One writer called the Song of Moses "one of the most impressive religious poems in the entire Old Testament."336It contrasts the faithfulness and loyal love of God with the unfaithfulness and perversity of His people. As other important poems in the Pentateuch (e.g., Gen. 49; Exod. 15; Num. 24), it also teaches major themes.
"The song embraces the whole of the future history of Israel, and bears all the marks of a prophetic testimony from the mouth of Moses, in the perfectly ideal picture which it draws, on the one hand, of the benefits and blessings conferred by the Lord upon His people; and on the other hand, of the ingratitude with which Israel repaid its God for them all."337
Moses set this song in the form of a lawsuit in which Yahweh leveled a charge against Israel.338It's central theme is "Israel's apostasy and God's threatening judgment."339
32:1-4 Moses called on the whole earth to listen to what follows (vv. 1-2). The subject of this song would be God. The name of God is the expression of His character as He revealed this. The purpose of the song is that everyone would recognize God as the great God He is and that His people would respond to Him appropriately. The description of God as the Rock (vv. 4, 15, 18, 30, 31) occurs first here in Scripture, but it appears many times later. This metaphor pictures God as a reliable refuge for His people on whom they could build and who had been solidly faithful to them.
32:5-6 Israel, on the other hand, was "perverse and crooked"(v. 5). Moses also called God the Father of the Israelites (v. 6) whom His people had repaid with corrupt behavior for His many gifts.
32:7-14 The writer graphically described God's choice and care of Israel in these verses.340Of all the nations of the earth she had experienced the greatest blessing. This is the last of 16 times Moses challenged the Israelites to remember in Deuteronomy, beginning in 4:10. The desert place where Yahweh found Israel was Egypt (v. 10), a wilderness. The pupil of the eye (lit. the little man of the eye, v. 10) is the part a person protects most carefully (cf. Ps. 17:8; Prov. 7:2). The "apple of the eye"is an English idiom meaning anything that one holds very dear or cherishes greatly.
32:15-18 Israel's rebellion against her Father stands in stark contrast to God's gracious care. "Jeshurun"(v. 5; cf. 33:26; Num. 23:10) means "upright one"or "righteous nation."This pet name reminded Israel of her holy calling. As an ox, Jeshurun had become unresponsive due to the fatness she had gained as a result of God's blessings.
"The chiastic structure by which vv. 4-14 match vv. 15-18 in reverse suggests the reversal of Israel's pledges of covenant commitment to the Lord."341
32:19-25 God would discipline Israel because of her rebellion. He would make the punishment fit the crime (v. 21). The nations referred to as being "not a people"(v. 21) are those that had no divine calling as a people as Israel did. There is no other nation like Israel in the sense that it is the people of God. Fire (v. 22) is the symbol of God's wrath and judgment (cf. 4:24; Exod. 3:2; Heb. 12:29).
32:26-38 However, Israel's unfaithfulness would not thwart God's purposes for her. God would use other nations to discipline His people, but He would judge them too. The Old Testament writers compared Israel to Sodom and Gomorrah many times (v. 32), but they never compared the heathen nations to those wicked cities.
"One of the well-known sermons in American history was preached by Jonathan Edwards in 1741 from this verse [v. 35] and particularly from this clause: In due time their foot will slip.' The sermon subject was Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.' Edwards thought that the verse was directed at the unbelieving Israelites, but his application of it reached to all wicked people."342
32:39-43 The biblical writers also represented God frequently as a warrior hero who engaged in battle for Israel against her enemies (vv. 41-42; cf. Ps. 7:13). Loving God indicates faithful covenant obedience (cf. 5:10; 6:5; 7:9; 10:12; 11:1, 13, 22; 13:3; 19:9; 30:6, 16, 20), and hating Him describes those who either have no covenant relationship with Him or who live in rebellion against Him (cf. 5:9; 7:10; 2 Chron. 19:2; Ps. 81:15; 139:20-21).
"Again it can be seen that the text portrays the Torah as God's gift of life to his people in much the same way as the Tree of Life was put into the midst of the Garden of Eden (Ge 2:8-17). Just as obedience to the Lord's command not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was the key to their access to the Tree of Life (Ge 2:16-17), so obedience to the Lord's command in the Torah was to be the key to Israel's living long in the land' that God had prepared for them."343
This song was one more instrument God used to teach His people to obey Him along with Moses' sermons, the rituals, the monuments, etc. (vv. 46-47).
"It will . . . act as a mnemonic, an aid to memory, because during the intervening period it will have lived unforgotten in the mouth of the reader or hearer, ready to come to mind when the troubles arrive. Poetry is thus a kind of time bomb; it awaits its hour and then springs forward into harsh remembrance. . . . It will live in their minds and mouths, bringing them back, whether they like it or not, to the harsh memory of the desert sojourn. Once learned it will not easily be forgotten. The words will stick, they will be importunate, they will not let us alone."344
The lesson this song teaches is that when God's people forget His gracious goodness to them and turn away from Him to follow idols, they can expect discipline. When God appears to withdraw His blessings we should not question His ability or motives but examine the state of our relationship with Him.
