[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.