[Thy] refuge is the God of old, And underneath are the eternal arms; And he shall drive out the enemy from before thee, And shall say, Destroy [them]!
Moses ends his final blessing over Israel with God Himself. Two questions run through the verse: what does "eternal God" mean, and what do the arms underneath promise?
The last words of the lawgiver
These are the closing lines of Deuteronomy, after long chapters of warning and judgment. One writer points out where these blessings begin and end.
The blessings of this chapter… begin and end with God and His marvellous ways with Israel. It is refreshing and comforting beyond expression. It comes after all the appeals, all the warnings… all the prophetic records about failure and sin, judgment and wrath. After all these, we get to listen to words like these.
"The eternal God"
The word behind "eternal" means ancient — what comes before everything else:
qedem, 'ancient, that which is before.' "The eternal God is your refuge." Deut. 33:27. "Are you not from everlasting?" Hab. 1:12. "God is my King of old." Ps. 74:12.
Israel will one day meet this God face to face, and the discovery will be a personal one.
How wonderful a revelation to their hearts that the Lord Jesus whom they crucified is the eternal God! His arms of eternal strength will uphold them.
A refuge that is also a dwelling place
The writers quoted here use an older translation, which reads "refuge" where the ESV has "dwelling place." Moses knew that shelter himself before he spoke these words over Israel.
after
Before leaving the people he had served and led so well, he speaks these last words: "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." In his prayer kept for us in Psalm 90, he can say: "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations." Had not this closeness with God marked his whole life on earth, from the burning bush to the plains of Moab?
What the "arms" stand for
One writer asks what shoulder and heart stand for in Scripture, then looks at the high priest:
The meaning of shoulder in Scripture is strength… The heart, in the same way, always means love, and there is no need to prove it. So the high priest held up the children of Israel before the Lord, always, with strength and love.
He then applies the picture to the arms in this verse:
The everlasting arms are everlasting strength and everlasting love. With them God upholds, sustains and comforts His own, and folds them to His own heart in perfect security and rest. Or, if we prefer to carry on the thought of priesthood, it is the everlasting strength and the everlasting love with which Christ, as our Priest, upholds us before God. Both aspects are true.
The same promise in the New Testament
Strength and love appear together again in words spoken by Jesus and by Paul:
"No one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand" (John 10:29). Here the thought is strength — the almighty power that holds us in the hand of God… We find both in that familiar passage in Romans 8… So we are entitled to this comfort: everlasting strength and everlasting love hold us secure in their embrace.
The enemy thrust out
The verse does not stop at rest. It ends with the enemy driven out.
God's almighty power was engaged both for their safety and in their battles. This is just as true of the believer now. If God is for us, who can be against us?
Who may claim it
These words were spoken over Israel. One writer urges Christians to take their comfort, while leaving Israel's own promises to Israel:
after
It is true — wonderfully true — that the Lord's people now can draw instruction, comfort and refreshment from the blessings pronounced on Israel… We too can say, "The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms."… No Christian need fear losing any of his own special blessing by leaving to Abraham's descendants the place and the portion assigned them.
Held that way, the verse stops being a doctrine and becomes something known:
It is a great moment when one realises, not as a doctrine but as a fact, that "the eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms." Then the fact becomes an experience, and that experience is great substance, it is a vein of pure gold.
Summary
- Everlasting first. The word for "eternal" means ancient, the One who is before all. So every promise resting on Him rests on what cannot age or end.
- Everlasting refuge. Moses gave Israel the shelter he had lived in himself, the God who had been a dwelling place in all generations.
- Everlasting arms. In Scripture the shoulder means strength and the heart means love. The arms underneath are both at once — holding and embracing.
- Everlasting reach. The same arms drive the enemy out ahead of the people — power engaged for their safety and in their conflicts.
- Everlasting hold. The same strength and love hold the believer now: no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand.