Deuteronomy 31

De. 31 1 AND Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, 2 I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: and the 3 LORD hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee; he will destroy these nations from before thee, and thou shalt possess 4 them: and Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath spoken. And the LORD shall do unto them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and unto their 5 land; whom he destroyed. And the LORD shall deliver them up before you, and ye shall do 6 unto them according unto all the commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be affrighted at them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that 7 doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. And Moses called unto Joshua, and said unto him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt go with this people into the land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; 8 and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. 9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare 10 the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded 11 them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place 12 which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Assemble the people, the men and the women and the little ones, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe 13 to do all the words of this law; and that their children, which have not known, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. 14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die: call Joshua, and present yourselves in the tent of meeting, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and 15 Joshua went, and presented themselves in the tent of meeting. And the LORD appeared in 16 the Tent in a pillar of cloud: and the pillar of cloud stood over the door of the Tent. And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the strange gods of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come upon them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us? And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evil which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods. Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxen fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant. And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they go about, even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore. (So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.) And he gave Joshua the son of Nun a charge, and said, Be strong and of a good courage: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I swore unto them: and I will be with thee 24 And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee. For I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against the LORD; and how much more after my death? Assemble unto me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them. For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do that which is evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.

In this chapter the grand old man, with a touching allusion to his infirmities and approaching death, in the presence of the people impressively passes over into the hands of his successor his great trust, and at the same time delivers with suitable instructions to the priests a copy of what he calls “this Law.” Up to this point what could be more obvious than a complete oneness of design and representation throughout the Book of Deuteronomy? The beginning (1:3, 5) looks forward to the end; and the end while taking up the very epithets and phrases of the beginning carries on its thought to the only possible climax. It is, in short, the unity of nature, of inward logical dependence and sequence, and no uniformity forced upon it from without. To this unity the two following chapters containing Moses’s song and Moses’s blessing makes certainly no interruption. They rather grow out of the circumstances that go before, as the flower from its bud. They are strictly Deuteronomic in the best sense of the word and fittingly crown the work; and both are documentarily claimed as utterances of Moses just prior to his climbing of Nebo on his way to the better Canaan. E. C. B. “God buries his ministers, but he carries on his work.” Hence Moses first addresses all the people; then he turns to Joshua, confirming him as the future leader (verses 7, 8); and finally to the priests, who are to be henceforth the custodians and guardians of the holy Law. Having thus handed over the leadership of an army, and the conservation of a faith, Moses has little else to do but to go up and die. C. C. —Had Moses lived longer, he could never have been greater than he is. He might have seemed less. Joshua must increase, he must decrease. Fifty, therefore, is he removed before the decline of his influence begins. The great thing is to have done one’s work—to have fulfilled the ends for which life was given. That done, removal is in no case a loss, and in most cases a boon in disguise. Orr.

Encouraging Assurances to the People (verses 3-6).

Though Moses was no longer to be their leader, he assures them that the Lord would fulfil his engagement to conduct them to the possession of Canaan, even as he had already given them the territory of the kings of the Amorites; and he therefore exhorts them to be of good courage and fearlessly go forward to the conquest of the land. W. L. A.

6. God can never fail the man of faith. Having pledged his presence, we are well insured. For him to forsake his friends is an impossibility. “The mountains may depart, and the hills be removed; but never shall the covenant of his faithfulness fail.” D. D.

Charge of Moses to Joshua in Publicly Transferring the Leadership (verses 7, 8).

This stimulating and encouraging charge is replete with assurances of Jehovah’s presence and help, and thus of Joshua’s certain success in his great mission as leader of the host of God. B.

There is something wonderfully pathetic in the great leader, whose eye is yet undimmed, laying down his trust beside the Jordan. He is a hundred and twenty years old, but the Lord hath denied him the privilege of entering the land of promise. He now resigns his command to Joshua as his successor. It might have discouraged the people, the loss of their great leader; but he points them upward to the Lord their God, who had been the real Leader in the exodus and pilgrimage, and who was going at their head across the Jordan. Their faith in the invisible Leader is to be strengthened now that the visible and human leader is to be taken away from them. Besides, they are to have Joshua as the captain of the host. Moses had received a wondrous preparation, first at his mother’s knee, next in the palace of Pharaoh, and next in the solitudes of Midian. And Joshua, who is to succeed him as leader, though not as lawgiver, has also received important preparation. He is first associated with Moses in the mount, as he is receiving the Law. He is thus trained to firm faith in the invisible King, and accustomed to his wonders. He is next exercised in battle, leading the Israelites against Amalek and proving himself skilful in the field. He had also, as a spy, become minutely acquainted with the land of promise, and brought up with Caleb an encouraging report. None was so fitted as he for high command. As the twelve were carefully trained to be the apostles of the Church, so was Joshua trained, and so is every one selected for important work. Edgar.

Priests and Elders to Keep and to Read the Law (verses 9-13).

Moses turns next to the priests and the elders, and to them he commits the custody of the Law, with the injunction to read it to the people at the end of every seven years during the festival of the year of release—viz., at the Feast of Tabernacles, when they appeared before the Lord. The Law was committed to the priests and elders, not merely to preserve it in safe keeping, but that they might see to its being observed by the people. W. L. A.

Moses was not only the leader of the people, but also the receiver, transcriber, and guardian of the Law. As the nation became consolidated, this double work could certainly become too heavy for one man to discharge. Hence he commissions one man to be the leader of an army, and another set of men to be the conservators of the truth. Joshua is leader. The priests are to be the keepers and teachers of the Law. C. C.

9. Moses wrote this Law.** The Scripture calls all that is contained in these five books by the name of the Law. Paul quotes from Genesis, Nehemiah from Exodus, Josiah from Leviticus, Hezekiah from Numbers, and Joshua from Deuteronomy; yet each speaks of the Law. Bp. Kidder.—It is clear from this passage, as it is from verses 24-26, that Moses is the author of all the five books of Scripture which bear his name. And delivered it. This solemn delivery of the written Law to the priests and elders was to be to them both a token of the close connection between the ecclesiastical and civil constitution of Israel, and of the incompetence of either the Levites or the elders properly to fulfil their office without the Law of God. Another object of this delivering up of the Law was to lay them under obligation to read it in public every seven years (verse 10), that it might remain sacred and inviolable to the children and posterity of Israel, and to the strangers within their gates. A second delivery of it to the Levites, at which neither the elders nor the people were present, occurs afterward at verses 24-26. This shows that, after the first and solemn delivery, which was intended to impose a special obligation, the book of the Law was taken back, and what is contained from verses 14-23 subsequently appended to it. C. G. B.

10. In the year of release.** The seventh year was chosen for this purpose, because all, both males and females, might then assemble at Jerusalem without detriment to their private interests, for there was a cessation from all labor; they neither sowed nor reaped, and agriculture was altogether at a standstill. There was therefore no business to prevent them from celebrating that festival, whereby God represented to them in a lively manner how miraculously he had preserved their fathers in the desert. The Law indeed commanded them to go forth from their houses every year, and to pass seven days under the boughs of trees; but in the Sabbatical year, when all was at rest at home, it was more convenient for them to go up to Jerusalem from all quarters, that by their very multitude they might the better testify their gratitude. Therefore it is added, “when all Israel is come,” etc. Calv.

As the reading was to be only once in seven years, it may be concluded that it was not so much for the information of the people that this was done, as for the purpose of publicly declaring and by a solemn ceremony impressing on their minds the condition on which they held their position and privileges as the chosen people of the Lord. The Feast of Tabernacles was appointed as the season for the reading, doubtless because there was a connection between the end for which the Law was read and the spirit and meaning of that festival as a festival of rejoicing because of their deliverance from the wilderness state. W. L. A.

It must be thus solemnly read that the present generation might hereby keep up their acquaintance with the Law of God (verse 12). They must hear, that they may learn, and fear God, and observe to do their duty. See here what we are to aim at in hearing the Word; we must hear, that we may learn and grow in knowledge; and every time we read the Scriptures, we shall find that there is still more and more to be learned out of them. We must learn, that we may fear God—that is, that we may be duly affected with Divine things; and must fear God, that we may observe and do the words of his law; for in vain do we pretend to fear him, if we do not obey him. H.

9,24-27. The written Word. The Law here put in writing and solemnly deposited in the side of the ark, is the foundation of our present Bible. All Scripture is built up upon it. The Law was first given, thereafter recorded. Revelation precedes the record of it. The record is inspired (1 Tim. 3:16), and is to us the revelation of the will of God. It is, as well as contains, the Word of God. The line must not be drawn too finely: (1) Between revelation and its history. The threads of revelation cannot be picked out from the texture of its history, and exhibited apart. They constitute one whole; the record embraces both. (2) Between revelation and inspired prophetical discourses—with psalms, poems, wisdom literature, which unfold the principles of revelation, apply and enforce them, turn them into subjects of praise, or deal with them reflectively. For discourses, psalms, didactic literature, add to revelation as well as unfold its meaning. (3) Between revelation and the written Word For that is the revelation to us. It is clothed with its own authority as inspired—an authority the nature and degree of which is a study by itself—and it is clothed with the authoritativeness (objective) inherent in the revelations of which records are preserved. Orr.

Substance of Paragraph (verses 14-23).

Jehovah next summons Moses and Joshua to the tabernacle, and makes a special manifestation of his glory in the cloud to the people without and to the two leaders within (verses 14, 15). Then God announces (in the hearing of Joshua) the future apostasy of the people and the punishment that shall be visited upon them (verses 16-18). He commands Moses (with the help of Joshua, probably as amanuensis) to write a song that shall abide as a witness against Israel in the future (verses 19-21). Verse 22 is a parenthetical statement that the song was written. Then follows (verse 23) the charge of Jehovah (not Moses) to Joshua, identical in substance with that of Moses in verses 7, 8. B.

The transaction recorded in these verses may be regarded as the solemn inauguration of Joshua to the office to which he had some time before (Nu. 27:23 sqq) been called, and his recognition in it by God, which were manifested by his being summoned into the tabernacle with Moses while the Lord appeared in the pillar of cloud. Espin.

No authority was vested by the Mosaic constitution in any one man or body of men, nor even in the whole nation assembled, to make new laws or alter old ones; their sovereign Jehovah reserving this power exclusively to himself. On the same grounds the Hebrew constitution recognized no one hereditary chief magistrate, nor gave any power, even to the whole nation, to elect a supreme governor. It was the especial prerogative of Jehovah to appoint whomsoever he pleased to preside over the people as his own immediate vicegerent. And afterward such men, under the title of judge, were from time to time raised up as the exigencies of the State required them, and under a special commission from heaven wrought signal deliverances for their countrymen. Bush.

14. Thy days approach that thou must die. Stretch thy fancy to devise an earthly happiness. Give thee a time of the calmest peace, not an air of trouble stirring; put thee where thou wilt, far off from fear of sword and pestilence, and encompass thee with children, friends, and possessions, and honors, and comfort, and health to enjoy all these; yet one thing thou must admit in the midst of them all, within a while thou must die; and if thou hast no real portion in Christ, thou sinkest through that death into another death far more terrible. Of all thou enjoyest, nothing goes along with thee but unpardoned sin, and that delivers thee up to endless sorrow. Oh, that you were wise and would consider your latter end! Leighton.

16. Sleep with thy fathers.** The words are literally, “lie down with thy fathers,” and in this connection are surely significant. They point assuredly to fellowship and rest with the fathers in another life. They cannot refer to any depositing of the remains of Moses in the same tomb as his fathers. His sepulchre was solitary and sacred; his lying down with his fathers, therefore, can only refer to the fellowship in a future life. This is the only place in the Pentateuch where this particular expression occurs, although we meet it in the Books of the Kings no less than twenty-six times. It was undoubtedly an intimation to Moses that he was about to enter into restful fellowship with his fathers, and was most welcome consolation at this peculiarly trying time. Edgar.

It is man only who, dying, falls asleep. And the beautiful phrase is too often repeated in the Scriptures to be set aside as a casual metaphor. Hebrew worthies are said to sleep with their fathers. The Psalmist, filled with anticipations of awakening, cries: “Then shall I be satisfied, when I awake with thy likeness.” Nor could human language furnish us a more sweet and tranquillizing emblem. It invests the dying form with a promise of restitution; enlightens the darkened chamber; hangs a garland upon the sepulchre. We stand by the couch where a beloved friend has closed his eyes. The doors of sense are shut; the outer world is excluded; but the greater, lovelier, more awful inner world is there. The marble brow; the serene, unmoving features; the settled smile of lips which were late so eloquent; all speak of deep slumber. But Christianity tells me to dismiss my fears; for Jesus comes to awake him out of sleep. J. W. A.

16. God announces to Moses the future apostasy of the people. This is done in the presence of Joshua that the latter might be fully aware of the danger and strive in his day to avert it. This he faithfully did (cf. Josh. 24:31); but we find him in his own last address to Israel repeating (Josh. 23:15, 16) the self-same prediction and warning. Espin.

19. Write ye this song.** This refers to the song which follows in next chapter. Moses and Joshua were both to write this song, Moses probably as the author, Joshua as his amanuensis, because both of them were to do their endeavor to keep the people from that apostasy which God had foretold. W. L. A.

20,21. Yet more definitely the Lord gave Moses some of the inducing causes of this apostasy—viz, fulness of bread; the absence of want and trial; coming into a land flowing with milk and honey. Filling themselves and waxing fat, they will become sensual, pleasure-loving, and lost to the fear of God. So they will turn to other gods. Hence the occasion for this witnessing song, of solemn forewarning, pregnant with moral forces against apostasy and rich in suggestions of untold value for those apostate generations to whom it would specially apply. H. C.

Poetic forms will live when prose is quite forgotten. God condescends to every method by which a sense of religious duty might be preserved and perpetuated. The song would live by the action of known law, when the full sense would be ignored. Thus the song of Moses, “familiar in their mouths as a household word,” would be an abiding witness against them. Said God, “It shall not be forgotten.” By such gracious methods the Most High would win men unto obedience and life. The mightiest power is in gentleness. If this fails, all fails. D. D.—The words of this song would be a constant and silent witness against them for departing from the ways of the Lord. That very book, which if rightly used is “a lamp” to the feet and “a light” to the path, becomes, if neglected, a perpetual and silent accuser. That self-same purpose which was answered by securing permanent records of the Mosaic legislation, is also answered by permanent records of the Christian redemption. C. C.

23. God’s charge and Moses’s charge were one, “Be strong and of a good courage.” What God commands, God first gives. He says to men, “Here is my intrusted strength: use it well! More is ready as soon as it is needed.” Best of all, he adds, “I will be with thee.” D. D.

Verses 24-29. After the installation of Joshua, only one thing remained for Moses to do that all things might be set in order before his departure. This was the finishing of the writing of the book of the Law, and the committing it finally to the priests, to be by them placed by the ark of the covenant, that it might be kept for all future generations as a witness against the people, whose apostasy and rebellion were foreseen. Whether this section is to be regarded as wholly written by Moses himself, or as an appendix to his writing added by some other writer, has been made matter of question. It is quite possible, however, that Moses himself, ere he laid down the pen, may have recorded what he said when delivering the book of the Law to the priests, and there is nothing in the manner or style of the record to render it probable that it was added by another. What follows from verse 30 to the end of the book was probably added to the writing of Moses by some one after his death, though, of course, both the song and the blessing are the composition of Moses. W. L. A.

24. Religion would have been corrupted in a thousand ways, had not its rule been diligently written down for posterity. Moreover, since the books of Moses were for a long time buried through the carelessness of the people and the priests, what darkness of error would have overspread the minds of all, if nothing had been written down! Calv.—The Bible is the true conductor of all the holy influences the world has contained since the dawn of creation. From it the Jewish Church received in a concentrated form all that had distinguished the preceding economies, from the giving of the first promise to its own establishment in Judea. In that Church it may be truly said, Abel, though dead, was ever speaking; and “Enoch, the seventh from Adam,” was ever prophesying of the coming of the Lord. There the patriarchs came and lived again for their posterity. There the rod of Aaron was ever blooming; the manna ever fresh; the rod of Moses ever working and repeating its wonders. There Sinai reared its awful head, and from its thundering top the Law was ever demanding for God the heart of the world, and demanding from every man the love of all the rest. J. H.

26-29. The Pentateuch, in its tremendous charges and indictments against mankind, is in unison with the rest of the Word. It is a sustained witness against the human race. “Others may perhaps suspect,” says Henry Rogers, “that Jewish vanity led the writers thus to ignore or treat lightly the affairs of all nations except their own. The answer is concise, but conclusive. Let Jewish vanity in general be what the reader pleases, these writers would seem to have had none of it. If they have passed by the glorious achievements of secular history, they have recorded all the infamies of their own nation; and, indeed, their principal references to other nations are as ‘scourges’ of their own—scourges justly sent, they confess and avow, for apostasies which had wearied out the patience of Heaven!” The marvel is that Jews and Christians should conspire to preserve what is a most humiliating account of the race. Edgar.

The modern rationalist regards it as a “most unnatural supposition” that the Pentateuch was written during the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness; but this is what every unprejudiced reader gathers from the Pentateuch itself, which tells us that God commanded Moses to “write” the discomfiture of Amalek “in a book;” that Moses “wrote all the words of the Law,” and “took the book of the covenant, and read it in the audience of the people,” and “wrote the goings out of the people of Israel according to their journeys, by the commandment of the Lord;” and, finally, “made an end of writing the words of the Law in a book, until they were finished;” and bade the Levites, who bare the ark of the covenant, “take that book of the Law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that it might be there for a witness against the people.” A book, therefore—a “book of the covenant”—a book out of which he could read the whole Law—was certainly written by Moses; and this book was deposited by the ark of the covenant, and given into the special custody of the priests, the Levites, with the stern injunction still ringing in their ears, “Ye shall not add unto the Word neither diminish aught from it” (4:2); and they were charged “at the end of every seven years, in the year of release, in the Feast of Tabernacles, to read it before all Israel in their hearing” (31:10); and, further, a command was given, that when the Israelites should have kings, each king should “write him a copy of the Law in a book, out of that which was before the priests, the Levites, that he might read therein all the days of his life.” G. R.

De. 31 30 AND Moses spake in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.

32 1 Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak ;

And let the earth hear 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 grass,

And as the showers upon the herb :

3. For I will proclaim the name of the LORD :

Ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4. The Rock, his work is perfect ;

For all his ways are judgement :

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, Just and right is he.

5. They have dealt corruptly with him, they are not his children, it is their blemish ;

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 ?

He hath made thee, and established thee.

7. Remember the days of old,

Consider the years of many generations :

Ask thy father, and he will shew thee ;

Thine elders, and they will tell thee.

8. When 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.

9. For the LORD’s portion is his people ;

Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

10. He found him in a desert land,

And in the waste howling wilderness ;

He compassed him about, he cared for him,

He kept him as the apple of his eye :

11. As an eagle that stirreth up her nest,

That fluttereth over her young,

He spread abroad his wings, he took them,

He bare them on his pintons :

12. 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,

And he did eat the increase of the field ;

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 of the blood of the grape thou drankest wine.

15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked :

Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art become sleek :

Then he forsook God which made him,

And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16. They moved him to jealousy with strange gods,

With abominations provoked they him to anger.

17. They sacrificed unto demons, which were no God,

To gods whom they knew not,

To new gods that came up of late,

Whom your fathers dreaded not.

18. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,

And hast forgotten God that gave thee birth.

19. And the LORD saw it, and abhorred them,

Because of the provocation of his sons and 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 burneth unto the lowest pit,

And devoureth the earth with her increase.

And setteth 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 wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat And bitter destruction ; And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust. 25 Without shall the sword bereave, And in the chambers terror ; It shall destroy both young man and virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs. 26 I said, I would scatter them afar, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men : 27 Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, Lest their adversaries should misdeem, Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted, And the LORD hath not done all this. 28 For they are a nation void of counsel, And there is no understanding in them. 29 Oh 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 delivered them up ? 31 For their rock is not as our Rock, Even our enemies themselves being judges. 32 For their vine is of the vine 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, Sealed up among my treasures ? 35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense, At the time when their foot shall slide : For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that are to come upon them shall make haste.

36. For the LORD shall judge his people, And repent himself for his servants ; When he seeth that their power is gone, And there is none remaining, shut up or left at large. 37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, The rock in which they trusted ; 38 Which did eat 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, even I, am he, And there is no god with me : I kill, and I make alive ; I have wounded, and I heal : And there is none that can deliver out of my hand. 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live for ever, 41 If I whet my glittering sword, And mine hand take hold on judgement ; I will render vengeance to mine adversaries, And will recompense them that hate me. 42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, And my sword shall devour flesh ; With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the head of the leaders of the enemy. 43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people : For he will avenge the blood of his servants, And will render vengeance to his adversaries, And will make expiation for his land, for his people. 44 And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, 45 and Hoshea the son of Nun. And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel.

In accordance with the Divine injunction, Moses composed an ode, which he recited in the hearing of the people, and committed to writing, to remain with them as a witness for God against them. With this end in view, the ode is directed principally to a contrasting of the unchanging faithfulness of the Almighty with the anticipated perversity and unfaithfulness of his people. The poem may be divided into six parts. (1) An introduction (verses 1-3), in which the importance of the doctrine to be delivered is announced. (2) The blamelessness and excellency of Jehovah are placed in contrast with the corruptness and perversity of Israel (verses 4, 5). (3) The folly and ingratitude of the rebellious people is dwelt upon (verses 7-18). (4) The purpose of God to punish and reject the rebellious generation is declared (verses 19-23). (5) The fulfilment of this purpose in the judgments which should come upon the rebels, while mercy and favor should be showed to those that repented and were humbled under the hand of God (verses 24-34). (6) And finally, the judgment which God would execute on the enemies of Israel, and the mercy he would show to his servants (verses 35-43). In this ode Moses displays the genius of the poet, as in the other parts of this book he has showed the sagacity of the legislator and the skill of the orator. Vigor of diction, elevation of sentiment, vivacity of representation, beauty and sublimity of imagery, characterize this ode throughout. Nor is the piety less noticeable than the poetry; zeal for God, earnest desire for his honor, and devout reverence of his majesty pervade and inspire the whole. W. L. A.

The magnificence of the exordium, the grandeur of the theme, the frequent and sudden transitions, the elevated strain of the sentiments and language, entitle this song to be ranked among the noblest specimens of poetry to be found in the Scriptures. It has been beautifully styled “the Song of the Dying Swan.” (Loveth.) It was designed to be a national anthem, which it should be the duty and care of magistrates to make well known by frequent repetition, to animate the people to right sentiments toward a steadfast adherence to his service. Jamieson. — This prophetical ode or song of Moses contains a defence of God against the Israelites, and unfolds the method of the Divine judgments. Its opening is singularly elegant and magnificent; its whole arrangement and structure is regular, easy, and adapted to the nature of the subject, in an order nearly historical. It embraces an incredible variety of the most important topics: the truth and justice of God, his fatherly affection and most unwearied loving kindness toward his chosen people; the ungrateful and rebellious disposition of that people in return; then the heat of the Divine displeasure, and its most alarming menaces, delivered in a noble personification, equal in grandeur to anything which exists in the choicest treasures of poetry; at the same time it represents these very tides of indignation occasionally moderated by mildness and compassion, and terminated at length in promises and in consolation. Not to dwell on the loftiness of the sentiments, the impetuosity of the passions, and the force of the figures and the language, such is the nature of the subject that it imitates much of the style and coloring of the prophetical poetry, so that to all the vigor and animation and spirited boldness of the ode it unites that distinguished variety and grandeur of imagery which is peculiar to the prophetical manner. Bp. Loveth.

The blessings annexed in the song to faithfulness, whether named as promises or performances, are those which recur commonly in Deuteronomy, and which must have been in the closing months of Moses’s life perpetually in his mind; those namely connected with the promised land. Exhibiting as it does in series God’s preventing mercies, his people’s faithlessness and ingratitude, God’s consequent judgments, and the final and complete triumph of the Divine counsels of grace, it forms the summary of all later Old Testament prophecies, and gives as it were the framework upon which they are laid out. Here as elsewhere the Pentateuch presents itself as the foundation of the religious life of Israel in after times. Espin. — This song is the foundation of all after-prophecies, in which we find the same range of ideas, because in fact they represent the history of the ancient covenant of God. Although the greater part of the song is a stern threatening, a solemn declaration of condemnation, yet we may understand from the main idea and end of the whole — viz., the glorifying of the grace and truth of the eternal, faithful covenant-God, how these his words could appear in the eyes of Moses under the image, so especially delectable in the wilderness, of a rain trickling down on the tender grass. We here see the man of God with the awful brightness of the Divine holiness on his countenance, in whom the glory of the Lord was mirrored with unveiled face, and who is thereby glorified into the same image. Refreshed and strengthened by his grace, he is still more firmly built upon the rock of his salvation. Gerl.

Into this most remarkable of all his productions Moses condensed the substance of all his warnings and entreaties, and along with them poured his own soul. Than “the song of Moses” Scripture recognizes nothing as more sublime except one other composition, and with that other they are acquainted who have received a harp of gold, and along with “the song of Moses, the servant of God,” sing “the song of the Lamb.” It has been well termed “the Magna Charta of prophecy,” and in its historical recollections and premonitory warnings, in its remonstrances and exhortations, its entreaties and regrets, and, above all, in its loyalty to Jehovah, it supplies the key-note, which we find constantly recurring in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the prophets who come after. Hamilton.

It is the compendious anticipatory sketch and the common watchword of all prophecy, and stands related to it as fundamentally as the Decalogue to all laws, and the Lord’s Prayer to all prayers. The legislator has here condensed in a song the prophetic contents of his last address, wherewith he lives on in the memory and mouth of the people. He here sets before them their whole history to the end of the days. In this ode each age of Israel has a mirror of its present condition and future fate. This mirror prophecy holds up before its contemporaries. Deletzsch.

1. This majestic vindication of the tutelar God of Israel with his chosen people, and with their persecutors, opens with an animated summons to the inhabitants of heaven and earth, to angels and men, or the whole rational creation, to listen to the prophet’s wholesome and refreshing discourse, contrasting the veracity and justice of God with the iniquity and ingratitude of his people. Hales.

He feels that the message which burns in his heart is so momentous to his people that all nature—above and beneath—may fitly be summoned to hear. It is his strongest way of saying—Let all people of this and future generations give ear and heart to these messages from the God of heaven and earth. The poet-prophets of Israel in later days adopt the same form of address (Is. 1:2, and Jer. 2:12, and 6:19). 2. “My doctrine”—the truths I teach—“shall drop as the rain;” good for the soul as rain for the grass; refreshing, fraught with real life and the beauty of holiness:—the reason of its great value being, “Because I am to proclaim the name of the Lord”—i.e., his name as significant of his nature. H. C.

Distil as the dew. What process in nature can be more exquisitely beautiful than this; more salutary in its results, more illustrative of the goodness and grace of our Heavenly Father? Accordingly, this process is chosen as the sweetest and most perfect image of the gift of God’s refreshing word from heaven, and of its reviving, life-giving power to the soul. It is in the still night, when the sky is clear, when the wind is sleeping beneath the sparkling stars, in serenity, in repose, in silence, that the dew abundantly distils its moisture; and so, in the calm, attentive, quiet hour, when the glare of the noon of life passes into the evening, and the throbbing pulses of the world are still, God’s precious word settles into the soul. Beautifully is the dew classed among “the precious things of heaven even,” in Joseph’s blessing; and God himself says, “I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.” When God descends as the dew, it is his truth and his Spirit on the nation and the soul, and everything holy and precious grows and prospers. Cheever.

The dew and rain are emblems of the teaching most likely to prove effective. Their action is gentle, silent, pervasive, kindly; yet it is in-

vigorative, powerful, deep-reaching. They act on plants by watering their roots. It is not the best kind of teaching which is loud and violent, which tries to force men’s convictions. Convictions must have time to grow. Teaching must be loving. The earthquake, the whirlwind, the fire, have their own place, but “the still small voice” is needed to succeed them. The Lord is peculiarly in that. Angry scolding, petulant rebuke, biting censure, clever satire, seldom do much good. Love alone wins the day. Orr.

4. He is the Rock.** Think of the light and the strength there are in this thought, which is repeated again and again and again in this dying song of Moses. What a history there is in this single thought! Here we have the original of all those noble passages in psalms and hymns of believing Israelites in ancient times, and believing Gentiles of all nations in these later days, which represent Jehovah as “the Rock,” “the Rock of Ages,” “the Rock of our Salvation.” J. M. G.—The name must in the first instance have been suggested by the desert-wanderings. Nine times in the course of this single hymn is repeated this most expressive figure, taken from the granite erags of Sinai, and carried thence, through psalms and hymns of all nations, like one of the huge fragments which it represents, to regions as remote in aspect as in distance, from its original birthplace. Stanley.

Up to this time the figure had not been applied to God. The Israelites have, indeed, from the hard and flinty rock, had refreshing streams; the rock was to them a fountain of waters; and doubtless when here the figure is for the first time applied to God, they would find it delightful to associate refreshment and shelter with him. Then in course of time it became a favorite figure, as the Psalms in many passages show. Elgar—The resemblances between Ps. 90 and De. 32 have been rightly regarded as important, especially the expression “the Rock.” The manner and turn of thought of the psalm are certainly also similar to those of the song. Bleek, remarking on the superscription of the psalm, which calls it “A Prayer of Moses,” says: “There is no authentic reason for denying to the Lawgiver the authorship of this psalm, and at all events it bears the stamp of very great antiquity.” Ewald also grants the last part of this statement. Espin.

God is the rock, for he is in himself immutable and immovable, and he is to all that seek him and fly to him an impenetrable shelter, and to all that trust in him an everlasting foundation. H.—The image is not an arbitrary one.

Nature abounds in shadows of the spiritual. It is what the mind puts into the objects of its survey which makes them what they are. “The Alps and Andes are but millions of atoms till thought combines them and stamps on them the conception of the everlasting hills. Niagara is a gush of water drops till the soul puts into it that sweep of resistless power which the beholder feels. The ocean, wave behind wave, is only great when the spirit has breathed into it the idea of immensity. If we analyze our feelings, we shall find that thought meets us wherever we turn. The real grandeur of the world is in the soul which looks on it, which sees some conception of its own reflected from the mirror around it; for mind is not only living, but life-giving, and has received from its Maker a portion of his own creative power” (John Ker). Rock is thus more than rock—its awfulness, grandeur, immovability, everlastingness, strength, are born of spiritual conceptions. Orr.

A God of faithfulness, and without iniquity: just and right is he! The changes of time and creatures are but the trifling waves which keep up their noisy flow at the base of this Eternal Rock. He was infinitely true to himself before time began; such will he be when time shall be no more. Every one of those adorable perfections remains in plenitude of majesty, and all in blissful concord with each other. “Just and right is he!” He cannot deny himself. Be this our anchor, when in regard to our own little personal affairs, the billows threaten to overwhelm us. They cannot reach the throne of our God, nor change the settled purposes of his love. Clouds and darkness are round about him, but righteousness and justice are the habitation of his throne. If we could look into his heart, we should discern paternal compassion behind the lifted rod. Let us rejoice that he is, and such as he is. Let us glory that he changeth not. Let us summon our thoughts away from all creatures and all second causes, to dwell on the throne that cannot be moved. Though all else fail, it is well with us if God remains. See to it that he is yours. Hazard not the consequences of being found in the way of his advancing vengeance. His covenant of grace is sure, but his justice is as irrevocable as his love is fathomless. Now, in this temporal state, the offer is made, to change our relation, and from enemies to become friends. But presently a trumpet shall sound, to tell that parley is over, and that what remains is arrest, adjudication, doom! J. W. A.

6,7. To bring more forcibly to their view the ingratitude and folly of their conduct, Moses dwells upon what God was and had been to the nation: their Father, in that he had, in his love, chosen them to be his people (cf. Is. 63:16; 64:7; Mal. 2:10); their Purchaser, who had acquired possession of them by delivering them out of Egypt (cf. Ps. 74:2); their Maker, who had constituted them a nation; and their Establisher, by whom they had been conducted through the wilderness and settled in Canaan. W. L. A.

In this first section of the Divine song, the predominating idea is God’s fatherhood. It comes out in verse 6 in express terms; it is implied in the care that is attributed to him for his children of Israel; it passes into the still tenderer idea of motherhood in the illustration of the eagle (verse 11); and may fairly be taken as the idea dominating the whole. It has been thought that the fatherhood of God is almost altogether a New Testament idea; but we have it here expressly stated, and it underlies many portions of the Old Testament. This whole song is, in fact, a paternal expostulation with children that have been wayward in the wilderness, and will be more wayward still in the land of promise. Edgar.

7. Is not the God whom ye have forsaken the very same who hath bought thee from bondage; redeemed thee for himself; made thee a prosperous and happy nation, and established thee in permanent strength? Go back over the grand ages of your national history; ask the fathers for their testimony to the great works of your God in your behalf. H. C.—Remember the days of old—that is, “Keep in remembrance the history of those days, and of the wonderful providences of God concerning the old word, and concerning your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; you will find a constant series of mercies attending them, and how long since things were working toward that which is now come to pass.” H.

8-14. What Israel owes to God. Here the great things which God had done for them are brought out in a few bold delineations, mingling strength and pathos in a marvellous degree. He shows how from the beginning God had set his regardful eyes upon them, how he had guided the history of all other nations in a manner subservient to their welfare, making them and their development the historic centre of the ancient world; how he had found them poor, helpless wanderers in the wilderness, had formed them into a people there—his own people, whom he had fed and led and trained as a tender mother might—and at last brought into the goodly land he had promised them, exalting them high among the nations of the earth, and giving them all things richly to enjoy. J. M. G.

8. 9. Once admit the goal of history to be the establishment on earth of a universal spiritual kingdom—a gathering together in one of all things with Christ as head (Eph. 1 : 10), and it is certain that herein must lie the key to all historical developments, the explanation of all arrangements and movements of Divine providence. The centre of interest must always be that portion of the race with which for the time being the kingdom of God is identified. Orr.—Just as, in tracing the course of a stream, not the huge morasses nor the vast stagnant pools on either side would delay us : we should not, because of their extent, count them the river, but recognize that as such, though it were the slenderest thread, in which an onward movement might be discerned; so is it here. Egypt and Assyria and Babylon were but the vast stagnant morasses on either side of the river ; the man in whose seed the whole earth should be blessed, he and his family were the little stream in which the life and onward movement of the world were to be traced. They belong not to history, least of all to sacred history, those Babels, those cities of confusion, those huge pens into which by force and fraud the early hunters of men, the Nimrods and Sesostrises, drove and compelled their fellows, where no faith existed but in the blind powers of nature and the brute forces of the natural man. Trench.

10. He found him in a desert land.** This refers to the wilderness through which God brought them to Canaan, and in which he took so much pains with them ; it is called the church in the wilderness (Acts 7 : 38). There it was born, and nursed, and educated, that all might appear to be Divine and from heaven, since they had there no communication with any part of this earth, either for food or learning. H.

11. As an eagle, etc.** This admirable similitude, so sublimely beautiful and yet so simple and natural, of the parent eagle training her young nestlings to fly ; first, “stirring them up,” or rousing them from the nest ; then “hovering about them,” to watch and encourage their timid efforts ; “spreading abroad her wings,” to receive them when drooping ; “taking them up, carrying them, to ease them when wearied and exhausted by unusual efforts : is probably painted from the life, with so much circumstantial imagery, from the scenes which Moses might often have witnessed in the deserts of Arabia Petrea. God himself had been pleased to employ this comparison, “I bare you on eagles’ wings.” Hales.—Two different acts of the eagle are described : in the first two sentences, her warming, nourishing, and protecting care, when she spreads her wings over the nest ; in the last two, her care when she takes the young abroad, teaches them to fly, and guards them against every mischance. The first part of the figure refers to the protection of the still weak, helpless people which was afforded to it by the cloudy pillar, which covered and guided it ; the second part, to the awakening and strengthening of the people in the wilderness, until it attained some degree of self-reliance and dependence on God’s care amid the dangers and privations of the desert. That “he alone” (verse 12) did it, was meant to remind the unthankful people that God’s help had always been found all-sufficient, and every trial of the strange help of self-made gods always fraught with mischief. The angel who went before them was God himself. Gerl.

The song introduces the figure of the eagle, and the motherly discipline to which she subjects her brood. “Naturalists tell us that when her young are old enough to fly, the eagle breaks her nest in pieces, in order to compel them to use their powers of flight ; fluttering over them, that by imitation they may learn how to employ their wings, but, when unwilling to fly, spreading abroad her wings, she bears them upward in the air, and then shaking them off, compels them to use their own exertions.” From this Mr. Hull deduces the truth that “the Divine discipline of life is designed to awaken man to the development of his own powers.” We see thus the kindness of the parental discipline, and that it takes motherhood as well as fatherhood to illustrate the Divine relation (cf. Is. 49 : 15). Elgar.—I once saw a very interesting sight above one of the crags of Ben Nevis, as I was going in pursuit of black game. Two parent eagles were teaching their offspring, two young birds, the manoeuvres of flight. They began by rising from the top of a mountain, in the eye of the sun—it was about midday, and bright for this climate. They at first made small circles, and the young imitated them ; they paused on their wings, waiting till they had made their first flight, holding them on their expanded wings when they appeared exhausted, and then took a second and larger gyration, always rising toward the sun, and enlarging their circle of flight, so as to make a gradually ascending spiral. Davy.

12. The Lord alone, he and none other, did lead Israel. There was no strange god there. In all his wilderness training of forty most eventful years, that tender youth-time of Israel, there was not the least help from Baal or Ash-toreth. But the hand of his own God was everywhere; in his daily bread; in his rock-gushing waters; in his pillar of cloud and of fire; in his victories over Amalek, Arad, and Midian. H. C.

15. The sudden and frequent change of persons in this ode is remarkable. Moses celebrates the truth and justice of God, then inveighs against the perfidy and wickedness of the people. He first speaks of them as if they were absent, “They have corrupted themselves.” Then he addresses them: “Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise?” Afterward he beautifully amplifies God’s indulgence and more than fatherly affection toward the Israelites, in words not directed to them: whence, again filled with indignation at the stupidity of this ungrateful and impious people, he thus breaks forth: “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” (verse 15). In this short sentence, the discourse being abruptly turned to the Israelites and then immediately from them, has great force. It is fervid, vehement, pointed, and full of indignation. The Hebrew poetry abounds with instances of this sudden change of persons, which often adds great beauty, and is always to be carefully observed. Bp. Lowth.

Jeshurun. This name designates Israel as chosen to be a righteous nation; and in the use of it here lies the keenest reproach of apostate Israel, as fallen into a state the opposite of that to which it was destined. “By using the name righteous in place of Israel, Moses ironically censures those who had swerved from rectitude; by recalling to memory with what dignity they had been endowed, he the more sharply rebukes the perfidy which was their crime” (Calv.). This name appears also in ch. 33:5, 26, and in Is. 44:2; but in these places without any implied censure. W. L. A.

15-18. Jeshurun comes from a word that signifies upright; and it is evidently put for Israel, who were under great obligations to be upright; but instead of that, in their prosperity they rebelled against God, as a pampered horse kicks. Bp. Kidder.—Here is the sad moral result of being over-fed, over-tempted. “Jeshurun,” the upright one, had bound himself by covenant to walk uprightly with God. The Hebrews constantly associate fatness with moral obtuseness, insensibility, and consequent obliquity. The ceremonial distinctions of things clean and unclean assumed this—swine being utterly unclean, and the fatty portions of sacrificed animals being accounted good only for burning on the altar. Hence the figure—Jeshurun, too fat for self-control and self-denial; too fat for the worship of the pure and holy One; and consequently he forsook the God who made and blessed him. The verb for “lightly esteemed” means to regard as dried up; withered; of faded beauty. So Israel thought of their God though he had been to them the rock of their salvation. The sad fact of their fall into idol-worship is reiterated and made impressively emphatic. They provoked God to jealousy; for how could he be otherwise than jealous when they cast him off and gave their hearts’ homage to devils; to new gods, unknown to their fathers; gods that were no gods at all! The Hebrew word here for “devils” means primarily lords—mighty ones. The Septuagint and Vulgate give it demons—true to the ultimate idea, for all idol-worship is equivalent to the worship of the devil, being real obedience to his will. The blackness of this guilt lies in its forgetting, disowning God, our great Benefactor; our only real Friend. H. C.

Here is a picture of spiritual degeneration in the midst of worldly prosperity. Prosperity generates wilfulness, and a resistance to the Divine claims. The restraints of duty, conscience, God, will be irksome, and will provoke to resistance. The irritation which was at first felt will subside, and insensibility will steal over the soul. Stubborn obstinacy without the former stings of conscience. “Past feeling.” There sets in a thinking lightly of God altogether, and a forsaking of him. To this succeeds not only neglect of God, but the substitution of other gods (verses 16, 17)! The heart of man must have a supreme object of love; and if God be not enthroned in the heart, some rival will be seated there. To sum up. Worldly prosperity, if not sanctified to God and by him will engender, first resistance, then deadness, then estrangement, then idolatry! This is the sure and certain effect of an accumulation of worldly good, when its possessor is not led by Divine grace to use it wisely. C. C.

19-25. The fourth part, to the end of the twenty-fifth verse, expresses the indignation of the Lord, and his denunciations that he would reject apostate Israel, and adopt in their room the believing Gentiles; according to the interpretation of Paul (Rom. 10:19), citing verse 21 and the parallel prophecy of Is. 65:1, 2. This part describes also, in the glowing colors of the preceding prophecies, all the calamities of the Babylonian and Roman captivities. Hales.

19. The provocation of his sons, and of his daughters. For such they were till they corrupted themselves, and thereby highly incensed him against them. For nothing can be so provoking as the rebellion of children against a most indulgent parent. Bp. Patrick.—The “daughters” are here expressly named, because the women were notoriously guilty of provoking God by their idolatry. (See Jer. 7:18; 44:15; Ezek. 8:14.) Bp. Kidder.

21. The epithets “not a people,” and “foolish nation,” represent very faithfully the estimation in which the Jews held all others than themselves. When therefore Paul asserts that Israel in this passage had forewarning of the call of the Gentiles, he is assuredly only declaring its real import. God announces his resolve to repay the faithlessness of the Jews by withdrawing their privileges, and conferring them on those whom the Jews despised. The ultimate result, that by the call of the Gentiles Israel should be provoked to emulation and so eventually be saved also, is not here brought forward. It lies among those mysteries of the distant future which the Gospel was to bring to light. Espin.

22. (Cf. Jer. 15:14; 17:4; Lam. 4:11.) The lowest hell; the lowest sheol, the uttermost depth of the under-world. The Hebrew sheol (שָׁמַיִם) answering to the Greek φάος, by which it is usually rendered by the LXX., is a general designation of the unseen state, the place of the dead. Probably it is from a root signifying to excavate, to hollow, and, like the German hölle, means primarily a hollow place or cavern. The Divine wrath kindles a consuming fire, that burns down to the lowest depths—to the deepest part of sheol—consumes the earth’s produce, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. This does not refer to any particular judgment that was to befall the national Israel, but is a general description of the effects of the Divine wrath when that is poured forth in judgments on men. W. L. A.

He compares his anger to a burning fire, which should penetrate to the deepest abysses, and should utterly consume their land so as not to spare the very roots of the mountains. This metaphor is of frequent occurrence; but here more is expressed by it than in other passages, since, when his implacable anger is once aroused, there are no bounds to his severity. Calv.—So the Gospel preached by Jesus is no monotone of “love,” “love!” It is a many-voiced strain to fill the mighty compass of that great organ, the human soul; to sweep its infinite diapason, and awaken, alike, the deep thunder tones of an accusing conscience; the loud wails of penitential sorrow; the subdued tones of loving but trembling taith; and the lofty notes of the holy ecstasy of “joy unspeakable and full of glory!” It is the same Jesus Christ who wept over sinners that proclaims “the terrors of the Lord” and flings “the arrows of the Almighty.” S. R.

“Instead of being shocked at the thought that God is wrathful, we should rather ask, With whom; and For what? A God without wrath, and a God who is wrathful on other accounts than for sin, is not a God, but an idol” (Lengstenberg). It is only, as this writer observes, when “man himself is not displeased with sin, when it assumes to him the appearance of a bagatelle,” that he no longer perceives why God should feel wrath at it. But man is by no means disposed to treat lightly sins against himself. He never feels that he does not “do well to be angry” on account of these or against the person who does them. A very slight wound to his honor makes him clamor for satisfaction. A God who is incapable of moral indignation would be equally incapable of moral love, and could not, with truth, be spoken of as dispensing mercy. Wrath and love are opposite poles of one affection. Where there is no offence, there needs no forgiveness. And what provokes this wrath in God? Sin—sin only. Most especially the sins of his own people. “No faith”—want of fidelity to vows. “Frowardness”—persistence in sin (verse 20). Those who have stood in nearest relations to him, who have enjoyed most favors, are those who will be most severely punished (Amos 3:2). Wrath in God is in this life not divorced from mercy. Not at least so long as hope of recovery remains. He would fain make punishment subservient to conversion. This is the thought in verse 21. Israel is not cast off forever. God is seeking to provoke it to jealousy by a transference of his regard to the Gentiles. His retaliation has a merciful as well as a wrathful design. Mercy waits on every sinner, courting his repentance. Orr.

26-35. The fifth part to the end of verse 35 states the reasons of the dispersion of the Jews into all lands, both for their preservation from their Assyrian conquerors, and to prevent the boasts of the latter. Hales.—After many terrible threatenings of deserved wrath and vengeance, we have here surprising intimations of mercy, undeserved mercy, which rejoices against judgment, and by which it appears that God has no pleasure in the death of sinners, but would rather they should turn and live. H.

27. Were it not that I feared.** He that is Omnipotent is not capable of fearing anything; but he speaks in our language, and gives this reason why he did not make them cease to be a nation, because he would not have their enemies insult and use insolent language even against himself. Of this we have an instance, Is. 37 : 28, 29. Bp. Patrick.

28. The cause of Israel’s rejection was that they were a people utterly destitute of counsel and without understanding. Had they been wise, they would have looked to the end, and acted in a way conducive to their own welfare, instead of rushing upon ruin. If Israel were wise, they could easily overcome all their foes through the help of the Almighty; but having forsaken him, they were left by him, and so came under the power of the enemy. W. L. A.

29-31. How does the tenderness of a loving Father’s heart pour itself out in these matchless words! Oh, if my people were only wise; wise to know and appreciate their great Benefactor! Wise to render him the homage, the trust, and the love of their heart! How would one of them chase a thousand of their foes if only their God were on their side; if he who is their Rock and Strength had not sold and disowned them! Expressively Moses adds, “For their Rock is not as our Rock;” their gods were never like our God. Moses did not say this without authority. He remembered how the Egyptian hosts in the Red Sea cried out, “Let us flee from the face of Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians” (Ex. 14 : 25). The testimony of Balaam was still fresh: “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of a unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel. Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion” (Nu. 23 : 20-24). The fame of God’s wonders for Israel was already abroad among all the adjacent nations, as may be seen in the words of Rahab (Josh. 2 : 9-11). H. C.

29. Oh, that they were wise, that they would consider their latter end!** It is here meant particularly of that which God by Moses had foretold concerning this people in the latter days; but it may be applied more generally. We ought to understand and consider the latter end of life, and the future state of the soul; and to think of death as our removal from a world of sense to a world of spirits; as the final period of our state of trial and probation, and our entrance upon an unchangeable state of recompense and retribution. H.—Yet we see business, pleasure, and even sin, are prosecuted with an earnestness and systematic pertinacity, not in the least degree checked or mitigated by any thought of death; hardly checked, even when associates or rivals are seized and carried away! Even the old age of a person previously thoughtless seems not necessarily to bring any serious reflections on this subject. A very large part of the time of most persons passes wholly clear from any monitory interference of the thought of their mortality. There even are some on whom the very thought itself does not, probably, once intrude in long spaces of time—during many weeks or months, knowing themselves infallibly appointed to die, and yet advancing toward that event in the miraculous fatuity of never being disturbed by any thought of the subject! Foster.

30. The prophet here states the true reason of the timidity of the Israelites, so that a thousand would flee from one enemy; as God had warned them repeatedly before in even stronger terms. (See Lev. 26 : 17-36; De. 28 : 25.) 31. This is a parenthetical observation of Moses himself, introduced incidentally into the Divine speech, stating the superiority of the God of Israel over the gods of their enemies, even by their own confession. Thus Jethro acknowledged it (Ex. 18 : 11), the Egyptians confessed it (Ex. 14 : 25), Balaam (Nu. 23 : 19-23), the Canaanites (Josh. 2 : 11), the Gibeonites (Josh. 9 : 9-24), the Philistines (1 Sam. 4 : 7), Nebuchadnezzar, the haughty King of Babylon (Dan. 3 : 29; 4 : 37), Darius the Mede (Dan. 6 : 26, 27), Cyrus, King of Persia (Ezra 1 : 3), Artaxerxes Longimanus (Ezra 7 : 23). Hales.—That the heathen should thus be constrained to bear witness to the supremacy of Israel’s God heightens the folly of Israel’s apostasy. Espin.

32. Why, then, if Israel’s Rock is so mighty, does not Israel live and triumph in perpetual victory and prosperity? Because they are corrupt like Sodom; their “vine” being put poetically for themselves morally considered. Their heart and life are altogether rotten. H. C.

35-43. The sixth and last part of the song rehearses the consolation of Israel, and signal punishment of their foes. It begins with God’s expostulation with his people when reduced to their lowest state of desolation, referring them for relief, ironically, to the vaia idols in which they had trusted and to which they had sacrificed; and by an admirable contrast describing his own self-existence, as “living for evermore;” and his sole and exclusive power “to kill” and “to make alive,” to “wound” and to “heal.” Hence the captivity is called the wound of Israel, which is to be healed at the restoration of Israel (Is. 30 : 26), while his power to “kill” or destroy his adversaries, as a mighty warrior, with “sword and arrows,” or the miseries of war, forms the conclusion of it. Hales.

35. The foot of his enemies shall slide in due time, and his work of vengeance, like all his other work, prove perfect. As God refuses to exercise “unprincipled mercy,” so will he refuse to execute random wrath. The idea should surely be got rid of that there is any difference in principle between the Old Testament and the New. The prerogative of vengeance so powerfully asserted in this song of the Lord, put into the mouth of Moses, has not been renounced nor laid down for an instant. The Lord still claims it, as Rom. 12 : 19, Heb. 10 : 30, and other passages show. Edgar.

40. For I lift up my hand.** In Scripture there are two ceremonies mentioned of swearing. One, of putting the hand under the thigh of him to whom the oath was made (Gen. 24 : 2 and 47 : 29). The other was by lifting up the hand to heaven (Gen. 14 : 22). Thus God, condescending to the manner of men, expresses himself in this place. In allusion to this custom the Psalmist describes the perjured person, “whose mouth speaketh vanity, and whose right hand is a right hand of falsehood” (Ps. 144 : 8). Abp. Tillotson.

40,41. These verses should be read continuously: “For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, As I live forever, if I whet my glittering sword, and if my hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies,” etc. W. L. A.

43. As this song commenced with an appeal to heaven and earth to give glory to the Lord (verses 1-3), so it very suitably closes with an appeal to the heathen to rejoice with his people on account of the acts of the Lord. Keil.—The song has reached, through a long series of Divine interpositions, the grandest theme for praise in this call to the Gentiles, now heathen no more, to rejoice over God’s restored people, the Jews. Espin.

Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people. This last verse terminates the whole song with the joint exultation of the Gentile with the Jewish converts to Christianity, arising from the prospect of the approaching judgments of God to be inflicted both upon his adversaries and the persecutors of his servants. Paul has cited this verse to prove the future conversion of the Jews and of the Gentiles to Christ (Rom. 15 : 10-12), supported by the parallel prophecies of Ps. 117 : 1, Is. 11 : 1-10. Theodoret has well paraphrased this verse: “The Gentiles and the Jews, the people of God, might well rejoice together; for even among the Jews there were many who believed in Christ, as well as a great part of the Gentile world. But the heathens were indebted to the Jewish believers for their knowledge, and received the Christian religion solely from them. The prophet, therefore, enjoying a clear view of this great period, exults, “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people,” the converted heathens with the believing Jews. Such was the extensive range of prophetic vision vouchsafed to the great Lawgiver of the Jews, comprising the whole fortunes of their state, from the first redemption after the Egyptian bondage, until the last, which the succeeding prophets under the former dispensation, and our Lord and his apostles under the New, unfold more explicitly and circumstantially. Hales.—It would be endless to quote the various passages in the Old Testament in which the Gentiles are called upon to glorify God for his mercy. The prophecy of Isaiah is full of them; and the Psalmist, in many of his divine hymns, no less clearly declares those “glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.” “Rejoice in the Lord” is the language of the inspired writings throughout. Waldo.

This closing strain brings out in unmistakable terms the idea which seems to have been implied since verse 36—viz., that these great judgments on Israel will not ultimately break down God’s cause and kingdom, but will only cut off the hopelessly reprobate and really bring deliverance, purity, salvation, to Zion. Therefore let all the nations rejoice with his people. They have a deeper interest than they are yet aware of in this purifying process for the ultimate redemption of Zion. The prophetic eye of Moses sees through to the glorious ingathering of the Gentiles to Christ, and seems to trace the connection of this ingathering with the judgments sent on apostate Israel in the first Christian age. The outcome of this song is therefore ultimately hopeful to the real Zion. It gives a fearfully dark view of the guilty apostasies of Israel—those which culminated first in the captivity to Babylon; last in the fall of their city before the Romans. In the result God vindicates his great name; purifies his people, and spreads the glory of his name far abroad among the nations. H. C.