Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth!
Moses is at the end of his life. Instead of a farewell speech, he leaves Israel a song. Its opening words do not address Israel at all. They call the sky and the ground to listen. Why summon creation as an audience, and what is so weighty that heaven and earth must hear it?
The song was not Moses' own idea. God ordered it, and told him in advance why he had to write it and teach it.
Two songs are attributed to Moses. He and the children of Israel sang the first at the start of his forty years of ministry, just after they had crossed the Red Sea (Exodus 15:1-18)… He composed the second at the end, just before he died. There is no sign that anyone ever sang it. The instructions were, "Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel" (Deuteronomy 31:19).
The content is severe. The form is deliberate.
They are now to hear in the words of his closing song the testimony to their treachery and God's faithfulness. He proclaims it in the form of a song, because the spirit of praise must run through even the most solemn condemnation of evil… It is as though we are not to dwell on evil in a way that crushes the soul — on the degradation of man, his rebellion and hostility to God, and the foolishness and waywardness of His own people. Instead we are to view it all with Moses in song, celebrating and declaring God's victory over all evil, and His final triumph for His people as well.
Moses does not open by addressing Israel. He opens with creation, because his subject is that big.
Moses began his song by calling heaven and earth to hear the words of his mouth. What he was about to say concerned indeed heaven and earth. Isaiah too began his book with the same call (Isaiah 1:2).
Another writer asks who is really being called, and what the song is really about.
Moses calls the heavens to hear, at the opening of his majestic song. He calls not only the material heavens, but the intelligent heavens, to hear something about Jehovah. The great theme is not the people and their failures, but the faithfulness of God.
The opening of the song also shows how its words are meant to reach the hearer.
These four verses open the song of Moses, and they are both magnificent and beautiful. He calls the heavens and the earth to hear the faithful words from the mouth of the Lord. His teaching drops as the rain. It falls not like a cloudburst, but as the refreshing, nourishing dew on the land, or as showers on the grass. How well it would be with us if we received it as such, appreciating its living value and refreshment. For it begins, not with what we may selfishly desire for our advantage, but with proclaiming the name of the Lord.
Moses names his subject at once. That subject also shows up what the people are.
Because he would publish the name of Jehovah, they were to ascribe greatness to their God. He is the rock abiding in unshakeable strength for His people. Not they, but He, is this tower of strength… As for the people, it was clear what they were. The corruption was theirs, not His; it is that of His children, theirs is the blemish — a perverse and crooked generation.
The opening call prepares for a survey that runs far past Moses' own day.
The song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32 and Revelation 15:3) is a wonderful summary of God's ways with Israel. It gives God's sovereign call of that nation, their perverseness, their defeat by enemies as a result, and their scattering. Then it gives the final overthrow of those enemies, and the recovery of both land and people through sovereign mercy, to enjoy the favour of Jehovah along with the spared nations.
- Witness. God commanded the song, and had Moses write it and teach it, so that it would stand as a witness against Israel.
- Summons. Moses calls heaven and earth because his subject reaches that far. Isaiah later opens his book the same way.
- Manner. The words are to fall as rain and dew, refreshing rather than flattening those who receive them.
- Name. The call to listen has one purpose: to publish the name of the Lord, so that the people ascribe greatness to Him alone.
- Outcome. The rest of the song traces Israel's failure, scattering and recovery. The blemish is theirs; the faithfulness is His.
My doctrine shall drop as rain, My speech flow down as dew, As small rain upon the tender herb, And as showers on the grass.
Moses is about to die. His last public act is a song, and it opens not with warnings but with rain and dew. Why should teaching come down so gently, and what makes it give life instead of crushing?
Where else does Scripture use the words "drop" and "distil"?
Scripture uses this word for "rain," as in Judges 5:4: "The clouds also dropped water"; and, "He draws up the drops of water" (Job 36:27). Growing out of this, the same word describes speech flowing out, or distilling: "My speech dropped upon them; and they waited for me as for the rain" (Job 29:22); "Your lips drop as the honeycomb." This last might well find its explanation in the direct language of the New Testament: "All bore Him witness, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth" (Luke 4:22).
How teaching comes matters as much as what it says. So does how we receive it.
His teaching drops as the rain, not like a cloudburst, but as the refreshing, nourishing dew on the land or as showers on the grass. How well it would be with us if we received it as such, appreciating its living value and refreshment. For it begins, not with what we may selfishly desire for our advantage, but with proclaiming the name of the Lord. The honor of His name is far above every other consideration.
The refreshing comes from the subject: God Himself.
The great theme is not the people and their failures, but the faithfulness of God... In a drought everything looks burnt up and lifeless. Then a shower of rain brings life and strength to the earth. In the same way, proclaiming the name of Jehovah revives His people and makes them like a well-watered garden. When we hear what God is for us through the risen Christ, it should have the same effect. It should refresh us and cheer us in all the care, discouragement and distress of these days. Nothing in God's universe can lift our heads like the knowledge of God.
Refreshment like this does not depend on circumstances.
Come what may, the Name of our God shall stand for ever. No power of earth or hell can possibly counter the divine purpose, or hinder the outshining of the divine glory. What sweet rest this gives the heart, in the middle of this dark, sorrowful, sin-stricken world... Proclaiming that blessed Name must always be like refreshing dew and tender rain falling on the heart.
The rest of the song carries severe warnings.
Strong warnings were needed for this murmuring, disobedient people. What was the best way to present them? He composed the song! But he did not begin with the warnings. He began by inviting heaven and earth to hear the words of his mouth. His words were not ordinary words. They were pure words of instruction that would fall as rain, heavy at times, but they were also gentle words.
Moses reached this gentleness the hard way.
Leaders could fail. Moses had. His failure had painful consequences. He had once spoken badly and called God's people "rebels." He had not set God apart before the eyes of the people. And God denied him the privilege of bringing His people into the Promised Land. Even the meekest man in all the earth had used hard words, but now at the end of his life his speech could distil as the dew.
One writer sees the verse answered in someone greater than Moses.
Moses might proclaim the name of Jehovah, but here was the One who revealed the Father; he might ascribe greatness to God, but here was the One who unfolded His love. Surely His teaching dropped as the rain, His speech distilled as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.
This gentle work is not limited to great speakers.
How sweet to think of the dew as a figure of the refreshment we may be to others! It is not conspicuous; it does not call attention to itself; but it is there, and you know it by the effect it produces... some who were neither great preachers, nor eloquent teachers, nor prominent workers. Yet you could not be with them without feeling the sweetness and fragrance of the very presence of Christ. Why was this? Because their own souls were enjoying His presence, without thinking of the effect on others. He is as the dew to His own.
- Rain — "drop" and "distil" describe falling water, and Scripture uses the same verb for speech.
- Measure — not a cloudburst, but nourishing dew and showers, given in a form we can take in.
- Name — what refreshes is the subject: God's Name proclaimed, which stands for ever and gives the heart rest.
- Distilling — the man who once spoke harshly ends his life with speech pure enough to fall as dew.
- Dew — the same refreshment can pass through us, quiet and known only by the effect it leaves.
For the name of Jehovah will I proclaim Ascribe greatness unto our God!
Moses is at the end of his life, and he opens his final song not with Israel's record but with God's name. It holds a promise and a command. Moses will proclaim who the LORD is. His hearers must give God the greatness.
Older translations read "I will publish the name of Jehovah" where the ESV has "proclaim the name of the LORD." One writer links "publish" to Exodus, where God proclaimed His own name to Moses.
There is an interesting connection between this scripture and Exodus 34:5-6. You can see this once you notice that the word "publish" in Deuteronomy is the same word as "proclaim" in Exodus 33 and 34… In Deuteronomy we find Moses himself proclaiming Jehovah's name. God made him the vessel of the divine testimony for that day, so he could publish it, and as purely as he received it. The lesson is this: we cannot truly preach what we have not received from the Lord. And we can only faithfully proclaim what we have received by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Why does Moses put "name" and "greatness" side by side? One writer says the two words mean nearly the same thing.
The great theme is not the people and their failures, but the faithfulness of God… There is nothing in the universe of God that can lift our heads like the knowledge of God. It lifts our hearts and our heads in praise to that God who delights to unfold Himself to our hearts. So he says, "I will publish the name of Jehovah." We are used to speaking of a name in the sense of greatness or fame. That this is the thought in this passage is clear, for Moses continues: "Ascribe greatness to our God" — the greatness He has gained for Himself in His mighty acts.
The same writer weighs two kinds of greatness against each other.
God is not only great in the sphere of power, as is seen in creation, He is morally great also. Not only great in what He has done, but great also in what He is… Which is the greater? Is it for a mighty supreme Being to send out the glorious stars that fill the heavens? Or for that same Being to bow down and take an interest in poor weak things like you and me? It is the greatness of His love and grace that engages Him with those He has created, cares for them in their sorrows and binds up the broken heart.
To ascribe greatness is to hand it over to God. One writer turns that into a rebuke aimed straight at the reader.
It is Jehovah's name they publish, that sweet and wonderful name which expresses truly what He is, and which man, having dropped out of that knowledge, so badly needs to learn. To Him they ascribe greatness; yes, to Him, O man, made out of the clay, who have ruined yourself by claiming it.
Why should announcing a name refresh anyone? One writer answers that this Name cannot be shaken.
Here lies the solid, the imperishable foundation of everything. Come what may, the Name of our God shall stand for ever. No power of earth or hell can possibly work against the divine purpose, or hinder the shining out of the divine glory. What sweet rest this gives the heart! Our world is dark, sorrowful and sin-stricken, and the schemes of the enemy seem to succeed. The publishing of that blessed Name must always fall on the heart like refreshing dew and gentle rain.
God had told Moses he would not enter the land. So his praise cost him something.
With delight, Moses proclaims the Name of Jehovah, ascribing greatness to Israel's God. If poor Israel proved himself unstable, God remained immovable. He is the Rock, and nothing would move Him from His purposes, or alter His ways… God could not let His people's sins go unpunished. He is a faithful God, without deceit. Moses knew he himself was shut out of the land because of his failure. Even so, he can still say, "Just and right is He."
What Moses did here is not the last word. One writer sets Moses beside Christ.
Moses might publish the name of Jehovah, but here was the Revealer of the Father. He might ascribe greatness to God, but here was the Unfolder of His love.
- Received — "Publish" is the same word God used when He proclaimed His own name to Moses. No one can pass on what he has not first received.
- Refreshing — The theme is God's faithfulness, not Israel's failure. That news falls on tired hearers like dew and rain.
- Great — The name means fame. God is great in the power that flung out the stars, and great in the love that stoops to weak people.
- Ascribed — Hand greatness to God; do not claim it. Man ruined himself by grasping at it.
- Unshaken — Moses sings this though he is barred from the land himself. The Name that stands for ever gives rest when everything else fails.
[He is] the Rock, his work is perfect, For all his ways are righteousness; A God of faithfulness without deceit, Just and right is he.
God gave Moses a song to teach Israel — one that would expose their coming failure. Before any word of rebuke, the song fixes the eye on what God is. That standard measures everything it says later about Israel.
The reason behind the song is painful. Israel was meant to be God's witness to the nations.
Instead of Israel being a witness for Jehovah before all nations, the song of Moses was to be a witness for Jehovah against the children of Israel. They were called to be His witnesses. They were to declare His Name and show His praise in the land into which He brought them, in His faithfulness and sovereign mercy. But they utterly and shamefully failed. So a song was to be written. First it sets out the glory of God in the most magnificent language. Second, it records Israel's deplorable failure at every stage of their history.
The wording is deliberate. Moses does not say God is a rock among others.
"He is the Rock" — not merely a rock. There is, there can be, no other Rock but Himself. Eternal and universal honour to His glorious Name! "His work is perfect" — not a single flaw in anything that comes from His blessed hand. It all bears the stamp of absolute perfection. One day God will make this clear to every created being. It is clear to faith now, and is a spring of divine comfort to all true believers.
The picture behind the word comes from the desert.
He is the Rock — the "dwelling place in all generations," as our Moses says elsewhere (Ps. 90:1) — safe as shelter, strong against storm, giving clear shade in the noonday heat of a desert land. "His work is perfect" — though men and devils have joined together in their own persons to dishonour it.
Why is the work perfect? Because of who stands behind it. One writer traces this back to Christ Himself.
It is the Person which gives value to it all. Services would be nothing, sorrows would be nothing, death, resurrection and ascension, all would be nothing (if we could even imagine them), if Jesus were not the One He is. His person is the "Rock;" therefore "His work is perfect" (Deut. 32:4).
Older translations read "all His ways are judgment," which can sound like a threat. The word means something better.
"All His ways are judgment" — not wrath, but far-seeing, well-discerning righteousness. "A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He."
One writer defines this justice, then shows what happened when Israel questioned it.
Justice, or righteousness, is that feature in God in which He is consistent with Himself in all He says and does. His word expresses that justice, and His word is the guarantee that everything stays stable… The godless in Israel dared to challenge the consistency of God's ways in His dealings with the people. He took account of this and graciously came down to reason with them. By then their ways had become so bad that He left His own Sanctuary (Ezek. 8:6). Then we hear Jehovah say: "Yet the house of Israel says, 'The way of the Lord is not just.' O house of Israel, are My ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?" This condescension of the Lord is most telling in the light of Deut. 32:4.
The most costly detail is who is singing. Moses had been shut out of the land he was looking at.
God could not allow His people's sins to go unpunished; He is a faithful God, without deceit. Moses himself was shut out of the land because of his failure. Knowing that, he can still say, "just and upright is He." How blessed for His people to have such a God: completely transparent, no deceit, no unfaithfulness, no unrighteousness, no imperfection — and marked all through by greatness.
The verse is not only a description; it is an offer of solid ground.
This reveals His stability, His unchanging goodness. The blessed God carries out His own purposes despite men's failure and evil and wickedness… He uses everything to serve His own purpose. He is supreme over all… When you come to God you come to perfection, reliability — that which cannot shift. You have come to that which you can stake your soul upon for time and eternity.
- Rock first. Moses opens the song with God's character, not Israel's sin. He sets the standard before naming the failure.
- Rock alone. Not a rock but the Rock: shelter in the storm, shade in the desert heat, a dwelling place in every generation.
- Rock, therefore work. The work is flawless because the Person behind it is flawless.
- Rock, therefore ways. His ways are not blind wrath but clear-sighted righteousness. When men accuse Him of unfairness, He comes down to reason with them.
- Rock, therefore rest. Moses was shut out of the land, yet still called God "just and upright." This ground holds even when God's dealings cost you something.
They have dealt corruptly with him; Not his children's is their spot -- A crooked and perverted generation!
Moses has just called God the Rock, strong and unshaken (v. 4). The song now turns to the people, and asks how a people who carry God's name could end up like this.
One writer follows the song as it moves from God's strength to the state of the people.
Because he would publish the name of Jehovah, they were to ascribe greatness to their God. He is the rock abiding in unshakeable strength for His people. Not they but He is this tower of strength... As for the people, it was manifest what they were. The corruption was theirs, not His.
Being the most favoured nation did not protect them. It made the failure worse.
But Israel? Sadly, they have dealt corruptly with Him. Man, most favoured, most blessed, can turn all of this into the occasion of deeper condemnation. Adopted as His family, they are no sons of His, but a blot upon them, a generation crooked and perverse.
Older versions read "they have corrupted themselves." The charge is not vague wickedness. It points to what they did with what God had given them.
They had corrupted themselves, which means using the great blessings God had given them in a false, evil way. In practice they were not His children, whatever claims they might make. A true believer today is a child of God. But if he is living in rebellion, would it be fitting for him to tell others that he is a child of God? He might well get the answer the Lord gave to the Jews who claimed Abraham as their father: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did" (John 8:39). But Israel was a perverse and crooked generation (v. 5). They put the best things to a corrupt use. They twisted whatever truth they knew to justify their evil actions.
The line about their "spot" is hard to translate. One writer shows that older English Bibles added a word that is not in the original:
It is better to leave out "the spot" in this verse. It is printed in italics, which shows it was not in the original. "Not His children's is their spot" is best. His children have no spot. Spot is blemish. Their spot branded them as not of God.
An earlier line in the same book shows what was lost. Another writer sets the two verses side by side, using the old Greek translation of the Old Testament:
In Deuteronomy 14:1, looking at Israel as God's chosen and separated people, we read: "You are the sons of the LORD your God." But in Deuteronomy 32:5, looking at their rebellious walk and ways, the Spirit of God says: "They have sinned, they are not children to him, they are blemished, a crooked and distorted race." Israel has stopped being "children to Him". They have become instead "a crooked and distorted race": blemished, instead of unblemished. Now the believers at Philippi have God working in them, so that they, once poor sinners from the nations, have become "children of God". They are to be unblemished children in the middle of this blemished, crooked and distorted race — which described not only Israel, but the nations too.
The word "generation" here is not just the people alive in Moses' day. One writer, commenting on the Lord's words about "this generation," traces the phrase back to this song:
"This generation," of which the Lord speaks, is the perverse and unbelieving generation of the Jews, which indeed remains even to our day a race separated from all the others. They live among the nations, but they remain always a separate people, kept for the fulfilment of the counsels of God. We find this fact and the force of the word "generation" in Deuteronomy 32:5-20.
One writer draws the verdict out beyond Israel to the whole human family.
Turn to Deuteronomy 32, and you will find Moses lamenting that they were "a perverse and crooked generation," and also "a very stubborn generation, children in whom there is no faith." That is the trouble. Man, as he is, has no faith, even if he comes from the line of Abraham. Faith is not a product of fallen human nature. The whole race of Adam stands condemned in this sentence against Israel.
- Rock — the song holds up God as the unshaken Rock. The ruin came from the people: the corruption was theirs, not His.
- Gift — they took the blessings He gave and bent them to evil. Then they twisted the truth they knew to excuse it.
- Blemish — "spot" means blemish, and theirs marked them out as not of God; His children have no spot.
- Reach — the verdict is not only Israel's. Human nature produces no faith, even at its most favoured. The whole race of Adam stands condemned in it.
- Result — that crooked and distorted race is still here, and God's children are to live unblemished in the middle of it.
Do ye thus requite Jehovah, Foolish and unwise people? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee and established thee?
Moses puts God's whole case to Israel in a song, and verse 6 is the question at its heart. It names four things God is to them — Father, the one who bought them, their Maker, the one who established them — and each makes their conduct harder to explain.
The song turns from what God is to what the people are. Nothing about that turn is softened.
True, He has to judge man's ways. At times He has to take down the rod of discipline and use it on His own people with terrible severity. He will not tolerate any evil in those who bear His holy Name. All this comes out, with special solemnity, in the song before us. It exposes Israel's ways and deals with them without sparing. It lets nothing pass. It sets out everything with holy precision and faithfulness.
The words are not insults thrown in anger. They describe what the people are, and they stand against what God is.
The name of Jehovah is exalted. He is the Rock and His work is perfect. He is a God of truth, just and right. But His people — what are they? Their character is described in verses 5 and 6. How He uncovers the true nature of the people who had acknowledged Him as Jehovah! Corrupt, perverse, crooked, foolish, unwise are the terms used to describe their character.
Translations differ here. The ESV has "your father, who created you," while older versions read "your father that bought you." The quote below rests on that sense of buying — a price paid, and a reason for paying it.
And will men repay Jehovah like this? And He the Father who bought them out of captivity for the love He bore them? Foolish and unwise as they were, did they not know Him to be that? Had He not made and established them?
Father, Maker, founder of the nation — the claims stack into one appeal. One writer hears verse 6 as a plea, not just an accusation.
Verse 6 is a pleading appeal from God. How could they treat Him so foolishly? He is both a great God and a gracious Father, and He had bought them at so great a price. He was in fact their Maker, who had established them as a nation.
The verse calls God their Father, but the name did not match their lives. One writer turns that gap on believers today.
In practice they were not His children, whatever claims they might make. We know today that a true believer is a child of God. But if someone is living in rebellion, would it be fitting for him to announce to others that he is a child of God? In that case the Lord's answer to the Jews who claimed to be Abraham's children would fit him too: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did" (John 8:39).
Israel's failure did not cancel the relationship. One writer traces it forward to the day Israel will own that fatherhood again.
Moses had reminded the people of this relationship before they crossed the Jordan (Deuteronomy 32:6). Jeremiah in his day tried to impress it on them (3:19), but all with no result. So captivity had to be their lot, and that people have now known centuries of sorrow. Nothing can break that tie. Isaiah bears witness to this too. The Spirit of prophecy puts these words into the mouths of the godly remnant of the future: "For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O LORD, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name" (63:16).
The reproof is real, but it is not the destination. Moses sings both what Israel will do and what God will do.
But Moses does not end without a song (Deuteronomy 32). This song rests on the secret things of God's grace, though it also takes in the judgments of the last days. Not ignorant of the evil, he looks ahead to the blessing that would surely come to them. He feels deeply what they would do against Jehovah in their stubborn folly and ingratitude. But he sees in prophetic vision what He will do for them.
- Father — God Himself formed this relationship. Israel's failure and centuries of sorrow never dissolved it.
- Bought — He bought them out of captivity, and the reason was the love He bore them.
- Made — He is their Maker, who established them as a nation. They owe Him their freedom and their very existence as a people.
- Foolish — against those four claims, "foolish and senseless" is not abuse. It uncovers what they really are.
- Repaid — the charge is claiming the name without living it, then and now. The song exposes that without sparing, yet ends with what God will do for them.
Remember the days of old, Consider the years of generation to generation; Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; Thine elders, and they will tell thee.
Moses is at the end of his life. God has him write a song for Israel to learn by heart, and it moves straight from God's faithfulness to the people's failure. Then verse 7 stops to command a look backwards. Why does a warning song turn to memory, and what would Israel find if they asked?
Israel had a calling before the nations. This song turns it on its head.
Instead of Israel being a witness for the Lord before all the nations, the song of Moses was to be a witness for the Lord against the children of Israel. They were called to be His witnesses. They were responsible to declare His name and show His praise in that land into which, in His faithfulness and sovereign mercy, He brought them. But they failed, utterly and shamefully. So, in view of this sad and humiliating failure, a song had to be written. First, it sets out the glory of God in the most magnificent terms. Second, it records Israel's deplorable failure at every stage of their history, with unbending faithfulness.
The song's first rebuke lands just before verse 7. What comes next is not more rebuke.
Here we have the first note of reproof in this song. But the moment we hear it, a most precious outpouring of testimony follows. It testifies to the goodness, loving kindness, faithfulness and tender mercy of the Lord, the God of Israel, and the Most High of all the earth.
The verse gives three routes to the same information: the record of the past, your father, the elders. None of them will contradict the others.
And will men repay the Lord like this? He is the Father who purchased them out of captivity because of the love He had for them. Foolish and unwise as they were, did they not know Him to be that? Had He not made them and established them? Then let them look back on the past, the record of one generation after another. Or let them ask their fathers, and the elders grey with age. Whoever they asked, there could be only one answer.
This call to remember opens a whole section of the song. What it uncovers is God's goodness.
The third section, verses 7-14, reveals the goodness and the love of the Lord for them… And how they are reminded again of what the Lord did for them! Verses 9-14 are wonderful words. And they apply to us spiritually, as they describe the Lord's goodness to Israel.
"Ask your father" assumes a father who can answer. When that teaching stops, the children lose more than facts.
The fathers and mothers carried a very definite responsibility. They had to pass on to the children the great events in the history of Israel, and the Lord's blessings to them. So if a generation arose that did not know the Lord or His works, it means there had been a lapse in the teaching of the fathers and mothers… They did not know the Lord, and they did not know His works. So it was very easy for them to give up. They had nothing to hold on to.
The backward look matters most in a bad day. Then the question is what you measure God by.
In an evil day we should always judge the power and goodness of God by the way He acted for His people at the beginning. Beware of judging God by the low condition His people may have fallen into because of their failure.
Commentators differ on how far to press this. One warns that a habit of looking back can itself be a bad sign:
It is nearly always a sign of present weakness if we have to look back to the past for marks of God's favour. It tends to go together with pride in that past, as well as discouragement in the present.
- Witness. Israel was called to witness for God; instead the song witnesses against them. It opens with His glory and records their failure at every stage.
- Reproof. The command to remember lands right after the song's first rebuke. What follows the rebuke is a flood of testimony to God's goodness.
- Answer. Records, fathers, elders: three sources, one verdict. Ask whoever you like and the testimony to His goodness comes back the same.
- Handover. "Ask your father" only works if fathers and mothers have taught. Where that teaching lapses, a generation grows up with nothing to hold on to.
- Use. In a bad day, measure God by how He acted at the beginning, not by the state His people have fallen into. But do not live on the past alone.
When the Most High assigned to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.
Moses is teaching Israel a song, and he sends them back to the moment the nations of the world were first laid out on the map. His claim is startling: God drew the borders of every people with Israel in view, long before Israel existed. One note first. The ESV reads "the sons of God" here, while the writers below use an older reading, "the number of the children of Israel."
"The Most High" is not the usual name for God. One writer ties it to the kingdom still to come:
This verse has a deep meaning. It carries us backward. God made the boundaries of the nations with direct reference to the children of Israel. The name of God used here, "the Most High," is His millennial title, the one He will have when His blessed Son our Lord receives His Kingdom. When that time of blessing comes, and a converted Israel is no longer the tail but the head of the nations, this division that God made will then be fully known.
The name goes back to the meeting between Melchizedek and Abraham, and it comes with a description:
This is the name given to Jehovah in the meeting between Melchizedek and Abraham, where the words "Possessor of heaven and earth" are added to it. This is, in fact, the character God will take up when He gathers together in one all things in Christ, both the things in heaven and the things on earth.
These writers place this dividing at Babel, when God confused human language and scattered mankind:
This means that at the Babel scattering God brought each people to settle exactly where His ways would need them when Israel came on the scene. So God Himself settled the first map of the world, with the land and people of Israel as His centre.
The verse uses two different actions — separating and dividing — and one commentator keeps them apart:
Dispersion preceded: a different term is employed in the Hebrew, as there ought to be in the translation. The isles are said here to be "separated," as the earth there is "divided." The orderly partition followed the confused dispersion.
The force of the verse lies in its timing. Israel was not there to be counted:
Mankind was split into nations more than a hundred years before Abraham was born. Israel had no national existence for nearly five hundred years after that. Yet this passage tells us that Israel was already so present to the thoughts and purposes of God, and held such a central and important place in them, that when the Most High separated the sons of Adam and divided to the nations their inheritance, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. That is, He arranged where their empires would sit and how far they would reach.
The number, then, was one Israel had not yet reached:
Even then, when the Gentiles were receiving their inheritance, He set their bounds according to the needs of such a number as the children of Israel would become.
One writer uses this verse to set God's government of the earth apart from what He does in grace:
Once personal salvation is settled, Scripture takes up two subjects. One is the sovereign grace that makes us, redeemed from sin, like Christ in the glory. This is the blessed portion of the church of God. The other is the government of the world. The Jews are the centre of the government of this world... Israel would not have Christ, and so was set aside for the time.
Today's map does not look like that. These writers treat the present order as an interruption, not a cancellation:
At present the nations have the upper hand; these are the "times of the Gentiles." But in the end Judah reappears on the scene as the object of God's purposes.
The verse also has a plain use for reading world events now:
Men may seize by force, at any time, the lands they want, but they can only get them if God permits it. The all-wise Creator sees some way in which the anger of man will serve His purpose. So there is a hand above all, controlling the movements of nations, even though men hardly notice it. This was true in the earliest days, and it is true still.
- Who divides — the name used here is "the Most High," the title linked with Melchizedek and with God as owner of heaven and earth.
- When He divided — at Babel, when God confused human language and settled each people where His plan for Israel would need them.
- By what measure — by a people who would not be a nation for centuries. The division was planned, not accidental.
- To what end — Israel stands at the centre of God's government of the earth. That is a different line from the grace that gives the church its place with Christ.
- What it means now — nations still move only as God permits. Today's map ignores Israel, but that is temporary: Judah reappears at the end.
For Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob the lot of his inheritance.
Moses is near the end of his life. His song looks back past Israel's slavery in Egypt to a time before the nation existed — to the moment God spread mankind across the earth. This verse gives the reason for that ancient arrangement. God had already set His love on a people not yet born.
One commentator ties this verse to the one before it, where God divides up the nations:
At the same time (verse 8) we have an all-important declaration. In His government of the world, God had made Israel the centre. He had arranged the nations of the earth, in their various locations, with respect to the boundaries of Israel. Israel was the first object of those ways. For His earthly people are Jehovah's portion, His inheritance upon earth.
God settled the nations in their lands long before Abraham lived. One writer points out who was already in view:
It is important to notice what God did when He divided the people in Genesis 10. He gave them all their place in relation to a people who did not yet exist. He set His grace on Israel before Israel or their great ancestor existed. When God allotted the nations their position, He allotted it all around His own plot of land. That land is now trampled under foot by the Gentiles. He kept it for His people. So His ways with the nations had Israel in view. Now His church is His chief interest, and there is not a movement going on under heaven that God will not turn to the good of His church.
Moses could have used the honoured name Israel. Instead the verse says Jacob, and one writer marks that word:
The song carries them back to a time beyond these experiences. It goes back before the nation existed at all, when the sons of Adam were finding the homes God assigned them. Even then the Gentiles were receiving their inheritance, and He set their boundaries to fit the needs of a people as many as the children of Israel would become. For in truth they were Jehovah's portion — His people, and Jacob (though only "Jacob") the lot of His inheritance.
Being God's portion did not spare Israel from His discipline. It also means He does not forget those who attack them:
Centuries may pass, as in the case of Amalek, before the judgment is carried out. How many centuries have passed since Edom cried against Jerusalem, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7). God has not forgotten that. His vengeance will certainly overtake her... God's people are precious to Him, though He may have to discipline them under His government.
One writer sets this verse beside what the New Testament says about treasure:
Then how sweet is the next verse: "The Lord's portion is His people." I do not know how far we enter into it. In the New Testament we are told we have treasure in heaven. We are told, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." But Christ has a treasure here upon earth. With that treasure in view, He sold all that He had. He laid aside all His Messiah titles and rights, so that He might secure it... The children of Israel are the people in question in our chapter. But in this present time God is gathering a people out of this world for heaven. He is forming His church.
Christians think of the inheritance as something they receive. One writer points to the other side of it:
But God has His heritage as well as we... That God should inherit a people is a familiar idea in Scripture. He always had a people, and in grace He called His chosen His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:9). This expression makes clear to faith the true position of God's chosen people, in the middle of a world He has rejected.
- Portion. God calls His people His portion — the share He kept for Himself when He divided up the whole earth.
- Before. God chose that portion before the nation existed and before Abraham lived. Nothing in Israel earned it.
- Jacob. The verse says only Jacob, not the honoured name Israel. That is grace speaking, not merit.
- Precious. He may discipline His people, yet He still avenges them. His judgment on their enemies can take centuries, but it comes.
- Treasure. Christ gave up everything to secure a treasure on earth. God still speaks of an inheritance in His people — you do not only receive a portion, you are one.
He found him in a desert land, And in the waste, howling wilderness; He compassed him about, he watched over him, He preserved him as the apple of his eye.
Moses' song reviews a nation's whole story, then stops on one scene: God coming down to a people in an empty, hostile place and treating them as something fragile and precious. The verse raises two questions: what does God's "finding" mean here, and how far does the care in "the apple of his eye" reach?
This verse sits inside a song that tells Israel's whole story, sin and judgement included. That story is not where the song stops.
One of the grandest and fullest sections of the whole Bible now lies open before us and asks for our prayerful attention. It covers God's dealings with Israel from first to last. It gives a most solemn record of their terrible sin, and of God's wrath and judgement. But, blessed be God, it begins and ends with Him; and this is full of the deepest and richest blessing for the soul. If it were not so, if we had only the sad story of man's ways, we would be completely overwhelmed.
God was not finding strangers. He met a people He had already rescued, at the point where their own strength ran out. Notice which name they carry here.
One phase of God's dealings with His people was over. They were saved (Ex. 14:30). But what about their future? Would He leave them to their own resources now that He had delivered them from judgment and from the power of the enemy? … Moses tells us that "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness." What was to become of poor Jacob there? Note the name he is given here: weak and failing Jacob, not the princely name Israel. … Later the Saviour "found" the man He had healed of blindness and revealed Himself to him, meeting his spiritual need as well as his bodily need. In the same way Jehovah "found" the people whom He had delivered, and proved Himself enough for their every need until they reached the promised rest.
The empty place is not a flaw in the story. It is what makes the care visible.
Where had He found them? In a desert land, yes, a howling wilderness; but where the Lord's care had only the more opportunity for display. Encircled, watched over, guarded as the pupil of the eye, they had proved this.
The phrase has nothing to do with fruit. The Hebrew word points to the pupil — and to a small reflected image.
Gesenius says this word means 'little man', and then 'the little man of the eye'. That is, the pupil of the eye. In it, as in a mirror, a person sees his own small reflected image. He says this pleasing image is found in several languages. This is the part of the eye that especially needs guarding: God preserved His own as the apple of His eye. Deut. 32:10; Ps. 17:8.
The same picture explains something else: why God reacts so strongly when His people are harmed.
He will be jealous over His people, for those who touch them are touching "the apple of His eye," the pupil, the most sensitive area. He feels deeply everything that affects His beloved people Israel, and certainly no less what affects His body, the Church.
The desert is not only Israel's past. Commentators also see in it a picture of the state we were in when God came for us.
"He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness." Where did God find you and me? In the quarry of nature. We were in the gutter, but, thank God, He came to the gutter for us. We were unclean and sinful. Some of us may have been respectable, and others not respectable at all. But we were all covered with sin — the thing that nailed the Son of God to the cross. But He sought us and saved us. How great is the grace of our God!
- Found. God met Jacob at his weakest, with nothing left. This love shows in the wilderness, not in the promised land.
- Encircled. The desert did not limit His care. It gave that care more room to show.
- Watched. He did not only surround them. He watched over them the whole way through.
- Guarded. "Apple of the eye" means the pupil. We shield it without thinking, and it holds a small image of whoever stands in front of it.
- Untouchable. Nobody can strike what God guards this closely without God Himself feeling it. Writers apply that same tenderness to believers now.
As the eagle stirreth up its nest, Hovereth over its young, Spreadeth out its wings, Taketh them, beareth them on its feathers,
In his final words to Israel, Moses compares the Lord's dealings with His people to a mother eagle. She breaks up her own nest, then flies beneath her falling young — which raises the question: why does God unsettle the life He gave us?
The eagle builds comfort into her nest, and then ruins it on purpose.
It is said that in building her nest she lays the floor with sharp thorns and covers them over with soft down. In this cosy bed her young are hatched and grow up. As they become strong enough to fly, they are reluctant to leave the comfort of the nest. But that condition would not fit them to fulfil their normal functions in later life. So the mother scrapes up the down in the bottom of the nest. When the young eagles feel the sharp thorns they jump over the side of the nest. This tests the strength of their wings and the support of the air. ... Christians are often placed in similar comfortable circumstances. If there were no thorny incidents in our lives, we would never experience the wealth of God's resources. He stirs up the most comfortable nest and makes those inside feel the thorn pricks.
The stirring is only half the picture. The young bird falls into real danger, and the parent puts herself between it and the arrow.
The time comes when she wants to teach her young ones to gaze at the sun, and to soar from the rock themselves. Then she "stirs up her nest and flutters over her young." The young ones must face the open space below. She flings them off the rock! They flutter and sink down toward the homes of men. They come near the hunter's arrow. She swoops down from above in the might of her wing. She "spreads out her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings." The fluttering eaglet rests its wings on the tested strength of the parent wing. The hunter's dart can reach the eaglet's life only through her own. So she teaches them to soar, and to rise and gaze on the bright and glorious sun as only she can.
Another writer names what we naturally lean on instead of God.
The last thing we do naturally is to turn to God. We prefer to lean on friends, or on circumstances. All the gracious dealings of our God are to remove the human supports from beneath us, so that we may use the wings of faith and soar into a fuller knowledge of Himself... She makes the nest uncomfortable, so the young bird has to get out of it. That way it learns to use its wings and begins to fly. The figure teaches complete trust in God.
The eagle stands for power. Here that power carries weakness, and God used the same picture when He reminded Israel how He had carried them to Himself.
But the "flying eagle" can suggest still other thoughts. They are thoughts not only of divine strength or of divine wisdom, but of divine tenderness too, and ministering care. "You have seen," says the Lord to His people of old, "how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself" (Ex. 19:4)... Here then, under this figure, we may think not merely of heights that surpass our powers, and of ways too wonderful for us. We may think of divine love that would enable us to soar, and support our feebleness in it with divine omnipotence.
The song adds that no other god shared the work. One writer ties this to the kind of country God chose for them — a place with nothing else to hold on to.
He brought them into a land of deserts and pits, where they had no need to lean on "a broken reed, which will pierce the hand of any man who leans on it," because they leaned on God Himself. "Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years." And why? Because "the Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with him."
The picture ends with a line about the Lord leading Israel alone. One writer turns it into a question for us.
"The Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Does the Lord alone lead you and me? In all our life, is the Lord alone before our eyes? ... Do not let us allow anything between God and our souls. The Spirit of God is bringing the name and fame of this glorious God before us. He has come to where we were, so that He might bring us to where He is.
- Nest — the soft bed has thorns under the down. The comfort was never meant to last, and God is the One who scrapes it up.
- Stir — trials are not God stepping back. He is pulling away the props we lean on instead of Him, so the wings of faith get used.
- Fall — the eaglet is flung out and drops toward the hunter's arrow. The danger is real, and that is where she teaches it to soar.
- Wings — the parent dives below and takes the dart first. Divine love lifts the weak bird to soar and holds up its feebleness with divine power.
- Soar — the goal is height and sight: a life led by the Lord alone, with no rival god before our eyes.
So Jehovah alone did lead him, And no strange god [was] with him.
Moses' song looks back over Israel's wilderness years and names the one who brought them through: a single guide, with no rival at His side. The verse just before it pictures an eagle with its young. What was that leading like? And do the words about a foreign god speak of Israel's loyalty, or of a God who needs no helper?
The verse names the guide by ruling out every other. One writer turns that into a question about our own lives.
"The Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him." Does the Lord alone lead you and me? In all our life, is the Lord alone before our eyes? "There was no strange god with him." Let us not allow anything to come between God and our souls. This glorious God, whose name and fame the Spirit of God is bringing before us, has come to where we were, so that He might bring us to where He is. He guards us like the apple of His eye.
(Older translations say "strange god" where the ESV says "foreign god.")
God chose a road with nothing in it to lean on.
When did the Lord bring up His people? When the very circumstances He brought them through, and brought them into, were the proof that the Lord was bringing them there. He brought them into a land of deserts and pits. There they had no need to lean on "a broken reed, which goes into a man's hand and pierces it if he leans on it," because they leaned on God Himself. "Neither did your clothing wear out on you, nor did your foot swell, these forty years." And why? Because "the Lord alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with him."
The leading begins with discomfort. The eagle of the previous verse will not leave its young where they are.
People say that when she builds her nest, she lays the floor with sharp thorns and covers them with soft down. When the young are strong enough to fly, they are reluctant to leave the comfort of the nest… So the mother scrapes up the down at the bottom of the nest. When the young eagles feel the sharp thorns, they jump over the side. This tests the strength of their wings and the support of the air… If there were no thorny incidents in our lives, we would never experience the wealth of God's resources.
One writer names what God takes away, and what He is after.
The last thing we do by nature is to turn to God. We prefer to lean on friends, or on circumstances. All the gracious dealings of our God are meant to remove the human supports from beneath us, so that we may use the wings of faith and soar into a fuller knowledge of Himself.
The stirring is only half of it. The eaglet that drops does not fall alone, and the one who catches it meets the danger first.
The young ones must dare the space in mid-air below, and she flings them off the rock! They flutter and sink down toward the homes of men. They come near the fowler's arrow. She swoops down in her might of wing from the height above… The fluttering eaglet rests its wings on the tried strength of the parent wing. The fowler's dart can reach the eaglet's life only through her own.
One writer takes "no foreign god with him" further than Israel keeping clear of idols. God did the whole work without a partner.
By the law He had stirred them up as the eagle stirs her nest. With outstretched wings, as in the pillar of cloud, He had sheltered and nestled them. Then He had borne them up and carried them in His feathers. He, He alone did this, asking help of no strange god. He set them on the high places of Canaan, in the abundance of that rich land.
The guidance was not vague. Israel could see it, day by day, above the tabernacle.
In this way the Lord placed Himself at the head of His redeemed people. In His patient grace He led them through the various stages of their wilderness journey. And the movement of the cloud was the Lord's own word to them. If it rose from the tabernacle, that was the same as His command; and the same held if it stayed on the tabernacle… So the Lord took up the guidance of His people through all their pilgrim path.
- Found. He took them up where nothing else would — a desert with no broken reed to lean on, so that they leaned on Him.
- Stirred. God makes the nest uncomfortable. He takes away the supports we prefer, so that we use the wings of faith.
- Carried. When the eaglet drops, the parent wing is underneath it, and the arrow aimed at it must pass through her first.
- Alone. He asked help of no strange god; the whole journey, from the stirring to the high places, is His work without a partner.
- Followed. Since He led alone, let nothing stand between the soul and Him. Is the Lord alone before our eyes today?
He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And he made him suck honey out of the crag, And oil out of the flinty rock;
Moses is closing his song about how God carried a nation through the desert into a rich land. Verse 13 says God fed that nation even from bare rock. How can the hardest place yield anything at all?
One writer takes each picture in the verse as a separate gift, given while God was training His people:
Yet with the training came gracious provision from the hand of God. "He made him ride in the heights of the earth" (v.13). God enabled Israel to rise above their circumstances even in the wilderness. He gave them necessary food, but also "honey from the rock," the sweetness that comes from the knowledge of Christ, who is the Rock. Also, "oil from the flinty rock." That speaks of the Holy Spirit. He has come today from the Lord Jesus in glory, at Pentecost, to make our wilderness path one of real blessing and encouragement. Verses 13 and 14 move on into Israel's blessing in the land of Canaan. Only there did they enjoy the choicest wheat and the grape vines.
Israel's high places were on the earth — the ESV reads "the high places of the land." A believer's high places are somewhere else:
"He made him to ride on the high places of the earth." Where are your high places and mine? They are not on the earth. Thank God, He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1). Israel rode on the high places of the earth. Read those beautiful prophecies of Balaam. He was a wicked prophet, yet God made him speak His own thoughts about Israel. There you see the power and favour and beauty of the people of God as God sees them (Num. 23:24).
The same rock also gives sweetness. What is that sweetness?
"He made him to taste honey out of the rock." Everything that brings God before the soul is the honey. Speaking of God's thoughts, David says they are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, and more desirable than fine gold. Is there anything in man's literature like this? It brings food from God in the power of the Holy Spirit to our souls. Suppose we get where Ephesians 1 puts us. Suppose we come into communion with God, into the joy of God's precious thoughts. Then we know something of what it is to suck the honey out of the rock.
The word behind "flinty rock" names the hardest stone there is. It appears elsewhere in Scripture too:
challamish, 'hard rock' — the rock God brought water out of. Deut. 8:15; Ps. 114:8. Because men opposed Him, Christ set His face like a flint, and He knew He would not be put to shame. Isa. 50:7. God made Jacob to suck oil out of the flinty rock. Deut. 32:13.
Hard circumstances can produce complaint instead. One writer makes the verse a test of our own attitude:
And is it unknown for Christians to find fault with God? … We can also trace His hand feeding and nourishing us every day, and learn that He brings to us the "butter out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock," if He causes us to prove the rocks of the wilderness. The great lesson God teaches us in the wilderness is "to be content."
Commentators differ here. Some draw spiritual lessons for believers today. Others warn against making Israel's earthly portion the church's own:
Do we need to say that all this applies first of all to Israel? No doubt the church may learn from it and profit by it. But to apply it to the church would be a double mistake, and a most serious one. It would pull the church down from a heavenly level to an earthly one. It would also interfere, with no right at all, in the place and portion God appointed for Israel. The church, in the mind of God, is a stranger on the earth. Her portion, her hope, her home, her inheritance, her all is heavenly.
Such rich provision carries its own danger:
How easy this is, and yet how dangerous. God has provided a great wealth of favour for all Christians, and all may share in it freely. Yet our enjoyment of it can be twisted, so that it feeds our self-glory and self-importance. … This is the danger point: to go on eating and feeding and indulging our appetite, enjoying good food and rich provision, but making it serve our own self-importance. Perhaps one of the greatest tests of grace is to be highly privileged and yet lowly in mind and patient with others.
- Rock — challamish is the hardest stone there is. Scripture uses the same picture for Christ's face set like flint.
- Rock gives honey — the sweetness out of that stone is anything that brings God before the soul.
- Rock gives oil — the same flint yields oil: the Spirit, sent from Christ in glory to make a desert road a blessed one.
- Rock lifts high — the God who feeds also raises: Israel over the earth, believers into heavenly places in Christ.
- Rock forgotten — plenty is the danger point. Great privilege with a lowly mind is the real test of grace.
Cream of kine, and milk of sheep, With the fat of lambs, And rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, With the fat of kidneys of wheat; And thou didst drink pure wine, the blood of the grape.
This verse closes a long list of what God spread before Israel in the land: dairy, meat, wheat and wine. The song is still describing the Giver. The question it raises is what such kindness will do to the people who receive it.
Everything from the opening of the song to this point traces one hand at work. One commentator marks the exact place where the tone changes, and it is not here.
At verse 15 we reach a very different note in the song of Moses. Up to this point we have had God before us: His actings, His purposes, His counsels, His thoughts. We have had His loving interest in His people Israel, and His tender gracious dealings with them. All this is full of the deepest, richest blessing. There can be no drawback here. When we have God and His ways before us, nothing holds back the heart's enjoyment.
Together the items say one thing: God's supply left no gap.
Verses 13 and 14 give a picture of the land of blessing and of its resources, a perfect paradise of delight and food. Even its very rocks seemed to roll out honey and oil, though apart from God's blessing rock is the most unyielding of substances. The increase of the fields said the same: curds from the herd, milk from the flock, rams of Bashan, goats, the finest of the wheat, the pure blood of the grape. All of it told of the wealth of God's provision for them.
Older translations call the first item "butter." The ESV has "curds." It was an everyday drink.
This was curdled milk (Genesis 18:8; Deuteronomy 32:14). Jael brought Sisera "butter" to drink (Judges 5:25). In Job 29:6 Job speaks of washing his steps in butter, in the days when the Almighty was with him in prosperity. The promised land was to flow with milk and honey. Curdled milk is a common drink in the East, and when mixed with honey it is very pleasant.
Translators and scholars have traced the name of the last item, the drink pressed from grapes, back to its root.
According to Professor Stuart, the word comes from a root that means to ferment. In Deuteronomy 32:14 he takes it to mean "fermentable liquor." The Septuagint has "wine," the Latin Vulgate has merum, which is unmixed wine, and De Wette has Wein, the German for wine.
God's fullness carries its own danger. One writer turns that danger straight on Christians today.
How easy it is, and yet how dangerous. God has provided this wealth of favour for all Christians, and all may share it freely. Yet the way we enjoy it can be twisted, so that it feeds our self-importance. That is the point of danger. We go on eating and feeding and indulging appetite, glad of good food and rich provision, but making it serve our own importance. Perhaps one of the greatest tests of grace is to hold high privilege and still be lowly in mind and patient with others.
Hunger keeps a person looking upward. A full table can break that habit.
The very fullness of the blessing enjoyed might make a man forget the gracious hand it came from. "Fullness of bread" had long ago been the destruction of Sodom. Trial and need wake a man up to his need of God. A man who lacks nothing can easily lose the sense that he still depends on God. In that state the gods man's own heart has invented look more attractive than the glorious God, who is our Creator, not our creature. So Israel could go after the idols of Canaan, away from Him who had given them the land.
These are gifts of the land, given to Israel. Commentators warn against reading them as a picture of the church.
Do we even need to say that the primary application of all this is to Israel? No doubt the church may learn from it and profit by it. But to apply it to the church would be a double mistake of the most serious kind. It would pull the church down from a heavenly level to an earthly one. And it would interfere, in the most unwarranted way, with the place and portion God appointed for Israel. The church, according to the mind of God, is a stranger on the earth. Her portion, her hope, her home, her inheritance, her all is heavenly.
- Giver. Up to verse 15 the song has one subject. It is God: His purposes, His counsels, His tender dealings with His people. Where His ways fill the heart, there is no drawback.
- Gift. The whole list says one thing. God's provision left Israel lacking nothing.
- Words. "Butter" here means curdled milk, an ordinary drink in that part of the world. Old translations and scholars alike read "the blood of the grape" as wine.
- Danger. Fullness is where dependence dies. Need keeps a man aware of God. Plenty lets him forget the hand that fed him, and privilege hardens into self-importance.
- Portion. These gifts belong to Israel on earth. Claiming them for the church lowers the church, whose portion is heavenly, and robs Israel of the place God appointed her.