Deuteronomy 32

THE SONG OF MOSES.

After the passage through the Red Sea Moses began the guidance of Israel through the wilderness with a triumphal song of praise and prophecy, (see Exodus 15:1-18,) commencing with, “I will sing unto Jehovah, for he hath triumphed gloriously,” and closing with, “Jehovah shall reign for ever and ever.” Now, at the close of the forty years’ wandering, in sight of the Promised Land, the great leader, who has almost finished his course, before he wholly lays aside the cares of office before he goes up into the mountain to see the goodly land and to die utters these words, ranging in thought through the entire future history of his people.

Commencing with a figure not uncommon to the Hebrew poets, heaven and earth are invoked. It is as though the universe of God should be interested in what follows. Comp. Deuteronomy 4:26; Deuteronomy 30:19; Deuteronomy 31:28; Isaiah 1:2; Jeremiah 2:12; Jeremiah 22:29.

“This song,” says Delitzsch, “is a compendious outline or draft, and also the common key to all prophecy, and bears the same fundamental relation to it as the Decalogue to all other laws and the Lord’s Prayer to all other prayers. The lawgiver summed up the whole prophetic contents of his last words (chaps. 27, 28, 29, 30) and threw them into the form of a song, that they might be perpetuated in the memories and mouths of the people. This song sets before the nation its entire history to the end of time. That history divides itself into four great periods: the creation and rise of Israel; the ingratitude and apostasy of Israel; the consequent surrender of Israel to the power of the heathen; and, finally, the restoration of Israel, sifted but not destroyed, and the unanimity of all nations in the praise of Jehovah, who reveals himself both in judgment and in mercy. This fourfold character is not only verified in every part of the history of Israel, but is also the seal of that history as a whole, even to its remotest end in New Testament times. In every age, therefore, this song has presented to Israel a mirror of its existing condition and future fate. And it was the task of the prophets to hold up this mirror to the people of their own times.” Isaiah, vol. i, p. 74.

The contents of this ode have been differently arranged by different commentators. The division of Kamphausen is the most satisfactory: Introduction, (Deuteronomy 32:1-3.) 1. The faithfulness of God and the faithlessness of Israel, (Deuteronomy 32:4-18.) 2. The chastisement, and the need of its infliction, (Deuteronomy 32:19-33.) 3 . Jehovah’s compassion on the depressed condition of his people, (Deuteronomy 32:34-42.) Conclusion, (Deuteronomy 32:43.)