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Deuteronomy Chapter
Thirty-two
New King James Version (NKJV)
INTRODUCTION TO DEUTERONOMY 32
This
chapter contains the song mentioned and referred to in the former, the preface
to it, Deuteronomy 32:1;
the character of the divine and illustrious Person it chiefly respects, Deuteronomy 32:4;
the ingratitude of the people of the Jews to him, who were a crooked and
perverse generation, aggravated by his having bought, made, and established
them, Deuteronomy 32:5;
and which is further aggravated by various instances of divine goodness to
them, first in providing and reserving a suitable country for them, at the time
of the division of the earth to the sons of men, with the reason of it, Deuteronomy 32:7;
then by what the Lord did for them in the wilderness, Deuteronomy 32:10;
after that in the land of Canaan, where they enjoyed plenty of all good things,
and in the possession of which they were, when the illustrious Person described
appeared among them, Deuteronomy 32:13;
and then the sin of ingratitude to him, before hinted at, is fully expressed,
namely, lightly esteeming the rock of salvation, the Messiah, Deuteronomy 32:15;
nor could they stop here, but proceed to more ungodliness, setting up other
messiahs and saviours, which were an abomination to the Lord, Deuteronomy 32:16;
continuing sacrifices when they should not, which were therefore reckoned no
other than sacrifices to demons, and especially the setting up of their new
idol, their own righteousness, was highly provoking; and by all this they
clearly showed they had forgot the rock, the Saviour, Deuteronomy 32:17;
wherefore, for the rejection of the Messiah and the, persecution of his
followers, they would be abhorred of God, Deuteronomy 32:19;
who would show his resentment by the rejection of them, by the calling of the
Gentiles, and by bringing the nation of the Romans upon them, Deuteronomy 32:20;
whereby utter ruin and destruction in all its shapes would be brought upon
them, Deuteronomy 32:22;
and, were it not for the insolence of their adversaries, would be entirely
destroyed, being such a foolish and unwise people, which appears by not
observing what the enemies of the Messiah themselves allow, that there is no
rock like him, whom they despised, Deuteronomy 32:26;
which enemies are described, and the vengeance reserved for them pointed out, Deuteronomy 32:32;
and the song closed with promises of grace and mercy to the Lord's people, and
wrath and ruin to his and their enemies, on which account all are called upon
to rejoice in the latter day, Deuteronomy 32:36;
and this song being delivered by Moses, the people of Israel are exhorted
seriously to attend to it, it being of the utmost importance to them, Deuteronomy 32:44;
and the chapter is concluded with a relation of Moses being ordered to go up to
Mount Nebo and die, with the reason of it, Deuteronomy 32:48.
Deuteronomy 32:1 “Give ear, O
heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
YLT
1`Give ear, O heavens, and I
speak; And thou dost hear, O earth, sayings of my mouth!
Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth,
the words of my mouth. This song is prefaced and
introduced in a very grand and pompous manner, calling on the heavens and earth
to give attention; by which they themselves may be meant, by a
"prosopopaeia", a figure frequently used in Scripture, when things of
great moment and importance are spoken of; and these are called upon to
hearken, either to rebuke the stupidity and inattention of men, or to show that
these would shed or withhold their influences, their good things, according to
the obedience or disobedience of Israel; or because these are durable and
lasting, and so would ever be witnesses for God and against his people: Gaon,
as Aben Ezra observes, by the heavens understands the angels, and by the earth
the men of the earth, the inhabitants of both worlds, which is not amiss: and
by these words of Moses are meant the words of the song, referred to in Deuteronomy 31:29;
here called his words, not because they were of him, but because they were put
into his mouth, and about to be expressed by him, not in his own name, but in
the name of the Lord; and not as the words of the law, which came by him, but
as the words and doctrines of the Gospel concerning Christ, of whom Moses here
writes; whose character he gives, and whose person and office he vindicates
against the Jews, whom he accuses and brings a charge of ingratitude against
for rejecting him, to which our Lord seems to refer, John 5:45; the
prophecies of their rejection, the calling of the Gentiles, the destruction of
the Jews by the Romans, and the miseries they should undergo, and yet should
not be wholly extirpated out of the world, but continue a people, who in the
latter days would be converted, return to their own land, and their enemies be
destroyed; which are some of the principal things in this song, and which make
it worthy of attention and observation.
Deuteronomy 32:2 2 Let
my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As raindrops on the
tender herb, And as showers on the grass.
YLT
2Drop as rain doth My
doctrine; Flow as dew doth My sayings; As storms on the tender grass, And as
showers on the herb,
My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the
dew,.... Which some, as Aben Ezra, take to be a prayer or wish, that
the doctrine spoken by him might fall upon men like rain and dew on the earth,
penetrate into their hearts, and influence them, and produce good effects there;
but the words rather seem to be a prophecy of what would be: and by his
"doctrine" and "speech", which signify the same thing, is
meant, not his law, which was fiery, this cooling, like rain and dew; that was
like a storm, this as a gentle rain; that was terrible, this desirable; that
was distressing, this refreshing, this no other than the Gospel, the speech of
God, the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of grace, and mercy through him, and
of life and salvation by him: it has its name from a word, which signifies to
"receive"F6לקחי a לקח "accepit". ; for it was received from God by
Moses, and by the prophets after him, by Christ himself, as Mediator, and by
the apostles from him, and is worthy of the acceptation of all: this is
comparable to "rain", because, like that, it comes from heaven, is
the gift of God, tarries not for man, but comes without any desert of man, and
often without his desire; falls by divine direction in places and on persons,
as the Lord's will and pleasure is, and that in great plenty, with a fulness of
spiritual blessings, and precious promises; and for its effects, it cools the
conscience, filled with fiery wrath and indignation, moistens and softens the
hard heart, like the dry and parched earth, refreshes and revives the drooping
spirit, and makes barren souls fruitful in grace and good works: and it is like
"dew", which also is from heaven, and of God, fell in the night of
the world; and as that falls in a temperate air, so this, when the stormy
dispensation of the law was over; and though but a small thing in the eyes of
the world, is of great influence, the power of God unto salvation, very
grateful and delightful, and of great moment and importance; hereby the love
and favour of God is diffused, the blessings of grace dispensed, the heavenly
manna communicated, and the Spirit and his graces received: and this, like rain
and dew, "drops" and "distils" silently, not in a noisy
manner as the law; insensibly, falling on persons at an unawares, in great
abundance, like the drops of rain and dew; and effectually, working in all that
believe: dew was a symbol of doctrine with the EgyptiansF7Hor.
Hieroglyph. l. 1. c. 26. : this is further illustrated:
as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon
the grass: the first of those words for "rain", according to
Jarchi, has the signification of a stormy wind, but that seems to contradict
the gentle dropping and distilling of it; rather it signifies "hairs"F8שעירם a שער "pilus",
Lev. xiii. 10. , and denotes, as our version, the smallness of the rain, being
as small, thin, and light as hairs; and the latter wordF9רביבים a רבב "multum",
see Psal. cxliv. 13. has the signification of millions and thousands, there
being such vast, numbers as those in a shower of rain: the "tender
herb" and "grass" may denote the multitude of persons to whom
the Gospel would come, and be made useful; and may describe sensible sinners,
tender consciences, such as are weak in themselves, with whom it is the day of
small things, are newborn babes, little children; who are just springing up in
grace, as among the grass, and as willows by the water courses: now all this is
said by Moses, to recommend his doctrine, as well as what follows.
Deuteronomy 32:3 3 For
I proclaim the name of the Lord: Ascribe
greatness to our God.
YLT
3For the Name of Jehovah I
proclaim, Ascribe ye greatness to our God!
Because I will publish the name of the Lord,.... Not call
on his name, as some, nor call to the heaven and earth in his name, as others,
but proclaim his name, even the same that was proclaimed before Moses, Exodus 34:6; and
this is to be understood, not of Jehovah the Father, nor of Jehovah the Spirit,
but of Jehovah the Son, the rock whose work is perfect, and the rock of
salvation, Deuteronomy 32:4;
and not of any particular name of his, unless any of those mentioned can be
thought to be intended; rather his perfections and attributes, or his Gospel,
called his name, Acts 9:15; though
his name may signify no other than himself, who is the sum and substance of the
Gospel, and who, in his person, office, grace, and salvation, is to be
published and proclaimed, openly and publicly, constantly and faithfully, and
his name only; for there is no other under heaven whereby man can be saved:
ascribe ye greatness unto our God; to Christ, the rock of
salvation, who is truly God, our God, God in our nature, God manifest in the
flesh, and who is the great God, and our Saviour, and therefore greatness is to
be ascribed to him: he is great in his person and perfections; his works are
great, those of creation and providence, and particularly of redemption and
salvation; he is great in his offices, a great Saviour, a great High priest, a
great Prophet, a great King, and the great Shepherd of the sheep: those that
are called upon to give greatness to him, which is his due, are the heavens and
the earth, Deuteronomy 32:1;
and both have, literally and figuratively considered, bore a testimony to his
greatness; the heavens, at his birth a wonderful star appeared, directing the
wise men to him; at his death the sun was darkened; at his ascension the
heavens were opened and received him, and still retain him; even God in heaven,
by a voice from thence, bore witness of him as his beloved Son, in whom he was
well pleased; also by raising him from the dead, declaring him to be the Son of
God with power, and by exalting him at his right hand as a Saviour, and by the
effusion of the Spirit on his apostles, to preach and spread his Gospel; the
angels in heaven ascribed greatness to him, by their worship of him when he
came into the world, by the declaration they made of him at his incarnation,
and by the testimony they bore to his resurrection, and by their subjection to
him in all things: the church below, sometimes called heaven, in the book of
the Revelation, ascribe all honour, glory, and greatness to him: the earth, the
whole terraqueous globe, in it have been displayed the greatness of Christ, the
power and glory of his divinity; in the sea by becoming a calm at his word of
command, in the rocks by being rent at his death, and will be in both by
delivering up the dead in them, at the last day: the inhabitants of the earth,
especially the redeemed from among men, ascribe greatness to him, by
attributing daily to him all the perfections of the Godhead, and the glory of
their salvation: Aben Ezra says, Moses refers to the heavens and the earth, or
respects them, and compares with this Psalm 19:1.
Deuteronomy 32:4 4 He
is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are
justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is
He.
YLT
4The Rock! -- perfect [is]
His work, For all His ways [are] just; God of stedfastness, and without
iniquity: Righteous and upright [is] He.
He is the rock,.... That is,
Jehovah is the rock, whose name Moses proposed to publish; and our God, to whom
the heavens and the earth are called upon to ascribe greatness, even Christ the
rock of salvation: here begins the song; the first word in it is very emphatic;
it has a letter in it larger than usual, to denote the greatness of this
Person, and to make it observable; he is "this" or "that
rock"F11הצור "quod attinet ad
rupem illam", Piscator; "rupes illa", Van Till; "rupes
illa", Vitringa. , by way of eminence, that rock and stone of Israel,
Jacob prophesied of, which was typified by the rock Moses had smitten in the
wilderness, and which, no doubt, he knew, as the Apostle Paul did, that it was
a type of Christ, and had taught the Israelites so to understand it; and
therefore this epithet of a divine Person would not seem strange to them, and
yet is that rock the unbelieving Jews would and did stumble at, and the rock of
salvation they lightly esteemed and rejected; the rock of refuge for sensible
sinners to flee unto for shelter and safety from the wrath and justice of God,
and from every enemy; the rock the church of God and every believer are built
upon, and in which they dwell; and who is the rock of ages that will endure
forever, as the Saviour of his people, and the foundation of their faith and
hope:
his work is perfect; not so much the work of
creation or of providence, which are both the works of Christ, but that of
redemption and salvation, in which there is not only a display of all the
divine perfections, but is complete in all its parts; the law is perfectly
fulfilled, justice is fully satisfied, a perfect righteousness is wrought out,
a complete pardon is procured, perfect peace is made, full atonement of sins
obtained, and the whole work is finished; and is so perfect that nothing is
wanting in it, or can be added to it, nor can it be unravelled or undone again:
likewise the work of building the church on this rock is carrying on, and will
be perfected when all the elect of God, all given to Christ and redeemed by his
blood, shall be called by grace and gathered in; when the last of the chosen
ones, and redeemed of the Lamb, is brought in and laid in the building; when
Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to the Father complete, and God shall be
all in all, and his church and people will be in a perfect state to all
eternity:
for all his ways are judgment; his ways,
which he himself has taken and walked in; his ways of providence are according
to the best judgment and highest wisdom, and according to the strictest justice
and equity; his ways of grace towards the salvation of his people, and the
building up his church on himself, the rock; all the methods he took in
eternity and time were all formed according to the counsel of God, and planned
with the greatest wisdom, founded in his righteous nature, and according to
covenant compact with his Father, and entered into in the most honourable
manner; and in which he brought about the salvation of his people, in perfect
consistence with the justice and holiness of God, and to the honour of them and
his holy law: and he has executed all his offices of prophet, priest, and King,
in the most just and righteous manner: the ways which he has prescribed his
people to walk in, and in which he leads them, are ways of truth,
righteousness, and holiness; such are all his ordinances and commandments:
a God of truth; so Christ is called; see Gill on Isaiah 65:16; or
the true God, which also is his name, 1 John 5:20; and is
so called in opposition to fictitious deities, and such who are only so by name
or office, but not by nature; whereas he is truly and properly God, as appears
from his names and nature, from his perfections, works, and worship, ascribed
to him: or "God the truth"F12אל אמונה "Deus veritas", Pagninus, Montanus. , for
he is "the truth", John 14:6; the
truth of all types, promises, and prophecies, which all have their accomplishment
in him; the sum and substance of all truths and doctrines, from whom they all
come, and in whom they all centre: or "the God of faith" or
"faithfulness"F13"Deus fidei", Vatablus,
Cocceius; "Deus veritatis sive fidei", Vitringa. ; the object of
faith, and the author and finisher of it; and who is faithful, as the God-man
and Mediator, to him that appointed him, being intrusted with all the elect of
God, with all promises and blessings of grace for them, with the fulness of
grace to communicate unto them, with the glory of God in their salvation, and
with their future and final happiness; and is faithful in the discharge of his
offices of prophet, priest, and King:
and without iniquity; in his nature, in his
heart, in his lips, and in his life; nor was ever any committed by him:
just and right is he; just, both as a divine
Person, and as man and Mediator; a lover and doer of righteousness, a worker
out of righteousness for his people, and the justifier of them by it; just and
righteous, as the, servant of God, as King of saints, and Judge of the whole
world; "right" or "upright", which is the character of a
divine Person, agrees with Christ, and may denote his sincerity, uprightness,
and faithfulness.
Deuteronomy 32:5 5 “They
have corrupted themselves; They are not His children, Because of their
blemish: A perverse and crooked generation.
YLT
5It hath done corruptly to
Him; Their blemish is not His sons', A generation perverse and crooked!
They have corrupted themselves,.... This and what
follows may seem to be the characters of the enemies of Christ, who lightly
esteemed and rejected him, set in a contrast with him; who were not only
corrupt by nature, as all men are, but were men of corrupt minds in their
tenets and principles; who corrupted the word of God by their traditions, in
the times of Christ; and were men of corrupt practices themselves, and
corrupters of others:
their spot is not the spot of his children; of the
children of the divine Person before described; Christ the rock has
"children" given him by his Father, in whose adoption he has a
concern, and by whose Spirit they are regenerated: these have their "spots";
by which are meant sins, and by those men are stained and polluted; so called
in allusion to the spots of animals, as leopards; or to spots in faces and
garments, through dirt and the like: by nature they are as others, and while in
an unregenerate estate, and indeed after conversion; though they are washed
from their sins by the blood of Christ, and are justified by his righteousness,
and so without spot, yet in themselves they are not without spots or sins, as
their confessions and complaints, and all experience testify: but the spots or
sins of wicked men are not like theirs; the children of Christ sin through
infirmity of the flesh, and the force of temptation, but wicked men through the
malignity of their hearts, willingly and purposely; what good men do of this
kind they hate, but what Christless and graceless sinners do they love; saints
do not continue in sin, but ungodly men do, and proceed to more ungodliness,
and wax worse and worse; gracious souls when they sin, are sorry for it, repent
of it, are melted for it, and take shame to themselves on account of it; but
unconverted men repent not of their wickedness, are hardened in it, and glory
of it; see the character of the Jews in Christ's time, to which this song
refers, John 8:44; though
these clauses may be rendered to another sense, more agreeably to the context,
and to the Hebrew accents, as they are by some; "is there any corruption
in him? no"F14שחת לו
לא "an est ipsi corruptio? non", Cocceius,
van Till, Vitringa. , that is, is there any corruption in the illustrious
Person before described, as without iniquity, just, and right? no, none at all
in his nature, divine or human; not in his divine nature, being the
incorruptible God; nor in his human nature, which is entirely free from that
corruption by sin, common to all that des, tend from Adam by natural
generation, he being conceived under the power of the Holy Ghost; nor any in
his life and conversation, being perfectly agreeable to the pure and holy law
of God; nor any in his doctrines, however they may be charged by ignorant and
malicious men, a proof of which follows: or "his children are their
spot"F15בניו מומם
"filii ejus macula eorum", Van Till; "filii ejus labes
ipsorum", Cocceius. ; so the clause may be rendered; the spots of the
Jewish nation, the most wicked and vilest among them, became his children; not
only the lowest and meanest of them, as to civil and worldly things, but the
more ignorant and the more wicked, even publicans and harlots; these, and not
the righteous, he came to call and save, and did receive; these were
regenerated by his grace, and they believed in him; and to them gave he power
to become his children: but then did they remain the wicked persons they had
been? no, they were made new creatures, they were internally sanctified, and
lived holy lives and conversations; a clear proof this, that there was no
corruption in Christ, nor in his doctrine, and that he neither by his tenets
nor example encouraged sin, but all the reverse; Wisdom is justified of her
children, Matthew 11:19; but
then the rest, and the far greater part of the Jewish nation, in his time, have
their character truly drawn, as follows:
they are a perverse and
crooked generation; men of perverse and crooked natures, tempers, dispositions,
ways, and works; who walked contrary to the will and law of God, and were
indeed contrary to all men, 1 Thessalonians 2:15;
this is the very character that is given of them, Matthew 17:17.
Deuteronomy 32:6 6 Do
you thus deal with the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is
He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established
you?
YLT
6To Jehovah do ye act thus,
O people foolish and not wise? Is not He thy father -- thy possessor? He made
thee, and doth establish thee.
Do you thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise,.... This is
also a proper character of the Jews in the times of Christ, who are often by
him called "fools", Matthew 23:17;
being very ignorant of the Scriptures, and of the prophecies in them respecting
him, setting up their own traditions on a level with the word of God, or above
it; they were ignorant of the law of God, and the meaning of it; of the
righteousness of God, of the righteousness of his nature, and of what the law
required, as well as of the righteousness of Christ, and of him as a spiritual
Redeemer, and of salvation by him; and a most egregious instance of their
folly, and of want of wisdom, was their ingratitude to him, in disesteeming and
rejecting him; which is what is here referred to and meant by ill-requiting
him, though not expressed till Deuteronomy 32:15;
and a most sad requital of him it was indeed, that he should come to them, his
own, in so kind and gracious a manner, and yet be rejected by them; that he
should become man, and yet for that reason be charged with blasphemy, for
making himself God; horrid ingratitude, to infer the one from the other! and
because he appeared as a servant, disowned him as the Son of God; and because
he came in the likeness of sinful flesh to take away sin, they traduced him as
a sinner:
is not he thy Father, that
hath bought thee? hath he not made thee,
and established thee? Moses, in order to
aggravate this their ingratitude, rehearses the various instances of divine
goodness to them, from the beginning of them as nation; it was the Lord that
was the founder of them as a nation, whose Son, when sent unto them, was
rejected by them; it was he that bought them, or redeemed them from Egyptian
bondage, that made or formed them into a body politic, or civil commonwealth,
that established and settled them in the land of Canaan: this is expressed in
general terms; particular instances of the goodness of God to them are after
enumerated: or if this is to be understood of Christ himself, who was rejected
by them, it is true of some among them, in a spiritual and evangelic sense, and
so, by a figure, the whole is put for a part, as sometimes the part is for the
whole: Christ, the everlasting Father of the world to come, had many children
in the Jewish nation, for whose sake he became incarnate, and whom he came to
seek and to save; and whom he "bought" with his precious blood, and
whom, by his Spirit and grace, he "made" new creatures, the children
of God, kings and priests unto God; and "established" them in the
faith of him, and upon him, the sure foundation; or whom he fashioned,
beautified, and adorned with his righteousness, and with the graces of his
Spirit.
Deuteronomy 32:7 7 “Remember
the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and
he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you:
YLT
7Remember days of old --
Understand the years of many generations -- Ask thy father, and he doth tell
thee; Thine elders, and they say to thee:
Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations,.... That went
before the times of Christ, and the Jews' rejection of him, and observe the
instances of divine goodness to them; as in the time of the Maccabees, whom God
raised up as deliverers of them, when oppressed by the Syrians and others; and
in the time of the Babylonish captivity, how they were delivered out of it; in
the times of David and Solomon, when they enjoyed great prosperity; and in the
times of the judges, by whom they were often saved out of the hands of their
enemies; and in the times of Moses and Joshua, how they were led, by the one
out of Egypt and through the wilderness, and by the other into the land of
Canaan; and thus might they be led on higher, to the provision and reservation
of the good land for them in the times of Noah and his sons, which they are
referred to in Deuteronomy 32:8,
and in all these times, days, years, and generations, they might consider what
notices were given of the Messiah, the rock of salvation, rejected by them; not
only by the prophets since the captivity of Babylon and in it; but before it by
Isaiah and others, and before them by David, and Solomon his son, by Moses and
by all the prophets, from the beginning of the world; all which would serve to
aggravate their sin in refusing him: Jarchi's note on the passage
is,""remember"--"consider"--to know what is to come;
for it is in his hand (or power) to do you good, and cause you to inherit the
days of the Messiah, and the world to come:"
ask thy father, and he will show thee; either their
immediate parents, father for fathers, or such as were their seniors, or rather
Abraham, their father, is meant; whom they might inquire of, not by personal
application to him, but by consulting the writings of Moses, and observe what
is there related of him; how he was called out of Chaldea to go into the land
of Canaan, his seed was after to inherit; and how he had an express grant of
that land to his posterity, and where they might be shown and see the prophecy
delivered to him of their being in Egypt, and coming out from thence; and what
he knew of the Messiah, whose day he saw, and rejoiced at, now rejected by them
his offspring:
thy elders, and they will tell thee; not their present elders
who rejected the Messiah, but those in ages past; the elders of Israel, who saw
the glory of the God of Israel, and were present at the covenant made at Horeb,
Exodus 24:9; or
rather the sons of Noah, by whom the earth was divided, to which Deuteronomy 32:8
refers; or the ancient writers, the writers of the Scriptures: Jarchi, by
"father", understands the prophets, and by "elders", the
wise men: the Targum of Jonathan is,"read in the books of the law and they
will teach you, and in the books of the prophets and they will tell you.'
Deuteronomy 32:8
8 When
the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the
sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of
the children of Israel.
YLT
8In the Most High causing
nations to inherit, In His separating sons of Adam -- He setteth up the borders
of the peoples By the number of the sons of Israel.
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance,.... In the
times of Noah and his sons, in the days of Peleg, who had his name (that is
"Division") from thence, Genesis 10:25;
"the Most High" is a well known and proper, epithet of God; the
dividing of the earth to the several nations of it, and giving to everyone
their part and portion to possess and inherit, was the work of God; for though
it was done by the sons of Noah, yet by the order, appointment, and direction
of the Most High, who rules in heaven and in earth, Genesis 10:32; men
might not and did not take what they pleased, or seize on as much as they
could, but each had their parcel allotted and portioned out to them, by the
Lord himself; so the Targum of Jonathan."when by lot the Most High divided
the world to the people that sprung from the sons of Noah:"
when he separated the sons of Adam; one from another;
distinguished by the persons from whom they descended, by the tribes and
nations to which they belonged, and by the countries they inhabited; for though
they descended from Noah and his sons, they were the sons of Adam, the first
man: or rather "the children of men", as the wicked of that
generation were called, in distinction from the sons of God, or his people and
worshippers; and may have respect to the separation of them at Babel, where
their languages were confounded, and they were scattered about, and some went
into one part of the world, and some into another, according to the appointment
and direction of divine Providence; so the builders of Babel are called, and
this was what befell them, Genesis 11:5; which
sense the above Targum confirms,"when he separated the writings, the
languages of the children of men in the generation of the division:'
he set the bounds of the people; or nations, the seven
nations of the land of Canaan; he pitched upon and fixed the land they should
inherit, and settled the bounds of it, how far it should reach, east, west,
north and south:
according to the number of the children of Israel: the sense is,
that such a country was measured out and bounded, as would be sufficient to
hold the twelve tribes of Israel, when numerous, and their time was come to
inhabit it; and which, in the mean while was put into the hands of Canaan and
his eleven sons to possess; not as their proper inheritance, but as tenants at
will, until the proper heirs existed, and were at an age, and of a sufficient
number to inherit; in which may be observed the wise disposition of divine
Providence, to put it into the hands of a people cursed of God, so that to take
it from them at any time could not have the appearance of any injustice in it;
and their enjoying it so long as they did was a mercy to them, for so long they
had a reprieve: now here was an early instance of the goodness of God to
Israel, that he should make such an early provision of the land flowing with
milk and honey for them, even before they were in being, yea, before their
ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, existed; as early as the days of Noah;
and yet, ungrateful as they were despised and set at nought his Son, the rock
of salvation, when sent unto them: thus the heavenly inheritance, typified by
the land of Canaan, was not only promised, but prepared, provided, secured, and
reserved for the spiritual Israel of God, before the foundation of the world,
from all eternity, and which is appointed according to their number; there is room
enough in it for them all, though they are many; in it are many mansions for
the many sons to be brought to glory.
Deuteronomy 32:9 9 For
the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His
inheritance.
YLT
9For Jehovah's portion [is]
His people, Jacob [is] the line of His inheritance.
For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the
lot of his inheritance. This is the reason why the Lord so early provided a portion or
inheritance for the children of Israel in the land of Canaan; because they were
his part, his portion, his inheritance, which he chose by lot for himself, or
allotted to himself; whom he chose to be his special and peculiar people; for
though all the world is his, he only reserved a part for himself, which he
separated from all the rest, and considers as his portion and inheritance, see Psalm 33:12; thus
the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken
into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his
part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world;
and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is
an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out
by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people
of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the
line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of
faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.
Deuteronomy 32:10 10 “He
found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He
encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.
YLT
10He findeth him in a land --
a desert, And in a void -- a howling wilderness, He turneth him round -- He
causeth him to understand -- He keepeth him as the apple of His eye.
He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness,.... In Deuteronomy 32:10
instances are given of the goodness of God to the people of Israel, when in the
wilderness; by which is meant, either "the wilderness of the land of
Egypt", as it is called, Ezekiel 20:36;
where they were in a most miserable and forlorn condition, in which the Lord
found them, and out of which he brought them; or rather the desert of Arabia, a
waste place, where no provisions could be had; a howling wilderness, through
the blowing of the winds, the cries of wild creatures, as dragons, owls,
ostriches, and the like, as the Targum of Jonathan, Jarchi, and Aben Ezra, and
the howling of passengers lost, or for want of provisions; here the Lord found
them, and they were as acceptable to him as grapes to a traveller in a
wilderness; see Gill on Hosea 9:10, this is
an emblem of the world, in which the spiritual Israel are, when called by grace
out of it; or of an unregenerate state, in which they are found, and out of
which they are brought: the phrase sometimes signifies sufficing, or finding
with everything sufficient; see Numbers 11:22; so
Onkelos renders it here; which is true of the Lord's dealing with this people;
he supplied them with manna, the corn of heaven, angels' food, and with water
out of the rock, and flesh to eat in fulness, yea, with raiment as well as
food; with everything convenient for them: so the Lord does for his spiritual Israel,
feeding them with his word and ordinances, clothing them with the righteousness
of his Son, giving them fresh supplies of grace, and withholding no good thing
from them; so that they have enough, having all things richly to enjoy:
he led him about; when he brought the people of Israel out of
Egypt, he did not lead them the nearest way to the land of Canaan, through the
the land of the Philistines, but he led them about the way of the wilderness of
the Red sea; and when they were come to the borders of the land, because of
their murmurings, and disobedience, they were ordered back into the wilderness
again; nor were they suffered to go through the land of Edom when on the
confines of it, which would have been a shorter way; but they were obliged to
go round that land, which was very discouraging to them, see Exodus 13:17; and
thus the Lord, though he could if he would, bring his people at once to heaven;
he could sanctify them at once, as well as justify them; he could take them the
moment he regenerates them into his kingdom, as the thief on the cross; yet
this is not his usual way: though he calls them out from among the men of the
world, he continues them in it, having something for them to do or suffer for
his name's sake; he indeed leads them soon into the right and plain way of
salvation, and not in a roundabout way of duties; yet he leads them in many
roundabout ways in Providence, which are all right, though sometimes rough;
they seem at times to be near to heaven, and then they are turned into the
world again; nay, the Apostle Paul was in heaven, and yet sent into the
wilderness of the Gentiles again, for the good of souls and the interest of a
Redeemer; however, they all at last come safe to heaven and happiness: the
words may be rendered, "he surrounded" or "compassed him
about"F16יסבבנהו "circumdedit
eum", Piscator; so Cocceius, Van Till, Vitringa. , and the rather, since
leading them about seems to be by way of resentment or punishment, whereas
Moses is enumerating instances of goodness and kindness, as this was one; he
covered them with the clouds of glory, so the Targums of Jonathan and
Jerusalem, Jarchi and Aben Ezra: he protected them with his power and
providence, and preserved them from serpents and scorpions, and the wild beasts
of the wilderness, as well as from all their enemies: and the Lord surrounds
his spiritual Israel with angels, who encamp about them; with himself, who is a
wall of fire round about them; with his power, in which they are kept as in a
garrison; and with his love, which encompasses them as a shield:
he instructed him; he taught him the law, as the Targum of
Jonathan; so Jarchi and Aben Ezra; or the decalogue, as the Jerusalem Targum;
he instructed him in the knowledge of the true God and his worship; in the
knowledge of the Messiah, and of his righteousness, and salvation by him; for
he instructed him by his good Spirit, Nehemiah 9:20; so
the Lord instructs his spiritual Israel, by his Spirit, his ministers, his word
and ordinances, in the knowledge of themselves, and of himself in Christ, and
of Christ and the way of life by him; and this being joined with the Lord's
leading about his people, may suggest that he instructs them by adverse
dispensations of Providence: the wordF17יבוננהו
"intelligere fecit eum", Pagninus, Cocceius. signifies causing to
understand; and God only can teach and instruct in such sense as to give men an
understanding of the things they are taught and instructed in:
he kept him as the apple of his eye; in the most careful and
tender manner: the apple of the eye is an aperture in it, which lets in rays of
light into the "retina" or chamber where the images of things are
formed; this is wonderfully guarded in nature, for, besides the orbit of the
eye, which is strong and bony, and the eyelids, which in sleep are closed, to
prevent anything falling into the eye to disturb it; and the eyebrows, which
are fringed with hair to break off the rays of light, which sometimes would be
too strong for it; besides all these, there are no less than six tunics or
coats to keep and preserve it: and in like manner did the Lord keep and guard
Israel, while passing through the wilderness, from fiery serpents, scorpions,
and the nations, that none might hurt, as Jarchi; and especially thus he keeps
his spiritual Israel, who are parts of himself, one with him, near and dear to
him; and about whom he sets guard upon guard, employs all his perfections to
secure them, and constantly watches over them night and day, and keeps them from
all evil and every enemy, and preserves them safe to his kingdom and glory.
Deuteronomy 32:11 11 As
an eagle stirs up its nest, Hovers over its young, Spreading out its wings,
taking them up, Carrying them on its wings,
YLT
11As an eagle waketh up its
nest, Over its young ones fluttereth, Spreadeth its wings -- taketh them,
Beareth them on its pinions; --
As an eagle stirreth up her nest,.... Her young ones in
it, to get them out of it: Jarchi says the eagle is merciful to its young, and
does not go into its nest suddenly, but first makes a noise, and disturbs them
with her wings, striking them against a tree or its branches, that so they
being awakened may be fitter to receive her: with respect to literal Israel,
Egypt was their nest, where they were who were then in their infant state, lay
like young birds in a nest; and though it was a filthy one and where they were
confined, yet they seemed sometimes as if they did not care to come out of it;
until the Lord made use of means to get them out, by the ministry of Moses and
Aaron, by suffering their taskmasters to make their bondage heavier, and by
judgments inflicted on the Egyptians, which made them urgent upon them to
depart: with respect to spiritual Israel, their nest is a state of
unregeneracy, in which they are at ease, and do not care to be awakened and
stirred out of it; but the Lord, in love to them, awakens them, stirs them up,
and gets them out, by sending his ministers to arouse them, by letting in the
law into their consciences, which works a sense of wrath, by convincing them by
his Spirit of their sin and danger, opening their eyes to see their wretched and
miserable estate and condition, and by exerting his almighty power, plucking
them as brands out of the burning:
fluttereth over her young; by that means to get
them out of the nest, and teach them to fly, as well as to preserve them from
the attempts of any to take them away; for though some writers represent the
eagle as hardhearted to its young, casting them out of the nest, when they are
taken care of by the offifrage; yet this is to be understood of it when tired
with nursing, and when its young are capable of taking care of themselves; or
of some sort of eagles; for AelianusF18Hist. Animal. l. 2. c. 40.
testifies, that of all animals the eagle is most affectionate to its young, and
most studiously careful of them; when it sees anyone coming to them, it will
not suffer them to go away unpunished, but will beat them with its wings and
tear them with its nails: Jarchi thinks this phrase is expressive of the manner
of its incubation on its young; it does not, he says, lie heavy upon them, but
lifts up herself, and touches them as if she did not touch them; but it rather
signifies the motion she makes with her wings to get her young, when fledged,
out of the nest, and to teach them to make use of their wings, as she does; and
we are told that young eagles, when their wings are weak, will fly about their
dams and learn of them to flyF19Suidas, vol. 1. p. 89. ; and hence
it is that young eagles while they are eating flutter their wings, that motion
being so natural to them, and seeing their dams do so likewiseF20Bochart.
Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 2. c. 3. col. 178. : this passage seems to contradict a
notion that has obtained with some, that an eagle only breeds one at a time;
the philosopher saysF21Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 6. c. 6. , the
eagle lays three eggs and casts out two of them; according to the verse of
Musaeus, it lays three, casts out two, and brings up one; and so, he says, it
commonly is the case: but sometimes three young ones are seen together; and the
black eagles are more kind to their young, and careful in the nourishment of
them; and the same says PlinyF23Nat Hist. l. 10. c. 3. ; yea we are
told, that sometimes seven are seen in a nestF24:
spreadeth abroad her wings taketh them, beareth them on her wings; that is,
spreads forth her wings when she flutters over her young to instruct them; or
she does this in order to take up her young and carry them on them: it is said
that eagles fly round their nest, and vary the flights for the instruction of
their young; and afterwards taking them on their backs, they soar with them
aloft, in order to try their strength, shaking them off into the air: and if
they perceive them too weak to sustain themselves, they with surprising
dexterity fly under them again, and receive them on their wings to prevent
their fallF25See Harris's Voyages, vol. 1. B. 1. c. 2. sect. 14. p.
486. ; See Gill on Exodus 19:4; thus
the Lord, comparable to this creature for his affection to the people of
Israel, his care of them, and his strength to bear and carry them, did bear
them as on eagles' wings, and carried and saved them all the days of old; even
Christ, the Angel of Jehovah's presence, the rock of salvation they rejected,
see Exodus 19:4; and
all this in a spiritual and evangelic sense may be expressive of the gracious
dealings of God with his spiritual Israel; teaching and enabling them to mount
up with wings as eagles, to soar aloft in the exercise of faith, hope, and
love, entering thereby within the vail into the holiest of all, and living in
the constant and comfortable expectation of heaven and happiness; and of the
Lord's taking his people up from the low estate in which they are, and raising
them up to near communion with himself, bearing them on his heart, in his
hands, and on his arm, supporting them under all their afflictions, and
carrying them, through all their troubles and difficulties, safe to eternal
glory and happiness.
Deuteronomy 32:12 12 So
the Lord alone led him, And there was no foreign god with him.
YLT
12Jehovah alone doth lead
him, And there is no strange god with him.
So the Lord alone did lead
him,.... Out of Egypt, through the wilderness, to the land of Canaan,
going before them in a pillar of fire and cloud; though this is not to be understood
to the exclusion of the ministry of Moses and Aaron, by whom he led them, Psalm 77:20; it may
be interpreted of the people being alone in the wilderness when led:
and there was no strange god with him; with Israel;
so Aben Ezra, no idolatry among them then; to which sense are the Targums of
Jerusalem and Jonathan; but it may rather signify that the Lord alone was the
leader of his people, and he had no assistant in that work, and therefore all
the glory should be given to him: he is the leader of his people, in a
spiritual sense, out of a state of unregeneracy, which is a state of darkness
and bondage; out of the ways of sin, and from the pastures of their own
righteousness, into an open state of grace, which is a state of light and
liberty; in Christ the way, and in the paths of faith, truth, holiness, and
righteousness, unto the heavenly glory, typified by the land of Canaan, the
blessings of which are next described: the Jews sayF26Tikkune Zohar,
Correct. 18. fol. 32. 2. 36. 2. , this will be in the days of the King Messiah;
when there will be no abominable thing in Israel, the Lord alone shall lead
him.
Deuteronomy 32:13 13 “He
made him ride in the heights of the earth, That he might eat the produce of the
fields; He made him draw honey from the rock, And oil from the flinty rock;
YLT
13He maketh him ride on high
places of earth, And he eateth increase of the fields, And He maketh him suck
honey from a rock, And oil out of the flint of a rock;
He made him to ride on the high places of the earth,.... Or land,
the land of Canaan; by which are meant the towers, castles, and fortified
places in it, some of which might be built on hills and mountains; and being
made to ride on them may denote the delivery of them into their hands, their
conquests and possession of them, and triumph in them; see Isaiah 58:14; so
the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases, it,"made him to dwell in the towers of
the land of Israel,'those high walled and strongly fenced cities which they
dreaded; this may be an emblem of the conquest believers have of their
spiritual enemies, sin. Satan, and the world, in and through Christ; of their
safety and triumph in him; of their high and elevated frames of soul, when they
have got above the world and the things of it; this will be the case of
spiritual Israel in every sense in the latter day, when the mountain of the
Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains:
that he might eat the increase of the fields: the produce
of them, particularly corn for bread, and which the Israelites ate of as soon
as they came into the land of Canaan, Joshua 5:11; an
emblem of the Gospel, and the truths of it, which are salutary, nourishing,
strengthening, reviving, and cheering, and of Christ the bread of life, which
believers by faith eat of, and feed upon and live:
and he made him to suck honey out of the rock; not water out
of the rock, as sweet to them as honey, that they had in the wilderness; but
either the honey of bees that made their nests in rocks, as a swarm of them did
in the carcass of a lion; and so in like manner as honey came out of the lion,
it may be said to be sucked out of the rock: so HomerF1Iliad. 2. l.
87, 88. speaks of swarms of bees out of a hollow rock: or this was the honey of
palm trees, as Aben Ezra observes, some say, which might grow on rocks; see
Gill on Deuteronomy 8:8;
and this is favoured by the Targum of Jonathan, which paraphrases the
words,"honey from those fruits which grow on the rocks,'unless it means
honey gathered by bees from such fruits; the rock may typify Christ, and the
honey out of it the Gospel, which is from him and concerning him; comparable to
honey for the manner of its production and gathering, by the laborious
ministers of the word; for its nourishment, and especially for its sweetness, its
precious promises, and pleasant doctrines:
and oil out of the flinty rock; that is, oil out of the
olives, which grow on rocks, and these delight to grow on hills and mountains;
hence we read of the mount of Olives, see Job 29:6; and so
the Targum of Jonathan,"and oil out of the olives and suckers which grow
on the strong rocks;'this may signify the Spirit and his graces, the unction
which comes from Christ the Holy One, and the blessings of grace had from him,
and the Gospel and its truths; which are cheering and refreshing, mollifying
and healing, feeding and fattening, pure and unmixed, and useful for light, as
oil is.
Deuteronomy 32:14 14 Curds
from the cattle, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs; And rams of the
breed of Bashan, and goats, With the choicest wheat; And you drank wine, the
blood of the grapes.
YLT
14Butter of the herd, and
milk of the flock, With fat of lambs, and rams, sons of Bashan, And he-goats,
with fat of kidneys of wheat; And of the blood of the grape thou dost drink
wine!
Butter of kine,.... Made of milk, which kine or cows give;
Jarchi says, this is the fat that is gathered on the top of milk, he means
cream, and which indeed was the butter of the ancients, and is here meant:
and milk of sheep: which they give, though not in such plenty
as the kine, yet what is very wholesome and nourishing: the philosopherF2Aristot.
Problem. sect. 10. qu. 6. observes, that sheep give more milk in proportion to
the size of their bodies than cows: and PlinyF3Nat. Hist. l. 28. c.
9. says their milk is sweeter and more nourishing, and the butter made of it is
the fattest:
with fat of lambs; or fat lambs, rich and delicious food:
and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats; a fruitful
country abounding with pasturage, where rams and goats of the best sort were
and the breed of them was coveted and had in the land of Canaan; the kine of
Bashan are mentioned elsewhere, Psalm 22:12,
with the fat of kidneys of wheat: that is, the best wheat,
the grains are plump and full; and Aben Ezra observes, that a grain of wheat
has some likeness to a kidney, see Psalm 81:16,
and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape; wine which
comes from the grape, red wine, pure and unmixed, see Genesis 40:11; the
land of Canaan was a land of vines, and abounded with good wine, Deuteronomy 8:8;
which the Israelites, when they came into it, drank of in common, who had only
drank water in the wilderness, and had but little flesh, and lived on manna,
and now abounded with plenty of all good things; all which are observed as
instances of divine goodness, and to aggravate their ingratitude in rejecting
the Messiah, they then enjoying all these good things, the land being alike
fertile and affluent then, as appears from Isaiah 7:14; Jarchi
applies this fruitfulness to the times of Solomon, as the butter of kine, and
the kidneys of wheat, 1 Kings 4:22; and
fat of lambs, and the blood of the grape, to the times of the ten tribes, Amos 6:4; but this
was the constant fertility of the land, and lasted to the times of the Messiah:
now all these may be expressive of the blessings of grace, and the spiritual
food of the Gospel: Ainsworth very prettily remarks, that here is both food for
babes and for grown persons, butter and milk for the one, and meat for the
other, and drink for them both: the plain truths of the Gospel are like butter,
soft and easy to be taken in, and like milk, easy of digestion, cooling, nourishing,
sweet, and pleasant; the more sublime truths of the Gospel are meat for strong
men, signified by the flesh of fat lambs, rams, and goats; which all being used
in sacrifices were typical of Christ; as also the finest of wheat is an emblem
of him the bread of life, on whom the weakest believer lives by faith; and the
drink for both, the wine the blood of the grape, may signify the love of
Christ, the Gospel and the truths of it, and the blessings of grace, which come
through the everlasting covenant.
Deuteronomy 32:15 15 “But
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; You grew fat, you grew thick, You are obese! Then
he forsook God who made him, And scornfully esteemed the Rock of his
salvation.
YLT
15And Jeshurun waxeth fat,
and doth kick: Thou hast been fat -- thou hast been thick, Thou hast been
covered. And he leaveth God who made him, And dishonoureth the Rock of his
salvation.
But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked,.... This is undoubtedly
a name of the people of Israel; it is to be met with only in three places more,
in Deuteronomy 33:5;
it is generally thought to come from a wordF4ישר
"rectum esse". which signifies upright and righteous, such these
people ought to have been, and some among them were; and they generally
professed themselves, and outwardly appeared to be upright, just, and righteous
persons, and were desirous of being reckoned so; which was their character in
the times of Christ, when they rejected him: others derive it from a wordF5שור "cernere, intueri", Cocceius, Van Till. which
signifies to behold, to see, and so describes them as seeing ones; and such
they had been in the times of Moses, saw extraordinary sights and wonders in
Egypt, the great salvation at the Red sea, the Lord going before them in a
pillar of cloud and life; the manna every day falling about their tents; twice
rocks smitten, and waters flowing from them, and had often very uncommon sights
of the glory of God: and in the times of Christ, to which this song refers,
they saw him in the flesh, preaching in their synagogues, doing miracles,
riding on an ass to Jerusalem, according to one of their prophecies, and
expiring on the cross, and yet rejected him. They are said to "wax
fat", enjoy great outward prosperity, to abound in temporal good things,
as they also did in spiritual, privileges; enjoying, or they might have
enjoyed, such a ministry of the word, as never was before or since, the
ministry of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, of Christ himself, and
of his apostles, yet they "kicked"; which may denote their
disobedience to the laws of God, moral and ceremonial, see 1 Samuel 2:29; and
particularly the introduction of idolatry among them, which was kicking against
God, and his worship; first among the ten tribes, in the times of Jeroboam, and
among the two tribes, more especially in the times of Manasseh; and this
kicking was particularly verified in Judas's lifting up his heel against
Christ, and betraying him; which was not merely the sin of him only, but what
the whole body of the people were involved in, see Psalm 41:9,
thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with
fatness; which is repeated and expressed by different words, both for the
certainty of it, and to denote their great affluence of good things, and so the
more to aggravate their impiety and ingratitude, next observed:
then he forsook God which made him; the worship
of God, as the Targum of Jonathan, giving into idolatry in times past; and the
written word of God, by giving heed to the traditions of the elders, to the
making void and of none effect the word of God; or Christ, the essential Word
of God; so the Targum of Jonathan,"and left the Word of God, who created
them;'that Word of God which was in the beginning of all things, and by whom
all things were made, and they also; who in the fulness of time was made flesh,
and dwelt among men, John 1:1,
and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation; the same
divine Person, described in Deuteronomy 32:4;
and there called "the Rock"; see Gill on Deuteronomy 32:4;
here "the rock of salvation"; because salvation flows from him: he is
the author of it, and it is to be had of him, and no other; and this epithet
shows not only his ability and strength to effect it, but the security of it in
him, which being wrought out is an everlasting one. He is said to be the rock
of "his" salvation, Jeshurun or Israel, he being of the Jews, raised
up among them, and sent unto them, and was the Saviour of some of them
actually, even of the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and on account of his
salvation deserving of universal esteem. But the Jews "lightly esteemed"
him, had no value for him, set this rock and stone at nought; he was refused
and rejected by the builders, who is now the head of the corner; they despised
him, mocked at him, and treated him with the utmost contempt and disdain, yea,
with abhorrence; all which, and more, is signified by the word here used: they
traduced him as a vile and wicked person, and charged and, treated him as such,
so some render the wordF6ינבל "pro
scelerato tractavit", Cocceius. ; and, as othersF7"Cadaver
fecit", Van Till. , they made a dead carcass of him, they crucified and
slew him; this is the crime of ingratitude hinted at in Deuteronomy 32:6;
and all between is an enumeration of instances of divine goodness to this
people, mentioned with a view to aggravate this unheard of sin.
Deuteronomy 32:16 16 They
provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; With abominations they
provoked Him to anger.
YLT
16They make Him zealous with
strangers, With abominations they make Him angry.
They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods,.... Or
"with others"F8בזרים "per
alios", Cocceius. ; the word "gods" is not in the text, nor were
the Jews guilty of worshipping strange gods or idols in the times of Christ,
nor had they been from the time of their coming out of the Babylonish
captivity; but the word, as Cocceius observes, is used for "another",
as in Job 19:27; and
signifies other saviours, other messiahs, whom the Jews set up when they
rejected Christ, the rock of salvation; and it is observable, that before the
coming of Christ, they never attempted to set up any; but, after they had
rejected him, were ready to embrace everyone that offered, of which one, called
Bar Cochab, the son of a star, in allusion to Numbers 24:17; is a
flagrant instance; and whom, when they found themselves deceived, they called
Bar Cozba, the son of a lie, or a lying fellow; to whom our Lord may be thought
to have respect, John 5:43; and
where he expressly calls him another. Now, not only to reject Jesus, the true
Messiah, but to set up others in his room, false Christs, was highly provoking
to God, who is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another:
with abominations provoked they him to anger; by advancing
the traditions of the elders to an equality with, and above the word of God;
and by continuing sacrifices, after the great sacrifice was offered up, when
they ought to have ceased; for, by continuing them, it was saying Christ was
not come in the flesh, nor his sacrifice offered up; it was trampling under
foot the Son of God, and treating his blood and sacrifice with contempt; which
must be an abomination to God, and highly provoking of his anger, when that
sacrifice was of a sweet smelling savour to him; and especially what was
abominable to him, and grievously provoked him to anger and wrath, was their
setting up the idol of their own righteousness, refusing to submit to the
righteousness of Christ, Romans 10:3; and
indeed, whenever anything is set up in competition with him, or in opposition
to him, be it what it will, it must be an abomination to God; because it
opposes his purposes and resolutions of saving men by Christ alone, reflects on
his wisdom in the scheme of salvation, flies in the face of his love, grace,
and mercy, makes the death of Christ of none effect, advances pride in the
creature, gives God the lie, who says there is no other Saviour, and is a total
slight and neglect of his Gospel; all which must be abominable, and dreadfully
provoking to him; see Isaiah 65:5;
Deuteronomy 32:17 17 They
sacrificed to demons, not to God, To gods they did not know, To new gods,
new arrivals That your fathers did not fear.
YLT
17They sacrifice to demons --
no god! Gods they have not known -- New ones -- from the vicinity they came;
Not feared them have your fathers!
They sacrificed to devils, not to God,.... Their
sacrifices being continued, when it was the will of God they should cease, were
reckoned by him not as, offered to him, but to demons, and to such that were
not God; they being therein under the instigation of Satan, and doing his
lusts, John 8:44; just as
Pagans and Papists, worshipping idols under the influence and direction of
Satan, are said to worship devils, and sacrifice to them, 1 Corinthians 10:20;
and indeed setting up their own righteousness was sacrificing to their own net,
and burning incense to their own drag, to an idol, and not to God: to which may
be added, that whereas they trampled under foot the Son of God, and did despite
to the Spirit of grace, by which Christ cast out devils, and offered himself
without spot, they excluded two of the divine Persons in the Deity, and so
worshipped not the true God, Father, Son, and Spirit:
to gods whom they knew not, to gods that came newly up; such as
angels, into the worship of which they fell, as their writings testifyF9Vid.
Van Till in loc. , and to which the apostle seems to have respect, Colossians 2:18,
whom your fathers feared not; paid no regard unto, put
no trust or confidence in; or, as the Targum of Jonathan,"with whom your
fathers had nothing to do:'as they had not with the idol of man's
righteousness, but wholly looked unto and trusted in the grace and
righteousness of Christ, and expected salvation alone by him: the Gospel of
righteousness and salvation by Christ was preached to our first parents in
Eden's garden, which they embraced and believed in; Noah was an heir and preacher
of the righteousness of faith, that is, of the righteousness of Christ,
received by faith; that righteousness, which was what Abraham believed in, was
imputed to him for his justifying righteousness; and Jacob waited for the
Messiah, the salvation of God; in short all the Old Testament saints were saved
by the grace of Christ, as we are; the idols, the works of men's own
righteousness, are new deities they paid no deference to, placed no confidence
in.
Deuteronomy 32:18 18 Of
the Rock who begot you, you are unmindful, And have forgotten the God
who fathered you.
YLT
18The Rock that begat thee
thou forgettest, And neglectest God who formeth thee.
Of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,.... The same
with the rock of salvation, Deuteronomy 32:15;
repeated and expressed in different words, that their wretched ingratitude
might be taken notice of and observed: begetting is ascribed to this rock, as
regeneration is to Christ, 1 John 2:29; and
was true of some among the Jews: some choose to render the words, "the
rock of thy kindred"F11צור ילדך "rupem cognationis tuae", i.e. "fratrum
tuorum", Van Till; see Rom. ix. 4, 5. ; being a near kinsman, a brother
through his incarnation, which aggravated their unmindfulness of him:
and hast forgotten God that formed thee: for the rock
they were unmindful of and forgot is the true God and eternal life, the
essential Word of God, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem interpret
it; him the Jewish nation forgot; they forgot the characters given of him in
the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament; and therefore they knew him
not when he came and fulfilled the voices of the prophets they were ignorant of
in condemning him: hence they were unmindful of his person, his offices, his
works, his benefits, and the great salvation by him; as indeed too many are
that call themselves Christians: some observe that the word here used signifies
bringing forth children with pain, and so way respect the bitter sorrows and
sufferings of Christ, sometimes expressed by a wordF12מחללך "parturientis te", Montanus;
"parturitorem tuum", Van Till. which signifies the pains of women in
childbirth, Acts 2:24; and
called the travail of his soul, Isaiah 53:11; and
so a further aggravation of their ingratitude, that they should forget him that
suffered so much, at least on account of some of them; for, those he endured to
bring forth children unto God, or to gather together the children of God,
scattered abroad both in Judea and in the whole world, John 11:51.
Deuteronomy 32:19 19 “And
when the Lord saw it, He spurned them, Because of the provocation
of His sons and His daughters.
YLT
19And Jehovah seeth and despiseth
-- For the provocation of His sons and His daughters.
And when the Lord saw it,.... The disregard of the
Jews to Christ, their forgetfulness of him, their disesteem and rejection of
him; their continuance of sacrifices, when the great sacrifice was offered up;
their setting up other messiahs and saviours, and the idol of their own
righteousness, in opposition to the righteousness of Christ; all which not only
as the omniscient God he saw, but took notice of, and considered, and did not
at once pass judgment on them, at least did not immediately execute it, but
waited some time to see how they would afterwards behave; for it was thirty
years or more after the crucifixion of Christ that the utter destruction of the
Jews came upon them:
he abhorred them; in his heart, despised
them, and at last rejected them with contempt and abhorrence, very righteously
and in just retaliation, see Zechariah 11:8; as
for what before observed, so for what follows:
because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters; which is not
to be understood of the Lord being provoked to wrath by the sins of those who
called themselves or were called his sons and daughters; for these are such who
were truly his sons and daughters, and different from those in Deuteronomy 32:20,
said to be "children in whom is no faith": these are no other
than the disciples and followers of Christ, that believed in him, both men and
women, and so the children of God, his sons and his daughters by special grace;
and the "provoking" of them is the wrath of the enemy against them,
as the same word is used and rendered in Deuteronomy 32:27;
and should be here, "because of wrath", or "indignation against
his sons and his daughters"F13מכעס בניו "prae ira in filios suos", Pagninus;
"propter iram in filios suos", Van Till; so Maimon. Moreh Nevochim,
par. 1. c. 36. ; meaning the affliction, distress, and persecution of them,
through the wrath of the unbelieving Jews; for after the death of Christ they
persecuted his apostles, they beat them and cast them into prison, and put some
to death; a persecution was raised against the church at Jerusalem, in which
Saul was concerned, who breathed out threatenings and slaughters against the
disciples of the Lord, and haled men and women, the sons and daughters of God,
and committed them to prison, and persecuted them to strange cities, and gave
his voice to put them to death; and in the Gentile world, when the Gospel was
carried there, the Jews stirred up the Gentiles everywhere against the
followers of Christ, to harass and distress them; and this the Lord saw, and he
abhorred them for it, and rejected them.
Deuteronomy 32:20 20 And
He said: ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be, For
they are a perverse generation, Children in whom is no faith.
YLT
20And He saith: I hide My
face from them, I see what [is] their latter end; For a froward generation
[are] they, Sons in whom is no stedfastness.
And he said, I will hide my face from them,.... Now the
Lord proceeds to pass sentence on the Jews for their ill treatment of his Son,
and of his followers; which respects judgments that should come upon them, both
spiritual and temporal, or corporeal; the former lies in Deuteronomy 32:20,
and the latter in Deuteronomy 32:22;
and this the Lord said in his own heart and mind, decreed and determined it
within himself, and declared it in his word by his prophets, as here and in
other places: and this first part of the sentence denotes the withdrawing of
the gracious presence of God, and the manifestation of his favour, from the
people of the Jews, his dislike and contempt of them, having taken out from
among them the remnant according to the election of grace, the disciples and
followers of Christ; and the removal of the Gospel, and the ordinances of it,
from them, the means of light and knowledge, joy and comfort, and the giving of
them up to blindness and hardness of heart, which continues to this day; they
have a vail of darkness and ignorance upon their hearts while reading the books
of the Old Testament, which will be done away when they turn to the Lord, and
not before; likewise this was fulfilled when all the symbols of the divine
Presence were removed, when the temple was destroyed, and all things in it, or
carried away; and this house, which was formerly the house of God, and where he
dwelt, was left desolate by him; and it is remarkable, that a little before the
destruction of Jerusalem, a voice was heard in the temple, "let us go
hence", as Josephus relatesF26De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 5. sect.
3. :
I will see what their end shall be: their
destruction, called in the New Testament "the end of the world"; the end
of the Jewish church state and commonwealth: this the Lord said, not as
ignorant what it should be, or when it would be; but the sense is, either that
he would cause them and others to see it, when he should bring wrath upon them
to the uttermost; or that he would look upon it with pleasure and delight,
which would be an aggravation of their punishment, Proverbs 1:26,
for they are a very froward generation; men of
perverse spirits, of a contrary and contradictory temper and disposition, who
pleased not God, and were contrary to all men; as well as contradicted and
blasphemed the Gospel of Christ, were men of distorted principles in religion,
implicated and inconsistent, they wresting the Scriptures to their own
destruction; and were obstinate, stubborn, and inflexible in their notions and
practices, and that to the last, which was their ruin:
children in whom is no faith; for though they had
faith in one God, in the Scriptures of the Old Testament as the word of God, in
the law of Moses, and in a future state, the resurrection of the dead, and
judgment to come; especially the Pharisees, the greater part of the Jews; yet
though they were the children of Abraham, and would be thought to be the
children of God, they had no faith in Jesus, the true Messiah; him they
disbelieved and rejected; and as their fathers could not enter into the land of
Canaan, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness, because of unbelief; so these
were cast out of the land, and from the Lord, because of their unbelief in the
rejection of the Messiah. Aben Ezra observes, that it may be interpreted there
is no men of faithfulness, or no faithful men among them, as in Psalm 12:1; they
were a faithless generation, covenant breakers, broke their covenant with God,
and therefore he rejected them.
Deuteronomy 32:21 21 They
have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; They have moved Me to
anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those
who are not a nation; I will move them to anger by a foolish nation.
YLT
21They have made Me zealous
by `no-god,' They made Me angry by their vanities; And I make them zealous by
`no-people,' By a foolish nation I make them angry.
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God,.... With a
false messiah; for after the death of Jesus, the true Messiah, God as well as
man, many false Christs arose, as he predicted, and were received for a time,
who were mere men, and deceivers; and their now vainly expected messiah, or
whom they look for, according to their own sense of him, is no other than a
mere creature, and not God: or with the idol of their own righteousness; which,
as an idol is nothing in the world, that is, nothing in the business of
justification, and put in the room of Christ highly provokes the Lord to
jealousy:
they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; such were
their false Christs they in vain trusted in, and such the idol of their own
righteousness they set up, but could not make to stand; and such were the
traditions of their elders; they put upon an equality with, or above the word
of God; all which stirred up the wrath and anger of God against them:
and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a
people: this is not to be understood of any particular nation, but of
the Gentiles in general, and of God's elect among them, and of the calling of
them; which would be provoking to the Jews, as the Apostle Paul has taught us
to understand it, Romans 10:19. These
were not the people of God, or not my people, as he says Romans 9:25; In
some sense indeed they were his people, being chosen by him, and taken into
covenant with him; for he is God not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles
also; and those were given to Christ as his people, and are his other sheep
which were not of the Jewish fold; and who were redeemed by him to be a
peculiar people out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, all which was
before their calling: yet, in another sense they were not his people; they were
without any spiritual privileges, the word and ordinances, without the
knowledge of God and Christ, without communion with them; they were not a
people near unto the Lord, he had not laid hold on and formed them for himself
in regeneration and conversion; they were not reckoned the people of God, nor
called so, and especially by the Jews, who accounted themselves to be the only
people of God; see Ephesians 2:11,
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation; either the
Romans in particular are meant, so called because of their gross idolatry, to
which they were addicted, who otherwise in their political affairs were a wise
and understanding people; to these Judea became a province, and were subject to
tribute; and by the exactions of the Romans, and their ill usage of them, they
were provoked to rise against them, which issued in their ruin: or rather the
Gentiles in general, who might be called foolish because of their superstition
and idolatry, ignorance, and blindness in religious matters, and especially
were so in the account of the Jews; and the elect of God among them in
particular, who in their state of unregeneracy were foolish, as all
unregenerate men are; both their principles and practices were foolish, and they
were the foolish things of the Gentile world that God chose and called: and the
calling of them was exceedingly provoking to the Jews; which was as if a man,
moved to jealousy by the behaviour of his wife, should strip her of her
ornaments and jewels, and reject her as his wife; and take another before her
eyes of mean estate, and marry her, and put her ornaments on her, to which the
allusion is; for the Lord, being moved to jealousy by the conduct of the Jewish
nation towards him, rejected them from being his people, and stripped them of
all their privileges, civil and religious, and took the Gentiles in the room of
them, and so in just retaliation moved them to jealousy and wrath. It was
displeasing to the carnal Jews to hear of the prophecies of the calling of the
Gentiles, Romans 10:20; and
the first display of grace to them was resented even by believing Jews
themselves at first, Acts 11:2. The
anger of the Scribes and Pharisees on this account is thought by some to be
hinted at in the parable of the two sons, Luke 15:27. The
Jews were offended with Christ for eating with publicans, the Roman tax
gatherers, and were greatly displeased when he told them the kingdom of God
would be taken from them, and given to another nation, Matthew 9:10 Matthew 21:43.
Their rage and envy were very great when the Gospel was first preached to the
Gentiles, Acts 13:41; and
there is such an extraordinary instance of their spite and malice to the
Gentiles, and of their jealousy and anger they were moved unto, as is not to be
paralleled, 1 Thessalonians 2:15.
Deuteronomy 32:22 22 For
a fire is kindled in My anger, And shall burn to the lowest hell; It shall
consume the earth with her increase, And set on fire the foundations of the
mountains.
YLT
22For a fire hath been
kindled in Mine anger, And it burneth unto Sheol -- the lowest, And consumeth
earth and its increase, And setteth on fire foundations of mountains.
For a fire is kindled in mine anger,.... Here begins the
account of temporal and corporeal judgments inflicted on the Jews for their
disbelief and rejection of the Messiah, their contempt of his Gospel, and ill
treatment of his followers; and this here respects the destruction of the land
of Judea in general, and the burning of the city and temple of Jerusalem in
particular, as the effect of the wrath and anger of God like fire kindled
against them:
and shall burn unto the lowest hell; which denotes an entire
destruction, like that of the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and
brimstone from heaven; which issued in a sulphurous lake, and which sulphureous
matter sunk to the bottom of the Dead Sea; and to that destruction is this of
the land of Judea compared, Deuteronomy 29:23,
and shall consume the earth with her increase: the land of
Judea, with the cities and towns in it, and buildings on it, and the fruits of
the earth; which were either gathered into their barns and storehouses, or were
growing in their fields, and vineyards, and oliveyards; all were destroyed and
consumed at or before the destruction of Jerusalem, or quickly after it:
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains; the city of
Jerusalem, as Jarchi himself interprets it, whose foundations were by the
mountains, according to Psalm 125:2; and
the temple of Jerusalem particularly was built on Mount Moriah, and that as
well as the city was utterly consumed by fire: and it is remarkable that when
Julian the apostate attempted to rebuild it, as is related even by an Heathen
historianF1Ammian. Marcellin. l. 23. in initio. , that flames of
fire burst out from the foundations, and burnt the workmen; so that he was
obliged to desist from his rash undertaking.
Deuteronomy 32:23 23 ‘I
will heap disasters on them; I will spend My arrows on them.
YLT
23I gather upon them evils,
Mine arrows I consume upon them.
I will heap mischief upon them,.... One calamity upon
another, which are after particularly mentioned:
I will spewed mine arrows upon them; God is here represented
as an enemy to the Jews, as having bent his bow against them like an enemy, Lamentations 2:4;
and as having a quiver, and that full of arrows, and as determined to draw out
and spend everyone of them, in taking vengeance upon them; which arrows are his
four sore judgments mentioned Ezekiel 14:21; and
expressed in Deuteronomy 32:24.
Deuteronomy 32:24 24 They
shall be wasted with hunger, Devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction;
I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, With the poison of serpents
of the dust.
YLT
24Exhausted by famine, And consumed
by heat, and bitter destruction. And the teeth of beasts I send upon them, With
poison of fearful things of the dust.
They shall be burnt with
hunger,.... This is the arrow of famine, Ezekiel 5:16; the
force of which is such that it makes the skin black as if burnt, Lamentations 5:10;
Onkelos paraphrases it,"inflated or swelled with famine,'which is a phrase
JosephusF2 απο της
ενδειας πεφυσημενοι, de Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 23. sect. 4. makes use of in describing
the famine at the siege of Jerusalem. Jarchi observes, that one of their
writersF3R. Moses Hadarsan. interprets the words "hairs of
hunger", because he says that a man that is famishing and pining, his hair
grows, and he becomes hairy: this judgment was notorious among the Jews, at the
siege of Jerusalem, and was very sore and dreadful: See Gill on Deuteronomy 28:53,
and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; with burning
fevers, pestilential ones, with the plague, the arrow of the Lord that flies by
day, the pestilence that walks in darkness, and the destruction that wastes at
noonday, Psalm 91:5; and
which also raged at the siege of Jerusalem, arising from the stench of dead
bodies, which lay in all parts of the city, and is one of the signs of the
destruction of it given by our Lord, Matthew 24:7,
I will also send the teeth, of beasts upon them, with the poison
of serpents of the dust; another of the arrows in the quiver of the Lord of hosts, or of
his four judgments, and which he used to threaten the people of the Jews with
in case of disobedience, Leviticus 26:22.
And such of the Jews who fled to deserts, and caves and dens of the earth, for
shelter, could not escape falling into the hands of wild beasts, and of meeting
with poisonous serpents that go upon their bellies, and feed on the dust of the
earth; and besides, when Titus had taken Jerusalem, he disposed of his captives
some one way and some another; and, among the rest, many were cast to the wild
beasts in the theatre, as Josephus relatesF4De Bello Jud. l. 6. c.
9. sect. 2. & l. 7. c. 3. sect. 1. ; add to this, that both Rome Pagan, and
Roman Papal, are called beasts, Revelation 13:1;
into both whose hands the Jews fell, and from whom they have suffered much;
with which in part agrees the Targum of Jerusalem,
"the
teeth of the four monarchies, which are like to wild beasts, I will send upon
them;'and particularly the Targum of Jonathan paraphrases it,"and the
Greeks, who bite with their teeth like wild beasts, I will send upon them;'but
it would have been much better to have interpreted it of the Romans.
Deuteronomy 32:25 25 The
sword shall destroy outside; There shall be terror within For the young
man and virgin, The nursing child with the man of gray hairs.
YLT
25Without bereave doth the
sword, And at the inner-chambers -- fear, Both youth and virgin, Suckling with
man of grey hair.
The sword without,.... Either without the city, the sword of
the Roman army besieging it, which destroyed all that came out or attempted to
go in; or in the streets of the city, the sword of the seditious, which
destroyed multitudes among themselves:
and terror within; within the city, on account of the sword of
the Romans, and the close siege they made of it; and on account of the famine
and pestilence which raged in it, and the cruelty of the seditious persons
among themselves; all these filled the people with horror and terror in their
houses; and even in their bedchambers, as the word signifies, they were not
free from terror; yea, from the temple, and inward parts, and chambers of that,
which may be referred to, terror came, that being in the hands of the
seditious; they sallied out from thence, and ravaged the city, and filled all
places with the dread of them; and many, no doubt, through fear died, as well
as by the sword and other judgments; which it is threatened
shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also,
with the man of gray hairs; none of any age or sex
were spared, even those unarmed; not the young man, for his strength and
promising usefulness; nor the virgin for her beauty and comeliness; nor the
suckling for its innocence and tenderness; nor the aged man through any
reverence of his gray hairs, or on account of the infirmities of old age, but
all would be destroyed; and never was such a carnage made at the siege of
anyone city in the world before or since; no less than 1,100,000 persons
perished in it, as Josephus relatesF5De Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect.
3. .
Deuteronomy 32:26 26 I
would have said, “I will dash them in pieces, I will make the memory of them to
cease from among men,”
YLT
26I have said: I blow them
away, I cause their remembrance to cease from man;
I said,.... Or could have said, or might have said; that is, determined
and resolved, as it was in his power, and in right and justice might have done
what follows:
I would scatter them into corners; which does not fitly
express the sense of the word used, and besides this was what was done; it is
notorious that the Jews were and are scattered into the several corners of the
world, and there is no corner where they are not; whereas the phrase is
expressive of something that could and might have been done, but was not: moreover,
to disperse them into the several parts of the world does not agree with what
follows; for that, instead of making their remembrance to cease, would make
them the more known, and the more to be remembered. But the word literally
taken may be rendered, "I will corner them"F6אפאיהם "angulabo illos", Oleaster, Vitringa;
"ad angulos usque quaeram ipsos, seu ad verbum, angulabo ipsos", Van
Till; "ab angulo succidam ipsos", Cocceius. Vid. Gusset. Ebr.
Comment. p. 661. ; drive them up into a corner, and cut them off together, or
search for them in, and ferret them out of, every corner in which they should
get, and destroy them all: agreeably to which is the Targum of
Onkelos,"mine anger shall rest upon them, and I will destroy them;'and so
Aben Ezra interprets it of the destruction of them, and observes, that
otherwise it would not agree with what follows. There may be an allusion in it
to the corner of the field, which was ordered to be left to the poor, and not
reaped, Leviticus 19:9; and
so the sense is, I could and might have determined when the harvest of this
land and people was come, or the time of wrath upon them, to cut down every
corner, and leave none, no, not one standing stalk of corn, but make clean
riddance of them:
I would make the remembrance of them cease from among men; as of the
Amalekites, Moabites, Midianites, Edomites, Chaldeans, and others, whose names
as well as nations are no more. This is what the enemies of the Jews plotted
and conspired to do, Psalm 83:4; and
what God could and might have done, but has not; the Jews continue to this day
a distinct people, though it is now near 1900 years since the destruction of
their city and temple, and their dispersion in the various parts of the world;
which is what was never known of any other people in the like circumstances,
and which is a most amazing and surprising event; the reasons of it follow.
Deuteronomy 32:27 27 Had
I not feared the wrath of the enemy, Lest their adversaries should
misunderstand, Lest they should say, “Our hand is high; And it is not
the Lord who has done all this.”’
YLT
27If not -- the anger of an
enemy I fear, Lest their adversaries know -- Lest they say, Our hand is high,
And Jehovah hath not wrought all this.
Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy,.... Satan,
the enemy of mankind in general, of the people of God in particular, and
especially of the Messiah, the seed of the woman, and of God himself, whom he
would dethrone, or at least place himself on an equality with him; this enemy
is full of wrath, enmity, and blasphemy, against God, and stirs up all of this
kind in the hearts of men, and instigates them to persecute the people of God;
and does all he can to obscure the glory of God, and lessens his own
"grief", as the word signifies, occasioned by it: and now though God
has nothing to fear, either from the power and policy of the devil, being
infinitely mightier and wiser than he; yet as Moses expressed his concern, if
God should cut off the people of Israel as one man, that the Egyptians would
say he brought them out of Egypt for mischief, or that he was not able to bring
them into the land of Canaan, Exodus 32:12; so
the Lord, speaking after the manner of men, as Aben Ezra observes, expresses
his fears of the wrath of the enemy; not properly, but it denotes his
precaution, provision, and preparation he made to put a check upon it, and a
stop to it, that he might not have the opportunity of instilling it into the
minds of men, that God was cruel to his people, or had not ability to save them
from their enemies, or was unfaithful to his promises; and therefore he did not
entirely cut them off, as he could and might have done, but made a reserve of
them, as a standing proof to the contrary:
lest their adversaries; the Romans, who fought
against them, took them, and carried them captive:
should behave themselves strangely; alienate the glory of God
from him, and give it to their strange gods; which the Romans were wont to do,
when they obtained victories, and did do something of this kind to Jupiter
Capitolinus, when they carried the Jews captive, and their trophies in triumph
to Rome: yet there was such an apparent hand of God in this affair, that the
Heathens were obliged to own it. Titus the conqueror himself confessed that it
was God that favoured him, and that it was he that brought the Jews out of the
fortresses and fastnesses in which they were; and that no hands of men, or
machines, were anything against such towers as they hadF7Joseph. de
Bello Jud. l. 6. c. 9. sect. 1. : and when some neighbouring nations would have
crowned him because of his victories over the Jews, he refused it, saying, he
was unworthy of it, he had not done this of himself, but had only lent an hand
to God that was angry with themF8Philostrat. Vit. Apolion. l. 6. c.
14. . Cicero also observesF9Orat. 24. pro Flacco. the hand of God in
the conquest, captivity, and servitude of the Jewish nation; moreover, a
remnant was preserved to be to the Romans, as the Canaanites were to the
Israelites, thorns in their sides, and pricks in their eyes; to be a burden to
them, a dead weight upon them, and to check their ovations and triumphs over
them; for, that people conquered gave them great trouble, raised commotions and
insurrections in many places, which obliged the emperors in succeeding reigns
to come from distant parts, and quell them, and were the occasion of vast
quantities of blood being shed; insomuch that one of their poetsF11"Atque
utinam nunquam Judaea subacta fuisset", Rutilius. wishes Judea had never
been subdued by them: likewise a number of them was preserved to prevent the
growth and spread of idolatry, and that they might be a standing example and
caution to Christians among the Gentiles not to give into it, when they should
observe what they suffered on the account of it, as their prophecies, extant in
their sacred books preserved, abundantly testified and declared:
and lest they should say, our
hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this; lest anyone
should say among the Gentiles, as particularly deists, lest they should lift up
their horn on high, and speak with a stiff neck, and deny that ever any such
things were done for this people the Scriptures speak of, as the miracles in
the land of Egypt, at the Red sea, and in the wilderness; and confidently
affirm there never was any such people, and defy Christians to show them a Jew
if they could: now here was a reserve made of them, to be a standing proof of
the truth of divine revelation against such infidels; as also that they might
be a check unto all false teachers, and leave them inexcusable who embrace the
same errors that have been condemned in them, and God has shown his displeasure
at, and which they still retain; such as the doctrines of freewill, of
justification by a man's own righteousness, of salvation not being wholly by
the Messiah, and of his being non-Jehovah, or only a mere creature; for the
words may be rendered, "non-Jehovah hath done all this"F12ולא יהוה "et non Jehovah
operatus est omne hoc", Cocceius; so Van Till, Vitringa. ; or he that is
not Jehovah hath done all that is done for the people of the Jews; and say, all
that the Messiah hath done, with respect to salvation, is done by him that is not
Jehovah, or God, but a creature. These were the doctrines of the Jews in
Christ's time; the Pharisees, the prevailing sect among them, were freewillers,
as Josephus relatesF13Antiqu. l. 18. c. 1. sect. 3. ; and the whole
nation were self-justiciaries, as the Apostle Paul assures us, and sought for
righteousness not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, Romans 9:31; and
such they are to this day, as well as Unitarians to a man; now Arians,
Socinians, Pelagians, and Arminians, may look upon these people, who are
continued, as having imbibed the same errors; and may read theirs in them, and
God's displeasure at them.
Deuteronomy 32:28 28 “For
they are a nation void of counsel, Nor is there any understanding
in them.
YLT
28For a nation lost to
counsels [are] they, And there is no understanding in them.
For they are a nation void of counsel,.... This is
said not of the Jews, whose character is given, Deuteronomy 32:6;
and instances of their ingratitude, folly, and want of counsel and
understanding, have been already mentioned, and punishment for the same
inflicted on them, according to this prophetic song; so that the prophecy
respecting them is issued, and another people are taken notice of, even their
enemies, of whom the Jewish writers in general interpret these words, and what
follows; and was true of the Gentiles, both of the Pagan sort of them, who took
too much to themselves, and ascribed the destruction of the Jews, and their
conquest of them, to themselves, and their idols; and of false Christians among
them, when the Roman empire became Christian, such as expressed themselves in
the language of the latter part Deuteronomy 32:27,
"our hand is high", &c. which plainly showed them to be a people
devoid of the true knowledge of the Scriptures, they should have made the men
of their counsel, and have consulted; and of the Gospel of Christ, which is the
counsel of God, as the Arians, Pelagians, &c. must be, or they would never
imbibe and advance tenets so diametrically opposite thereunto:
neither is there any understanding is them; of divine and
spiritual things, of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of them; of the person
of Christ, and his divine perfections, or they would never deny his deity; of
the righteousness of God, of that which is required in the law, and revealed in
the Gospel, or they would never set up a righteousness of their own for
justification; and of themselves, their unrighteousness, impurity, and
impotence to that which is good; or they would never so strongly assert the
purity of human nature, and the power of man's freewill: God foreseeing all the
folly, and want of counsel and understanding in the Gentile world, under
different characters, preserved a remnant of the Jews as a standing admonition
to them.
Deuteronomy 32:29 29 Oh,
that they were wise, that they understood this, That they would
consider their latter end!
YLT
29If they were wise -- They
deal wisely [with] this; They attend to their latter end:
O that they were wise,.... These are not the
words of God, and so no instances of mere velleities, and unsuccessful wishes
in him, and as arguing a power in man to make himself wise if he would; but of
Moses, under a spirit of prophecy, foreseeing the ignorance and stupidity of
the above persons; or as representing a true believer in Christ, in the times
in which such men should live; for the person speaking is one that had faith in
Christ, the rock of salvation, and built upon him alone for it; and who had
enemies on that account, as appears from Deuteronomy 32:31,
and these words are spoken not of the Jews, with whom this song has no more
concern, unless it be in what respects, their conversion in the latter day; but
of false Christians, Pelagians, Arians, &c. whose language and character
are expressed in Deuteronomy 32:28,
and contain a pathetic wish that they might have wisdom to see their follies,
errors, and mistakes, and renounce them: or, "if they were wise"F11לו חכמו "o si
sapcrent", Tigurine version; "si sapuissent", Vatablus; "si
saperent", Cocceius. ; as they are not, and their tenets show it:
that they would
understand this; namely what follows:
that they would
consider their latter end; either the latter end of the Jews; had they
wisdom, they would understand and observe that the displeasure of God against
them, and his destruction of them, was for their lightly esteeming the rock of
salvation, as Arians do; and for setting up their own righteousness, in
opposition to the righteousness of Christ, as do Pelagians and Arminians; and
were they wise, they would be hereby cautioned against such notions; and though
imbibed by them, would relinquish them; as they may justly fear some such like
end will be theirs: for if God does not give them repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth their end must be miserable; since the errors they
embrace and profess are what the apostle calls "damnable heresies";
who, denying the Lord that bought them, bring on themselves swift destruction;
and whose judgment, he says, lingers not, and their damnation slumbers not, 2 Peter 2:1.
Deuteronomy 32:30 30 How
could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their
Rock had sold them, And the Lord had
surrendered them?
YLT
30How doth one pursue a
thousand, And two cause a myriad to flee! If not -- that their rock hath sold
them, And Jehovah hath shut them up?
How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to
flight,.... This is said for the conviction of the Pagan Romans of their
folly in behaving strangely, attributing to their gods what belonged to the
true God; for since the Jews were more numerous than they, both in Judea, in
the times of Titus Vespasian, when the country was subdued by him; and in other
parts of the world, in the times of Adrian, when the Jews rose up in vast
numbers, greatly superior to the Romans, and yet were conquered; which,
allowing the phrase to be hyperbolical, was like one to a thousand, and two to
ten thousand: now since this was what was promised to the Jews in case of
obedience, that they should in this manner chase their enemies, Leviticus 26:8; it
cannot be accounted for that they should in like manner be chased by their
enemies, as threatened Isaiah 30:17,
except their rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up; that is,
unless the Lord, who was their rock and fortress, and in whom they should have
trusted as such, had forsaken them, and given them up into their enemies'
hands, shut up as they were in the city of Jerusalem in the times of Titus, and
afterwards in Bither in the times of Adrian; it is a plain case that this was
of God, and not owing to the idols of the Gentiles; see Psalm 44:9;
Cocceius and Van Till interpret this of Constantine overcoming Maxentius,
Licinius, and Maximinius, whereby the whole Roman empire on a sudden became
Christian nominally, when but a little before Dioclesian had erected a trophy
with this inscription on it,"the Christian name blotted out;'so that the
odds between the Christians and Pagans were as one to a thousand, and two to
ten thousand, and the victory therefore must be ascribed to God; this could
never have been unless Satan, the great red dragon, had given his kingdom to
the beast, which was done by the permission and sovereign will of God; see Revelation 6:14; so
those interpreters, but the former sense seems best.
Deuteronomy 32:31 31 For
their rock is not like our Rock, Even our enemies themselves being
judges.
YLT
31For not as our Rock [is]
their rock, (And our enemies [are] judges!)
For their rock is not as our rock,.... That is,
the gods of the Heathens, the rock in which they trusted, are not like the God
of Israel, the rock of salvation, in which all true believers, whether Jews or
Gentiles, place their confidence; and indeed let that be what it will, that is
short of Christ the rock, men lay the stress of their salvation on, it is no rock,
but sand, and will stand them in no stead; see Matthew 7:24,
even our enemies themselves being judges; as has been
confessed of the God of Israel by the Heathens; see Exodus 14:25; and
was by Titus with respect to the destruction of Jerusalem; See Gill on Deuteronomy 32:27;
and by the Roman emperors when conquered by the Christians, who asked pardon of
the God of the Christians, and owned that the God of Constantine was the true
God; See Gill on Revelation 6:16.
Deuteronomy 32:32 32 For
their vine is of the vine of Sodom And of the fields of Gomorrah; Their
grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter.
YLT
32For of the vine of Sodom
their vine [is], And of the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes [are] grapes of
gall -- They have bitter clusters;
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields
of Gomorrah,.... This respects the false Christians in the Roman empire, who
should have taken warning by the Jews, and not have embraced such sentiments of
theirs, which had been resented by the Lord, and condemned in them; such as the
doctrines of man's freewill, of justification and salvation not alone by
Christ, but by their own works of righteousness, saying, "our hand is
high, and the Lord hath not done all this", Deuteronomy 32:27.
Now out of the errors and heresies which arose in the primitive Christian
church sprung the man of sin, the son of perdition, antichrist, or the
antichristian and apostate church of Rome, the degenerate plant of a strange
vine; and is here described as "of the vine of Sodom", a slip from
that, transplanted from Judea, and from the worse part of it, Sodom; bearing a
resemblance to the old Jewish church in its more degenerate state, reviving
many of its antiquated rites and ceremonies, and embracing its unsound
doctrines; especially which relate to justification, and salvation by the works
of men; and having such a likeness to Sodom in its abominable practices, that
it is even called Sodom itself, Revelation 11:8;
particularly for pride, luxury, idleness, idolatry, profaneness, contempt of
serious religion, and for bodily uncleanness; even for that sin which has its
name from Sodom, which has not only been frequently committed by the popes and
other great personages among their, and connived at; but praised and commended
in printed books, published and sheltered under public authority; See Gill on Revelation 11:8;
and with this compare Ezekiel 16:49;
"and of the fields of Gomorrah"; another city of the plain, destroyed
for the same sins that Sodom was; the phrase signifies the same as before; who
has not heard of the apples and fruits of Gomorrah, which are said to look very
fair and beautiful without, but when touched into ashes? a fit emblem of the
fair show of religion and devotion, and the many outward works of piety in the
Romish church they pretend to perform, but when examined are "lies in
hypocrisy", 1 Timothy 4:2,
their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are
bitter; which may denote the large number of the members of this church
clustered together, and the many religious orders in it; which make a fair show
in the flesh, but are in the gall of bitterness, and bond of iniquity; and the
variety of ordinances and institutions of man's devising: so as the ordinances
of the true church of Christ are compared to clusters of grapes, Song of Solomon 7:7;
the ordinances of the false church are like clusters of bitter grapes, both for
their quantity and quality; and may mean also their many evil works and
actions, especially their oppression and cruelty in persecuting the saints, and
shedding their blood; just as the wild grapes of the vine of Judah are
interpreted of oppression and a cry, Isaiah 5:4.
Deuteronomy 32:33 33 Their
wine is the poison of serpents, And the cruel venom of cobras.
YLT
33The poison of dragons [is]
their wine And the fierce venom of asps.
Their wine is the poison of dragons,.... Of these
creatures, both land and sea dragons; see Gill on Micah 1:8; See Gill
on Malachi 1:3; Pliny
saysF12Nat. Hist. l. 29. c. 4. the dragon has no poison in it; yet,
as Dalechamp, in his notes on that writer observes, he in many places
prescribes remedies against the bite of the dragon; but HeliodorusF13Ethiopic.
l. 9. c. 19. p. 438. expressly speaks of some archers, whose arrows were
infected with the poison of dragons; and Leo AfricanusF14Descriptio
Africae, l. 9. p. 763. says, the Atlantic dragons are exceeding poisonous: and
yet other writersF15Aristot. Hist. Animal. l. 8. c. 4. Plin. Nat.
Hist. l. 10. c. 72. besides Pliny have asserted that they are free from poison.
It seems the dragons of Greece are without, but not those of Africa and Arabia;
and to these Moses has respect, as being well known to him. The Targum of
Jerusalem is,
"the
poison of this people is like the poison of dragons as they drink wine;'and the
Targum of Jonathan,"as the poison of dragons, when they are at or from
their wine;'that is, after and as soon as they have drank it; for, according to
natural historians, serpents, though they need and use but little drink, yet
are very fond of wine: and it seems that thereby their poison becomes more
sharp and intense, as BochartF16Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 3. c. 14. col.
438, 439. observes; wherefore the allusion is very proper and pertinent, and
denotes the wine of fornication of the apostate church of Rome, frequently
spoken of Revelation 14:8;
which is no other than her corrupt doctrines, intoxicating, enticing, and
leading to idolatry and superstition; and as the true Gospel of Christ is
sometimes compared to wine, so the false doctrines of this church; but then it
is such that is not only loathsome and abominable, but poisonous and pernicious
to the souls of men, damnable and ruinous, and brings upon them swift destruction,
2 Peter 2:1; and
may well be compared to the poison of dragons for such reasons; as also because
they are doctrines of devils, and come from the great dragon, that old serpent
called the devil and Satan, 2 Timothy 4:1,
and the cruel venom of asps; which, of all kind of
serpents, PlinyF17Nat. Hist. l. 29. c. 4. says is the least curable;
nay, according to the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions of this clause, it
is incurable; and so Aristotle saysF18Hist. Animal. l. 8. c. 29.
there is no remedy for it; and so says AelianusF19De Animal. l. 1.
c. 54. & l. 6. c. 38. , who also observesF20Ibid. l. 9. c. 61. ,
that the mark it makes is so small, that it is scarcely discerned by the
sharpest eye. PlinyF21Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 23. represents it as a
most revengeful creature; when its mate is killed by any, it will pursue the
slayer, flee where he will, and as far and fast as he can: it breaks through
all difficulties, and is not to be stopped by rivers, or any obstacles, and
will attack the person, whom it presently knows, let him be in ever such a
crowd: and therefore it and its poison may well be called cruel; and as the
poison of this creature lies under its tongue, this is a fit simile to express
the poisonous and pernicious doctrines of the apostate church.
Deuteronomy 32:34 34 ‘Is
this not laid up in store with Me, Sealed up among My treasures?
YLT
34Is it not laid up with Me?
Sealed among My treasures?
Is not this laid up in store
with me,.... The fruit of the degenerate vine, its bitter clusters of
grapes, and poisonous wine; meaning the evil principles and practices of the
apostate church, well known to God, taken notice of by him, and laid up in his
mind and memory; for both she and her sins will come in remembrance before God,
and will be brought to open view, and appear to have been laid up by him, in
order to be exposed at a proper time; see Revelation 16:19;
and so the Targums interpret it of evil works: or this may be understood of the
punishment of the evil doctrines and practices of the antichristian church, the
sentence of which God had secretly passed in his eternal mind, and which he had
in reserve, and in due time would execute; it was drawn and signed by him, and,
as he says:
and sealed up among my
treasures; his treasures of wrath, denoting the secrecy of it, and the sure
and certain performance of it, and the authority of Christ to execute it; to
whom this sealed diploma is given, and all judgment committed; and particularly
this to judge the whore of Rome; and who, is able to open the sealed book of
God's purposes and decrees, and to accomplish them; and among the rest those
which relate to the utter ruin of antichrist, and the antichristian states: so
the Targum of Jerusalem, interprets it of the vengeance of the Lord, laid up
for the wicked;"is not the cup of the judgment of vengeance mixed and
prepared for the ungodly sealed up among my treasures, to the day of the great
judgment?'it is true of the cup of the wine of the fierceness of the wrath of
God, or of the wine of the wrath of God poured out without mixture into the cup
of his indignation, which he will make great Babylon, and all the worshippers
of the beast, drink of, Revelation 14:9.
Deuteronomy 32:35 35 Vengeance
is Mine, and recompense; Their foot shall slip in due time; For the day
of their calamity is at hand, And the things to come hasten upon them.’
YLT
35Mine [are] vengeance and
recompense, At the due time -- doth their foot slide; For near is a day of
their calamity, And haste do things prepared for them.
To me belongeth vengeance and recompense,.... Or, I
will repay, or recompence, as it is quoted in Romans 12:19; and
so all the three Targums, the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, here, and
so Jarchi interprets it. Vengeance belongs only to a divine Person, not to an Heathen
deity called Dice, or vengeance, Acts 28:4; nor to
Satan and his spiteful angels, nor to any of the sons of men in a private
capacity; though magistrates, being in public office, and representing God, are
revengers to execute wrath on them that do evil, Romans 13:4;
otherwise it is peculiar to God; and there is a great deal of reason to believe
he will recompence it, as it may be concluded from his hatred of sin, his
strict justice, and his faithfulness to his threatenings as well as his
promises; from the instances of his vengeance on the old world, on Sodom and
Gomorrah, and others; and from his taking vengeance on the inventions even of
good men, whose sins he pardons, and especially from his sparing his own Son,
when standing in the legal place and, stead of sinners: and this is applicable
to Christ, who not only in the days of his flesh took vengeance Satan, and his
principalities and powers; and, when he came in his kingdom and power, took
vengeance on the Jews his enemies, who would not have him to rule over them;
but also, at his spiritual coming, he will take vengeance on antichrist, whom
he will destroy with the breath of his mouth, and send that son of perdition
into the perdition appointed for him; and pour out the vials of his wrath on
all the antichristian states, the time of which is next pointed at:
their foot shall slide in due time; there is a
time fixed for the reign of antichrist, when it will end, forty two months, or
1260 days; that is, so many years; see Revelation 11:2;
and a little before the expiration of them, his foot will begin to slide, as
the slipping of the foot is just before a fall; and then will the foot of
antichrist slip and slide, when the witnesses slain by him shall revive and
stand upon their feet, and cause fear to fall on them that are on the earth;
and when they shall ascend up into heaven, or rise to superior power and
authority, greatness and splendour, than they formerly had, and this in the
sight of their enemies; and when there will be earthquakes and revolutions in
the several antichristian states; and the tenth part of the great city shall
fall, and many persons of renown be slain, and others frightened, and will give
glory to the God of heaven; when an angel, or a set of Gospel ministers, shall
fly in the midst of heaven, with the everlasting Gospel, to preach to all
nations; which will be immediately followed by another, saying, Babylon is
fallen, is fallen; when the kings of the earth will dislike and resent various
things done by the pope of Rome, and shall hate him, and meditate his ruin, and
then may his foot be said to slide; see. Revelation 11:11,
for the day of their calamity is at hand; a cloudy day,
as the word signifies, when the kingdom of the beast will be full of darkness
and confusion, Revelation 16:10;
and when all those calamities shall come upon Babylon, expressed in Revelation 14:8,
and the things that shall come upon them make haste; even all
those evil things God has determined in his counsels and purposes, and which
are foretold in prophecy, these shall come upon antichrist in haste; for,
though his judgment and damnation may seem to linger and slumber, it shall not;
God will hasten it in his due time, and all his judgments will come on Babylon
in one day, Revelation 18:8.
Deuteronomy 32:36 36 “For
the Lord will judge His people And have compassion on His servants, When He
sees that their power is gone, And there is no one remaining,
bond or free.
YLT
36For Jehovah doth judge His
people, And for His servants doth repent Himself. For He seeth -- the going
away of power, And none is restrained and left.
For the Lord shall judge his people,.... The true church and
members of it, in opposition to the false and apostate church; his chosen and
covenant people, whom he gave to Christ, and who are redeemed by his blood, and
effectually called by his grace; the people he shall call out of Babylon, or
preserve from the corruptions of it before its fall; and who are the objects of
his love and delight; a distinct, peculiar, and special people, near unto him,
and all righteous: these he will judge at this time, distinguish between them
and the followers of antichrist; he will take their cause in hand, and plead
it, and do justice to them; he will right their wrongs and injuries, and take
vengeance on their enemies; he will protect and defend them, reign and rule
over them. Now will be the time, when the witnesses slain are raised, that he
will take to himself his great power and reign, and the time of the dead when
they will be judged, and a reward given to his servants and prophets, to his
saints, and all that fear his name; and when he will destroy them that have
destroyed the earth, Revelation 11:17;
so the Targum of Jonathan interprets this of the word of the Lord that shall
judge his people in mercy:
and repent himself for his servants; by whom are meant not
only the ministers of the Gospel, his witnesses that prophesy in sackcloth, and
who will be slain when they have finished their testimony; but all that are
effectually called by grace, who though they have been the servants of sin, and
the vassals of Satan, yet by the grace of God become the servants of God and of
righteousness; dislike and cast off their old masters; readily, willingly, and
cheerfully, take upon them the yoke of Christ, and freely obey him, constrained
by his love, and influenced by views of interest in him: and so serve him
without any selfish views, owning that, when they have done all they can, they
are but unprofitable servants: now for or on account of these he will repent
himself, because of the evils he has suffered to come upon them, being moved
with pity, and compassion to them in their miserable circumstances, as they
will be in when the witnesses his servants will be slain; not that, properly
speaking, repentance is in God; he never changes his mind, counsel, and
purposes; he never alters his love, his choice, nor his covenant; or repents of
his gifts, and calling of special grace; though he is sometimes said to repent
of outward good things he has bestowed, or promised to bestow conditionality;
and of evils he has threatened or inflicted; yet this is only to be understood
of a change of his outward dealings and dispensations with men, according to
his changeable will; and this will be the case now with respect to his
servants, whom he will have suffered to be slain, and lie unburied; but
repenting or changing his manner of conduct to them will revive them, and cause
them to ascend to heaven; see Revelation 11:11,
when he seeth that their power is gone; not the hand
and power of the enemy, going and prevailing over them, and strong upon them,
as the Targum of Jonathan and Jarchi; but rather the hand and power of the
righteous, as the Targum of Jerusalem; and respects not their internal power
and strength, which they have not in themselves, but in Christ; though the
exertion of that power, and the exercise of their graces, as faith, and hope,
and love, will be greatly declined; but their external power, and protection
which they had from Protestant princes; they being removed, and others not like
them succeeding, or apostatizing to the church of Rome: the outward court or
national establishments are a fence and protection to the inward court
worshippers, or servants of God; when that shall be given to the Gentiles, the
Papists, as it will, Revelation 11:2;
the power or hand, the protecting sheltering hand of the saints, will be gone,
and they will become a prey to their adversaries:
and there is none shut up or left; a phrase used
to express the miserable state and condition of a people, when none are left,
but all are carried off, or cut off, and destroyed, and there is none to help
them; see 1 Kings 14:10; when
there are none shut up in garrisons, and left there to defend a people; or
there are none shut up in prison, or any left to till the ground; which is
sometimes the case when a nation is conquered, and the greater part are carried
captives; but it denotes such a general destruction, that there are none
remaining any where, and thus it will be at the slaying of the witnesses. This
passage has respect to their dead bodies, which will not be shut up in graves,
nor any left to bury them, Revelation 11:9.
There will scarcely be a professor of religion, or any that will appear to
favour the witnesses slain in any respect; there will be"none to support
and uphold,'as the Targum of Jerusalem; not to support and uphold the true
religion, or to help the people of God in these their distresses: and when the
Lord shall see all this, he will look upon them with an eye of pity and
compassion; he will repent for his servants, according to the multitude of his
tender mercies; and will plead their cause, and judge them, and will put on the
garments of vengeance, and repay fury and recompense to his and their enemies, Isaiah 59:15; who
will insultingly say as follows.
Deuteronomy 32:37 37 He
will say: ‘Where are their gods, The rock in which they sought refuge?
YLT
37And He hath said, Where
[are] their gods -- The rock in which they trusted;
And he shall say, where are their gods?.... Not the
Lord shall say to Israel, upbraiding them with their idols and their
idolatries; but, as the Targum of Jonathan,"the enemy shall say, where is
the God of Israel?'and to the same purpose is, the Jerusalem Targum, and which
is the sense of other Jewish writersF23Aben Ezra & R. Nehemiah
in Jarchi in loc. ; and the words may be rendered impersonally, and in the
singular number, "and it shall be said, where is their God?" as it
follows:
their rock in whom
they trusted? that is, it shall be said to the people of God, when in the low
estate before described, and which will make it still more distressing; it
shall be said to them by their enemies in a sneering way, where is the Lord
their God they boasted of, and the rock of salvation in whom they trusted? which
agrees with other passages of Scripture, Psalm 42:3. The
persons insulted and upbraided are the Protestant witnesses at the time of
their being slain; when "they that dwell upon the earth", the
Papists, "shall rejoice over them", Revelation 11:10;
they are such who are true believers in the God and Father of Christ, as their
God and Father in Christ, who of his own free grace has blessed them with all
spiritual blessings in him; and who trust in Christ the rock alone for
justification before God, for acceptance with him, and for their whole
salvation; rejecting the Popish notion of justification by works, the doctrines
of merit, and of works of supererogation, and the like; who now will be taunted
at, and triumphed over, saying, where is the God of the Protestants they
gloried in, as being on their side? and where is their rock on which they say
the church is built, and not on Peter?
Deuteronomy 32:38 38 Who
ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink
offering? Let them rise and help you, And be your refuge.
YLT
38Which the fat of their
sacrifices do eat, They drink the wine of their libation! Let them arise and
help you, Let it be for you a hiding-place!
Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the
wine of their drink offerings,.... Alluding to the fat of the sacrifices
under the law, which was claimed by the Lord as his, and represented as his
food, Leviticus 3:11; and
to the drink offerings of wine, which were of a sweet savour to God, and with
respect to which wine is said to cheer him, Numbers 15:7. Now
New Testament worship and services are here expressed in Old Testament
language, which is not unusual; see Isaiah 56:7; and
signify the best of the sacrifices and services of true believers in Christ,
presenting their souls and bodies unto him as a holy, living, acceptable
sacrifice, which is but their reasonable service; offering their sacrifices of
prayer and praise unto him through Christ; doing all good works in his name and
strength, and all acts of beneficence in love to him and his people, with which
sacrifices he is well pleased; yea, cheerfully laying down their lives as
victims in his cause, when called unto it. Now these words are a taunt at the
Protestant doctrine of the acceptance of the service and sacrifices of
believers in Christ, through him, and for his sake, and not for any merit or
worthiness in them:
let them rise up and help you; their God and their
rock, Jehovah the Father, their covenant God, and his Son the rock of their
salvation, in whom they trust; and so they will arise and help them in this
time of extreme distress; though they may seem as asleep, and to take no notice
of the sad estate of saints, they will arise in wrath and indignation at their
enemies, and deliver them out of their hands; the Spirit of life from God shall
be sent to bring to life the slain witnesses, and Christ will rise up in the
exertion of his kingly power; he will take to himself his great power, and
reign, and destroy them that destroyeth the earth, Revelation 11:11,
and be your protection; or "let
him be your hiding place"F24סתרה
"absconsio", Pagninus, Montanus; "latibulum", Tigurine
version; "latebra", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. ; that is, the
rock in whom they trusted, and so he is, and will be "an hiding place the
wind, and a covert from the storm", Isaiah 32:2; not
only from the wrath and justice of God, but from the rage and fury of men;
Christ will protect and defend his people against all their enemies, and in his
own time will deliver them from them; who, in answer to these taunts and
derisions, rises up, and thus he says, as follows.
Deuteronomy 32:39 39 ‘Now
see that I, even I, am He, And there is no God besides Me;
I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can
deliver from My hand.
YLT
39See ye, now, that I -- I
[am] He, And there is no god with Me: I put to death, and I keep alive; I have
smitten, and I heal; And there is not from My hand a deliverer,
See now that I, even I, am he,.... Which
words are directed to the people of God in their low estate, to look to Christ,
and expect deliverance and salvation from him; or to their enemies that insult
them, to the despisers, to look, and wonder, and perish, as they will, when the
witnesses slain by them shall arise, and go up to heaven in their sight, Revelation 11:11;
they are spoken by the Word and Son of God, to whom the Father has committed
all judgment, and who will now rise up and execute it; so the Targum of
Jonathan,"when the Word of the Lord shall reveal himself to redeem his
people, he will say to all people, see now, &c.'and who will declare
himself to be the great Jehovah, the self-existent Being, the eternal and
immutable I AM; for this phrase is expressive of his existence, eternity,
immutability, and sovereignty; and which the above Targum paraphrases
thus,"see now that I am he that have been, and am, and I am he that shall
be,'which, as it is a deciphering the word "Jehovah", is what is
applied to Christ, Revelation 1:8. The
repeating the word "I", as it may denote the strong affection of the
speaker, and the certainty of what he would do, so it may have respect to both
sorts of persons the words are directed to, and to the several sorts of things
to be done, hereafter related; signifying that it is the same I, that does the
one, does also the other, kills and makes alive, &c.
and there is no god with me; this the Redeemer and
Saviour says elsewhere, Isaiah 44:6; see Deuteronomy 32:12;
there is but one God, and Christ the Word, with the Father and the Spirit, are
that one God, 1 John 5:7; and
there is no other with him; he is the true God, in opposition to all factitious
and fictitious gods; he is not a made god, nor a god by office, nor by name and
title only, but by nature the one, true, only, and living God; and so it may be
most truly believed of him, that he is able to do, and will do, what he next
says:
I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal:
Christ is the sovereign disposer of life and death, of sickness and health, in
a temporal sense; and in a spiritual sense he wounds and kills, by the law in
the hand of his Spirit; and he heals and makes alive by his Gospel, as it is
accompanied by his Spirit and grace also: this is by some referred to the
resurrection from the dead, which will be by Christ the resurrection and the
life, the earnest, exemplar, and efficient cause of it; so the Targum of
Jerusalem,"I am he that kills the living in this world, and quickens the
dead in the world to come:'but it refers to another resurrection previous to
that, namely, the reviving of the witnesses after they have been slain three
days; who, as they will be killed in a civil sense, in the same sense they will
be quickened by the Spirit of life from Christ; that is, they will be raised
from that very low estate into which they will be brought, into a glorious one,
signified by their ascending up into heaven; which will be done by Christ when he
takes to himself his great power, and reigns; then as he suffered his witnesses
and people to be wounded and killed, he will make them alive, and heal them,
and restore comforts and happiness to them, see Revelation 11:11,
neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand; for, at the
same time that he saves his people, he will take their enemies into his hands,
out of which there will be no escape; at this time seven thousand names of men,
or men of name, will be slain; see Gill on Revelation 11:13.
Deuteronomy 32:40 40 For
I raise My hand to heaven, And say, “As I live forever,
YLT
40For I lift up unto the
heavens My hand, And have said, I live -- to the age!
For I lift up my hand to heaven,.... Which is a gesture
used in swearing, Genesis 14:22, and
is ascribed to a divine Person, Ezekiel 20:5; and
particularly to Christ the angel, that is so wonderfully described, Revelation 10:1;
though sometimes it is used, as Aben Ezra observes, to excite the attention of
hearers, but here it signifies swearing; and so the Targums of Jonathan and
Jerusalem paraphrase it,"I have lift up my hands with an oath to
heaven;'and to the same sense is the Septuagint version:
and say, I live for ever; which is the form of an
oath; when men swear, they are to swear, the Lord liveth, or to swear by the
living God, and him only, Jeremiah 4:2; and
when the Lord swears in this manner, he swears by his life, by himself, because
he can swear by no greater; and his form of swearing is, "as truly as I
live, saith the Lord", Numbers 14:21; so
the above angel is said to swear by him that liveth for ever and ever, Revelation 10:6;
and since Christ is the living God, without beginning of days, and end of life,
and lives for evermore, he may be thought to swear by himself, by his own life,
which is for ever; and as the oath of the Lord is used in condescension by him,
to confirm the faith of his people in the immutability of his counsel and
promises, and to ascertain unto them the sure performance of them; so it is
also used to assure wicked men of the certain performance of his threatenings;
and it is as if Christ here said, as sure as I am the living God, and do and
shall live for ever, I will most certainly do the things which next follow.
Deuteronomy 32:41 41 If
I whet My glittering sword, And My hand takes hold on judgment, I will render
vengeance to My enemies, And repay those who hate Me.
YLT
41If I have sharpened the
brightness of My sword, And My hand doth lay hold on judgment, I turn back
vengeance to Mine adversaries, And to those hating Me -- I repay!
If I whet my glittering sword,.... That is, I will do
it as sure as I live, if I do not, be it so and so; what that is is not said,
but left to be concluded. A glittering sword is a sword drawn, the blade of it
drawn out of the scabbard, cleaned and polished, whetted and made sharp, that
it may more easily penetrate and pierce; and this, being brandished, glitters
like lightning, as the word used signifies. Whetting the sword is a preparation
for doing execution with it; and is a warning, a giving notice of it, as
girding: the sword on the thigh also is ascribed to Christ, Psalm 45:3. This
sword intends a sword of justice, the sharp sword said to proceed out of the
mouth of Christ, the judiciary sentence which he will pronounce and execute on
antichrist, and all his followers, Revelation 19:15,
and my hand take hold on judgment: in order to execute it;
the allusion is to the laying hold on the instruments of justice and death, as
the glittering sword before mentioned, and arrows afterwards; and may have
respect to the four sore judgments, or at least to some of them, which the Lord
will execute on mystical Babylon, Ezekiel 14:21; and
particularly to the seven vials of God's wrath, which will be poured out on the
antichristian states, Revelation 16:1,
I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and I will reward them
that hate me; his enemies that hate him, and will not have him to rule over
them, are the followers of antichrist, who has his name from his opposition to
Christ, his hatred of him, and enmity against him; opposing him in his kingly
office, taking upon him to exercise dominion and tyranny over the consciences
of men, making new laws, and imposing them on them, and dispensing with the
laws of Christ; and setting aside his priestly office by the sacrifice of the
Mass, granting pardons and indulgences, and advancing the works and merits of
men, in opposition to the righteousness of Christ, and pretending even to works
of supererogation; making of none effect, as much as in him lies, his prophetic
office, by setting up unwritten traditions before the word of God, and making
them the rule of faith and practice, and assuming to himself an infallible
interpretation of the sense of Scripture. The vengeance Christ will render, as
a righteous reward to those his enemies, is expressed by destroying antichrist
with the breath of his mouth; by the beast going into perdition; by leading
them captive who have led others; by killing them with the sword who have
killed others with it; by pouring out the vials of his wrath on them; by giving
them the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath; by smiting them with
the sword that comes out of his mouth, and by bringing upon them death,
mourning, and famine, and burning them with fire; all which he will most surely
render unto them, 2 Thessalonians 2:8
Revelation 19:15.
Deuteronomy 32:42 42 I
will make My arrows drunk with blood, And My sword shall devour flesh, With the
blood of the slain and the captives, From the heads of the leaders of the
enemy.”’
YLT
42I make drunk Mine arrows
with blood, And My sword devoureth flesh, From the blood of the pierced and
captive, From the head of the freemen of the enemy.
I will make mine arrows drunk with blood,....
Signifying, that by various judgments he would bring upon them, which, like
arrows, would come suddenly, fly swiftly, and pierce deeply, there would be a
prodigious effusion of blood like that in Revelation 14:20;
so that these arrows, which cause it, being plunged and soaked, and covered in
it, may be said to be inebriated with it, just as the sword is said to be
bathed and filled with blood, Isaiah 34:5; which
prophecy respects the same vengeance of Christ on the selfsame enemies of his
as here; and as the whore of Rome is said to be drunken with the blood of the
saints and martyrs of Jesus, the arrows of her destruction are represented in
just retaliation as drunk with her blood, Revelation 17:6,
and my sword shall devour flesh: the flesh of kings, of
captains, of mighty men, of horses, and of them that sit on them the flesh of
all men, bond and free, small and great, Revelation 19:18;
that is, shall destroy great multitudes of men:
and that with the blood
of the slain, and of the captives; that is, his arrows
should be drunk not only with the blood of these that were wounded and killed,
but of the captives; who commonly are spared, but in this case should not,
their blood should be shed: it may be rendered, "because of the blood of
the slain", &c.F25מדם
"propter sanguinem", Pagninus, Tigurine version. ; because of the
blood of the saints whom they have killed, and carried captive, and who have
died in prisons:
from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy; or "of
the enemy"; that is, from the time the enemy began to oppress the saints,
and take revenge on them, and shed their blood; all that blood shall be found
in them that has been from the beginning shed, and charged to their account,
and revenged on them; just as the blood of all the righteous, from the
beginning of the world, was brought upon the Jews, Matthew 23:35. The
Targum of Jerusalem is,"from the heads of their mighty men, the generals
of their armies;'to, which agrees the Septuagint version,"from the head of
the princes of the enemies;'and so may refer to the head or heads of the
antichristian people, the pope of Rome, and his princes, the cardinals, and all
the antichristian kings and states, the captains and generals of their armies,
which will be brought to Armageddon, and there destroyed, see Psalm 68:21.
Deuteronomy 32:43 43 “Rejoice,
O Gentiles, with His people;[a] For He
will avenge the blood of His servants, And render vengeance to His adversaries;
He will provide atonement for His land and His people.”
YLT
43Sing ye nations -- [with]
his people, For the blood of His servants He avengeth, And vengeance He turneth
back on His adversaries, And hath pardoned His land -- His people.'
Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people,.... Or,
"rejoice, ye nations", who are "his" people; so Kimchi and
Ben Melech interpret it; the Gentiles, who are the Lord's chosen and covenant
people, redeemed and called, and the fulness of them now brought in, and so
matter of great rejoicing; or rather, as the Septuagint, which is approved and
confirmed by the Apostle Paul, "rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people",
Romans 15:10; and
as it is there applied to the then state of the Christian church, when Jews and
Gentiles were incorporated and united together; so here it respects future
time, when, as the fulness of the Gentiles will be brought in, so the Jews will
be converted, and the "loammi", Hosea 1:9, will be
taken off from them, and they will be reckoned among the people of God; and
Jews and Gentiles will be joined together in the same Gospel church state, and
so are called upon to rejoice in their common salvation, and in their common
blessings and privileges, and particularly for what follows:
for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render
vengeance to his adversaries; by his servants are meant the martyrs of
Jesus, whose blood has been shed by antichrist, and the antichristian powers,
his adversaries; as the blood of the Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont, the
Albigenses in Spain, and the Petrobrussians in France, the Bohemians in
Germany, the Wickliffites, Lollards and the "martyrs" in Queen Mary's
days in England, with many others; and when inquisition is made for blood, the
blood of those will be found out, and vengeance rendered for it:
and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people: or "will
atone for"F26כפר
"propitiabitur", Pagninus, Montanus; "expiabit", Vatablus;
"expiat", Junius & Tremellius. , expiate, cleanse, and purge both
land and people; clear the whole earth, which is the Lord's, from Mahometanism,
Paganism, and Popery, and cover it with the knowledge of the Lord by the
everlasting Gospel, which will be preached to all nations; and particularly the
land of Canaan, laid under an anathema or curse, as threatened, Malachi 4:6; under
which it has lain ever since the destruction of it by the Romans, and has ever
since been inhabited by Pagans, Mahometans, and Papists; and, though once a
land flowing with milk and honey, has been turned into a barren wilderness, and
will thus remain, and Jerusalem, its metropolis, trodden down by the Gentiles,
until their times are fulfilled; which now will be, and then it will be
restored to its former fruitfulness and fertility, Luke 21:24; and
will be inhabited by the converted Jews, to whom the Lord will be pacified,
upon the foot or Christ's atonement, which now will be made known and applied
unto them, with the full and free pardon of all their sins, Romans 11:25; and
thus ends this most excellent and wonderful song, which is of such a large
extent and compass, as to reach from the beginning of the Jewish nation, and
before it, to the conversion of the Jews in the latter day; an history of more
than four thousand years already; and how long more is yet to come before all
in it is fulfilled no man call say.
Deuteronomy 32:44 44 So
Moses came with Joshua[b] the son of
Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.
YLT
44And Moses cometh and
speaketh all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea
son of Nun;
And Moses came,.... To the people, as the Greek version,
the heads of the people being gathered together according to his order, Deuteronomy 31:28;
The Targum of Jonathan says, he came from the tabernacle, the house of
instruction:
and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people; which is
observed both before and after the reading of it, to show the certainty of it,
and how punctually and faithfully he had delivered it:
he, and Hoshea the son of Nun; the same with Joshua,
whose name at first was Hoshea, Numbers 13:16,
probably Joshua read the song to one part of the people, while Moses read it to
the other.
Deuteronomy 32:45 45 Moses
finished speaking all these words to all Israel,
YLT
45and Moses finisheth to
speak all these words unto all Israel,
And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel. Finished all
he had to say to them from the Lord, whether by way of precept, moral, civil,
and ceremonial or in the form of a song.
Deuteronomy 32:46 46 and
he said to them: “Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you
today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe—all the
words of this law.
YLT
46and saith unto them, `Set
your heart to all the words which I am testifying against you to-day, that ye
command your sons to observe to do all the words of this law,
And he said unto them,.... By way of
exhortation:
set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you this
day; it was not enough to hear them, but they were to lay them up in
their hearts, and retain them in their memories; and not only so, but reflect on
them in their minds, and closely apply to the consideration of them, and get
the true knowledge and sense of them, and put it in practice:
which ye shall command your children to observe, to do all the
words of this law; which shows that the exhortation does not respect the song only,
but the whole law delivered in this book; which they were not only to attend to
themselves, but to transmit to their children, and enjoin them the observance
of, that so religion might be perpetuated in their posterity.
Deuteronomy 32:47 47 For
it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by
this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over
the Jordan to possess.”
YLT
47for it [is] not a vain
thing for you, for it [is] your life, and by this thing ye prolong days on the
ground whither ye are passing over the Jordan to possess it.'
For it is not a vain thing for you,.... That is,
the law is not, and the observance of it in them and their children; it was no
light and trifling matter, but of great importance and consequence, obedience
to it being attended with rewards, and disobedience with punishment:
because it is your life: if obeyed, the means of
a comfortable and happy life, in the enjoyment of all good things, of the
preservation and continuance of it to a length of time; and long life was
always reckoned a great temporal mercy:
and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the
land whither you go over Jordan to possess it; that is, through their
obedience to the law they should live long in the land of Canaan, which they
were just going to possess; which explains what is meant by its being their
life; their comfortable living and continuance in the land depended on their
obedience to the law; see Isaiah 1:19.
Deuteronomy 32:48 48 Then
the Lord spoke to Moses that very same day, saying:
YLT
48And Jehovah speaketh unto
Moses, in this self-same day, saying,
And the Lord spake unto Moses the selfsame day,.... On which
he finished the reading of the law, and the above song, which was the seventh
of Adar or February; according to the Targum of Jonathan, the day he died on;
according to the Egyptian CalendarF1Apud Ludolf. Lex. Ethiop. p.
537. , it was the sixteenth of that month, see Deuteronomy 34:5,
saying; as follows.
Deuteronomy 32:49 49 “Go
up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of
Moab, across from Jericho; view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children
of Israel as a possession;
YLT
49`Go up unto this mount
Abarim, mount Nebo, which [is] in the land of Moab, which [is] on the front of
Jericho, and see the land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel for
a possession;
Get thee up into this mountain Abarim,.... Which was
near in sight, and pointed at; it was a range of mountains, of which see Numbers 21:11,
unto Mount Nebo; which was one
of the mountains of Abarim, and had its name either from its height, or a city
of this name, to which it was near, see Numbers 32:38;
Jerom saysF2De loc. Heb. fol. 93. N. , in his lays it was shown six
miles from Heshbon to the east; it should be read, to the west:
which is in the land of Moab; it formerly belonged to
it, but was taken from he Moabites by Sihon, and now possessed by Israel:
that is over against Jericho; which lay on the other
side of Jordan, in the land of Canaan:
and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of
Israel for a possession; which he might take a view of from the high mountain of Nebo,
especially his sight being strengthened by the Lord, as no doubt it was; and
this would give him a pleasure to behold, though he might not go into it, and
confirm his faith that Israel would possess it, as well as be an emblem to him
of the heavenly Canaan he was going to inherit.
Deuteronomy 32:50 50 and
die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people, just as
Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people;
YLT
50and die in the mount
whither thou art going up, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy
brother hath died in the mount Hor, and is gathered unto his people:
And die in the mount whither thou goest up,....
Immediately after having taken a view of the land, expect to die, prepare for
it, and willingly and cheerfully submit to it:
and be gathered unto thy people; to the spirits of just
men made perfect in heaven, his more immediate and more remote ancestors, the
souls of good men; for otherwise there were none that died, and were buried
here, before him, and therefore can have no respect to the buryingplace of his
people:
as Aaron thy brother died in Mount Hor, and was gathered unto his
people; of which Moses was an eyewitness; and which is observed, because
there was a great likeness between the death of him, and what Moses was now
called to, both as to the place and manner of it; and likewise the cause of it,
later mentioned; as also to make death more easy and familiar, and less
terrible to him, when he cared to mind how calmly, cheerfully, and comfortably,
his brother Aaron died; see Numbers 20:25.
Deuteronomy 32:51 51 because
you trespassed against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah
Kadesh, in the Wilderness of Zin, because you did not hallow Me in the midst of
the children of Israel.
YLT
51`Because ye trespassed
against me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-Kadesh,
the wilderness of Zin -- because ye sanctified Me not in the midst of the sons
of Israel;
Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel,.... By their
unbelief, doubting whether God would give water or no to such a rebellious
people, and by giving way to passion and wrathful expressions: and this was
done
at the waters of Meribahkadesh; so called, to
distinguish it from another Meribah, where also there was a contention on
account of water, Numbers 20:13,
in the wilderness of Zin; where Kadesh was, and
further describes and distinguishes this place; of the one we read in Exodus 17:7; and of
the other, which is here referred to, in Numbers 20:1,
because ye sanctified me not in, the midst of the children of
Israel; through their unbelief and disagreeable behaviour, they
sanctified him not themselves, and gave no honour to him, nor were the cause of
his being sanctified by the Israelites; and this was the reason why Moses and
Aaron might not enter into the land of Canaan, Numbers 20:12.
Deuteronomy 32:52 52 Yet
you shall see the land before you, though you shall not go there, into
the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.”
YLT
52but over-against thou seest
the land, and thither thou dost not go in, unto the land which I am giving to
the sons of Israel.'
Yet thou shalt see the land before thee,.... Which
Jarchi interprets, afar off; and so does NoldiusF3Ebr. part.
Concord. p. 626. so Ainsworth. ; he saw it at a distance, as the Old Testament
saints saw the things promised afar off, and were persuaded of them, though
they did not enjoy them, Hebrews 11:13,
but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the
children of Israel; the land of Canaan was a gift of God to Israel, into which they
were not to be introduced by Moses, but by Joshua; signifying that eternal
life, or the heavenly Canaan, is the gift of God through Christ, the antitype
of Joshua, and not to obtained by the works of the law.
──《John Gill’s
Exposition of the Bible》
New King James
Version (NKJV)