Deuteronomy 32 · The Lantern

The Song of Moses

Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; and let the earth hear the sayings of my mouth.

Let my teaching drop like the rain; let my saying distill like the dew — like fine rains on the tender grass, and like showers on the plants.

Let us therefore seek in the Scriptures what is the "rain" which is given to the saints alone and concerning which "it is commanded to the clouds that they rain not this rain" upon the unjust. What then this "rain" is, Moses himself, the lawgiver of these things, teaches us.

All of us wish to have refreshing waters in our gardens. If there are no waters in them, we draw them from the sea with great effort in order to provide vegetables for our bodies.

"Give ear, O heavens, while I speak; let the earth hearken to the words of my mouth! May my instruction soak in like the rain, and my discourse permeate like the dew, like a downpour upon the grass, like a shower upon the crops." This dew is the influence of the Holy Spirit's grace which visits the Scriptures and in which it is sweetly found.

For the name of the LORD I proclaim: ascribe greatness to our God!

The Rock — his work is whole, for all his ways are judgment; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he.

They have acted corruptly toward him — not his sons; that is their defect — a crooked and twisted generation.

Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your father, who created you — he who made you and established you?

Remember the days of old; consider the years of generation after generation. Ask your father, and he will declare to you; your elders, and they will tell you.

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided the sons of mankind, he set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.

This is he who bestows on the Greeks also their philosophy through the inferior angels. For by an ancient and divine ordinance angels are assigned to the different nations. But to be the Lord's portion is the glory of believers.

[Daniel 10:13] "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me for twenty-one days." In my opinion this was the angel to whose charge Persia was committed, in accordance with what we read in Deuteronomy: "When the Most High divided the nations and distributed the children of Adam abroad, then He established the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels o…

But what does it profit us to touch briefly upon these matters concerning the angelic spirits, if we do not strive to apply them also to our own advancement through suitable reflection?

For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the measured line of his inheritance.

He found him in a wilderness land, and in a waste, a howling desert. He encircled him, he cared for him, he guarded him as the pupil of his eye.

As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovering over its young — he spread his wings, he took him, he carried him on his pinions.

Finally, listen to Moses saying: He spread his wings and took them, and carried them on his shoulders (Deuteronomy 32:11): just as an eagle carries its offspring, which it is accustomed to examine; in order to hold and nurture those who have the true nature of birth, and to observe the grace of incorruptible nature; or to reject those in whom it has detected the weakness of a d…

Like an eagle, the Lord spreads his wings over us, his nestlings. There the Lord is compared with the eagle guarding its young. The simile therefore is appropriate that God protects us as a father and as a hen guarding her chicks lest they be snatched away by a hawk. Nevertheless a different interpretation is also permissible.

The Lord protects us, his little ones. He nourishes us and restores us—not in a heavy and burdensome way but with gentle and kind protection. He shows his mercies toward us, as if extending his wings over us as a bird does.

The LORD alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him.

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the produce of the field; and he suckled him with honey from the rock, and oil from the flint of the rock —

curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the sons of Bashan, and goats, with the kidney-fat of wheat; and the blood of the grape you drank as foaming wine.

But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked — you grew fat, you grew thick, you were gorged — and he abandoned God who made him, and treated with contempt the Rock of his salvation.

Every kind of honour and happiness was bestowed upon you, and then was fulfilled that which is written, "My beloved ate and drank, and was enlarged and became fat, and kicked." [Deuteronomy 32:15] Hence flowed emulation and envy, strife and sedition, persecution and disorder, war and captivity.

"They ate," and drank, "and kicked." When fed with their manna they ought not to have asked for luxury, seeing they had known the evils which proceed from it.

Now this is the first lust which conquered the world, and because of it the first transgression of the law took place. Incited thereby they were ungrateful for all the acts of grace which had been shewn unto them, for Israel had waxed fat and kicked through this lust, and it is written of him, that "He forgot God Who made him."

They made him jealous with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him.

They sacrificed to demons that are not God — gods they had not known, new ones lately arrived, whom your fathers never dreaded.

The Rock who bore you, you neglected; and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

And the LORD saw, and he spurned them, from the provocation of his sons and his daughters.

And he said: “I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be. For they are a generation of overturnings, sons in whom there is no faithfulness.

They have made me jealous with a no-god; they have provoked me with their worthless idols. And I — I will make them jealous with a no-people; with a foolish nation I will provoke them.

For a fire has been kindled in my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; and it consumes the earth and her yield, and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap evils upon them; my arrows I will spend on them —

wasted by hunger, and devoured by plague and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send against them, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.

Outside the sword will bereave, and inside the rooms — terror: young man and virgin alike, the nursing child with the man of gray hair.

I said I would cut them to pieces, I would wipe out their remembrance from mankind —

had I not dreaded the provocation of the enemy, lest their foes misread it, lest they say, ‘Our hand is high; it was not the LORD who worked all this.’”

For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no insight in them.

If they were wise, they would consider this; they would understand their latter end.

How could one pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had handed them over?

For their rock is not like our Rock — even our enemies being judges.

For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter.

Their wine is the venom of serpents, and the cruel poison of cobras.

“Is it not stored up with me, sealed in my treasuries?

Vengeance is mine, and repayment, for the time when their foot slips; for the day of their calamity is near, and what is prepared for them hastens.”

Bless them which persecute you: bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

But what better pattern can there be than that of Divine justice? For the Son of God says: "Love your enemies;" and again: "Pray for those that persecute you and speak against you." So far does He remove the desire of vengeance from the perfect that He commands charity towards those who injure them.

A brother who was hurt by another brother went to the Theban Sisois and said, 'I want to get back at a brother who has hurt me.' The hermit begged him, 'Don't do that, my son, leave vengeance in the hands of God.' But he said, 'I can't rest till I get my own back.' The hermit said, 'My brother, let us pray.' He stood and said, 'O God, we have no further need of you, for we can…

For the LORD will vindicate his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone, and there is none remaining, bond or free.

And he will say: “Where are their gods — the rock in which they took refuge —

who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you; let them be a shelter over you!

See now that I, I am he, and there is no god beside me. I put to death, and I make alive; I have wounded, and I — I heal; and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.

There is also something deeper to be understood against those especially who bark against the Creator, and, gathering together from here and there out of the Old Testament testimonies which they do not understand, "deceive the hearts of the simple". For they say: behold, the God of the Law and the Prophets, see what sort he is.

He himself permits the suffering which he again restores. The One who strikes is the One who heals. The afflictions precede in order that the graces may be lasting. Only then do we exert ourselves exceedingly for the preservation of what has been given.

It must be said that this truth, that God is one, is a truth not only believable, but also intelligible: since it is necessary and certain not only from the testimony of Scripture and the illumination of grace, which is found in faith; but it is also certain from itself and from the testimony of creatures.

For I lift up my hand to the heavens, and say: As I live forever —

when I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will return vengeance on my foes, and those who hate me I will repay.

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh — with the blood of the slain and the captive, from the long-haired heads of the enemy.”

Shout for joy, O nations, with his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and return vengeance on his foes, and make atonement for his land, his people.

And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people — he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.

And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel.

And he said to them: “Set your heart on all the words that I am testifying against you today, which you shall command your sons to keep — to do all the words of this instruction.

For it is not an empty word for you; for it is your life; and by this word you shall lengthen your days on the ground that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

Moses’ Death Foretold

And the LORD spoke to Moses on that very day, saying:

“Go up into this mountain of Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, which faces Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a holding.

And die on the mountain that you are going up, and be gathered to your people — as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people —

because you broke faith with me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel.

For from a distance you shall see the land; but there you shall not enter — into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.”

Deuteronomy32

The Song of Moses

Moses’ Death Foretold