Faith in the Rock: When Blessings Outpace Our Trust

Give ear, O heavens, let me speak;Let the earth hear the words I utter! May my discourse come down as the rain,My speech distill as the dew,Like showers on young growth,Like droplets on the grass. For the name of the ETERNAL I proclaim;Give glory to our God! The Rock!—whose deeds are perfect,Yea, all of whose ways are just;A faithful God, never false,True and upright indeed. Unworthy children—That crooked, perverse generation—Their baseness has played God false. Do you thus requite GOD,O dull and witless people?Is not this the Father who created you—Fashioned you and made you endure! Remember the days of old,Consider the years of ages past;Ask your parent, who will inform you,Your elders, who will tell you: When the Most High gave nations their homesAnd set the divisions of humankind,The boundaries of peoples were fixedIn relation to Israel’s numbers. For the ETERNAL’s portion is this people;Jacob, God’s own allotment. [God] found them in a desert region,In an empty howling waste—Then engirded them, watched over them,Guarded them as the pupil of one’s eye. Like an eagle who rouses its nestlings,Gliding down to its young,So did [God] spread wings and take them,Bear them along on pinions; The ETERNAL alone did guide them,No alien deity alongside. [God] set them atop the highlands,To feast on the yield of the earth;Nursing them with honey from the crag,And oil from the flinty rock, Curd of kine and milk of flocks;With the best of lambs,And rams of Bashan, and he-goats;With the very finest wheat—And foaming grape-blood was your drink. So Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—You grew fat and gross and coarse uncertain.—They forsook the God who made themAnd spurned the Rock of their support. They kindled wrath with alien things,Provoked anger with abominations. They sacrificed to demons, no-gods,Gods they had never known,New ones, who came but lately,Who stirred not your forebears’ fears. suggests the rendering “Whom your forebears did not know.” You neglected the Rock who begot you,Forgot the God who labored to bring you forth. GOD saw and was vexedAnd spurned these sons and daughters. [God] said:I will hide My countenance from them,And see how they fare in the end.For they are a treacherous breed,Children with no loyalty in them. They incensed Me with no-gods,Vexed Me with their futilities; I’ll incense them with a no-folk,Vex them with a nation of fools. For a fire has flared in My wrathAnd burned to the bottom of Sheol,Has consumed the earth and its increase,Eaten down to the base of the hills. I will sweep misfortunes on them,Use up My arrows on them: Wasting famine, ravaging plague,Deadly pestilence, and fanged beastsWill I let loose against them,With venomous creepers in dust. The sword shall deal death without,As shall the terror within,To youth and maiden alike,The suckling as well as the aged. I might have reduced them to naught, uncertain. Made their memory cease among humankind, But for fear of the taunts of the foe,Their enemies who might misjudgeAnd say, “Our own hand has prevailed;None of this was wrought by GOD!” For they are a folk void of sense,Lacking in all discernment. Were they wise, they would think upon this,Gain insight into their future: “How could one have routed a thousand,Or two put ten thousand to flight,Unless their Rock had sold them, GOD had given them up?” For their rock is not like our Rock,In our enemies’ own estimation. (“own estimation”) see Exod. 21.22; cf. Gen. 48.11. Ah! The vine for them is from Sodom,From the vineyards of Gomorrah;The grapes for them are poison,A bitter growth their clusters. Their wine is the venom of asps,The pitiless poison of vipers. Lo, I have it all put away,Sealed up in My storehouses, To be My vengeance and recompense,At the time that their foot falters.Yea, their day of disaster is near,And destiny rushes upon them. For GOD will vindicate this peopleAnd take revenge for these servants,Upon seeing that their might is gone,And neither bond nor free is left. [God] will say: Where are their gods,The rock in whom they sought refuge, Who ate the fat of their offeringsAnd drank their libation wine?Let them rise up to your help,And let them be a shield unto you! See, then, that I, I am the One;There is no god beside Me.I deal death and give life;I wounded and I will heal:None can deliver from My hand. Lo, I raise My hand to heavenAnd say: As I live forever, When I whet My flashing bladeAnd My hand lays hold on judgment,Vengeance will I wreak on My foes,Will I deal to those who reject Me. I will make My arrows drunk with blood—As My sword devours flesh—Blood of the slain and the captiveFrom the long-haired enemy chiefs. O nations, acclaim this people!For [God] will avenge the blood of these servants,Wreak vengeance on opponents,And cleanse this people’s land. “tears” suggests the rendering “And wipe away the tears of God’s people.” Cf. Isa. 25.8. Moses came, together with Hosea son of Nun, and recited all the words of this poem in the hearing of the people.

Deuteronomy 32:1-20 records the opening of Moses' farewell song, the Haazinu. Heaven and earth are summoned as witnesses while Israel is called to remember the faithfulness of the Rock — and the tragedy of a prosperous people who forsook the very God who carried them.