Deuteronomy

The Song of Moses

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: 108-110

Genre: Talk

Track: 108

Dictation Name: RR187BF108

Location/Venue:

Year: 1993

Let us worship God. Oh give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people. Sing unto Him, sing songs unto Him. Talk ye of all His wondrous works. Glory ye in His holy name, let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art on the throne, that Thou art our God and that all Thy works unto us are grace and mercy. We give thanks unto Thee oh Lord that Thou art He who dost make all things work together for good for them that love Thee, to them that are the called according to Thy purpose. We thank Thee that therefore all our yesterdays, with all their sin and folly, Thou dost make into good. Teach us therefore to look unto Thee¸ to trust, to rely upon Thee and to know that underneath all the experiences of life are Thine everlasting arms. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is Deuteronomy 32. The entire chapter, verses one through fifty two. Our subject: The Song of Moses.

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

2 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:

3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

4 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.

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

6 Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?

7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

8 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.

9 For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

10 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.

11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

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

13 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;

14 Butter of kine, 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 thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

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

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

18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

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

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

21 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.

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

23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

24 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.

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

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

27 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 hath not done all this.

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

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

30 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?

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

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:

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

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

35 To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; 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.

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

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

38 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.

39 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.

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

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

42 I will make mine 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.

43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.

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

45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:

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

47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.

48 And the Lord spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,

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

50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:

51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of MeribahKadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.

52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.”

This is a very remarkable song, it is concrete, specific, not abstract and this is what fastens itself upon the memory. We have the song of Moses in verses one through forty three and forty four through fifty two after a word from Moses God commands Moses to go to Mount Nebo. From there he can see the Promised Land before he dies. The song of Moses is a vindication of the ways of God. It begins rather strangely for us because our education stresses abstractions. In verses one through three the reference to doctrine is to have received teaching. The doctrine is not a teaching that needs to be drilled unto unwilling minds because we are told, it is like dew or like rain falling on a thirsty earth and on wilting plants. It revives and gives life to all who receive it. Thus the doctrine of God is life to all who receive it. It comes, verse four tells us, from the perfect Rock, the foundation God whose ways are perfect. So, God’s teachings are life to those who receive it and those who will not are dead. In the song of Moses as elsewhere the term Rock refers to God except when used to designate false or pretended gods as in verses thirty one and thirty seven. In Matthew 16:18 our Lord speaks of Simon as Peter, He renames his as Peter, Petros, which means literally belonging to the rock, Jesus Christ. Now this was known in the early church, it was known through the medieval era. Alfred, an archbishop of Canterbury called attention to the fact that the church is not the rock it is Jesus Christ but more than one church today insists that the church is the rock.

In verses three through six Moses declares that Israel has been corrupt and traitorous. Because it has repaid God’s grace with unfaithfulness, God has been a father to them and they are rebellious sons. In verses seven through fourteen Moses reviews God’s mercy to Israel and His many blessings. God’s protection surrounded Israel in a remarkable way. Then in verses fifteen through eighteen Moses begins by referring to Israel as Jeshurun, which means up right. This is a satirical term because Israel was anything but upright. We have to have it in mind later as we study the development of Israel, this aspect of self-righteousness became Phariseeism. Why? Israel confused grace with nature and saw itself as naturally superior. They thereby forsook God and provoked God to anger. They adopted false gods and forgot their redeemer. The song of Moses looks ahead in history to a reoccurring pattern of apostasy. I referred to literary uses of this. One famous poem is patterned after this although totally modern in its context and its language. Kipling’s Recessional where he speaks of being drunk with power, loosing wild tongues that have not thee in awe, becoming Jeshurun. In verses nineteen through twenty five we are told that God’s reaction to this is anger and contempt. He stands to one side in anger to send judgments upon the faithless covenant people. They will face four kinds of judgments or plagues, hunger, pestilence, wild beasts and war. The only thing restraining God he tells us in verses twenty six and seven from totally obliterating from the world is that they bear God’s name and He does not want Israel’s enemies to gloat over their death.

In verse twenty eight we have a grim description of Israel, for they are a nation void of counsel and there is no understanding in them. Their sin has blinded them and they have forsaken justice. The same description today fits the former nations of Christendom. If they were wise, verse twenty nine says, they would see from their history what the consequences are. As against Leviticus 26:8 a handful of enemies will put thousands of Israelites to flight. This failure is God’s doing and it is His surrender of them to their enemies according to verse thirty. Then in verse thirty and thirty one even their enemies recognize what Israel refuses to see: that God has abandoned them. The enemies of God have a strength that comes from consistency. They are unequivocally the heirs of Sodom and Gomorrah according to verses thirty two and thirty three. Clear cut evil is always stronger than Phariseeism. The Pharisaical claim of character they do not have and they live in terms of equivocal and divided premises. Wherein ever the godly become compromisers they become weaker than the evil. They have no consistency and their strength is diluted and destroyed. A once strong western world is now faltering; it is a cripple, because it has no uncompromising premise. But verses thirty four and thirty five tell us in due time God’s vengeance will bring a day of calamity upon all the evil nations. As against all false gods who are incapable of cursing and blessing God says vengeance is mine and recompense in verse thirty five. The Lord will judge His people and also their enemies. The false gods can do nothing for Israel, let them be your protection, God says.

In verse thirty nine:

“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.”

The living God alone has power over life and death and it is an absolute and sovereign power. God therefore declares He will take vengeance on the enemies of the covenant people after judging and punishing them according to verses forty to forty three. He turns his weapons first against His own people and then against their enemies. In verse forty three:

“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.”

In verses forty four through fifty two we have some final comments. First we are told that God’s law is a testimony and a witness against man’s sin. In verse forty six all the words which I testify unto you this day can be read ‘testify against you’. The law spells out our moral rebellion and it points us to strength. Second to obey the law, Moses says, is no vain thing for you because it is your life and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land whither you go over Jordan to possess it. Life is thus associated with obedience to God’s law and third Moses is told to climb Mount Nebo in order to see from afar the Promised Land. Because place names change with time we have no certainty which mountain Nebo is. Although this is called the song of Moses the speaker throughout is God, not Moses. Moreover the song does not give any commandment; it simply states the consequences of disobedience. It stresses the simplicity of man’s choice; it is between God’s way and man’s way, between God’s law and man’s law, between good and evil. The issue cannot be legitimately complicated into problems of foreign affairs, diplomacy and the like.

The twentieth century has seen the steady blurring of moral lines. Prior to World War One most Americans saw national and international issues in biblical moral terms. Woodrow Wilson shifted the moral grounds quietly to a humanistic world and life view. Since then the prevailing view opposes any emphasis on moral problems. President John F. Kennedy insisted that our problems are technological not moral ones. The view from Washington D.C. is now anti-moral and anti-Christian. The song of Moses very simply tells us that the only efficacious force in history is God the Lord. To forget that fact is to invite judgment and it shall come. For we have seen God’s grace to us as a nation, as evidence of our supposed natural superiority, so we have converted grace to nature. We see ourselves as the greatest of all peoples, naturally. This has been a common fact throughout of all of history. This marked nation after nation, the Egyptians who believed that even association or touch with some people could be corrupting, who only on one occasion allowed a princess of Egypt to marry a foreigner, Solomon, because of his power. Or the Assyrians who were very proud because they were numerically strong and they overwhelmed great nations, or the Greeks, the Romans and countless peoples to the present time. Men have seen the providence and the grace of God as evidence of their natural superiority and have ceased to be grateful and their downfall has been great. This is the meaning of the song of Moses. If we have any foundation other than the Rock of Ages we are of all men the most miserable in due time. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto this Thy word. Make us ever mindful that we are what we are by Thy grace so that we trust not in our powers but in Thy mercy. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now on our lesson? Yes?

[Question] It seems like the better we get the more evil we do.

[Rushdoony] Well, that’s been observed again and again in history, John Wesley who was no great observer of things in history none the less said that the fact that troubled him was he was bringing countless peoples to Christ a large percentage of those who he brought were lower class people and Methodism was regarded as the religion of the lowest classes. But he saw very quickly that they were also becoming prosperous and successful and he said this is a problem, what are we going to do about it, these people as they succeed by the grace of God forget that it was the grace of God that took them out of the gutter. And they ascribe it to their natural abilities, forget God, and soon go down the drain and the nation goes down the drain. Well he was right and I would say part of the problem is is that once they get there the preaching thins out and they get comfortable preaching in comfortable churches and it isn’t geared to growth. Any other questions, yes?

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Has any other civilization lost its God? Offhand I cannot think of any non-biblical civilization that retained its religion after it collapsed because the association of their religion with success was endemic to all of them. For example, in Rome or Greece, we know enough of those cultures to know that you would go to a temple not to worship but to bring an offering or a sacrifice and it was insurance money, you were taking out a policy in other words, you did not go there for any corporate act of worship, you simply walked in when you had a need and you said to the particular God this is what I need, I’m taking a journey and I’m doing this or that, I need your help. If you did not get it you switched gods, that’s why there was a multiplicity, you took your insurance policy to another temple. Well that meant if they failed you and the culture collapsed you abandoned them all. So this was an aspect of the religions of antiquity, they very easily switched faiths and there was a constant stream of new cults, we know, in Rome especially we know this, precisely because there was a constant search for the winning ticket. And we have that fact embodied in a saying about changing your luck, changing your luck and luck is a pagan concept, means going to somebody else, some other god who can give you more luck. And nowadays some people with state lotteries change their luck by going to a different place to buy their lottery ticket because they never score at this particular place they’ve going to.

So the pagans abandoned their gods. The history of Israel is unique in that you have them when they were judged being recalled to their faith in the living God. And that’s why they were capable of revival again and again, again becoming a strong people and the same is true in Christendom. It has gone downhill and it has revived itself many times. Because we have associated the term reformation with Luther and Calvin we forget that throughout the middle ages there were many, many reformations when the church had really hit rock bottom. Yes?

[Question] Historically what has been the principle stimulus for revival?

[Rushdoony] It is has usually been someone or a group of people who have said what we’ve doing is wrong. We have to mend our ways, we have to repent, we have to go back to the basics. And they go forth preaching, teaching and in no time at all it catches like wild fire. Sometimes it takes a couple generations or more but it does revive Christendom. So we’ve had that again and again and many of the orders in the Catholic church of monks, for example, were founded by a man or a group of men who simply had that function, who saw the need. Then of course they very often became rich and comfortable and they went downhill. This is why Saint Francis very unrealistically fought against any buildings. He did not want them to own a building or to build a building or a church or anything, he says we will become institutionalized to put his comments in modern terminology, and when he went somewhere and found that they were putting up something he started to smash it with his own hands because he said this will be the death of us. Well of course he was both right and wrong. It wasn’t the building that was going to be the death of them it was getting the institutional mentality because the institution more than the faith began to govern them.

The spiritual Franciscans rebelled against that and went to the other extreme; they became so anti-institutional and anti-property that they really were Christian communists. But theirs was not the answer either. It has to be a living faith, one grounded on the whole word of God. Yes?

[Question] Is that the mainstay of the Islam faith, the institution, the state?

[Rushdoony] In Islam the state is the church. The state therefore has total power. The Koran gives the power of the sword so that anyone who doubts the faith or who is an unbeliever can be executed, in fact permission is granted to anyone who is one of the faithful to test the sharpness of his sword on the neck of a Christian.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] No I don’t know where that comes from but that’s what it means, they speak strongly of infidels. Now in pagan antiquity the state was the church, there was no separate religious institution. Every individual temple of every individual cult was licensed by the state. Islam although scholars try to make it look as if it were an offshoot of Judaism and Christianity is a rebellion against both of them because it waged war against the idea of a synagogue or a church, a separate religious institution. So in Islam the state is the church.

[Question unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] The bible insists on the absolute predestination of God, everything, not a sparrow falls apart from Him, the very hairs of our head are all numbered. At the same time it asserts human responsibility. So that we have an obligation to change things under God. Now, you’re right in saying we should not be concerned in that it is futile just to express dismay and grief as most people do, that’s not action. Responsibility means doing what we can in our place beginning with our lives and our families and then spreading out step by step. So it’s both God who ordains all things and yet man is responsible, a mystery we cannot understand. But that’s what the bible affirms. Every other religion falls either into fatalism or to total free will and collapses intellectually in due time. In Islam those thinkers who have developed their thinking far enough have an impersonal god so that their god is no longer anything but a blind force. Well our time is almost ended so let’s conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we give thanks unto Thee that all things are of Thee and that Thou hast given us power through Thy word and spirit to be in Thee, movers and shakers of all things. Make us ever mindful of the great commission that is ours. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.