Then Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked -- Thou art waxen fat, Thou art grown thick, And thou art covered with fatness; -- He gave up +God who made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
This verse is the hinge of the song Moses taught Israel. A well-fed, well-blessed people turn on the God who fed them, and commentators read it as both Israel's history and a warning for any believer.
The verse does not call Israel by a name of shame. It uses a title of honour, which makes what follows worse.
We cannot be sure of the exact meaning of Jeshurun. It seems to lie between "upright ones" and "beloved of Jehovah." So we start with God's thoughts about His people. They are the beloved of His heart, fitted to live here on earth in uprightness, in full keeping with their calling.
The break comes at this verse, and it does not come from God's side.
At verse 15, we reach a very different note in the song of Moses. Up to this point, God Himself has been before us. We have had His actings, His purposes, His counsels, His thoughts, His loving interest in His people Israel, His tender gracious dealings with them. There can be no drawback here. When we have God and His ways before us, nothing hinders the heart's enjoyment.
The trouble does not begin with hardship. It begins with plenty.
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked: God's loved, upright one became rebellious in prosperity — a strange, common case — and gave up his Maker, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. Then the heart estranged from Him turned to those that were His opposites.
One writer finds the meaning of fatness in the offerings, where all the fat was the Lord's.
The fat shows the energy of the inward will. Compare Deuteronomy 32:15, "Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked" — the will was set against God. Here the fat was not the Lord's. In the Lord Jesus there was perfect subjection and devotedness: "Behold, I have come to do your will, O God." There the fat was all the Lord's.
The kick is not yet idol-worship. It is something far more ordinary.
The verse goes on, "and kicked." This is an early sign of turning away — if not the earliest. Instead of lowliness and meekness, bearing with one another in love; instead of quietly submitting to and accepting the will and way of the Lord, we put a will and way of our own in their place. There is impatience of spirit. There is a determination to get rid, by any means, of whatever resists our idea of things. There is resistance to authority or correction. There is a fretful impatience that will not wait for the Lord to direct and handle things.
The verse drops two titles in one breath: the God who made him, and the Rock of his salvation. Writers see the second one reaching forward to Christ and to the way Israel treated Him.
They took ungodly advantage of their prosperity. They forsook the God who made them, and treated the Rock of their salvation with scorn. Of course this Rock is Christ. When He came, His own nation scorned and rejected Him, for they had chosen other gods.
The words "the God who made him" point to a purpose, not just to creation.
Suppose a servant stops living out the truth the Lord has made known to him. Whatever his excuse, he has stopped being, in practice, one of the "upright ones." He has so far forsaken the God who made him. Made him for what? Surely to be the instrument of His will, the vessel of His pleasure, the witness to His Name.
Israel's turning had a result far beyond Israel.
But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat, and kicked, and forsook the Rock of his strength. As a result God moves them to jealousy with those who are not a people. It is the call of the Gentiles, according to Romans 10:19.
Commentators do not leave this verse in Israel's past. They turn it on us.
Surrounded, on all sides, by the rich and varied mercies of God, we are apt to use them to feed a spirit of self-satisfaction. We make use of the gifts to shut out the Giver. In a word, we, too, like Israel, grow fat and kick. We forget God. We lose the sweet and precious sense of His presence, and of His perfect sufficiency, and turn to other objects as Israel turned to false gods.
- Beloved. Jeshurun is a name of honour: "upright ones," "beloved of Jehovah." The fall here is a fall from God's own good thoughts about His people.
- Fed. The fatness came from God's hand; the danger point in this verse is not hardship but abundance, "rebellious in prosperity — a strange, common case."
- Kicking. The first sign is not idolatry but self-will. It shows as impatience, resistance to correction, and our own way put in place of the Lord's.
- Forsaking. To leave "the God who made him" is to walk away from the purpose He made you for. To scorn "the Rock of his salvation" points on to Christ, whom His own nation would reject.
- Consequence. Israel's kick led God to move them to jealousy by "those who are not a people." The same warning turns back on us: we use the gifts to shut out the Giver.
They moved him to jealousy with strange gods, With abominations did they provoke him to anger.
Moses' song looks ahead to a people settled, rich, and safe. It then names what they did with that safety: they turned to gods that were not God. Two questions follow. Why would a blessed people do this? And why does God call His response jealousy?
The turn described here does not start with idols. It starts with comfort, and with a name that no longer fits.
"But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked" (v.15). Jeshurun means "upright." That was Israel's proper character, but they gave it up when they became rich. This is prophetic of their time in the land, when God prospered them by His pure grace. They took godless advantage of their wealth. They abandoned the God who made them, and they held the Rock of their salvation in scorn. This Rock is Christ. When He came, His own nation scorned and rejected Him, because they had chosen other gods. Their detestable idolatry provoked God to anger (v.16).
Once the affections leave God, they do not stay empty. They attach to whatever is furthest from Him.
Then the heart, estranged from Him, turned to those that were His opposites. Strange gods came in, with their abominations. Newly invented gods took the place of Him who had brought them into being. The same thing has been repeated ever since, in every form you can imagine.
The word "abominations" has one settled sense through the Old Testament. It also warns what idolatry does to the worshipper.
"Abominations" simply means idols. The word "abomination" occurs constantly in the Old Testament, meaning an idol. It is tied to everything degraded. The moment a man gives up belief in the true God, he is sure to degrade himself. If a man does not look to something above himself, he will sink to what is below him, as we see in Romans 1.
People have always found ways to call idolatry harmless — a custom, a formality, a habit that means nothing. God's estimate runs the opposite way.
In every age, one thing marks the gap between God's word and men's thoughts more than anything else. People take idols and strange gods lightly. God hates that, above all in His own people. There may be no deliberate plan to abandon His worship. It may only be what they count a small thing: going along with idolatry now and then, while still claiming His name. But God rejects such a compromise outright. And those who allow it face a further danger — complete revolt from Him. It strikes at His majesty, at holiness and truth, and is intolerable in His eyes. Israel should have known that God called Abraham out of this very abomination, to be a separate witness, with his descendants, to the one true and living God (Joshua 24:3).
Jealousy sounds like a flaw in God. Then ask what love would be without it:
Love cannot help being jealous of wandering affections; it would not be love if it did not resent unfaithfulness. And is He so powerless that we can despise Him and get away with it? Are we stronger than He?
God's answer to their jealousy was to call the nations in. Even that is not where the song ends.
The very call of the Gentiles is only to provoke them to jealousy (v. 21), as the apostle drew from this long afterwards, when it came to pass (Rom. 10:19)... but even when He restores Israel as He will (v. 36), He calls the Gentiles to rejoice with His people (v. 43).
Israel is the subject of the song, but the pattern is not theirs alone.
There is a solemn voice in all this for the writer and the reader. Each of us is in danger of walking the moral path these words describe. Surrounded on all sides by the rich and varied mercies of God, we are apt to use them to feed a spirit of self-satisfaction. We use the gifts to shut out the Giver. In a word, we too, like Israel, grow fat and kick. We forget God.
- Fatness. The slide begins with prosperity, not persecution. Jeshurun, "the upright one," grew rich and kicked.
- Forsaking. The heart that leaves God does not stay neutral; it turns to His opposites and takes up newly invented gods.
- Abomination. The word means idols. Idolatry drags the worshipper down: whoever will not look above himself sinks below himself.
- Jealousy. God's response is not petty temper. It is love refusing a rival: love would not be love if it did not resent unfaithfulness.
- Restoration. God answered their jealousy by calling the nations (Rom. 10:19). Yet the same song ends with Israel restored and the nations rejoicing with His people.
They sacrificed unto demons who are not +God; To gods whom they knew not, To new ones, who came newly up, Whom your fathers revered not.
Moses' song turns dark here: the people God had cared for gave their sacrifices to something else. The verse names it — demons, not rival gods — and the New Testament quotes the line to explain idol worship.
The word behind "demons" is harsher than it sounds. A dictionary of Bible words traces it, and a second word used elsewhere for the same beings:
The Hebrew word shed, though traced from the word "lord," properly means "a destroyer, a violent one; and so, figuratively, a mischievous demon." It appears only twice in the whole Old Testament. A second word, sair, means "rough, hairy," and especially a he-goat: so "a goat-shaped deity, which people worshipped as an idol… People believed such hostile beings lived in the deserts and woods, and that they had to appease them with divine worship."
Scripture says two things at once. The carved image is empty. The worship offered to it still reaches someone real. One writer holds both together:
In 1 Corinthians 10:20 the apostle quotes Deuteronomy 32:17 and declares what idolatry really is, though the form may differ. Men worshipped the heavens and all their host, the earth and the sea and their creatures, the serpent especially, or heroes and dead ancestors, or legendary beings and their images. It soon took hold of their imagination. It did not only shut God out; it degraded its followers to the utmost. And no wonder. For both Old Testament and New declare that what they sacrificed, they sacrificed to demons, not to God. Demons were in effect behind the idols. If the idols were nothing in themselves, the demons were an awful reality of subtle and malignant evil, ruining those who honoured the idols.
The worshippers would not have described what they were doing this way. The gap between what they meant and what happened is the point:
The idols and their sacrifices may be completely powerless. But demons hiding behind them can and do shut the true God out of souls. They seize the homage due to Him alone. This is the effect of heathen worship, not the intention of the worshippers or of those who share in their sacrifices. They no more planned to revere demons (fallen and evil spirits) than the unconverted today mean to serve Satan. But they did, and they do, all the same.
The verse calls these gods newcomers: Israel had not known them, and their fathers had never feared them. The forms change, but the worship does not:
Here is the general rule. Take any person, thing, or theory — what I call a "principle" when I hold it myself, and a "fad" when someone else holds it. If we let it hold the place, the authority, and the devotion that belong to our Creator, it is a false god we are serving, whatever pleasant name we give it… So the crude outward forms of idolatry pass away; but those who worship the false gods still worship in spirit and in fact.
The verse follows a picture of a nation grown comfortable and full. One writer turns that on the reader:
There is a solemn voice in all this for the writer and the reader… God's mercies surround us on every side, rich and varied. We are apt to use them to feed a spirit of self-satisfaction. We use the gifts to shut out the Giver. In a word, we too, like Israel, grow fat and kick. We forget God. We lose the sweet and precious sense of His presence and of His perfect sufficiency. We turn to other objects, as Israel turned to false gods.
Some have stretched this verse to cover disagreements between Christians. One writer answered that plainly. His translation says "devils" where the ESV says "demons":
Scripture states plainly what "devils" means. It means nothing but the gods of the heathen, and it points back to Deuteronomy 32:17: "they offered to devils, and not to God." To apply this to Baptists or Independents is a gross abuse. The apostle is speaking of fellowship with demons (in idol temples) and heathen sacrifices, and nothing else.
Within its own field, though, the line is absolute:
Behind the things people worshipped were real beings — evil, unclean spirits. So it was impossible to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with these demons at the same time.
- Destroyer. The word behind "demons" means a destroyer, a violent one. These beings were hostile, not helpful.
- Nothing, yet real. The idol itself is empty; the power standing behind it is an awful reality of subtle and malignant evil.
- Effect, not intention. Worshippers never planned to honour demons. Demons still seized the homage due to God alone. Sincerity does not redirect worship.
- New names, same trade. The crude forms pass away. Whatever takes the devotion owed to the Creator is a false god under a nicer name.
- Full, then forgetful. Israel grew fat and kicked. We too can use the gifts to shut out the Giver. And no one can hold fellowship with Christ and with demons at once.