Deuteronomy 31

Moses completed his exposition of the law in 26: and then began to bring his long farewell message to a close with a personal challenge to obedience. As we’ve seen before, the book of Deuteronomy is patterned after the ancient treaties given by kings to conquered nations. The Lord is the King and Israel is His chosen nation and special people. He took the Jews to Himself by defeating Egypt and setting Israel free to love Him and to serve Him. Moses has reviewed what the Lord did for Israel and said to Israel, and he has spelled out the terms of the covenant. Now he will explain the benefits of obeying the Lord and the disciplines that will come if Israel disobeys.

Moses was 80 years old when God called him to lead His people (Ex. 7:7), and he was now 120, so he had been serving the Lord and His people for forty years. The time had come for him to step aside and let Joshua take over. Moses was still physically fit (Deut. 34:7), but the Lord had told him that, because of his sin at Kadesh, he wouldn’t be allowed to enter Canaan (1:37–38; 3:23–27; 4:21–22; Num. 20:1–13). Moses had been a faithful servant in leading the people, delivering God’s law to them, and building a nation, but Joshua was the man God chose to lead the army of Israel in conquering the land of Canaan. The phrase “go out and come in” (Deut. 31:2) describes the activities of a leader serving the people (Num. 27:15–17; Josh. 14:11), and Joshua would now be that leader.

Joshua wasn’t a stranger to the people of Israel, for he’d been serving them well ever since they left Egypt. He was Moses’ servant long before he became Moses’ successor (Ex. 33:11; see Matt. 25:21). It was Joshua who led the Jewish army in defeating the Amalekites when they attacked the nation after the exodus (Ex. 17:8–16), and he had been with Moses on Mount Sinai (24:13; 32:17). Joshua was one of the twelve spies who scouted out Canaan, and he and Caleb stood with Moses and Aaron in encouraging the people to trust God and claim the land (Num. 13—14). In answer to Moses’ prayer for a leader to succeed him, God appointed Joshua and Moses commissioned him before the whole congregation (27:12–23).

Moses encouraged Joshua by assuring him that God would go before His people and help them conquer the land and destroy the godless nations in Canaan (Deut. 31:3–6, 23). The “charge” in verse 23 is similar to the one the Lord gave Joshua after Moses died (Josh. 1:1–9). Joshua was to duplicate the victories the Lord had given Israel on the east side of the Jordan, when Israel defeated Sihon and Og, which meant destroying the Canaanite nations and everything connected with their religion. It’s good to know that the same God who marched ahead of the armies of Israel still helps His people today (Heb. 13:5).

In the work of the Lord, there’s no substitute for godly leadership. As Moses did with Joshua, Christ with His apostles, and Paul with Timothy and Titus, the older generation must equip the younger generation to take their place (2 Tim. 2:2). The Lord has given us the qualifications for leaders in the church (1 Tim. 3; Titus 1), and we must give ourselves to mentoring and training qualified people to become those leaders. “The final test of a leader,” wrote political columnist Walter Lippmann, “is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.” Leaders must not only be qualified, but they must also be prepared and proved (1 Tim. 3:10) so that they aren’t novices in serving the Lord (v. 6). The absence of gifted and qualified leaders is sometimes evidence of God’s judgment on His people (Isa. 3:1–4, 12; 57:1). The situation is different today, but ancient Israelites would have been humiliated if young people and women were serving in places of leadership. It was the elderly men who had the wisdom and experience to lead the people.

At Mount Sinai, the Lord made it clear to Israel that, unlike the nations around them, they were to be a people of the word who would hear God’s voice and obey it (4:15–20). The pagans could see their man-made idols but couldn’t hear them speak, because their idols were dead (Ps. 115:1–8). If Israel forsook the living words of the living God and bowed down to dumb idols, they would be living by sight and not by faith and forsaking divine truth for human superstition. It was by the Word that the Lord created the universe, and it is through that same Word that He accomplishes His purposes in history (Ps. 33:6–13).

During his long ministry, Moses had kept a record of what God had done and said (Ex. 17:14; 24:4–8; 34:27; Num. 33:2; Deut. 28:58; 29:20, 27), and he deposited that record with the priests who carried the ark of the covenant. He commanded them to put the book beside the ark in the Holy of Holies where He was enthroned on the mercy seat between the cherubim (Ps. 80: niv). God rules His world through His Word and God’s people must respect His Word and obey it. In future years, Israel’s king was required to write a copy of the law, study it, and keep it with him (Deut. 17:18–20). Each Sabbath year, at the Feast of Tabernacles, the law was to be read and expounded publicly to every man, woman, and child, whether Israelites or strangers, so that they would hear, fear, and obey (Neh. 8). It was especially important that the children hear the word (Deut. 31:13) so they could learn it early and enjoy a long life in the Promised Land.

Moses bluntly told the people what the Lord had told him: they were rebellious and stiff-necked and, after his death, would turn away from the Lord to worship idols (v. 27). When people are stiff-necked, they refuse to bow in reverent submission to the Lord, but harden themselves against the Lord and persist in doing what they want to do. (See Ex. 32:9; 33:3, 5; 34:9; Deut. 9:6, 13; 10:16.) Hearing God’s Word, meditating on it, and obeying it was the best remedy against apostasy. Unfortunately, after the death of Moses and Joshua, the people of Israel listened to the false prophets and turned aside from God’s truth and practiced idolatry (Judg. 2:6–7). Centuries later, Stephen accused his own nation of being “stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears” and always resisting the Holy Spirit as He spoke through the Word (Acts 7:51).

There’s an important lesson here for the church today, for God has given His people the truth of His Word, and we must guard it, obey it, and pass it along to the next generation. (See 1 Tim. 1:11, 18–19; 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:13–14; 2:2.) The church of Jesus Christ is always one generation short of extinction, so it’s important that each believer studies the Scriptures, receives the truth, practices it, and passes it on to others. We need faithful professionals like Ezra the scribe who “prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statutes and ordinances” (Ezra 7:10). We also need dedicated and willing lay people like Priscilla and Aquila who can expound the way of the Lord more perfectly to believers who are confused (Acts 18:24–26).

The doctrines of the Christian faith, recorded in Scripture, weren’t invented by the early believers but were given by God to His chosen servants. Jude 3 calls this body of sacred truth “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (nkjv). In the local church, we are to teach no other doctrine (1 Tim. 1:3), nor are we to preach anything other than the inspired Word of God (2 Tim. 4:1–5). Paul called this treasure of truth “sound [healthy] doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1) and “sound [healthy] words” (2 Tim. 1:13). If we want to have spiritually healthy churches, the saints must feed on “healthy” doctrine; anything else is “vain jangling” (1 Tim. 1:6; 2 Tim. 2:16) and a spreading infection like gangrene (v. 17). While it’s a good thing for believers to encourage one another, we must be careful that our “sharing times” promote the truth of the Word and not just what individuals think about the Word.

Local churches must imitate Israel and have special times when they meet together to read the Scriptures and hear them explained. In my own ministry I’ve been privileged to address large Bible conferences attended by believers who had only one thing in mind: to hear from God’s Word what the Lord wanted them to do. Today, many churches can’t hold Bible conferences because the people won’t attend. Everybody is too busy, and an hour or two on Sunday morning once a week is all the time they can spare for the Lord. The Word isn’t read and taught in homes as once it was, and unless they attend a Christian day school, the children receive Christian education during thirty minutes of Sunday School and perhaps an hour in a midweek club. Is it any wonder that families and churches are drifting farther from the faith?

Heeding God’s warnings (31:14–22, 30; 32:1–47) God instructed Moses to meet Him at the tabernacle and to bring Joshua, his successor, with him. Speaking from the glory cloud, the Lord told the two men that Israel would turn from the true and living God and worship idols (“play the harlot”), and that He would turn away from them and send the judgments named in the covenant (Deut. 28). The cause of their apostasy would be not only the pagan influence around them, but also their own prosperity in the land (31:20). They would forget God the generous Giver and cease to thank Him for His goodness. If the nation obeyed God and served Him joyfully, His face would shine upon them (Num. 6:22–27), but if they turned to idols, God would hide His face from His people and chasten them.

The Lord instructed Moses and Joshua to write down a song that He would give them, a song that the people could easily learn and remember. This song would warn the new generation and generations to come against the perils of idolatry and the tragic consequences of apostasy. It would also remind them of the goodness and mercy of the Lord. After Moses and Joshua wrote down the song (Deut. 31:19), they taught it to the leaders (v. 28) and to all the congregation (v. 30). Moses prefaced the song with the solemn reminder that, after his death, they would abandon the Lord and thereby invite the chastening of the Lord. This sounds something like Joshua’s farewell speech to the officers and the people (Josh. 23—24) and Paul’s last words to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:17–37).

The song has four major divisions: the character of God (Deut. 32:1–4); the kindness of God to His people (vv. 5–14); the faithfulness of God to chasten His people (vv. 15–25); and the vengeance of God against His adversaries (vv. 26–43). The song traces God’s dealings with Israel and is a concise review of the nation’s history, from their wilderness sojourn to the judgments in the end times. It has both historic and prophetic aspects.

The character of God (vv. 1–4). Moses did the speaking, although Joshua was with him (vv. 44–45 niv), and he opened the song with two interesting images: a courtroom (v. 1) and a rain shower (v. 2). He called heaven and earth to bear witness to his words (30:19; 31:28), for the song would indict Israel for turning away from their God and breaking the covenant. This was the most serious offense the people could commit. Everything in creation obeys the Lord except His own people! (See Ps. 119:89–91; 148:5–9; Isa. 1:1–3.) But Moses didn’t call for a storm; he gave his message as a quiet shower, trusting that the Word would soften the hard soil and produce fruit in the hearts of the people (Isa. 55:10–11). “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) is the best way to proclaim God’s Word.

Learning the character of God should be our major concern in the school of life, and Moses was a star pupil (Ex. 33:12—34:9; Ps. 90). To the Jew, the name of the Lord was “Jehovah,” the name God revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex. 3:13–15). Moses didn’t proclaim his own name, for he was a humble man (Num. 12:3); his desire was to honor the name of the Lord. The other “Song of Moses” (Ex. 15) also magnifies the attributes of God. In two brief verses, Moses ascribes to the Lord perfection, greatness, justice, truth, faithfulness, and righteousness, and he describes Him as “the Rock” (Deut. 32:4, 15, 28, 30–31). This is a familiar biblical image for God that speaks of Him as stable, strong, unchanging, faithful, and enduring. Jacob called Him “the stone” (Gen. 49:24), and Jesus is frequently spoken of as “the Stone” or “the Rock” (Matt. 21:42–44; Acts 4:11; Rom. 9:32–33; 1 Peter 2:4, 7–8; see Dan. 2).

At the very beginning of the song, Moses focused their attention on the greatness of God, for if they understood His greatness, the people wouldn’t want to worship man-made idols. A.W. Tozer used to remind us that “no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God.” He also said, “The first step down for any church is taken when it surrenders its high opinion of God.”

The goodness of God to His people (vv. 5–14). You would think that Israel would have exalted such a great God and counted it a privilege to know Him and serve Him, but they didn’t. Instead, they turned to idols and corrupted themselves and blemished their own name and standing. “When they act that way, are they really his children? They are a deceitful and twisted generation” (v. 5 nlt). What a way to repay their Father for all He had done for them! We expect unconverted people to be twisted and corrupt (Phil. 2:15), but not the people of God (Matt. 17:17; Luke 9:41).

One more time, Moses invited the people to remember what God had done for them in “the days of old.” The younger ones could ask the older people what they remembered, because it’s the responsibility of older believers to teach the younger (Ps. 78:5–8; Titus 2:1–8). The Lord is the God of history and geography; He divided the nations (Gen. 10) and put them on the earth where He wanted them (Acts 17:26). But He had a special plan for Israel, for they were His own people; and He made sure that they had a land adequate for them. The drama of salvation would be enacted in the land of Israel, so that land was very special to the Lord.

The Lord delivered Israel from Egypt and then came to them in the wilderness at Sinai. They were a helpless people and He claimed them for Himself. They were “the apple of his eye,” referring to the pupil of the eye (Ps. 17:8; Prov. 7:2; Zech. 2:8). Moses used the image of the eagle to illustrate God’s care for His people (Deut. 32:11–13a). At a certain stage in the lives of the young, the parents destroy the nest and force the young to fly. To make sure the young don’t fall, the adult birds stay close to the young as they “try their wings,” flying beneath them and even carrying them in their strong claws. It’s a beautiful picture of the difficult process of maturity that God put all of us through just as He did the nation of Israel. Israel was made to “fly on the high places” (v. 13) and not grovel in the mire like the pagans. Every experience they had during their wilderness journey was another opportunity for them to grow up, but too often they regressed and acted like babies.

Israel enjoying the land of Canaan is the theme of verses 13b-14. God gave them a rich land, one that produced honey out of the rocks and in which olive trees could thrive in stony soil and produce much oil. Flocks and herds multiplied in the pastures and the fruit and grain prospered in the fields, orchards, and vineyards. Indeed, the Lord gave them a good land and nothing was lacking.

The faithfulness of God in chastening His people (vv. 15–25). Moses warned the people that their undeserved prosperity in the land would tempt them to become proud and forget the Lord (Deut. 8), and then He would have to chasten them, and that’s exactly what happened. “Jeshurun” is a nickname for Israel (33:5, 26; Isa. 44:2) and means “the upright one.” As far as their standing before God was concerned, “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel” (Num. 23: nkjv), but when it came to their conduct, God stood ready to chasten His beloved people for not living up to their standing. He has a similar problem with the church today, for we don’t always walk worthy of our high calling (Eph. 4:1ff.).

God’s “jealousy” is that of a loving faithful husband whose wife has betrayed him. (This is the story in the book of Hosea, and see Jer. 2:25.) To worship idols is to worship demons (1 Cor. 10:20), so Israel was not only grieving the Lord but also playing right into the hands of the wicked one. They forgot their Rock who was both their Father (“who begot you”) and their Mother (“who formed you,” i.e., “gave you birth”). The Jewish people are His “sons and daughters” (Deut. 32:19). Their attitudes and actions prevented Him from loving them as He longed to do, so He had to show His love by chastening them.

Since they moved Him to jealousy by following other gods, He decided to move them to jealousy by blessing and using other nations (v. 21; Hos. 1). Historically, this refers to God using various Gentile nations to chasten Israel in their land (the book of Judges), and then Babylon to take them into captivity. But prophetically it refers to God calling the Gentiles to salvation after Israel had turned against the message of the gospel (Rom. 10; 11:11ff.). Today, God wants to use the church to make Israel jealous of the spiritual blessing that we have that the Jews once had (Rom. 9:1–5; 11:13–14). We’re to “advertise His virtues” (1 Peter 2:9) so that the lost will long to share in the blessings we have in Christ. It’s sad to see words like fire, arrows, hunger, fever, beasts, serpents, swords, and calamities (“mischiefs,” kjv) applied to God’s special people, but those were the judgments He sent them (Lev. 26:14ff.). After the Roman conquest in AD 70, the nation was scattered, and today we find Jewish people all over the world.

The vengeance of God against His adversaries (vv. 26–43). On two previous occasions, the Lord had threatened to destroy His people, and Moses reminded Him of His covenant promises and of the fact that the Gentile nations were watching (Ex. 32:11–14; Num. 14:11–25). If God destroyed Israel, the Gentiles would say, “Their God isn’t strong enough to take them into their land and care for them!” Moses was concerned about the glory of the Lord as well as the good of the nation. God knew that the Gentiles would boast about defeating and humiliating Israel, so He intervened and saved His people (Ezek. 20:8–29). He also severely punished the Gentile nations because they went too far and were cruel in their treatment of the Jews (Jer. 50:10–13, 17). It was the Lord who permitted Assyria and Babylon to capture His people, and the nations acted as though they were the great conquerors.

The reason for Israel’s plight was not the strength of their enemies but their own lack of wisdom (Deut. 32:28–29; Isa. 1:3). They possessed the Scriptures that recorded the covenants, and all they had to do was obey God’s laws and He would have blessed them. Those same Scriptures predicted the coming of their Messiah, yet when He arrived, Israel didn’t know Him (John 1:26). Today there is a veil over their hearts when they read the Old Testament and they cannot see Christ in their Scriptures (2 Cor. 3:12–18; Rom. 11:25–36; John 5:39).

If Israel had been faithful to the Lord, He would have given them victory over their enemies, and one Jewish soldier would have been worth twenty or even a hundred enemy soldiers (Lev. 26:6–8). Alas, their rebellion caused their Rock to “sell them” to the enemy, even though the enemy had nothing compared to what Israel had in Jehovah (Deut. 32:31–33). Their gods (rock) were certainly not like the living God of Israel, and their vine (nation) wasn’t planted, as was Israel in the land (Isa. 5). To eat the enemy’s grapes and drink their wine was to be poisoned, yet Israel worshipped their gods! “They are a nation void of counsel” (v. 28).

God doesn’t overlook the evil deeds of Israel’s enemies but has His weapons ready so that He can vindicate His people (vv. 34–35). “This” in verse 34 refers to God’s vengeance on the enemies of Israel and of God, something He had planned long ago. Here we have God presented as the righteous warrior who will defeat Israel’s enemies and at the same time judge (“vindicate”) His own people and have compassion on them (“repent himself,” kjv). This is a message of hope for Israel, for His chastening is the first step toward restoring His people and returning to them the blessings that they forfeited when they turned to idols. The false gods that they trusted won’t be able to help Israel, but the Lord will show His great power on behalf of His helpless people and deliver them from the enemy. We may have in verses 39–43 a description of the battle of Armageddon (see Rev. 14:17–20; 16:12–16). We have no record in Scripture or in history of any special time of vengeance when God vindicated the Jews by defeating the Gentile nations, so this prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.

The thrust of the closing section of the song (Deut. 32:34–43) is the ultimate vindication of Israel before the Gentile nations that have attacked her, humiliated her, and abused her. To some extent Israel was vindicated when Babylon was taken by Darius the Mede and the Jews were allowed to return to their land, but surely these verses describe something far more extensive and dramatic than that event. The vivid language makes us think of the Old Testament descriptions of the day of the Lord and the slaughter that will take place (Isa. 2:10–21; Amos 5:18–20; Zeph. 1:7–18). While it will be a day of judgment on the Gentiles for the way they have treated Israel (Joel 3:1–3), it will also be a time of refining for Israel; and in the end, they will see their Messiah, repent, and be converted (Zech. 9—14).

Moses closed the song, Joshua standing with him, by appealing to the people to take the message to heart and teach the song to their children, so that future generations would obey the law and avoid idolatry. (See Deut. 4:9–10; 6:7; 11:19; Ex. 10:2; 12:26.) The Word of God is the life of God’s people, just as God is our life (Deut. 30:20), for the Word communicates to us the truth about God and His gracious blessings. To receive and obey the Word is to share in the life of God. “They are not just idle words for you—they are your life” (32: niv). “For the word of God is living and powerful” (Heb. 4:12).

These people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering” (31: niv).

That’s the message the Lord gave Moses after he finished his farewell address to the people he had served so faithfully for forty years. Certainly these words grieved his heart, but Moses knew that Israel had a long history of turning away from the Lord and worshipping idols. At Sinai they had made a golden calf and indulged in a pagan orgy (Ex. 32), and at Kadesh-Barnea they wanted to appoint a new leader and return to Egypt (Num. 14). In both rebellions, it was the intercession of Moses that saved the nation from being destroyed by God’s judgment. During their wilderness journey, the Jews had frequently complained to Moses about the way he was leading them. When the new generation arrived at the border of Canaan, the men indulged in immorality and idolatry with the women of Moab, and God sent a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites (Num. 25). Israel’s history was a tragic story indeed.

How could Moses encourage his beloved people to stay true to their Lord who had done so much for them? Moses did what God commanded him: he appointed Joshua to be his successor; he gave the people the book of the law and told them how to use it, and he sang them a song of warning. What Moses did to help prevent apostasy in Israel needs to be done to prevent apostasy in the church today, for the church’s record isn’t much better than that of Israel. We have three responsibilities before the Lord: to honor godly leaders, to hear the Word of God, and to heed the warnings God gives us.