Deuteronomy 32 The Song of Moses
1-5 Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you. Attention, Earth, I’ve got a mouth full of words.
My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain, my words arrive like morning dew, like a sprinkling rain on new grass, like spring showers on the garden. For it’s God’s Name I’m preaching—respond to the greatness of our God! The Rock: His works are perfect, and the way he works is fair and just; a God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God. His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children, throw mud at him but none of it sticks.
6-7 Don’t you realize it is God you are treating like this? This is crazy; don’t you have any sense of reverence? Isn’t this your father who created you, who made you and gave you a place on Earth? Read up on what happened before you were born; dig into the past, understand your roots. Ask your parents what it was like before you were born; ask the old-ones, they’ll tell you a thing or two.
8-9 When the High God gave the nations their stake, gave them their place on Earth, He put each of the peoples within boundaries under the care of divine guardians. But God himself took charge of his people, took Jacob on as his personal concern.
10-14 He found him out in the wilderness, in an empty, windswept wasteland. He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him, guarding him as the apple (the pupil) of his eye. He was like an eagle hovering over its nest, overshadowing its young, then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly. God alone led him; there was not a foreign god in sight. God lifted him onto the hilltops, so he could feast on the crops in the fields. He fed him honey from the rock, oil from granite crags, curds of cattle and the milk of sheep, the choice cuts of lambs and goats, fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat, and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!”
In this song, God reminds the Israelites that they began with virtually nothing and He has been the One who has prospered them and protected them. God has pampered the Israelites, even though they don’t realize it.
15-18 “Jeshurun put on weight and bucked; you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard. He abandoned the God who made him, he mocked the Rock of his salvation. They made him jealous with their foreign trendy gods, and with obscenities they vexed him no end. They sacrificed to no-god demons, gods they knew nothing about, the latest in gods, fresh from the market, gods your ancestors would never call “gods.” You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life, forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.”
God knows that once the Israelites enter the Promised Land, many will immediately abandon His worship to follow demons instead. After all, the One True Living God doesn’t want His people making any images of Him; meanwhile, the idolaters have all kinds of little gods they can carry with them, so they can make ritual sacrifices, hopefully to get what they want without giving up any bad behavior. Those who worship idols feel that they can control the idol. The One True Living God, the Creator of the Universe, is all-powerful and cannot be controlled or manipulated but only worshiped, adored, and obeyed. What’s the fun in obedience?
19-25 God saw it and spun around, angered and hurt by his sons and daughters. He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way. Wait and see what happens to them. Oh, they’re a turned-around, upside-down generation! Who knows what they’ll do from one moment to the next? They’ve goaded me with their no-gods, infuriated me with their hot-air gods; I’m going to goad them with a no-people, with a hollow nation incense them. My anger started a fire,
a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol, then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops, setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire. I’ll pile catastrophes on them, I’ll shoot my arrows at them: Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease; I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest and venomous creatures to strike from the dust. Killing in the streets, terror in the houses, young men and virgins alike struck down, and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”
These verses are half of the Song of Moses, but where is this song coming from and why is it so negative? God has commanded Moses to teach this song to the Israelites as a witness against them. In turn, the Israelites are supposed to teach succeeding generations so that when they mess up and wind up in exile, they cannot blame God for not having warned them. You might ask, “What loving parent would do such a thing?” But you would be wrong, for subsequently, God will send generation upon generation of prophets to both the Northern and Southern Kingdom to warn them and to beg them to turn back to Him. God knows the end from the beginning, and God knows that even while the huge group of Israelites are standing there, allegedly making covenant, many in the crowd are faking it. After all, those Canaanite fertility rites look pretty enticing. Surely God doesn’t REALLY know human hearts….does He?
Tragically, God knows exactly what is in the hearts of each one of those listening to Moses. God knows those who will faithfully teach this song to their children and grandchildren and succeeding generations. God knows that some of those families will remain faithful to Him throughout exile in Babylon, return to Israel, and subsequent wanderings throughout the world. God knows that the descendants of the righteous will still be repeating the Shemaa as they march to the gas chambers at Auschwitz or flee to America or Israel after World War II. God knows those who remain faithful throughout the course of time. God also knows those who will totally ignore Him, assuming that they can coast along on the obedience of others in a kind of spiritual herd immunity, although that expression does not exist at the time of Moses.
What is herd immunity? Herd immunity is defined as “resistance to the spread of an infectious disease within a population that is based on pre-existing immunity of a high proportion of individuals as a result of previous infection or vaccination: “the level of vaccination needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease but ranges from 83 to 94 percent.”
Throughout the world, there are many who refuse to follow God and to obey Him themselves but who hope that others in their country will do so. These same people also hope that the virtuous actions of others will preserve their country so that they can continue to pursue their own selfish interests. But these individuals fail to understand the Laws of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus told his disciples, “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Luke 6:38) Later on, Saint Paul will tell the Galatians, “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7)
You might read the Song of Moses and think, “Well, that was merely for the Israelites.” WRONG!!! ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!!! Please read Luke 6:38 and Galatians 6:7 again. God is eternal and does not change. In Numbers 23:19, God tells the pagan prophet Balaam, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
The lessons from the Song of Moses are just as much for us today as they were for the ancient Israelites. Follow God and live long and blessed lives, even if you must suffer those things common to the human condition. Refuse to follow God and suffer the consequences. Choose wisely.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and caring for us. Lord, You know our hearts. Help us to follow hard after You all the days of our lives. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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