The Song of Moses Part 3

Yahweh’s Fire - 19-27

Yahweh looks upon the progression of forgetfulness laid out in the previous 4 verses, and His response is to spurn Israel, essentially to disregard them and discard them. They provoked Him and He poured out His wrath in like kind and measure.

The middle lines of verses 20 and 21 lay out the summary of Israel’s actions toward God:

They are perverse

They are faithless

They provoke jealousy

They provoke anger

Once again, Israel proves to be a type of the whole world. The same sins that marked Israel also mark our world today.

Perversity is pre-eminent in our world. That word perverse in the Hebrew means twisted or turned. Just as Israel was considered a perverse generation, so also our world is exceedingly perverse. Our nation has said that life is not life, men are not men, women are not women, truth is not truth, and morality is not morality. Our world has perverted, turned, twisted these things and made them what they are not, good, true, and beautiful things into evil, false, and despicable creations of their own imagination and in their own image.

Therefore we must guard ourselves from this perversity. We must ensure that we turn nothing of God’s goodness, God’s truth, and God’s beauty into something that serves our own designs and our own purposes.

Faithfulness is forgotten in our world. This word carries the connotation of trustworthiness or reliability. These words indicate stability, someone who can be counted on. But let’s face the facts. We live in a world of flakes. Israel was a nation of flakes.

Therefore we also must guard ourselves here. Are we steadfast and faithful in our marriages, in our church commitments, in our families, at our jobs, in our friendships? Are we reliable? Are we trustworthy? Do we show up when we say we will and do what we say we will do?

Provocation is paramount in our world. We are surrounded by non-gods, idols who vy for our attention and worship. The world around us has every manner of idol before their eyes daily. I read earlier this week in a book about how our response to loss indicates what we worship, namely, what losses to we respond to with anger or resentment or heightened passion? Those are the things we worship. Let’s get really real tonight: how would you react if you woke up tomorrow morning and had lost the ability to speak? Not another word could ever be uttered out of your mouth, you were rendered dumb for the rest of your life. If your reaction is one of anger or resentment or frustration, maybe you worship the sound of your own voice. What if we woke up tomorrow and Joe Biden announced that the US is now a Chinese colony? America doesn’t exist anymore. Would you be angry? Would you lose it? Maybe you worship America. What if a burglar snuck into your house tonight and stole your Wi-Fi router and your TV and you could never access the internet or watch TV ever again? Your reaction might tell you whether or not you worship entertainment. What if we lose trade relations with Asia, and there’s a massive smartphone shortage, and then your smartphone falls out your car window by accident, and you have to use a landline for the rest of your life? Your reaction indicates your worship.

Israel ascribed principal, primary, and supreme importance to that which was not God. To idols. That temptation is here for us as well. Therefore we must be careful to worship God as God, and nothing less. Anything else is idolatry.

The beginning of 20 and the rest of the section lay out God’s actions of judgment against Israel, His fire.

He will hide His face - this is the first facet of God’s judgment, and in many ways in encapsulates all the rest. To have God show His face is to have Him give gifts of common grace. The shining of the sun, the development of culture and technology, the ability to love and be loved, the ability to thrive and prosper, regardless of the state of your soul, is a gift of common grace. It is evidence that God is showing His face to you, as it were, looking upon you in sustaining and providing love. For God then to turn His face away is for Him to remove those common, everyday graces. For Him to remove His hand of restraint from evil in the world and allow it to run rampant. This forsaking, this turning away, is the same turning away that Christ experienced on the cross. It is the ultimate form of God’s judgment.

He will make them jealous

He will provoke them - the jealousy and provocation go together here. As they provoked God to jealousy with foreign gods, so He will provoke them to jealousy with foreign peoples. Hosea, Paul and Peter all understood this provocation as the ingrafting of Gentiles into God’s redemptive plan and people, that God would pour out His covenant love on the whole world through Christ, and the Messiah would be a Messiah not only of Jews but also of Gentiles, and that this act of mercy would provoke the Jews first to anger and jealousy, and then subsequently to repentance. We see this nowhere more clearly than in the story of Jonah, who seethed with anger over God’s purpose to save Nineveh, a city of wicked Gentiles. Israel’s judgment and condemnation resulted in life and salvation for the Gentiles. Even in judgment then, God has a good and glorious purpose for all that comes to pass.

He will heap misfortunes - this is the idea of bad things. A pagan might call it bad luck. But Moses is clear: even what appears to be bad luck for Israel is from the hand of the Lord, passed down in judgment upon them.

He will use his arrows on them - arrows in Old Testament literature are always used to symbolize war. The picture of Yahweh using His arrows against Israel is a picture of war. Yahweh is at war with them for their forgetfulness, folly, and faithlessness, and the more practical idea in play here is that war itself will be used by God as judgment on Israel. And as the book of Kings teaches us, after Solomon, the Northern and Southern kingdoms of Israel were perpetually at war, both with one another and with the surrounding nations.

He will waste them with famine - Hebrew prophetic literature, specifically from the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, speak to the reality of famine as judgment from God. The historical books of Kings and Chronicles record at least 4 specific and separate famines that occurred in the period of time leading up to the exile. The contrast is this: God was faithful in the wilderness to feed Israel with manna from heaven, but part of the turning of his face away from them is removing his hand of provision so that even the children go hungry, according to Lamentations 3.

He will consume them with plague - Ezekiel speaks regularly of plagues - sickness, disease, etc. coming down upon Israel for their disobedience.

He will send beasts upon them - beasts could speak of one of two things. One interpretation is that because of the death and destruction, feral animals will run wild and feed upon the flesh of the dead. This is a harrowing picture, and one that Jeremiah speaks of in Jeremiah 15 and 16. A second interpretation would be that the beasts symbolize the foreign nations and armies that would come to devour Israel and Judah, the armies of Assyria and Babylon. This is the concept that is in view for Daniel in Daniel 7.

He will send crawling things on them - at first brush this might seem like bugs or pestilence, but the reading of the King James or the NIV is enlightening. I believe that crawling things of the dust is an allusion to the curse of the serpent in Genesis 3, where the serpent is cursed to crawl in the dust forever. I believe then that the venom of the viper, to use the phrasing of the NIV, is indicative of the attacks of Satan himself upon Israel and Judah. Theologically this approach teaches us that event he work of Satan in the world is part of God’s plan for judgment, and even Satan does not act autonomously, but is sent by God to do His bidding.

Finally, the judgment is summarized in verses 25: sword and terror will come upon them from within and without, and there will be no discrimination: men and women, old and young alike will suffer under the hand of God’s just punishment.

These judgments are not only descriptive but prescriptive. I would venture to say that we are in the midst of many of these judgments today. Misfortunes such as high gas prices. Arrows of war all around us. A famine of baby formula. The beasts of foreign nations and armies circling around to devour. The attacks of Satan himself against the nations of the world, including our own.

God does not change, and just as He judged Israel in this way, so also He will judge our world today.

The judgments proclaimed by Moses in verses 19-25 are harrowing and harsh. Israel has and will continue to bring God’s wrath down upon themselves by their disobedience and their trespass of the covenant.

Moses sings of the fire of Yahweh, but he now turns to the foolishness of the nations.

The Nations’ Foolishness - 26-35

The voice and tone of the language of Yahweh as described by Moses now takes a turn. Up to this point, the work of Yahweh has been self-described in these “I will” statements, indicating a purposeful and immutable intent to accomplish these judgments.

But now Yahweh speaks in a hypothetical voice, indicating that He “would” have declared something else, something even more harsh and even more destructive. He says he might have cut them to pieces, he might have removed the memory of them from men.

This is the concept of total, absolute, unfettered destruction. This is the type of judgment only seen a handful of times in the Old Testament: at the flood, at the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, and with a handful of cities and nations that stood as enemies of Israel in the Old Testament.

God says here that He would have ordained this to happen, that He would have metted out this level of judgment against Israel. But He doesn’t. He withholds absolute destruction.

The answer thus becomes why. Why does God not wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Why doesn’t He start fresh? Pick a new patriarch and a new nation?

The answer is this: to protect His own honor and glory and dignity before the face of the nations.

How does this work? Simply, if God had wiped Israel off the face of the earth and started fresh, the enemies of the nation, the Egypts and the Assyrias and the Babylons and the Philistias would have looked upon the demise of Israel with pride, elevating themselves as victorious above Israel and ultimately above Israel’s God. They would be able to rightfully accuse Yahweh of failing to keep His word and His promise and of failing to be who He said He was.

Yahweh then declares the utter foolishness of any nation who would dare to elevate themselves to a place in which they have bested the one true and living God.

They lack counsel, and there is no understanding in them - they are fools in the Biblical sense, wandering like blind men.

There is a connection to our world here that I think is important to point out. We live in a world full of people who have determined in their hearts that they know better than God. Better than God regarding human sexuality. Better than God regarding who is a man and and who is a woman. Better than God regarding the origins of the world and the universe.. And I’m not speaking about those outside the visible church. We would certainly affirm that those outside the church have no fear of God before their eyes. Therefore they ascribe the work of the creator to the creature, and subsequently ascribe the glory due the creator to the creature. I am saying that there are many within the visible church that not only think but say that they know better than God regarding these things.

We have professing Christians in our day affirming homosexuality, affirming transgenderism, affirming evolutionary theory. Affirming that which the Scriptures explicitly deny. This must be named, marked, and avoided in the life of the true church today. There is no room for ambiguity on who is in charge and who makes the rules. Frankly, I don’t care what the science says and I don’t care how you feel. Science, feelings, and even experiences must be submitted to the Word of God.

And this type of thinking comes uncomfortably close even to our own theological circles today. Many teachers that are popular in our circles attempt to force the Word of God to submit to empirical and rational systems of interpretation popularized during the Enlightenment. This results in many people today reading the Bible like a technical manual or a recipe book or a historical archive rather than for what it is: God’s Word. These types of people will wave the flag of “literal” interpretation, when in reality they mean empirical or observable interpretation. They effectively attempt to force the Word of God into submission into that which is observable and repeatable. This has resulted in all kinds of errant interpretations of Scripture, interpretations that the Biblical authors themselves expressly deny.

All of this to say, none of us are immune to the danger of pridefully asserting our own feelings, our own experiences, and our own systems over the Word of God. Therefore we must watch ourselves and our lives and our convictions carefully, and ensure that we do not elevate them above the Word of God. They must fit the standard of Scripture, not the other way around.

Moses’ words for those would do this are harsh and forceful, and require our understanding and our attention.

Moses’ words to the enemies of Israel continue:

Would that they were wise, that they understood, that they discerned. If only these people “got it.” If they did get it, they would know this, according to verse 30: Israel only loses when God says they lose. Israel only loses when it serves God’s good providence. The picture here is that Israel’s defeat is only possible if God sells them, gives them up, as it were. In other words, Egypt and Babylon and Assyria can only hold power and sway over Israel as long as God allows it. The power of these nations is not their own, but it comes from hand of God, who ordains these nations as his agents to accomplish His good purpose.

This is a particularly comforting truth in our day. Oppressive regimes mount up and gain power on every side. Sometimes it’s easy to lose track of the truth that evil regimes only have as much power as God gives them. They only have as long a leash as God allows. And when God ordains in His providence that evil men should come to power, as they have in our country and in our state, Moses would have us remember, as He called Israel to remember, that their power is only as powerful as God allows it to be.

Moses continues in verse 31 in his pronouncement of the foolishness of the nations.

READ 31

Their rock, their refuge, is not like the Rock of Israel. Once again, Moses builds upon the theme of God’s holiness and distinctiveness in the face of the surrounding nations and their false gods and idols. Time and time again throughout Israel’s history, God demonstrates Himself to be wholly other and wholly superior to the pagan gods of the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Assyrians and the Babylonians.

And what’s even more compelling is that Moses understands that the nations know this. The enemies of Israel judge or determine or discern that the power of Yahweh is far greater than the power of their gods. Whether they want to openly admit it or not, these pagans eventually have to come to grips with the reality that their power cannot overcome the power of Yahweh. One by one, Yahweh bested the Egyptian pantheon, and more than that, embarrassed them by making a mockery of their power and their appearance. And eventually when Pharaoh had taunted God 9 times, God defies the power of Pharaoh, the highest and most powerful deity in Egypt, by taking the life of the heir to the throne, stripping Pharaoh of the one thing that could extend his power beyond the grave. Then look at what happens in Exodus 14:24-25

Exodus 14:24–25 NASB95

At the morning watch, the Lord looked down on the army of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and cloud and brought the army of the Egyptians into confusion. He caused their chariot wheels to swerve, and He made them drive with difficulty; so the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from Israel, for the Lord is fighting for them against the Egyptians.”

And the Egyptians were not the only pagan peoples to observe the glorious power of Yahweh and determine that He was no ordinary god, no little golden man. How about Balaam, the rogue medium hired by the Moabite king Balak to curse Israel in the wilderness? Numbers 23:7-10

Numbers 23:7–10 NASB95

He took up his discourse and said, “From Aram Balak has brought me, Moab’s king from the mountains of the East, ‘Come curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!’ “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? “As I see him from the top of the rocks, And I look at him from the hills; Behold, a people who dwells apart, And will not be reckoned among the nations. “Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, And let my end be like his!”

Balak of course loses his mind, and Balaam responds simply: Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth? Balaam understands Biblical preaching more than most television preachers today.

How about the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4:7-8?

1 Samuel 4:7–8 NASB95

The Philistines were afraid, for they said, “God has come into the camp.” And they said, “Woe to us! For nothing like this has happened before. “Woe to us! Who shall deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who smote the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.

A quick perusal of the books of Ezra and Daniel will describe the acknowledgement of Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes that Yahweh is in fact the one true and living God, worthy of worship, service, and obedience.

The enemies of Israel know in their hearts that opposition to Yahweh and to His people is utter foolishness.

Again this must bring us great comfort and hope as Christians. God’s church today faces many enemies. Oppressive government regimes who wish to regulate and decree the formal persecution of Christians. Workplaces that refuse to honor religious convictions and instead demand that all knees bow before the whim of the day. False teachers within the doors of churches, teaching false doctrines and promoting unbiblical worldviews. Our enemies, as they were for Israel, are numerous and mighty. But, as Israel’s enemies understood, Yahweh was and continues to be infinitely more mighty than His enemies. Therefore, when little kings of Babylon take up arms against God’s people, we can be certain that God’s mighty hand of protection is on us, on us in a way that is visible to the watching world.

Moses now moves into a section describing further the wickedness of the surrounding nations, drawing vivid allusions to the agrarian lifestyle of the ancient near east.

READ 32-33

He describes their vine as being from Sodom and Gomorrah, and their grapes as poisonous and bitter. In other words, these nations, these enemies of Israel, are wicked and produce wickedness.

He continues, connecting the produce of their vines - wine - to the venom of serpents and the poison of cobras. This is an allusion back to that Serpent of Old. Once again we see that ultimately the Ancient Accuser, the devil, is in and behind all that opposes God and His people.

Moses is making a point here: the enemies of God and His people are deadly. They are Satanic.

This is why it is so troubling that so many Christians today want to cut deals with the enemy. They want to bring together light and darkness, holy and unholy, clean and unclean, and try to make them work together. This is foolishness, and this is the warning of Moses in this song that he teaches the people: God’s enemies are not to be bargained with.

As God’s people today, we need to understand this: We are not to cut deals with the enemy. There can be no holding hands across the aisle for Christians. As popular as it may be to “co-opt” secular movements and worldviews and “baptize” them and make them “Christian,” Moses’ warning is clear: God’s enemies are dangerous and must be marked and avoided.

Now I am not advocating for some kind of Amish isolationism or Fundamentalist separation from all life. On the contrary, Christians are to be salt and light and seek the good of the city in which God has placed them. But the narrow path for the Christian involves being salt and light and good in the city where God has placed you, while simultaneously standing firm against the poisonous venom of the enemies that surround you. This calls for Biblical discernment, the ability to make distinctions between good and evil, it calls for Biblical conviction, the ability to stand firm even when everyone around you fades away, and it calls for Biblical love, the ability to proclaim the goodness, truth, and beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ directly to those enemies.

And Moses gives the reason that we are able to stand firm in the face of our enemies in verses 34-35

READ 34-35

Moses is clear: God will have the victory against His enemies and the enemies of His people. Vindication and retribution is laid up in store with Him, sealed in His treasuries. Going all the way back to verse 28, God will not ultimately allow His enemies to see the victory. He will exact retribution and vengeance upon those who would harm His children. And the execution of this vengeance and retribution will happen in due time. It will happen how God says, when God says. Further, the day of their calamity is near - in other words, it is next on the agenda. And finally this impending wrath is coming quickly, so quickly that they will not know what hit them.

Moses is clear: God’s enemies do not stand a chance against His just wrath against them.

Therefore we can take courage. We can trust that God will do what He has said He will do. We can wait upon the Lord as He causes Satan’s evil plans to fail. We can rest assured that the final victory has already been secured.

There’s another important encouragement here: Vengeance and retribution will come from the hand of God in due time. That timing belongs to the Lord and not to us. This was the example set for us by Jesus. He had many enemies and they committed heinous crimes against Him. The Jewish religious leaders and Roman political figures certainly stood against Christ as His enemies. Yet did He seek retribution? No. Did He seek vengeance? No. He did not open His mouth, and instead trusted that His Father would vindicate Him in due time. That His Father would rescue Him in due time. This is a powerful word for us today. Too often we try to take matters into our own hands, when God has already said that He will take care of it. This passage thus forms the basis for Paul to say in Romans 12:18-21

Romans 12:18–21 NASB95

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

This is our calling as Christians. Walk in peace, and allow God to punish your enemies.

So we’ve seen Moses expound upon the foolishness of the nations in thinking that they might oppose God, and we’ve seen their ultimate fate as recipients of the vengeance and retribution of God.

Now Moses turns his attention to the ultimate source of hope for the people of God: the free outpouring of His vindication and compassion on His people. I’ve called this section Yahweh’s Free Grace.

Yahweh’s Free Grace - 36-44

Moses now declares that Yahweh will vindicate His people. This word carries legal connotations, it is the idea of a defense lawyer pleading the case of his client. The difference here is that a lawyer just pleads the case, while Yahweh pleads the case and provides the grounds for the verdict. For Yahweh to vindicate His people is to make them righteous in a legal and forensic sense. Moses thus declares that great doctrine of justification, demonstrating that God once again will vindicate His people - He will declare them to be righteous in the face of their enemies.

The next line explains that this justification, this vindication, is an act of God’s compassion - His mercy. Justification and mercy go together in Moses’ economy of salvation, in his understanding of how Israel and how anyone is to be saved, it occurs at the point where God’s righteousness is applied to the sinner according to His mercy.

And what is the context of this mercy-justification? It is the weakness and helplessness of His people. In their lowest moment, in their weakest state, He reaches down by His mercy and saves them.

This forms the foundation for Paul’s great statement in Romans 5:6

Romans 5:6 NASB95

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

This is the story of all Christians. Our salvation doesn’t happen as a result of our strength or our spiritual health or our heavenly wisdom. Our salvation happens as a result of our utter helplessness. This is what makes grace amazing. Grace loses it’s lustre if it merely meets us in the middle. We bring our will and our desire for God and God brings His grace and His love, and we meet in the middle like Diamond Rio in 1991. No way! That’s not amazing grace! That’s lame grace! In fact that’s not grace at all, because grace means simply a divine gift of God. And if you do something to earn a gift, it’s not a gift anymore, it’s wages. But what’s beautiful about Moses’ conception of grace, and indeed the witness of the whole counsel of God to grace, is that we are helpless. Dead in our trespasses and sins. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, while we were dead and helpless, made us alive together with Chris by His justifying, vindicating power! That is the hope of Israel and that is the hope of all mankind, that helpless, dead, enemies of God are made alive and and more than made alive, made friends, and more than made friends, adopted as children.

In that moment Moses instructs the people of Israel to understand their helplessness. He calls upon them to look once again to the false gods of the surrounding nations and see just what type of salvation they offer. He mocks them with rhetorical questions: Where are your other gods? Where are the high places where you sought refuge? Who ate your sacrifices and drank your wine offerings? Let them save you! Let them be your hiding place! The rhetorical irony is thick, dripping with sarcasm - they can’t help you. You are helpless alone and you are helpless with these gods.

Moses shows us here that all these lesser gods, these little idols that we worship, whether made of stone or wood or gold or glass, can’t do anything. When you are helpless and have nowhere to turn, social media won’t help you. Your job won’t help you. Your husband or wife won’t help you. When all is lost and everything begins to crumble around you, your only hope if the merciful vindication of God, the free grace of Yahweh being poured out upon you. Nothing less is able to save you and nothing more is necessary to save you.

Moses continues, declaring the exclusivity of Yahweh. He is God and there is no other. He holds life and death in His hand. He holds wounding and healing. He holds judgment and salvation, and just as no one can stop His hand of judgment, so also no one can stop His hand of salvation. What God has purposed to fulfill, no one can stand against.

Therefore, if God has purposed to save by justifying mercy His helpless servants, nothing can prevent it from comping to pass. His grace is irrestible.

But just as His hand of salvation can not be stopped, so neither can His hand of judgment against His enemies. He will render vengeance on His enemies. He will repay those who hate him. It is a certain reality that God will destroy his enemies, the world the flesh, and the devil, all that is evil, false, and ugly in this world.

And then the final glory of verse 43 - the nations join together with Israel as God’s people together, rejoicing at God’s final triumph over evil. He will finally have His vengeance. Justice will be satisfied.

This is the future that God’s people have to look forward to: in the end, justice will be satisfied on all fronts. We might think of this satisfaction, this atonement, as occuring in two phases. The justice of God toward His elect was satisfied, atoned for at the cross of Jesus Christ. We rejoice in that. But there is still a portion of God’s justice that is left unsatisfied. As long as evil is left in the world, God is not done executing His justice. So I believe the atonement that is in view here is the atonement, the satisfaction of justice that will occur at the end of time, when God casts Satan and all His minions, all the offspring of Adam, into the lake of fire, purging His kingdom of all evil once and for all. That is the final atonement, the final satisfaction of God’s justice. The cross of Christ provides the down payment, the return of Christ provides the full and final fulfillment.

Conclusion

Moses concludes with verse 44. He delivers the words of the song to the people, along with Joshua, so that it might be encapsulated and commemorated for all time.

This song is a witness. A witness against Israel and against the nations to God’s holiness, faithfulness, and in the end, His free grace. This song testifies against not only Israel but against the whole world, that they are helpless rebels, in need of God’s justifying mercy to poured out on them in love.

We rejoice at the down payment of that mercy given to us in Christ and applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We look forward with hope to the day when that mercy will be given in it’s fullness and all evil is eradicated, and every tear is wiped away, and death is dead forever.

In that day, God’s people will remember and sing this song, no longer as a witness against them but as a memorial of the good grace of God poured on sinners.

We look forward to that day, and until then, we rest in the atoning work of Christ, knowing that in Him, God has already secured the victory over His enemies, and in Him, we also have secured that victory.