Deuteronomy Chapter 32

This chapter is about the song of Moses. This song was mentioned in chapter 31. This chapter is the actual lyrics of the song. The text doesn’t provide any chords or rhythm for this song. In the text, it’s a lengthy song. There are also references to the Books of Romans & Hebrews. Also in this chapter, we got some sad news. This is where Moses dies on Mount Nebo. This is a messed up place to have Moses die though. Because on Mount Nebo, right before Moses dies, God tells him to go up & look at the Promised Land. Well, let’s get into it.

Moses recited the words of the song, from beginning to end. While all of the Israelites were listening to him.

Listen, O heavens, & I will speak. Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain & my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.

I will proclaim the name of God. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright & just is He.

They’ve acted corruptly toward Him; to their shame, they’re no longer His kids. But a warped & crooked generation. Is this the way they repay God? Is He not your Father, your Creator who made & formed you?

Remember the old days, consider your ancestors. Ask your dads & he’ll tell you. The elders, they’ll tell you too. When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided all mankind, He set up boundaries for the peoples, according to the number of the sons of God. For God’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance. (???)

In a desert land, He found him. In a barren & howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him. He guarded him like the apple of his eye. Like an eagle that hovers over its young. God alone led him; no foreign god was with him.

He made him on the heights of the land. Fed him with the fruit of the fields. He nourished him with honey from the rock & with oil from the flinty crag. He also got curds, milk, fattened lambs/goats, with choice rams of Bashan, & the finest kernels of wheat.

Jeshurun grew fat & kicked. Filled with food, he became heavy & sleek. He abandoned the God who made him reject the Rock his Savior. They made Him jealous of their foreign gods & angered Him with their idols. They sacrificed to demons, which isn’t God. They deserted the Rock, who fathered you. You forgot the God who gave you life.

God saw this & rejected them. Because He was angered by His sons & daughters. God will hide His face from the Israelites. Because they’re a perverse generation, kids who are unfaithful. They made Me jealous of what’s no god & angered Me with their worthless idols. God will make them envious of those who aren’t a people. God will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. (Check out Romans 10:19.) For a fire has been kindled by His wrath, one that burns to the realm of Sheol. It’ll devour the earth & its harvests, & set afire the foundations of the mountains.

God will heap calamities upon the Israelites. Spreading arrows against them. God will waste famine against them. A consuming pestilence & deadly plague. God will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, & the venom of vipers. In the street, the sword will make you childless. (Dang! Harsh!) In their homes, terror will reign. Young men & women will perish, infants, & gray-haired men.

God said He’d scatter the Israelites & blot their memory from mankind. (WOW!) But I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the enemy misunderstands, & say that their hand had won, God hasn’t done this.

They’re a nation without sense. There’s no discernment in them. If only they were wise & would understand this & discern what their end will be! How could one man chase 1,000 or 2. Put 10,000 into flight. Unless their Rock had sold them. Unless God had given them up? For their rock isn’t like OUR (our emphasis) Rock. As even our enemies concede. Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom & from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with poison. Their clusters with bitterness. Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

Has He not kept this in reserve & sealed it in His vaults? It is His to avenge, He will repay. (Check out Romans 12:19 & Hebrews 10:30.) In due time the Israelites’ feet will slip. Their doom rushes upon them.

God will judge His people. (Check out Hebrews 10:30, again.) He will have compassion for His servants. When He sees their strength is gone & no one is left. He will say, “Where are their gods? Let them rise up & help you!”

See now that I Myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death & I bring to life. I’ve wounded & I’ll heal. No one can be delivered out of My hand. I lift my hand to heaven & declare, as surely as I live forever, I’ll take vengeance on my enemies & repay those who hate Me. He’ll make arrows drunk with blood. While His swords devour flesh.

Rejoice, O nations, with His people. (Check out Romans 15:10.) For He’ll avenge the blood of His servants. He’ll take vengeance on His enemies & make atonement for His land & people.

Then Moses came to Joshua/Hoshea & said all the words of the song in the hearing of the people. When Moses finished saying the words of the song, he told them, “Take this to heart. Everything I’ve said. They’re not just idle words, they’re your life.”

On that same day, after all this, God told Moses to go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo, in Moab. Which is across from Jericho & in view of the Promised Land (a.k.a. Canaan). Then on that mountain, Moses climbed, he was to die. To “be gathered to your people, just like your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor…” This is because both of them, Moses & Aaron, broke faith in God. And in the presence of the Israelites, at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin. Because they didn’t uphold His holiness among the Israelites. Therefore they could only see it from a distance. Or at least only Moses.