Deuteronomy 32
Lexham English Bible
The Song of Moses
32 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak,
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 May my teaching trickle like the dew,
my words like rain showers on tender grass,
and like spring showers on new growth.
3 For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh;
ascribe greatness to our God!
4 The Rock, his work is perfect,
for all his ways are just;
he is a faithful God, and without injustice;[a]
righteous and upright is he.
5 They have behaved corruptly toward[b] him;
they are not his children; this is their flaw,
a generation crooked and perverse.
6 Like this do you treat Yahweh,
foolish and unwise[c] people?
Has he not, your father, created you?
He made you, and he established you.
7 Remember the old days, the years long past;[d]
ask your father, and he will inform you,
your elders and they will tell you.[e]
8 When the Most High apportioned[f] the nations,
at his dividing up of the sons of humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples,
according to the number of the children of Israel.[g]
9 For Yahweh’s portion was his people,
Jacob the share of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land,
and in a howling, desert wasteland;
he encircled him,[h] he cared for him,
he protected him like the apple[i] of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirs up its nest,
hovers over its young,
spreads out its wings, takes them,[j]
carries them[k] on its pinions,[l]
12 so Yahweh alone guided him,[m]
and there was no foreign god accompanying him.[n]
13 And he set him on the high places of the land,
and he fed him the crops[o] of the field,
and he nursed him with honey from crags,[p]
and with oil from flinty rock,
14 With curds[q] from the herd,
and with milk from the flock,
with the fat of young rams,
and rams, the offspring of Bashan,
and with goats along with the finest kernels of wheat,
and from the blood of grapes[r] you drank fermented wine.[s]
15 And Jeshurun grew fat, and he kicked;
you grew fat, you bloated, and you became obstinate;
and he abandoned God, his maker,
and he scoffed at the rock of his salvation.
16 They made him jealous with strange gods;
with detestable things they provoked him.
17 They sacrificed to the demons, not God,
to gods whom[t] they had not known,
new gods who[u] came from recent times;
their ancestors had not known them.[v]
18 The rock who[w] bore you, you neglected,
and you forgot God, the one giving you birth.
19 Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned them,
because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20 So he said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
I will see what will be their end,
for they are a generation of perversity,
children in whom there is no faithfulness.[x]
21 They annoyed me with what is not a god;
they provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with those not a people,
with a foolish nation I will provoke them.
22 For a fire was kindled[y] by my anger,
and it burned up to the depths of Sheol,[z]
and it devoured the earth and its produce,
and it set afire the foundation of the mountains.
23 I will heap disasters upon them;
my arrows I will spend on them.
24 They will become weakened by famine,
and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence;
and the teeth of wild animals I will send against them,
with the poison of the creeping things in the dust;
25 From outside her boundaries the sword will make her childless,
and from inside, terror;
both for the young man and also the young woman,
the infant along with the gray-headed man.
26 I thought, “I will wipe them out;
I will make people forget they ever existed.”[aa]
27 If I had not feared a provocation of the enemy,
lest their foes might misunderstand, [ab]
lest they should say, [ac] “Our hand is
triumphant,[ad] and Yahweh did not do all this.”’
28 For they are a nation void of sense,[ae]
and there is not any understanding in them.
29 If only they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern for themselves their end.[af]
30 How could one chase a thousand
and two could cause a myriad to flee,
if their Rock had not sold them,
and Yahweh had not given them up?
31 For the fact of the matter is,
their rock is not like our Rock,
and our enemies recognize[ag] this.
32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom,
and from the terraces of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
their clusters are bitter.[ah]
33 Their wine is the poison of snakes,
and the deadly poison of horned vipers.
34 ‘Is not this stored up with me,
sealed in my treasuries?’[ai]
35 Vengeance belongs to me[aj] and also recompense,
for at the time their foot slips,[ak]
because the day of their disaster is near,
and fate comes quickly for them.’[al]
36 For Yahweh will judge on behalf of his people,
and concerning his servants;
he will change his mind when he sees that their power has disappeared,
and there is no one left, confined[am] or free.[an]
37 And he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
their rock in whom[ao] they took refuge?
38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up, and let them help you;
Let them be to you a refuge.[ap]
39 See, now, that I, even I am he,
and there is not a god besides me;
I put to death and I give life;
I wound and I heal;
there is not one who delivers from my hand!
40 For indeed I lift up my hand to heaven,
And I promise as I live forever,[aq]
41 When I sharpen[ar] my flashing sword,[as]
and my hand takes hold[at] of it in judgment,
I will take reprisals against my foes,[au]
and my haters I will repay.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain,
and captives[av] from the heads[aw] of the leaders of the enemy.’
43 Call for songs of joy, O nations, concerning his people,[ax]
for the blood of his servants he will avenge,
and he will take reprisals against his foes,[ay]
and he will make atonement for his land, his people.”
44 And Moses came, and he spoke[az] all the words of this song in the ears of the people; that is, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45 And when Moses finished speaking[ba] all these words to all Israel, 46 then he said to them, “Take to heart all the words[bb] that I am admonishing against you today[bc] concerning which you should instruct them with respect to your children[bd] so that they will observe diligently[be] all the words of this law, 47 for it is not a trifling matter among you, but it is your life, and through this word you will live long in the land[bf] that you are about to cross the Jordan to get there to take possession of it.”
Instructions Concerning Moses’ Death
48 And Yahweh said to Moses on exactly this day, saying,[bg] 49 “Go up to this mountain of the Abarim range, Mount Nebo, which is opposite Jericho,[bh] and see the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Israelites[bi] as a possession. 50 You shall die on that mountain that you are about to go up there, and you will be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor[bj] and he was gathered to his people, 51 because of the fact that you broke faith with me in the midst of Israel at the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the desert of Zin, because you did not treat me as holy[bk] in the midst of the Israelites.[bl] 52 Yes, from afar you may view the land, but there you shall not enter there, that is, into the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”[bm]
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 32:4 Literally “there is not injustice”
- Deuteronomy 32:5 Or “with”
- Deuteronomy 32:6 Literally “not wise”
- Deuteronomy 32:7 Literally “the years of from generation to generation”
- Deuteronomy 32:7 Hebrew “to you”
- Deuteronomy 32:8 Literally “In/at the apportioning of the Most High”
- Deuteronomy 32:8 LXX reads “the number of the angels of God”; Dead Sea Scrolls reads “the number of the sons of God”
- Deuteronomy 32:10 Literally “moved around him”
- Deuteronomy 32:10 Literally “pupil”
- Deuteronomy 32:11 Hebrew “it” but used poetically and with plural sense in context
- Deuteronomy 32:11 Hebrew “it” but used poetically and with plural sense in context
- Deuteronomy 32:11 Hebrew “pinion”
- Deuteronomy 32:12 That is, Jacob, standing for Israel
- Deuteronomy 32:12 Literally “and there was not with him a god foreign/strange”
- Deuteronomy 32:13 Hebrew “crop”
- Deuteronomy 32:13 Hebrew “crag”
- Deuteronomy 32:14 Hebrew “curd”
- Deuteronomy 32:14 Hebrew “grape”
- Deuteronomy 32:14 Or “partially fermented wine”; others translate simply as wine (NASB, NEB); HALOT 330, “still fermenting wine”
- Deuteronomy 32:17 Hebrew “them”
- Deuteronomy 32:17 Hebrew “they,” understood in the verb form
- Deuteronomy 32:17 Literally “their fathers not knew them”
- Deuteronomy 32:18 Hebrew “he,” understood in verb form
- Deuteronomy 32:20 Literally “sons not faithfulness is in them”
- Deuteronomy 32:22 Or “ignited”
- Deuteronomy 32:22 Literally “up to Sheol depths”
- Deuteronomy 32:26 Literally “I will blot out from among human being their remembrance”
- Deuteronomy 32:27 Or “so that they not make a false construal” of what has happened
- Deuteronomy 32:27 Or “so that they might not”
- Deuteronomy 32:27 Literally “raised/held high”
- Deuteronomy 32:28 Literally “they a nation perishing of counsel”
- Deuteronomy 32:29 Literally “they would discern for end their”
- Deuteronomy 32:31 The meaning of this expression is uncertain, but “discerns” or “judges” seem good choices; see HALOT 932, which allows for “judges” or “in the estimation of our enemies”
- Deuteronomy 32:32 Literally “clusters of bitter are for them”
- Deuteronomy 32:34 Or “storehouses
- Deuteronomy 32:35 Literally “To me is vengeance”
- Deuteronomy 32:35 Literally “at the time when it shall slip foot their”
- Deuteronomy 32:35 Literally “and comes quickly/hurries events to come to them”
- Deuteronomy 32:36 Or “bond/bound”
- Deuteronomy 32:36 Or “freed”
- Deuteronomy 32:37 Hebrew “in him”
- Deuteronomy 32:38 Literally “let there be/him/them unto you as a shelter”
- Deuteronomy 32:40 Literally “live I to eternity”
- Deuteronomy 32:41 Or “have sharpened”
- Deuteronomy 32:41 Literally “the flashing of my sword”
- Deuteronomy 32:41 Or “seizes”
- Deuteronomy 32:41 Literally “I will let return vengeance to foes my”
- Deuteronomy 32:42 Hebrew “captive”
- Deuteronomy 32:42 Hebrew “head”
- Deuteronomy 32:43 Dead Sea Scrolls reads: “Rejoice, O heavenly ones, with him! Bow down, all you gods, before him!”
- Deuteronomy 32:43 Literally “vengeance he will let return to his foes”
- Deuteronomy 32:44 Or “recited”
- Deuteronomy 32:45 Literally “And he finished Moses to speak”
- Deuteronomy 32:46 Literally “Put heart your to all the words”
- Deuteronomy 32:46 Literally “the day”
- Deuteronomy 32:46 Or “sons”
- Deuteronomy 32:46 Literally “to keep to do”
- Deuteronomy 32:47 Literally “you will make long days on the land”
- Deuteronomy 32:48 Literally “to say”
- Deuteronomy 32:49 Literally “on the face of Jericho”
- Deuteronomy 32:49 Literally “sons/children of Israel”
- Deuteronomy 32:50 Literally “on Hor the mountain”
- Deuteronomy 32:51 Literally “that not you treated me as holy”
- Deuteronomy 32:51 Literally “sons/children of Israel”
- Deuteronomy 32:52 Literally “sons/children of Israel”
Deuteronomy 32
World English Bible
32 Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine will drop as the rain.
My speech will condense as the dew,
as the misty rain on the tender grass,
as the showers on the herb.
3 For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
4 The Rock: his work is perfect,
for all his ways are just.
A God of faithfulness who does no wrong,
just and right is he.
5 They have dealt corruptly with him.
They are not his children, because of their defect.
They are a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Is this the way you repay Yahweh,
foolish and unwise people?
Isn’t he your father who has bought you?
He has made you and established you.
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.
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the children of men,
he set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.
9 For Yahweh’s portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land,
in the waste howling wilderness.
He surrounded him.
He cared for him.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
that flutters over her young,
he spread abroad his wings,
he took them,
he bore them on his feathers.
12 Yahweh alone led him.
There was no foreign god with him.
13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth.
He ate the increase of the field.
He caused him to suck honey out of the rock,
oil out of the flinty rock;
14 butter from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs,
rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
with the finest of the wheat.
From the blood of the grape, you drank wine.
15 But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
You have grown fat.
You have grown thick.
You have become sleek.
Then he abandoned God who made him,
and rejected the Rock of his salvation.
16 They moved him to jealousy with strange gods.
They provoked him to anger with abominations.
17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods that they didn’t know,
to new gods that came up recently,
which your fathers didn’t dread.
18 Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful,
and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
19 Yahweh saw and abhorred,
because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20 He said, “I will hide my face from them.
I will see what their end will be;
for they are a very perverse generation,
children in whom is no faithfulness.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God.
They have provoked me to anger with their vanities.
I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people.
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in my anger,
that burns to the lowest Sheol,[a]
devours the earth with its increase,
and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23 “I will heap evils on them.
I will spend my arrows on them.
24 They shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured with burning heat
and bitter destruction.
I will send the teeth of animals on them,
with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25 Outside the sword will bereave,
and in the rooms,
terror on both young man and virgin,
the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
26 I said that I would scatter them afar.
I would make their memory to cease from among men;
27 were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,
lest their adversaries should judge wrongly,
lest they should say, ‘Our hand is exalted,
Yahweh has not done all this.’”
28 For they are a nation void of counsel.
There is no understanding in them.
29 Oh that they were wise, that they understood this,
that they would consider their latter end!
30 How could one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
and Yahweh had delivered them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock,
even our enemies themselves concede.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
of the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison grapes.
Their clusters are bitter.
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.
34 “Isn’t this laid up in store with me,
sealed up among my treasures?
35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
at the time when their foot slides;
for the day of their calamity is at hand.
Their doom rushes at them.”
36 For Yahweh will judge his people,
and have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone;
that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.
37 He will say, “Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge;
38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you!
Let them be your protection.
39 “See now that I myself am he.
There is no god with me.
I kill and I make alive.
I wound and I heal.
There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven and declare,
as I live forever,
41 if I sharpen my glittering sword,
my hand grasps it in judgment;
I will take vengeance on my adversaries,
and will repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood.
My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the head of the leaders of the enemy.”
43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants.
He will take vengeance on his adversaries,
and will make atonement for his land and for his people.[b]
44 Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45 Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel. 46 He said to them, “Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you today, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47 For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”
48 Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, 49 “Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is across from Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession. 50 Die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people; 51 because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn’t uphold my holiness among the children of Israel. 52 For you shall see the land from a distance; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.”
Footnotes
- 32:22 Sheol is the place of the dead.
- 32:43 For this verse, LXX reads: Rejoice, you heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice you Gentiles, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people.
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