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Deuteronomy 32 - The Song of Moses

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This narration is from a previous version of the study and may include a combined recording of multiple chapters.

The song begins like rain and dew, with words meant to enter the people’s memory and give life. It then names the terrible contradiction of a child who has been carried and fed yet turns against his Father. Moses lets Israel hear its history in a form it can keep singing after his voice is gone. The end is wider than the beginning: heaven and the nations are called into praise as the Lord judges evil and purifies His people.

Orientation

Deuteronomy 31 appoints this song as a covenant witness. Moses and Joshua address the assembly in Moab. The poem passes from God’s faithfulness to wilderness care, fullness, apostasy, judgment, compassion, and rejoicing. The final prose charges the children to keep the word and directs Moses toward Nebo. The song’s severe images are divine judgment, never authority for private revenge.

Rain upon the earth, truth before the people (Deuteronomy 32:1–7)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

1 Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth. 2 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. 3 For I have called on the name of the Lord: assign ye greatness to our God. 4 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. 5 They have sinned, not pleasing him; spotted children, a froward and perverse generation. 6 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? 7 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.

Heaven and earth hear the prophet, while rain, dew, shower, and snow describe the desired reception of his speech. The word should nourish a life that cannot make itself fruitful. Before accusing Israel, Moses calls upon the Lord’s name and declares His works true and His ways just.

The charge against the ‘froward and perverse generation’ is measured by that faithfulness. Philippians 2:15 echoes the description while calling believers to shine within such a generation, and Acts 2:40 summons hearers out of its corrupt life. The apostolic answer is repentance and truthful witness, not contempt for our neighbors.

Language insight: “Rock” and “God”

Where the Hebrew calls the Lord ‘Rock’ in verses 4, 15, 18, 30, and 31, Brenton’s Greek-based wording uses ‘God’, with further changes of expression in some clauses. Verse 31 contrasts ‘their gods’ with ‘our God’. This does not remove the physical rock from which honey comes in verse 13. Beside the divine title, 1 Corinthians 10:4 identifies the spiritual Rock who accompanied Israel as Christ, and Deuteronomy 8:15 recalls water from the flinty rock. This comparison deepens our confession of Christ’s faithful care without claiming that Paul quotes verse 4.1

Moses tells the people to ask fathers and elders about the past. Receiving another person’s testimony can loosen the pride that assumes our present life began with us.

The nations, the Father’s portion, and the eagle (Deuteronomy 32:8–14)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

8 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. 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. 10 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. 11 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: 12 the Lord alone led them, there was no strange god with them. 13 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. 14 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.

The Most High orders the nations, and Jacob is the Lord’s portion. The choice of Israel stands within God’s concern for the human world. It calls Israel to belong to Him rather than pretend that He has no concern for anyone else.

Language insight: “angels of God” and “children of Israel”

Brenton and Swete’s Greek read ‘according to the number of the angels of God’ in verse 8; the Masoretic Hebrew reads ‘the children of Israel’, reflected in NKJV. These are different textual readings, not two translations of the same noun. The Greek draws attention to heavenly beings in the ordering of the nations. It still stands beside verse 12: the Lord alone led Israel, with no strange god. Acts 17:26–27 declares that God appoints the times and boundaries of nations so that they should seek Him. This is a thematic connection, not a quotation of this precise reading.2

The eagle supplies the tenderness of the Lord’s care. It watches, yearns, receives, and carries. Verse 10 places instruction within that protection, and verse 11 holds strength and nurture together. The difficult wilderness was not proof that Israel had been forgotten. They were maintained, taught, and guarded there.

Fullness follows: milk, butter, wheat, and wine. These gifts make the coming betrayal more painful. Remember a time when you were helped before you were capable of helping yourself. Gratitude becomes truthful when it remembers whose back carried the weight.

Fullness, strange gods, and jealous love (Deuteronomy 32:15–21)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

15 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. 16 They provoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me. 17 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. 18 Thou hast forsaken God that begot thee, and forgotten God who feeds thee. 19 And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters, 20 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. 21 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.

The beloved one is fed and then kicks. The bodily image makes abundance turned into defiance visible. Verse 18 joins the God who begot Israel to the God who feeds it. Betrayal refuses both the beginning and the daily continuance of life.

Sacrifices are offered to ‘devils’, that is, demons, rather than to God. Paul uses the same warning in 1 Corinthians 10:20–22 to forbid communion with demons through idol feasts. A religious act is not made safe by our wish to call it harmless. Allegiance matters.

Verse 21 answers false gods with ‘no nation’. Romans 10:19 quotes the provocation in Paul’s account of Israel’s response to the Gospel. The nations’ reception should move the hearer toward seeking God. Romans 11:17–22 warns Gentile believers against boasting over Israel.

Comfort can make prayer seem inconvenient and a limit feel intolerable. Fasting and almsgiving teach us to receive good things without making appetite or security a master. The actual idolatry in the poem is not erased by this inward application; it shows how deeply allegiance can be corrupted.

Judgment cannot crown the enemy’s pride (Deuteronomy 32:22–35)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

22 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. 23 I will gather evils upon them, and will fight with my weapons against them. 24 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. 25 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. 26 I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from among men. 27 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. 28 It is a nation that has lost counsel, neither is there understanding in them. 29 They had not sense to understand: let them reserve these things against the time to come. 30 How should one pursue a thousand, and two rout tens of thousands, if God had not sold them, and the Lord delivered them up? 31 For their gods are not as our God, but our enemies are void of understanding. 32 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. 33 Their wine is the rage of serpents, and the incurable rage of asps. 34 Lo! are not these things stored up by me, and sealed among my treasures? 35 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.

Fire, famine, sword, and terror expose the whole people to judgment. Strength, youth, and age grant no immunity. Yet verse 27 places a limit beside the warning: the enemy must not claim that its own high arm achieved everything. Israel’s humiliation cannot prove an idol’s sovereignty, and victory cannot make an aggressor righteous.

The grapes of gall and wine of serpents answer the earlier abundance with poison. A society cannot keep sowing deceit and expect its common life to taste sweet. The image searches the fruit of our loyalties without permitting us to identify a present-day people with Sodom.

Language insight: “I will recompense”

Brenton’s verse 35 begins ‘In the day of vengeance I will recompense’. Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30 cite ‘Vengeance is Mine, I will repay’, which is not an exact quotation of Brenton’s English or this Greek opening. The shared claim places recompense with God. Romans draws its practical conclusion: leave revenge to the Lord and overcome evil with good.3

Surrendering revenge does not mean concealing a crime or abandoning the person threatened. We may seek truthful judgment and protection while refusing to make another person’s destruction our private satisfaction.

The weakened servants and the Lord of life (Deuteronomy 32:36–42)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

36 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: 37 and the Lord said, Where are their gods on whom they trusted? 38 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. 39 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. 40 For I will lift up my hand to heaven, and swear by my right hand, and I will say, I live for ever. 41 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. 42 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.

The Lord judges His people and turns with compassion toward His utterly weakened servants. The failed gods are challenged to rise and help. Their inability exposes the false refuge and brings the hearer before the One who can deliver.

Verse 39 unites death and life, wounding and healing, under God’s sole authority. It gives no human being permission to injure someone and claim God’s healing purpose. It never requires a victim to accept violence as spiritual medicine. The sovereignty belongs to the Lord whose compassion sees weakness.

Gems from the Fathers: the Word enters death to overcome it

A Christian hears this life-giving sovereignty through the Resurrection. In On the Incarnation, 9.1, St. Athanasius explains that the immortal Word assumed a body capable of death so that humanity’s corruption could be stopped ‘by the Grace of the Resurrection’.4 This is a theological lens on the song’s death-and-life declaration, not his direct commentary on verse 39.

Christ’s death is freely offered in the flesh; His Resurrection reveals a victory no idol can give. We need not call every wound good to entrust ourselves to Him. The broken person can ask for healing, protection, and life from the Lord whose power does not end at the grave.

Heaven and the nations are called to rejoice (Deuteronomy 32:43)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

43 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.

The full ending joins heavenly worship, the nations’ rejoicing with God’s people, judgment for shed blood, and purification of the land. Praise does not cancel the claim of those harmed. God answers evil truthfully; His people rejoice in His justice without seizing His right to vengeance.

Language insight: the fuller ending and its witnesses

Brenton’s Septuagint has lines about the heavens and worship by the angels absent from the shorter Masoretic verse. This must not be described as Greek versus every Hebrew witness. A Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew manuscript preserves a longer ending with the heavens and worship by divine beings, as the NRSVUE textual notes mark. It supports a longer ancient Hebrew form, not a claim that every clause of Brenton appears in that manuscript.5

Greek witnesses differ too. Brenton puts ‘all the angels of God’ in the worship line and ‘all the sons of God’ in the strengthening line. Swete’s printed text consulted here places ‘sons of God’ in the worship line and ‘all angels of God’ in the strengthening line. The Scripture above preserves Brenton. Their shared heavenly summons matters, while the order of those names remains edition-specific.6

Hebrews 1:6 proclaims ‘Let all the angels of God worship Him’ when God brings the Firstborn into the world. Its wording is found in the Greek Deuteronomy tradition represented by Brenton and also echoes Psalm 97:7 (LXX 96:7). The angelic worship confesses the Son’s superiority to the angels. Romans 15:10 quotes ‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people!’ to proclaim shared praise by Jews and Gentiles; ‘with His people’ follows the Greek form. The Apostles hear the widened ending in Christ without making every textual witness identical.

Angels worship the Son; nations rejoice with the people; those whose blood was shed are not forgotten. This is a larger hope than our own party’s triumph. Christian praise learns to welcome the person whom Christ has received, while entrusting judgment to the Lord.

The word is your life, and Moses must ascend (Deuteronomy 32:44–52)

Scripture: Brenton Septuagint

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. 45 And Moses finished speaking to all Israel. 46 And he said to them, Take heed with your heart to all these words, which I testify to you this day, which ye shall command your sons, to observe and do all the words of this law. 47 For this is no vain word to you; for it is your life, and because of this word ye shall live long upon the land, into which ye go over Jordan to inherit it. 48 And the Lord spoke to Moses in this day, saying, 49 Go up to the mount Abarim, this mountain Nabau which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho, and behold the land of Chanaan, which I give to the sons of Israel: 50 and die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be added to thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Or, and was added to his people. 51 Because ye disobeyed my word among the children of Israel, at the waters of strife of Cades in the wilderness of Sin; because ye sanctified me not among the sons of Israel. 52 Thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not enter into it.

The song is taught, and the prose returns the people to the heart and the children. Verse 47 says the word is no vain thing: it is their life. Beauty cannot remain separate from obedience. A song preserved by memory but refused by conduct becomes a witness against its singer.

Moses must ascend Nebo and see the land without entering. He and Aaron failed to sanctify the Lord at the waters of strife; Numbers 20:1–13 gives the episode. The prophet’s great service is honored without erasing accountability. He can hand on the word, bless the tribes, and entrust what he will not finish to God. We need humility to receive correction without imagining that it cancels every grace.

The Church’s Voice in Worship

At the Midnight Praises of Bright Saturday, the Church reads the ‘Second Praise of Moses the Prophet’, Deuteronomy 32:1–43. The Coptic Reader service for April 11, 2026 includes the final verse, although its English canticle uses the shorter wording without Brenton’s heavens and angels clauses. The song’s passage from remembered care through judgment to God’s life-giving mercy can be heard in the light of Pascha. The service gives the reading; that Paschal connection is its Christian interpretation.7

The Resurrection Prophecies also include Deuteronomy 32:39–43. Their rubric permits reading them during the distribution of the Bright Saturday Liturgy or before the Midnight Praises of the Resurrection Feast Liturgy. In the Coptic Reader service for April 12, 2026, this separate prophecy contains the heavens and angels clauses. The Lord’s power to make alive is thus heard beside heaven’s worship as the Church approaches the Resurrection.8

Spiritual Fruit

Remember being carried. Name a time when another person’s care sustained you. Thank God and, where possible, the person. Let memory correct the story that your present strength is entirely self-made.

Give fullness a limit. Choose a realistic fast or act of almsgiving with wise spiritual guidance. Remove one indulgence that makes prayer and mercy inconvenient. The purpose is a freer allegiance, not contempt for God’s creation.

Surrender revenge without surrendering protection. Distinguish the justice you may seek from the retaliation you are rehearsing. Pray for release from the latter. Seek safety and truthful help while refusing to make another person’s destruction your hope.

Join the wider praise. Pray for a people or person you habitually regard as outside your concern. Christ receives Jews and Gentiles into shared praise. Ask that your thanksgiving make room for those He loves.

The eagle has carried the young, and the song has told the truth about their flight. You can return without denying either God’s tenderness or your refusal. The angels worship the Son, and the nations rejoice with His people. Bring your wounded allegiance into that praise, and let the risen Christ teach it to live.

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 32, Swete’s Greek text, compared with the Masoretic Hebrew chapter and 1 Corinthians 10:4. ↩

  2. Deuteronomy 32:8, Swete’s Greek text and Hebrew text. ↩

  3. Deuteronomy 32:35, Swete’s Greek text, with Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30. ↩

  4. St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation, 9.1, direct text. ↩

  5. Deuteronomy 32:43, NRSVUE textual notes, especially the Qumran manuscript and Masoretic omissions. ↩

  6. Deuteronomy 32:43 in Brenton and Swete. ↩

  7. Coptic Reader, Bright Saturday, Midnight Praises, ‘Second Praise of Moses the Prophet’, Deuteronomy 32:1–43, selected April 11, 2026, service. The canticle’s shorter English verse 43 is distinct from Brenton’s full Septuagint form. ↩

  8. Coptic Reader, Resurrection Prophecies, Deuteronomy 32:39–43, selected April 12, 2026, service and placement rubric. ↩

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