Friday 2021.01.29
Reading from Deuteronomy Chapter 32 LXX Brenton
In the previous chapter, in Deuteronomy 31:19 - 22, the LORD commanded Moses to write down a song and to teach it to the people of Israel. This song was to warn the people of Israel against their eventual downfall and turning away from the LORD.
Deuteronomy 31:19 - 22 ASV
19 Now therefore write ye this song for you, and teach thou it the children of Israel: put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. 20 For when I shall have brought them into the land which I sware unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and waxed fat; then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant. 21 And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles are come upon them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I sware. 22 So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.
The song that the LORD commanded Moses to write down, and to teach the children of Israel, are contained in the first forty-three verses of Deuteronomy chapter 32. This song had a three-fold purpose:
- It was a song of persuasion - to persuade the people of Israel to remain faithful to the LORD
- It was a song of prophecy - to prophesy against their subsequent unfaithfulness, falling away and turning to idols
- It was a song of penitence - to give the people of Israel a song to sing when they repent from their idolatry and return to the LORD with remorse.
The last verse of the previous chapter, Deuteronomy 31:30 should be read as the first verse of this chapter:
"And Moses spoke all the *words of this song* even to the end, in the ears of the whole assembly."
Here are the lyrics of the song, recorded in Deuteronomy 32:1 - 43 LXX. I have removed all the verse numbers and arranged the verses in the form of a poem, to reflect the parallelism found in Hebrew poetry, and to bring out the meaning of the song.
The Song that Moses Wrote
Attend, O heaven, and I will speak;
and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth.
Let my speech be looked for as the rain,
and my words come down as dew,
as the shower upon the herbage,
and as snow upon the grass.
For I have called on the name of the Lord:
assign ye greatness to our God.
As for God, his works are true,
and all his ways are *judgment:
God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him;
just and holy is the Lord.
They have sinned, not pleasing him;
spotted children, a froward and perverse generation.
Do ye thus recompense the Lord?
is the people thus foolish and unwise?
did not he himself thy father purchase thee,
and make thee, and form thee?
Remember the days of old,
consider the years †for past ages:
ask thy father, and he shall relate to thee,
thine elders, and they shall tell thee.
When the Most High divided the nations,
when he separated the sons of Adam,
he set the bounds of the nations
according to the number of the angels of God.
And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord,
Israel was the line of his inheritance.
He maintained him in the wilderness,
in burning thirst and a dry land:
he led him about and instructed him,
and kept him as the apple of an eye.
As an eagle would watch over his brood,
and yearns over his young,
receives them having spread his wings,
and takes them up on his back:
the Lord alone led them,
there was no strange god with them.
He brought them up on the strength of the land;
he fed them with the fruits of the fields;
they sucked honey out of the rock,
and oil out of the solid rock.
Butter of cows, and milk of sheep,
with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids,
with fat of kidneys of wheat;
and he drank wine, the blood of the grape.
So Jacob ate and was filled,
and the beloved one kicked;
he grew fat,
he became thick and broad:
then he forsook the God that made him,
and departed from God his Saviour.
They provoked me to anger with strange gods;
with their abominations they bitterly angered me.
They sacrificed to devils, and not to God;
to gods whom they knew not:
new and fresh gods came in,
whom their fathers knew not.
Thou hast forsaken God that begot thee,
and forgotten God who feeds thee.
And the Lord saw, and was jealous;
and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters,
and said, I will turn away my face from them,
and will show what shall happen to them in the last days;
for it is a perverse generation,
sons in whom is no faith.
They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God,
they have exasperated me with their idols;
and I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation,
I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.
For a fire has been kindled out of my wrath,
it shall burn to hell below;
it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it;
it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will gather evils upon them,
and will fight with my weapons against them.
They shall be consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds,
and there shall be irremediable destruction:
I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts,
with the rage of serpents creeping on the ground.
Without, the sword shall bereave them of children,
and terror shall issue out of the secret chambers;
the young man shall perish with the virgin,
the suckling with him who has grown old.
I said, I will scatter them,
and I will cause their memorial to cease from among men.
Were it not for the wrath of the enemy,
lest they should live long,
lest their enemies should combine against them;
lest they should say, Our own high arm, and not the Lord, has done all these things.
It is a nation that has lost counsel,
neither is there understanding in them.
They had not sense to understand:
let them reserve these things against the time to come.
How should one pursue a thousand,
and two rout tens of thousands,
if God had not sold them,
and the Lord delivered them up?
For their gods are not as our God,
but our enemies are void of understanding.
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
and their vine-branch of Gomorrha:
their grape is a grape of gall,
their cluster is one of bitterness.
Their wine is the rage of serpents,
and the incurable rage of asps.
Lo! are not these things stored up by me,
and sealed among my treasures?
In the day of vengeance? I will recompense,
whensoever their foot shall be tripped up;
for the day of their destruction is near to them,
and the judgments at hand are close upon you.
For the Lord shall judge his people,
and shall be comforted over his servants;
for he saw that they were utterly weakened,
and failed in the hostile invasion, and were become feeble:
and the Lord said,
Where are their gods on whom they trusted?
the fat of whose sacrifices ye ate,
and ye drank the wine of their drink-offerings?
let them arise and help you,
and be your protectors.
Behold, behold that I am he,
and there is no god beside me:
I kill, and I will make to live:
I will smite, and I will heal;
and there is none
who shall deliver out of my hands.
For I will lift up my hand to heaven, and swear by my right hand,
and I will say, I live for ever.
For I will sharpen my sword like lightning,
and my hand shall take hold of judgment;
and I will render judgment to my enemies,
and will recompense them that hate me.
I will make my weapons drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh,
it shall glut itself with the blood of the wounded,
and from the captivity of the heads of their enemies that rule over them.
Rejoice, ye heavens, with him,
and let all the angels of God worship him;
rejoice ye 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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From Deuteronomy 32:44, it can be seen that this song was taught to the children of Israel along with all the *words of this law*.
44 And Moses wrote this song in that day, and taught it to the children of Israel; and Moses went in and spoke all the words of this law in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Naue.
