Song of Moses

(Deuteronomy 31:30 - 32:47)
Moses then recited the words of this song from beginning to end so that the entire people of Israel could hear them:

“Listen, O Heaven, and I will speak.
Hear, O Earth, the words from my mouth.

“Let my teachings fall upon you like the rain,
Let my words settle upon you like the dew,
A gentle sprinkling upon the new grass,
A soft shower upon the budding plants.

“I will proclaim the name of Jehovah,
I will declare the greatness of our god.
He is the Rock; his deeds are perfection;
In all his actions he is just and fair,
A god who does no wrong, faithful and true,
So honorable and equitable.

“But have they not dealt with him honestly.
Corrupted, how can they still be his children,
This deceitful and perverse generation?

“Is this how you repay Jehovah,
You obtuse and doltish people?
Is he not the creator god,
The father who sired and reared you?

“Remember the days of long ago,
Consider the generations past.
Ask your father, he will show you,
Ask the elders, they will tell you:
When the Most High gave each nation
Its inherited portion of land
And divided the human race,
He established the boundaries
For his people according to
The number of Israel’s sons.
For the people of Israel
Is Jehovah’s inheritance
And Jacob, his assigned legacy.
For he found them in the desert,
In a barren, wind-swept wasteland.
He protected and looked out for them
Guarded them as he would guard his own,
Like an eagle that stirs its nest
And flutters over its young chicks,
Bearing them aloft on its wings.

“Alone, Jehovah guided them;
No foreign god accompanied him.
He made them ride over the highlands
And feast on the crops of the field.
With honey from the rock and oil
From flinty stones he nourished them.
With yogurt from the herd he fed them
And milk from the flock and fattened lambs,
The choicest rams from Bashan and goats,
Wheat of the finest quality,
And drank the foaming juice of the grape.
But Israel, stuffed and sated,
Grew fat, flabby, and defiant.
They deserted the god who made them
And scoffed at the Rock that saved them.
With foreign gods they made him jealous
Angering him with hated idols.
They sacrificed to godless demons,
Deities they had never known,
Gods of recent derivation
That your ancestors respected not.
You deserted the Rock your father,
Forgot the god that gave you birth.
Jehovah saw this and spurned them,
Angered by his own sons and daughters.

He said, ‘I will conceal myself from them
And merely watch what may become of them,
For they are a perverse generation
Of children who are faithless and disloyal.
They made me jealous with their worthless gods
And angered me with their foolish idols.
I will make them jealous with worthless people
And anger them with a foolish nation.
For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,
And burn to the depths of the netherworld,
Consuming the earth and all of its crops,
Setting afire the base of the mountains.
I will heap upon them calamities
And pick them off with shots of my arrows.
I will wear them down with famines and fevers,
And devastate them with plagues and pestilence.
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts
And the venom of slithering creatures.
From the outside, war will bring bereavement
While inside, a reign of terror will ensue,
For the young man and young woman alike,
For nursing infant and the gray-haired man.

‘I might have said, “Let’s obliterate them,
Erase their name from human history!”
But I feared the taunts of her enemies
Who might misread what has happened and boast,
‘It wasn’t Jehovah who accomplished this,
But our own power that is triumphant.

‘Israel is a nation without sense;
Its people are ignorant and dull-witted;
If they possessed any understanding
They would realize what their fate will be.

‘How could one man put to flight a thousand,
Or two make ten thousand beat a retreat,
Unless their Rock had delivered them up,
Unless Jehovah had handed them over?
For their rock is not like the Rock of ours,
As even our enemies will concede.
Their vine has sprung from the vine of Sodom,
Nurtured in the vineyards of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison, their clusters, bitter;
Their wine is like the venom of vipers,
The deadly toxin of cobras and asps.’

“Jehovah says, ‘Am I not keeping these things,
Sealing them securely in my storehouse?
I will seek vengeance and compensation.
For the time will come when they will stumble.
The day of their calamity is nigh.
Their doom and destruction will come swiftly.’

“Jehovah will pass judgment on his people,
But will have pity upon his servants
When he sees their strength has been depleted
And there is no one remaining, slave or free.
He will say to them, ‘Where are your gods now?
The gods who were the rock that was your refuge,
Who ate the flesh of your sacrifices,
And consumed your drink offerings of wine?
Let them come forth to save and shelter you!

‘Behold I am the only one:
There is no other god but me!
I put to death and bring forth life,
I am the one who wounds and heals,
And no one can be delivered
From out of my powerful hands.
I lift my hand to the heavens
And swear, as I live forever,
When I sharpen my flashing sword
And prepare to mete out justice,
I will revenge myself on my foes
And repay those who reject me.
My arrows I will make drunk with blood
And my sword will gorge itself on flesh,
The blood of the slain and captured,
And the heads of the enemy leaders.’

“May the heavens rejoice and worship him,
For he avenges the blood of his people
And takes vengeance upon his enemies.
He pays back those who have rejected him
And makes atonement for his land and people.”

Moses, accompanied by Joshua son of Nun, recited all the words of this song in the hearing of people.  When he had finished speaking the words of the song, he said to the people of Israel, “Keep in mind all the warnings I have given you this day, so that you may pass them on as lessons to your children so that they will obey every word of these instructions.  These are not meaningless words; they impact your very life, for by obeying them you will live long and prosper in the land you are crossing the River Jordan to occupy.”

Notes
1. The song is quite long and one doubts that it was set to a catchy tune.  It is amazing that a man of Moses’ years could have recited it, let alone memorized it.  Expecting future generations to remember it is asking a lot.  The people would have been illiterate and thus would have had to consign the whole thing to memory.  And, quite frankly, is simply ain’t that good.  Thematically it’s all over the place and, as is usual with the Books of Moses, it is annoyingly redundant.  But the memorization of Jehovah’s laws and instructions is the key element of the Jehovah religion.  It furthers the indoctrination of the youth, who must accept the traditional teaching and learn not to question them or give in to the temptation of thinking for themselves.

2. Throughout much of the song Jehovah trashes his own people and reiterates how unworthy they are.  This hardly seems like an effective sales strategy.  And again Jehovah the psychopath glories in bragging about the horrendous things he’s going to do to his errant worshipers.  The only reason he gives for not completely obliterating his unfaithful people is that Israel’s enemies might take credit for its destruction.  Mercy, compassion are not major factors, although he does cite them.

3. Jehovah presents himself here as the sole true god.  The gods of other countries are false, that is, they don’t even exist and, therefore, cannot help their people when appealed to.  Elsewhere, there is the impression given that these other gods do, in fact, exist, but are either inferior or else inappropriate objects of worship for the Israelites.

4. Jehovah is called here and elsewhere, the Rock, that is, the foundation, the bulwark, the mainstay and refuge of his worshipers.

5. Jehovah boasts how magnificently he fed his people.  What is he talking about?  Weren’t the Israelites of the Exodus fed nothing but manna?