Deuteronomy 32 · The Lantern

The Song of Moses

Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:

Therefore let us seek in the Scriptures what is "the rain" which is given only to the saints and concerning which "it is commanded to the clouds that they do not pour their rain" upon the unjust. Therefore Moses and the Lawgiver himself teach us what this rain is.

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.

Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe you greatness to our God.

He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.

Do you thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he your father that has bought you? has he not made you, and established you?

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.

When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children 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 7:2-3] "And during the night I saw in my vision, and behold, the four winds of heaven strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts were coming up out of the sea, differing from one another." The four winds of heaven I suppose to have been angelic powers to whom the principalities have been committed, in accordance with what we read in Deuteronomy: "When the Most Hig…

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 lot of his inheritance.

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings:

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…

The song in Deuteronomy says that he bore the people of Israel upon his shoulders and like the eagle guarded them. This same versicle may be interpreted also of the Savior because on the cross he gave us the shelter of his wings.

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.

So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.

He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and you did drink the pure blood of the grape.

But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: you are grown fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed 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.

One must not so much admire those saints who in the height of sorrow were so pious and lovers of wisdom as those who, even when the turbulence subsided and tranquility ensued, remained in the same goodness and earnestness.

Even as also the prophet Moses hath taught us that through this cause the people forgot their God, and that through the lust of the belly they went forth unto idolatry, and from eating meat they were led into blasphemies, and from dainty foods they arrived at all wickedness, saying, "He made him to dwell upon the strength of the earth, and He made him to eat of the produce of t…

They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger.

They sacrificed to demons, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.

Of the Rock that fathered you you are unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you.

And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.

And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faith.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them.

They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.

I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD has not done all this.

For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.

O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!

How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up?

For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

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:

Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?

To me belongs vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.

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 shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.

And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,

Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.

We are sure that he causes to die. We see it. Just so also is it sure and worthy of belief that he makes alive. And from all that I have explained to you, receive and believe that in the day of the resurrection your body shall arise in its entirety, and you shall receive from our Lord the reward of your faith.

It is not possible for the good to exist in me unless it is made to live through the death of my enemy. As long as we keep grasping opposites with each of our hands, it is impossible for there to be participation in both elements in the same being. For if we are holding evil, we lose the power to take hold of virtue.

Concerning the first, we proceed as follows and it is shown that the divine being is supremely one. And that this is so, faith and divine Scripture sufficiently proclaim, Exodus twenty: Your God is one God; and Deuteronomy thirty-two: See therefore that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me; and David in the Psalm: There shall not be in you a new god, nor shall you a…

For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.

If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my enemies, and will reward them that hate me.

I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.

Rejoice, O you nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful to his land, and to 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 made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:

And he said to them, Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.

For it is not a 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 Jordan to possess it.

Moses’ Death Foretold

And the LORD spoke to Moses that very same day, saying,

Get you up into this mountain Abarim, to mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and look the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession:

And die in the mount where you go up, and be gathered to your people; as Aaron your brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his people:

Because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah–Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.

Yet you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there to the land which I give the children of Israel.

Deuteronomy32

The Song of Moses

Moses’ Death Foretold