Deuteronomy 32

Chap. XXXII. Ver. 1—29. Moses celebrates the divine per- Justice, and truth, are primary attributes of the Deity, of whom ‘the rock” is the established emblem. David says, ((2 Samuel 23:3).) ‘The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me’ and the same image was applied to the idols of the heathen: “For their rock is not as our Rock, our enemies themselves being judges.” (ver. 31.) The leading idea of the figure is safety, or salvation; hence those words are often joined together, “The Lord is my rock and my salvation.” He is a sure foundation for our hopes, a safe defence against our enemies, and a refuge from shipwreck and from storm. As the primitive rocks, moreover, are the very foundation of in the sense of origin, or first cause, and this certainly corresponds best with the following sentence, ** His work is perfect.”

Of Israel it is said, “They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children;” the latter clause of which is attended with some difficulty, as may be seen in the notes: but our Prophet version, compared with the margin, gives a very good sense, and probably the true meaning of the passage: “They have corrupted themselves,” as flesh is corrupted by disease and death: their blemishes are not of that superficial nature as to be washed out, even “with nitre and much soap,” but are the marks of putrefaction; “they are a perverse and contrasted with the baseness and ingratitude of his professing people. His care over them is compared to that of the royal bird, (the eagle,) in rearing and feeding her young; their ingratitude is compared to the ungrateful hind, “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked;” and the more they were nourished, the more ingratitude they discovered, until at length they turned their back upon Jehovah, and sacrificed to demons, the idols of the heathen.

Well might the prophet say, “They are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this! that they would consider their latter end!” This, indeed, is a subject of universal interest, no less so to us than to them; but the ablest commentators are of opinion, as this refers to the nation, that it does not so properly refer to the death of individuals, as to the judgments denounced against them as a people; as if the prophet had said, ‘O that they would consider the consequences of their disobedience!”

Ver. 30—52. Moses laments over the ingratitude of Israel, and is himself ordered to prepare to die.—The pathetic lamentation of Moses connects with this part of the chapter, as well as of the former.

“O that they were wise, and that they understood this!” namely, the advantages of obedience, and the miseries which must necessarily result from a contrary conduct. Turning toward the idolatrous Canaanites, Moses justly says; “Their rock is not as our Rock;” their gods are not as our God, “even our enemies themselves being judges.” So Rahab confessed to the spies; “We have heard how Jehovah dried up the water of the Red sea, when ye came out of Egypt,” &c. ((Joshua 2:10-11).) As to the idolatrous nations, they are compared to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose sins they copied: and are said, therefore, to have produced poisonous fruits, whose wine is compared to the poison of dragons and of asps; that is, the principles of idolatry are as destructive to pure morals, and to the true interests of mankind, as the venom of those creatures is to human life.

The people of Israel are described by the prophet Isaiah as the vineyard of the Lord of hosts, which had been cultivated and fenced round; but, saith the Lord, “when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, it brought forth wild grapes.” ((Isaiah 5:1-7).) But these idolaters brought forth not only wild but poisonous fruits; for idolatry not only violated the precepts of the first, but of the second table; it not only dishonoured the divine perfections, but it encouraged the crimes that poisoned the sources of human existence and of knowledge, and sapped the foundations of society. Against these vengeance is denounced. The Lord is arising to judgment; to avenge his people of their enemies, to give them their allotted inheritance, and dispossess the idolaters who had usurped it; and the poem concludes with calling upon the nations to unite with his people, and praise Jehovah for his mercies; “for he will be merciful to his land and to his people.”

This St. Paul quotes as a prophecy of the calling of the Gentiles; “‘Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.” And this justifies our interpretation of these verses as favourable to Israel, the surrounding nations (the Canaanites excepted) being called upon to rejoice with them. Moses having recited this song in the ears of all the people, concludes with this pointed and pathetic address: “Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day… For it is not a vain thing, it is your life; and through this ye shall prolong your days in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.”

Notes on the verses

Chap. XXXII. Ver. 5. They have corrupted themselves, &c.—Hebrew, “Ge (i.e. Israel) hath corrupted himself.” — Their spot is not the spot of his children.” — Margin, “They are not his children; that is their blot.” The last clause is variously rendered and explained. Bishop Lowth renders it, “Their evil disposition hath corrupted his children, which indeed are no longer his;” but adds, in a note, that the sense adopted by the LXX., the Samaritan, and Syriac, is perhaps nearer the truth; “They are corrupted, they are not his; (they are) sons of error, or blemish;” which is also partly confirmed by Aquila, Vulgate, and Symmachus. Some explain the word spot, as referring to the st, or mark, impressed by idolaters on their foreheads; but nothing like this was allowed in Israel.

They were not to cut or paint themselves. The sense given in the exposition was suggested by considering, that the word used for corruption, is applied to the change which takes place in a dead body, ((Psalms 16:10).) and is, in fact, only the universal prevalence of that putrefaction which first appears in spots. The same idea is perhaps suggested in (Jeremiah 2:23), (above referred to,) where the Jews are described as polluted with idolatry, and their “iniquity marked” with a spot, or blot, that could not be eradicated.

Ver. 6. Is he not thy father that hath bought thee?—That is, who redeemed thee. See (Isaiah 62:16).

Ver. 8. According to the number of the children of Israel.—The meaning is, (says Dr. Boothroyd,) “that when God fixed the boundaries of other nations, he allotted also a land sufficiently large to contain the children of Israel; and he so favoured them, by revealing his will to them, and dwelling among them, that they may be said to be his own inheritance.” Hence it does not appear that the Canaanites had any claim to this country, but by possession, probably by conquest: and by the same means were they dispossessed. See the quotation from Bryant, in the introduction to this book.

Ver. 10. He found him in a desert land.—To this it has been objected, that the Lord did not find them in the desert, but led them thither. But the expression is poetical; the narrative begins, or finds them there.

Compare (Exodus 18:8) (Numbers 20:14). margin.—He led him about.—Margin, “Compassed him about.” The same pillar of cloud and fire which directed, also protected them, as in the passage of the Red sea.

Ver. 13. Honey out of the rock,—(i.e., wild honey,) and oil out of the flint rock.—Maundrell, speaking of Judea, says, ‘The most rocky parts of all, which could not well be adjusted for the production of corn, might yet serve for the plantation of vines and olive-trees, which delight to extract, the one its fatness, the other its sprightly juice, chiefly out of such dry and flinty soil.’

Ver. 14. The fat of kidneys of wheat.—In allusion to this expression, Forbes observes, that some of the greatest delicacies in India are made from the rolong of flour, which is called the heart, or kidney, of wheat.—Pure blood of the grape.—That is, wine not weakened by water.

Ver. 15. Jeshurun.—Hebrew, “the upright;” i.e. that nation whose ancestors were upright before God, became corrupt.

Ver. 17. They sacrificed unto devils.—The original word, shedim, has been variously interpreted. “The Vulgate, LXX., Arabic, Persic, Coptic, and Anglo-Saxon, have devils, or demons.”—Dr. Clarke. “These were worshipped under the notion of their presiding over nature, and shedding down (as Parkhurst explains it) the blessings of rain and dew, &c. This was connected with the ancient astrology.

Ver. 19. He abhorred them because of the provoking, &c.—Margin, “He despised;” or, “He was disgusted with them, because of the provocation:” or because his sons and daughters provoked him by their idolatries.

Ver. 20. Children in whom is no faith.—That is, faithless, fickle, not to be depended on.

Ver. 22. The lowest hell.—The deepest destruction; alluding to the earthquake and the volcano.

Ver. 23. I will spend mine arrows upon them.—The judgments of God in general are termed the arrows of God; (Job 6:4). (Psalms 38:2-3). xc. 6. (Ezekiel 5:16). (Jeremiah 1:14). (2 Samuel 22:14-15). The heathens did the same. Apollo is ever represented as bearing a bow and quiver full of deadly arrows.—Homer, Il. i. 45. The following beautiful passage, quoted by Dr. Clarke from an oriental writer, will well illustrate this metaphor. “It was once demanded of the fourth Khaleefeh, (on whom be the mercy of the Creator!) if the canopy of heaven were a bow; and if the earth were the cord thereof; if calamities were arrows; if mankind were the marks for those arrows, and if Almighty God, the tremendous and glorious, were the unerring Archer; to whom could the sons of Adam flee for protection?”

The Khaleefeh answered, “The sons of Adam must flee unto the Lord.”

Ver. 30. One chase a thousand.—This was promised (Leviticus 26:7-8). and would doubtless have been fulfilled, had the people remained faithful and obedient.—Except their Rock had sold them.—In slave countries, the slaves are penned up like cattle, till they are sold, and then delivered up to their purchasers. It is remarkable, that when Titus had taken Jerusalem, he was so struck with the strength of the place, that he acknowledged, if God had not delivered it into his hands, the Roman armies never could have taken it.

Ver. 32. Their vine is of the vine of Sodom.—Margin, “Is worse than the vine of Sodom.” Michaelis thinks that the vine of Sodom is the solanum, or night-shade, which bears a considerable resemblance to the vitis, or white vine, in its leaves and fruit, which is vinous, but poisonous, and which the Arabs call fox-grapes.—Poison of dragons.—Many critics contend that the Heb. Tannim, here used, refers to the crocodile; but this creature, terrible as it is, is not poisonous; it is evident, therefore, that it must mean something else in this place. The late Editor of Calmet contends for the Gecko, a creature much like the chameleon, but whose poison is very fatal, and so is that of some species of serpents; but the moral sense, as above given, is unquestionable, and most important.

Ver. 34. Is not this laid up in store with me?—Namely, vengeance and recompense, as in the verse following.

Ver. 35. Their foot shall slide in due time.—“In the time their foot shall slide.” (Ainsworth.) So the Psalmist tells us, the wicked stand in “slippery places,” whence they are cast “down unto destruction.”—(Psalms 73:18). Calmet thinks this passage refers to the devoted nations, and we conceive justly.

Ver. 42. And that with the blood, &c.—The words “and that,” are supplementary, and would be better omitted.—From the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.—The word paroth, rendered revenges, a sense in which it never seems to be used, has rendered this passage very obscure. As the word paira, signifies the hair of the head, both in Hebrew and Arabic, Parkhurst and others render mairosh paroth, ‘from the hairy head;” but to have this sense, the words should rather have been seippnrent rosh, according to the Hebrew idiom. The word faron, in Arabic, however, also denotes a prince or chief; and the words may be literally rendered, with the LXX.

“from the head of the chiefs of the enemies.” The hyperbaton, or transposition of words from their grammatical order, is very observable in this verse; the third member forming a continuation of the first, and the fourth of the second.

Ver. 43. Rejoice, O ye opposite yean! “Sing ye (or praise) his people, ye nations.” The textual reading is justified by St. Paul, as above quoted.

Ver. 44. Hoshea.—That is, Joshua. See note on (Numbers 13:16).