It was the perverse nature of the people which extorted from Moses that unmixed bitterness with which he again addresses them. Doubtless he would have desired to leave a pleasing and joyful recollection of himself, and therefore would willingly have exhorted them to the performance of their duties, either with blandness, or at any rate with placidity, but their stubbornness compelled him to testify his indignation in the severity of his address. Besides, he does not judge from conjecture what they would do, but expressly declares that he knew it for certain, unquestionably because the Spirit, in dictating the Song, had also informed him of it. He indicates their revolt by two words, corrupting, and turning aside from the way; but, inasmuch as in the first there is an ellipsis, for the active verb is used without any word for it to govern, some supply “the way of the Lord.” I have, however, followed a different reading, 1 which seems more correct, for the signification of the word is rather passive than transitive. He points out the manner of their corruption, declaring that they will depart from the way which they had learned; for this was their perfect soundness, to obey God, and to follow the way which he showed them. By forsaking the Law, then, they were corrupted. Moreover, Moses indirectly reproves their ingratitude, inasmuch as he had thrown away his labor upon such despisers of pious instruction. Thus he desires that this song should be recited by them, in order that, when afflicted and half-consumed by miseries, they might at last learn that God is a just avenger. And the advantage of this assurance was, that those, whose state was not altogether desperate, should at length return to their senses; whilst the reprobate should be more and more condemned.
We have elsewhere seen what it is to call heaven and earth to witness. 2
1. Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3. Because I will publish the name of the Lord; ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
4. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth, and without iniquity; just and right is he.
5. They have corrupted themselves; their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
6. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7. Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel:
9. For the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness: he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings;
12. So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
13. He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
14. Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness: then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
18. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
19. And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters.