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The Song of Moses: A Christian Explication

The Song of Moses: A Christian Explication

Christopher H. Meredith

26 September, 2002

Of all Old Covenant writings, the Pentateuch certainly sits at the heart. Summed up in these five books are the accounts of the creation of the universe and the history of man. We see how a holy God interacts with fallen man and how He deals with His chosen people. We are given a history of the nation of Israel from their roots in Abraham to their captivity in Egypt to their wandering in the desert. Along the way, God reveals His awesome and holy character through His interaction with His people and through His ordinances and statutes in the Law.

At the conclusion of the Pentateuch is the Book of Deuteronomy. From the Greek deuteronomion touto, the title means “this second law giving”¹ which is a very appropriate name. In chapter 5 is the covenant renewal ceremony wherein Moses repeats to the second generation the terms of the covenant God established with their parents at Sinai. The purpose of this final chapter of the Pentateuch is to remind the people of God's love and faithfulness toward them and to thereby exhort them to “..love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (6:5)²

By chapter 32 we find the children of Israel standing at the edge of the Promised Land, ready to enter where their parents were forbidden due to their unfaithfulness. They have had the Sinai covenant reiterated to them and the Law given to them, with additional instructions for life in the Promised Land. Throughout all this, they have been exhaustively reminded of the goodness and faithfulness of the God who has called them and who has established the Law and issued this covenant. They have been reminded of the blessings for faithfulness and the curses for apostasy. They are then exhorted to be faithful to God lest the wrath of God befall them.

It is to this end that we are given the account of the first musical commission in the history of man:

Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel. (Deuteronomy 31:19)

God has called Moses to Him here and told him to write a song and teach it to Israel. God gives him the subject matter saying that it is to serve as a witness for Him against the sons of Israel because He foresees their inevitable apostasy. God goes on to predict that after He has brought Israel into the Promised Land, they will grow content and will turn away from God and give themselves to idols. As a result of their unfaithfulness, they will suffer the curses of the covenant. This song, therefore, is to remind Israel of God's faithfulness and convict them of their own faithlessness.

The song Moses composes as his final task before his death can be evaluated in five sections. The first section, comprised of verses 1 and 2 serves as an introduction to the song and also establishes the legal nature of the song.

Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. ²Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As raindrops on the tender herb, And as showers on the grass.

Moses begins by calling heaven and earth to testify for God, something he also does two chapters earlier in 30:19 during the covenant renewal ceremony. Beginning this way, Moses reminds the people of the greatness of God. The LORD is so magnificent that heaven and earth are His creations, ones that have not once rebelled against their Creator from the very moment of their existence. Here, Moses is calling other creations to testify against God's chosen, those creatures He has set apart and loved above any other.

The second section involves verses 3-6 and highlights the disparaging contrast between the character of God and the character of Israel. Right at the outset, Moses says, “I proclaim the name of the LORD: Ascribe greatness to our God.” (32:3) In this time and culture, a name was not simply a label; it was a description of the person's character and nature. God is given so many names throughout Scripture because of His multi-faceted character. Here, Moses uses His personal name YHWH, revealed first to Moses at the burning bush. This is the divine name and Moses invokes its power and authority in what he says. He couples this with an exhortation to worship the God to whom this great name belongs. He then proceeds to describe the amazing strength, perfection, holiness, justice, and righteousness of God in a fashion that the psalmists would later emulate. This is a towering description of the holy God which is sharply contrasted in verses 5 and 6 by a past-tense prophesy of the apostasy of the people in the years to come.

In verse 5, Moses links perversity and the blemish of sin with not being a true child of God, a connection John makes early in his first epistle. He advances the point in verse 6 by rebuking Israel for their foolishness in how they shall treat the LORD who ransomed them from Egypt and bought them by the blood of the Passover lamb. This implicit appeal to the goodness and kindness of God is made explicitly in the following verses.

The third section of the Song encompasses verses 7-18 and shows us “a rehearsal of the great things God has done for [Israel], and in opposition to that an account of their ill carriage towards Him...”³ In verses 7-12, Moses emotionally reviews the history of the nation of Israel going back to Adam himself. He uses highly poetic language that embodies the love and kindness of the God of the cosmos in His dealings with the sons of Israel. The theme of God's deliverance and promises is thick here and is undoubtedly intended to move the hearers to repentance of their own hard-heartedness.

Verses 13-14 make even clearer the amount of blessing Israel has enjoyed as the firstborn of God. These two verses seem to describe the abundance of life in the Promised Land, a life which is a future reality for these, the first hearers of this song. But as this is to serve an even greater purpose to future generations, it is appropriate and necessary where it is.

In the next four verses, Moses converts the prophesy God gave him into an impassioned and scornful rebuke of the people for their harlotry. Verse 15 refers to Israel as “Jeshurun” which is taken from the Hebrew word meaning “upright.” This is a highly ironic description considering the context in which it is used:

But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, You are obese! Then he forsook God who made him, And scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; With abominations they provoked Him to anger. ¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not to God, To gods they did not know, To new gods, new arrivals That your fathers did not fear. ¹⁸Of the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, And have forgotten the God who fathered you.

Used here, “Jeshurun” is meant to highlight Israel's fall from faithfulness as a result of their materialism. In the blessing of the Promised Land, Israel would grow content and arrogantly deny the truth of the LORD's blessing, instead priding himself in his good fortune. The new land would provide many pagan gods for this puffed up nation to turn to instead of God Most High. This spiritual harlotry by the nation of Israel had and would stir up the wrath and jealousy of the Lord GOD who does not wish to share His glory with any idols. Of particular note here is the implicit statement that turning to idols is necessarily turning away from God. As a result of Israel's covenant transgressions, they would taste the justice of God through the curses He gave at Sinai and reiterated to this second generation, the first hearers of this song.

The fourth section of the Song is the longest, covering verses 16-33 and describing the mode and means of the justice of God against an unbelieving people. It is important to note that this theme occupies the longest section of the Song and that few other sections of Scripture paint such a vivid picture of God as Warrior, Judge, and Avenger.

Verse 23-27 describe the horror that awaits the foolish and unbelieving nation. The very thought that God would be this furious with His people (to say nothing of the curses themselves) should be enough to terrorize any God-fearing person, but Moses drives the point home, colorfully illustrating the anger of God to an extent that God says, “I would have said, 'I will dash them in pieces, I will make the memory of them cease from among men,' had I not feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should say, 'Our hand is high; and it is not the LORD who as done all this'” (32:26-27). God is so angry with Israel that He would just as soon destroy the entire nation, but He does not in order that the Gentile nations not think Him weak or themselves strong. Even here the point is blunt and heavy: God will not share His glory or His praise with anyone else.

Verses 28-33 progress to a description of the foolishness of the people who have forgotten that their God is the one who has blessed them and that nothing they have is of themselves. Moses is certain to mention the fact that the Gentile nations have no gods like the LORD. Using the analogy of wine, Moses shows that the grapes of the pagans are poison and death. A brief segue of verses 34-35 deals with the impending doom of the wicked - the pagans whom God does not regard - and brings us to the final section of the Song of Moses.

Beginning in verse 36, God makes a double vow: to vindicate Israel and smite the wicked pagans. Verses 37-38 ironically portray God mocking the pagans for the impotence of their gods and the worthlessness of their wealth. This same spirit of irony was displayed in Elijah as he mercilessly taunted the prophets of Baal in the contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18) and it is this scorn for wickedness that the LORD displays here.

The next five verses are the climax of the chapter and in them resounds the majestic voice of God:

Now see that I, even I, am He; And there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand. ⁴⁰For I raise My hand to heaven, And say, 'As I live forever, ⁴¹If I whet My glittering sword, And My hand takes hold on judgment, I will render vengeance to My enemies, And repay those who hate Me. ⁴²I will make My arrows drunk with blood, And My sword shall devour flesh, With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the heads of the leaders of the enemy.'

These verses differ from the similar sounding ones of verses 23-27 in that 39-42 refer not to the cursing of Israel but to the destruction of the pagans. Just as the vindication of Israel and the destruction of the wicked are tied together in verse 36, so may we all as the bride of Christ (the New Israel) rejoice in the destruction of the wicked. For by our natural birth, we too deserved that end. The wrath of God that burns against the wicked once burned against us, but it was put away against Christ on the cross as He died for the sins of the elect. Therefore we may rejoice in the power and majesty of our God as His perfect plan of salvation is worked out in the world.

Promising the destruction of the wicked and the deliverance of Israel, verses 36-43 end with hope and grace. God does not simply promise doom and destruction to an unbelieving people but He also demonstrates His transcendent faithfulness to His chosen. God's chastisement of Israel is an act of love for His children and in this final verse, God's grace and love is shown through His promise of redemption:

⁴³Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His land and His people.

The author of Hebrews quoted this verse (with the extra text provided by the Septuagint) and applied it to the coming of Christ. Not only will God reconcile Israel to Himself, He will also give the Gentiles cause for joy. In this final clause of the Song of Moses God promises to provide atonement for His land and His people. This statement would have carried a heavy impact with the sons of Israel, standing there at the edge of the Promised Land, as the LORD here is pledging to fulfill for them the ceremony that stood at the height of ritual law: the Atonement ritual. Although God is a God of great terror and wrath, He is moreover a God of love and grace. In few places is this clearer than in the Song of Moses.

Deuteronomy 32 informs us that after Moses sang the song for the assembly of Israel, He commanded them to “set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe – all the words of this law. For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess” (32:46b-47). These instructions are a fulfillment of God's command that Moses teach the song to the people and instruct them to teach it to their children. This Moses does and adds some emphasis of his own.

His first instruction to the people is that they set their hearts on it. This is a directive to study and meditate upon the song rather than simply hear it. James makes a distinction between hearers and doers of the Word, concluding that he who lives the Word will be blessed in what he does. Clearly, this same blessing is in front of Israel if he would only heed the Word of God.

His second instruction to the people is to command their children to carefully observe “all the words of this law.” This says a few things, the most prominent being that Moses is putting this song on par with the Law; indeed, much of the Law is contained within the lyrics. Here also in this command is an echo of earlier covenant stipulations that the terms of the covenant be passed on faithfully to successive generations.

Following the directives are some emphatic statements regarding the importance of obedience. Moses tells the people that obedience of these instructions is not a futile thing, indeed it is their very life. Moses is reassuring them in no uncertain terms that he is not merely involving them in mindless bookwork, requiring them to memorize extensive songs. This is no futile matter, this is one of life and death. Clearly “life” in this context takes on the double physical/spiritual meaning in light of the curses so graphically described. He then goes on to hold aloft the Promised Land saying that by careful obedience to the words of God and these commandments, Israel might prolong his days in that land, which, as Moses so helpfully reminds them, they are about to enter into for the first time. Undoubtedly, this reminder brought to mind that covenant curse promising exile as a result of covenantal faithlessness.

As is often the case with prophesy, we are faced with a divine paradox. How do we reconcile the fact that God knows Israel will turn away from Him yet He instruct Moses to merely sing a song about it? In reading this passage it is easy to forget that the things about which God is so wrathful are things yet to occur. However, we must remember that while this is a quandary to us, it does not even begin to confuse God. Nowhere in Scripture does God command us to understand everything He puts before us, only that we obey.

In looking back, it is also easy to deride the sons of Israel for transgressing the covenant so completely and wickedly considering the amount of admonition and in light of the curses and blessings offered. Yet we must remember that the New Covenant is far more glorious than the Old (1 Cor. 3:7-11) and we as the New Israel do not transgress the New Covenant any less seriously. But thanks be to God that our salvation is not determined by our ability to keep the covenant.

God is faithful and has lovingly entered into a relationship with us. Dictating the terms of the relationship, He requires us to love Him back and to obey His commands. In this we must remember that we serve the God of Israel and must therefore set our hearts on every word of His law. It is indeed our life.

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