him as the end: to consult the interests of His chosen people." The words, "when the Most High portioned out inheritance to the nations," etc., are not to be restricted to the one fact of the confusion of tongues and division of the nations as described in Gen 11, but embrace the whole period of the development of the one human family in separate tribes and nations, together with their settlement in different lands; for it is no doctrine of the Israelitish legend, as Kamphausen supposes, that the division of the nations was completed once for all. The book of Genesis simply teaches, that after the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babel, God scattered men over the entire surface of the earth (Deu 11:9), and that the nations were divided, i.e., separate nations were formed from the families of the sons of Noah (Gen 10:32); that is to say, the nations were formed in the divinely-appointed way of generation and multiplication, and so spread over the earth. And the Scriptures say nothing about a division of the countries among the different nations at one particular time; they simply show, that, like the formation of the nations from families and tribes, the possession of the lands by the nations so formed was to be traced to God, - was the work of divine providence and government, - whereby God so determined the boundaries of the nations ("the nations" are neither the tribes of Israel, nor simply the nations round about Canaan, but the nations generally), that Israel might receive as its inheritance a land proportioned to its numbers. (Note: The Septuagint rendering, "according to the number of the angels of God," is of no critical value, - in fact, is nothing more than an arbitrary interpretation founded upon the later Jewish notion of guardian angels of the different nations (Sir. 17:14), which probably originated in a misunderstanding of Deu 4:19, as compared with Dan 10:13, Dan 10:20-21, and Dan 12:1.) Deu 32:9 God did this, because He had chosen Israel as His own nation, even before it came into existence. As the Lord's people of possession (cf. Deu 7:6; Deu 10:15, and Exo 19:5), Israel was Jehovah's portion, and the inheritance assigned to Him. חבל, a cord, or measure, then a piece of land measured off; here it is figuratively applied to the nation. Deu 32:10-14 He had manifested His fatherly care and love to Israel as His own property. Deu 4:10 "He found him in the land of the desert, and in the wilderness, the howling of the steppe; He surrounded him, took care of him, protected him as the apple of His eye." These words do not "relate more especially to the conclusion of the covenant at Sinai" (Luther), nor merely to all the proofs of the paternal care with which God visited His people in the desert, to lead them to Sinai, there to adopt them as His covenant nation, and then to guide them to Canaan, to the exclusion of their deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. The reason why Moses does not mention this fact, or the passage through the Red Sea, is not to be sought for, either solely or even in part, in the fact that "the song does not rest upon the stand-point of the Mosaic times;" for we may see clearly that distance of time would furnish no adequate ground for "singling out and elaborating certain points only from the renowned stories of old," say from the 105th Psalm, which no one would think of pronouncing an earlier production than this song. Nor is it because the gracious help of God, which the people experienced up to the time of the exodus from Egypt, was inferior in importance to the divine care exercised over it during the march through the desert (a fact which would need to be proved), or because the solemn conclusion of the covenant, whereby Israel first because the people of God, took place during the sojourn at Sinai, that Moses speaks of God as finding the people in the desert and adopting them there; but simply because it was not his intention to give a historical account of the acts performed by God upon and towards Israel, but to describe how Israel was in the most helpless condition when the Lord had compassion upon it, to take it out of that most miserable state in which it must have perished, and bring it into the possession of the richly-blessed land of Canaan. The whole description of what the Lord did for Israel (Deu 32:10-14) is figurative; Israel is represented as a man in the horrible desert, and in danger of perishing in the desolate waste, where not only bread and water had failed, but where ravenous beasts lay howling in wait for human life, when the Lord took him up and delivered him out of all distress. The expression "found him" is also to be explained from this figure. Finding presupposes seeking, and in the seeking the love which goes in search of the loved on is manifested. Also the expression "land of the desert" - a land which is a desert, without the article defining the desert more precisely - shows that the reference is not to the finding of Israel in the desert of Arabia, and that these words are not to be understood as relating to the fact, that when His people entered the desert the Lord appeared to them in the pillar of cloud and fire (Exo 13:20, Schultz). For although the figure of the desert is chosen, because in reality the Lord had led Israel through the Arabian desert to Canaan, we must not so overlook the figurative character of the whole description as to refer the expression "in a desert land" directly and exclusively to the desert of Arabia. The measures adopted by the Pharaohs, the object of which was the extermination or complete suppression of Israel, made even Egypt a land of desert to the Israelites, where they would inevitably have perished if the Lord had not sought, found, and surrounded them there. To depict still further the helpless and irremediable situation of Israel, the idea of the desert is heightened still further by the addition of וגו וּבתהוּ, "and in fact (ו is explanatory) in a waste," or wilderness (tohu recalls Gen 1:2). "Howling of the desert" is in apposition to tohu (waste), and not a genitive dependent upon it, viz., "waste of the howling of the desert, or of the desert in which wild beasts howl" (Ewald), as if ילל stood after ישׁימן. "Howling of the desert" does not mean the desert in which wild beasts howl, but the howling which is heard in the desert of wild beasts. The meaning of the passage, therefore, is "in the midst of the howling of the wild beasts of the desert." This clause serves to strengthen the idea of tohu (waste), and describes the waste as a place of the most horrible howling of wild beasts. It was in this situation that the Lord surrounded His people. סובב, to surround with love and care, not merely to protect (vid., Psa 26:6; Jer 31:22). בּונן, from בּין or הבין, to pay attention, in the sense of "not to lose sight of them." "To keep as the apple of the eye" is a figurative description of the tenderest care. The apple of the eye is most carefully preserved (vid., Psa 17:8; Pro 7:2). Deu 32:11 "As an eagle, which stirreth up its nest and soars over its young, He spread out His wings, took him up, carried him upon His wings." Under the figure of an eagle, which teaches its young to fly, and in doing so protects them from injury with watchful affection, Moses describes the care with which the Lord came to the relief of His people in their helplessness, and assisted them to develop their strength. This figure no doubt refers more especially to the protection and assistance of God experienced by Israel in its journey through the Arabian desert; but it must not be restricted to this. It embraces both the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt by the outstretched arm of the Lord, as we may see from a comparison with Exo 19:4, where the Lord is said to have brought His people out of Egypt upon eagles' wings, and also the introduction into Canaan, when the Lord drove the Canaanites out from before them and destroyed them. This verse contains an independent thought; the first half is the protasis, the second the apodosis. The nominative to "spreadeth abroad" is Jehovah; and the suffixes in יקּחהוּ and ישּׂאהוּ ("taketh" and "beareth") refer to Israel or Jacob (Deu 32:9), like the suffixes in Deu 32:10. As כּ cannot open a sentence like כּאשׁר, we must supply the relative אשׁר after נשׁר. קנּו העיר, to waken up, rouse up its nest, i.e., to encourage the young ones to fly. It is rendered correctly by the Vulgate, provocans ad volandum pullos suos; and freely by Luther, "bringeth out its young." "Soareth over its young:" namely, in order that, when they were attempting to fly, if any were in danger of falling through exhaustion, it might take them at once upon its powerful wings, and preserve them from harm. Examples of this, according to the popular belief, are given by Bochart (Hieroz. ii. p. 762). רחף, from רחף to be loose or slack (Jer 23:9): in the Piel it is applied to a bird in the sense of loosening its wings, as distinguished from binding its wings to its body; hence (1) to sit upon eggs with loosened wings, and (2) to fly with loosened wings. Here it is used in the latter sense, because the young are referred to. The point of comparison between the conduct of God towards Jacob and the acts of an eagle towards its young, is the loving care with which He trained Israel to independence. The carrying of Israel upon the eagle's wings of divine love and omnipotence was manifested in the most glorious way in the guidance of it by the pillar of cloud and fire, though it was not so exclusively in this visible vehicle of the gracious presence of God as that the comparison can be restricted to this phenomenon alone. Luther's interpretation is more correct than this - "Moses points out in these words, how He fostered them in the desert, bore with their manners, tried them and blessed them that they might learn to fly, i.e., to trust in Him," - except that the explanation of the expression "to fly" is narrowed too much. Deu 32:12-14 "The Lord alone did lead him, and with Him was no strange god. He made him drive over the high places of the earth, and eat the productions of the field; and made him suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flint-stone. Cream of cattle, and milk of the flock, with the fat of lambs, and rams of Bashan's kind, and bucks, with the kidney-fat of wheat: and grape-blood thou drankest as fiery wine." Moses gives prominence to the fact that Jehovah alone conducted Israel, to deprive the people of every excuse for their apostasy from the Lord, and put their ingratitude in all the stronger light. If no other god stood by the Lord to help Him, He had thereby laid Israel under the obligation to serve Him alone as its God. "With Him" refers to Jehovah, and not to Israel. Deu 32:13-14 The Lord caused the Israelites to take possession of Canaan with victorious power, and enter upon the enjoyment of its abundant blessings. The phrase, "to cause to drive over the high places of the earth," is a figurative expression for the victorious subjugation of a land; it is not taken from Psa 18:34, as Ewald assumes, but is original both here and in Deu 33:29. "Drive" (ride) is only a more majestic expression for "advance." The reference to this passage in Isa 58:14 is unmistakeable. Whoever has obtained possession of the high places of a country is lord of the land. The "high places of the earth" do not mean the high places of Canaan only, although the expression in this instance relates to the possession of Canaan. "And he (Jacob) ate:" for, so that he could now eat, the productions of the field, and in fact all the riches of the fruitful land, which are then described in superabundant terms. Honey out of the rock and oil out of the flint-stone, i.e., the most valuable productions out of the most unproductive places, since God so blessed the land that even the rocks and stones were productive. The figure is derived from the fact that Canaan abounds in wild bees, which make their hives in clefts of the rock, and in olive-trees which grow in a rocky soil. "Rock-flints," i.e., rocky flints. The nouns in Deu 32:14 are dependent upon "to suck" in Deu 32:13, as the expression is not used literally. "Things which are sweet and pleasant to eat, people are in the habit of sucking" (Ges. thes. p. 601). חמאה and חלב (though הלב seems to require a form חלב; vid., Ewald, 213, b.) denotes the two forms in which the milk yielded by the cattle was used; the latter, milk in general, and the former thick curdled milk, cream, and possibly also butter. The two are divided poetically here, and the cream being assigned to the cattle, and the milk to the sheep and goats. "The fat of lambs," i.e., "lambs of the best description laden with fat" (Vitringa). Fat is a figurative expression for the best (vid., Num 18:12). "And rams:" grammatically, no doubt, this might also be connected with "the fat," but it is improbable from a poetical point of view, since the enumeration would thereby drag prosaically; and it is also hardly reconcilable with the apposition בשׁן בּני, i.e., reared in Bashan (vid., Eze 39:18), which implies that Bashan was celebrated for its rams, and not merely for its oxen. This epithet, which Kamphausen renders "of Bashan's kind," is unquestionably used for the best description of rams. The list becomes poetical, if we take "rams" as an accusative governed by the verb "to suck" (Deu 32:13). "Kidney-fat (i.e., the best fat) of wheat," the finest and most nutritious wheat. Wine is mentioned last, and in this case the list passes with poetic freedom into the form of an address. "Grape-blood" for red wine (as in Gen 49:11). חמר, from חמר to ferment, froth, foam, lit., the foaming, i.e., fiery wine, serves as a more precise definition of the "blood of the grape." Deu 32:15-18 Israel had repaid its God for all these benefits by a base apostasy. - Deu 32:15. "But Righteous-nation became fat, and struck out - thou becamest fat, thick, gross - and let go God who made him, and despised the rock of his salvation." So much is certain concerning Jeshurun, that it was an honourable surname given to Israel; that it is derived from ישׁר, and describes Israel as a nation of just or right men (a similar description to that given by Balaam in Num 23:10), because Jehovah, who is just and right (Deu 32:4), had called it to uprightness, to walk in His righteousness, and chosen it as His servant (Isa 44:2). The prevalent opinion, that Jeshurun is a diminutive, and signifies rectalus, or "little pious" (Ges. and others), has no more foundation than the derivation from Israel, and the explanation, "little Israel," since there is no philological proof that the termination un ever had a diminutive signification in Hebrew (see Hengstenberg, Balaam, p. 415); and an appellatio blanda et charitativa is by no means suitable to this passage, much less to Deu 33:5. The epithet Righteous-nation, as we may render Jeshurun, was intended to remind Israel of its calling, and involved the serverest reproof of its apostasy. "By placing the name of righteous before Israel, he censured ironically those who had fallen away from righteousness; and by thus reminding them with what dignity they had been endowed, he upbraided them with the more severity for their guilt of perfidy. For in other places (sc., Deu 33:5, Deu 33:26) Israel is honoured with an eulogium of the same kind, without any such sinister meaning, but with simple regard to its calling; whilst here Moses shows reproachfully how far they had departed from that pursuit of piety, to the cultivation of which they had been called" (Calvin). The words, "became fat, and struck out," are founded upon the figure of an ox that had become fat, and intractable in consequence (vid., Isa 10:27; Hos 4:16; and for the fact itself, Deu 6:11; Deu 8:10; Deu 31:20). To sharpen this reproof, Moses repeats the thought in the form of a direct address to the people: "Thou hast become fat, stout, gross." Becoming fat led to forsaking God, the Creator and ground of its salvation. "A full stomach does not promote piety, for it stands secure, and neglects God" (Luther). נבּל is no doubt a denom. verb from נבל, lit., to treat as a fool, i.e., to despise (vid., Micah. Deu 7:6). Deu 32:16-18 "They excited His jealousy through strange (gods), they provoked Him by abominations. They sacrificed to devils, which (were) not-God; to gods whom they knew not, to new (ones) that had lately come up, whom your fathers feared not. The rock which begat thee thou forsookest, and hast forgotten the God that bare thee." These three verses are only a further expansion of Deu 32:15. Forsaking the rock of its salvation, Israel gave itself up to the service of worthless idols. The expression "excite to jealousy" is founded upon the figure of a marriage covenant, under which the relation of the Lord to Israel is represented (vid., Deu 31:16, and the com. on Exo 34:15). "This jealousy rests upon the sacred and spiritual marriage tie, by which God had bound the people to Himself" (Calvin). "Strange gods," with which Israel committed adultery, as in Jer 2:25; Jer 3:13. The idols are called "abominations" because Jehovah abhorred them (Deu 7:25; Deu 27:15; cf. Kg2 23:13). שׁדים signifies demons in Syriac, as it has been rendered by the lxx and Vulgate here; lit., lords, like Baalim. It is also used in Psa 106:37. - "Not-God," a composite noun, in apposition to Shedim (devils), like the other expressions which follow: "gods whom they knew not," i.e., who had not made themselves known to them as gods by any benefit or blessing (vid., Deu 11:28); "new (ones), who had come from near," i.e., had but lately risen up and been adopted by the Israelites. "Near," not in a local but in a temporal sense, in contrast to Jehovah, who had manifested and attested Himself as God from of old (Deu 32:7). שׂער, to shudder, construed here with an acc

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 author of the supplement to the Thorah of Moses, who inserted the song in the book of the law. This explains the name Hoshea, instead of Jehoshuah (Joshua), which Moses had given to his servant (Num 13:8, Num 13:16), and invariably uses (compare Deu 31:3, Deu 31:7, Deu 31:14, Deu 31:23, with Deu 1:38; Deu 3:21, Deu 3:28, and the exposition of Num 13:16). - On Deu 32:46, vid., Deu 6:7 and Deu 11:19; and on Deu 32:47, vid., Deu 30:20.

"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 of Canaan, and then to be gathered unto his people. In form, this repetition differs from the previous announcement, partly in the fact that the situation of Mount Nebo is more fully described (in the land of Moab, etc., as in Deu 1:5; Deu 29:1), and partly in the continual use of the imperative, and a few other trifling points. These differences may all be explained from the fact that the account here was not written by Moses himself.