Deuteronomy 32
The full text of Deuteronomy 32 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 Listen, you heavens, and I will speak;
hear, you earth, the words of my mouth.
2 Let my teaching fall like rain
and my words descend like dew,
like showers on new grass,
like abundant rain on tender plants.
3 I will proclaim the name of the LORD.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.
5 They have acted corruptly toward him;
to their shame they are no longer his children, but a warped and crooked generation.
6 Is this how you repay the LORD,
you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,
who made you and formed you?
7 Remember the days of old;
consider the years long past.
Ask your father, and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will explain to you.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided all mankind,
he set up boundaries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
9 For the LORD's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land,
in a barren, howling waste.
He shielded him and cared for him;
he guarded him as the apple of his eye,
11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
and carries them aloft.
12 The LORD alone led him;
no foreign god was with him.
13 He made him ride on the heights of the land
and fed him with the fruit of the fields.
He nourished him with honey from the rock,
and with oil from the flinty crag,
14 with curds and milk from herd and flock
and with fattened lambs and goats,
with choice rams of Bashan
and the finest kernels of wheat.
You drank the foaming blood of the grape.
15 Jeshurun grew fat and kicked;
filled with food, heavy and sleek.
He abandoned the God who made him
and spurned the Rock his Savior.
16 They stirred his jealousy with foreign gods
and angered him with detestable idols.
17 They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—
gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared,
gods your ancestors did not fear.
18 You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 The LORD saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
20 "I will hide my face from them," he said,
"and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
21 They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will anger them by a nation that has no understanding.
22 For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of the dead below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap calamities on them
and spend my arrows against them.
24 I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25 In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
The young man and the young woman will perish,
the infant and the gray-haired alike.
26 I said I would scatter them far
and erase their memory from mankind,
27 but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
lest the adversary misunderstand and say,
'Our own hand has triumphed;
the LORD has done none of this.'
28 They are a nation without sense,
there is no discernment in them.
29 If only they were wise and would understand this
and discern what their end will be!
30 How could one chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the LORD had given them up?
31 For their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies concede.
32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison,
and their clusters with bitterness.
33 Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.
34 "Have I not kept this in reserve
and sealed it in my vaults?
35 It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them."
36 The LORD will vindicate his people
and relent concerning his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
37 He will say: "Now where are their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
38 the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up and help you!
Let them give you shelter!
39 See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.
40 I lift my hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever,
41 when I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
while my sword devours flesh:
the blood of the slain and the captives,
the heads of the enemy leaders.
43 Rejoice, you nations, with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
and make atonement for his land and people.
44 Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.
45 When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
46 he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this law.
47 They are not just idle words for you—they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
48 On that same day the LORD told Moses,
49 "Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession.
50 There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
51 This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites.
52 Therefore, you will see the land only from a distance; you will not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel."
Translation notes (25)
- Deuteronomy 32:1a The Song of Moses (verses 1-43) is presented as poetry, with the second part of each line indented. Its opening summons heaven and earth as covenant witnesses (see Deuteronomy 4:26; 30:19; 31:28; Isaiah 1:2), which is a standard formula for treaty witnesses.
- Deuteronomy 32:2a This verse uses imagery of rain and dew to describe the prophet's word as life-giving, like the rain on which the land depends. The teaching is presented as grace before it is a warning.
- Deuteronomy 32:4a "The Rock" (Hebrew: hatsur) is a key title in this Song for the LORD, portraying Him as Israel's stable and unchanging refuge (this title appears again in verses 15, 18, 30, 31, and 37). The fourfold affirmation of God's perfection and justice is central to the Song's argument that any failure is Israel's, not God's. The deeper theological implications of this are reserved for further study.
- Deuteronomy 32:5a Verse 5 is one of the most textually and grammatically difficult lines in the Hebrew Bible; the standard Hebrew text (Masoretic Hebrew: shichet lo lo' banav mumam) is brief and possibly corrupted, and ancient translations differ. Although the general sense—that Israel's corruption is in view, not the LORD's—is clear, the precise interpretation (such as "the blemish is theirs, not his children's" or "they are not his children, the blemish is theirs") remains genuinely uncertain. This translation preserves the general sense while acknowledging the difficulty, and the precise interpretation is reserved for further study.
- Deuteronomy 32:6a The Hebrew phrase "Your Father... who made you" (avikha qanekha) presents the LORD as both Israel's father and maker. The word qanah can mean "create" or "acquire/beget," and this ambiguity (Father who begot / Maker who acquired) contributes to the verse's meaning.
- Deuteronomy 32:8a The Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDeut-j) and the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, read "sons of God" (Hebrew: benei 'elohim; Greek: angelōn theou). In contrast, the standard Hebrew text reads "sons of Israel" (benei yisra'el). The Trinity Bible Version follows the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint reading as the earlier text, considering the standard Hebrew text reading to be a later theological adjustment. For background on the divine council, see Psalm 82.
- Deuteronomy 32:9a Verse 9 should be read together with verse 8. Regardless of the textual variant in verse 8, this line affirms that the LORD's own "portion" and "allotted inheritance" is Israel, or Jacob. The theological significance of the relationship between verses 8-9 and the question of the nations is weighty and reserved for further study (see the note at verse 8).
- Deuteronomy 32:10a The Hebrew phrase "the apple of his eye" (ke'ishon 'eino) literally means "as the little man of his eye," referring to the pupil. This expression signifies the most precious and fiercely protected part, illustrating God's tender and protective care for Israel in the wilderness.
- Deuteronomy 32:11a This verse uses the image of an eagle teaching its young to fly—stirring the nest, hovering, and then bearing the fledgling on its wings—to picture the LORD's training and sustaining of Israel. This image also appears in Exodus 19:4.
- Deuteronomy 32:14a The Hebrew phrase "the foaming blood of the grape" (dam 'enav) is a vivid poetic image for rich red wine. It serves as the climax of a long list of the land's choicest produce.
- Deuteronomy 32:15a "Jeshurun" (Hebrew: yeshurun) is a rare poetic name for Israel, likely meaning "the upright one," but it is used here with bitter irony because the "upright" people rebel. The phrase "grew fat and kicked" describes prosperity leading to rebellion (see Deuteronomy 31:20; 32:13-14), and "The Rock his Savior" echoes the title used in verse 4. The deeper theological implications of prosperity, election, and apostasy in this verse are reserved for further study.
- Deuteronomy 32:17a The Hebrew word shedim is translated as "demons," a rare term for malevolent or sub-divine powers believed to be behind idols. Paul refers to this verse in 1 Corinthians 10:20, stating, "what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons." The deeper theological implications of the spiritual reality behind idolatry are reserved for further study.
- Deuteronomy 32:18a The Hebrew phrase "The God who gave you birth" (mecholelekha) uses the imagery of God as the one who bore Israel. This presents a striking maternal, as well as paternal, figure for God's parental relationship to His people (see also verse 6 and other passages with birth-pang imagery).
- Deuteronomy 32:21a This verse illustrates the principle of measure-for-measure: just as Israel provoked the LORD "by a no-god," so the LORD will provoke Israel "by a no-people." Paul cites this verse in Romans 10:19 as part of his argument about Israel and the Gentiles. The deeper theological implications of this are reserved for further study.
- Deuteronomy 32:22a "The realm of the dead below" translates the Hebrew phrase She'ol tachtit, which means "the deepest Sheol." This imagery of the LORD's wrath reaching from the underworld to the mountain foundations expresses a total and inescapable judgment.
- Deuteronomy 32:27a The LORD holds back from complete destruction not because Israel deserves it, but to prevent the enemy from boasting "our hand has won" and denying the LORD's power. The LORD's reputation, not Israel's value, is what is at stake (compare Ezekiel 36:22).
- Deuteronomy 32:31a This verse makes a clear contrast: the gods, called "rock," of the enemies are no match for the LORD, who is called "our Rock." Even Israel's enemies are witnesses (pelilim) to this fact.
- Deuteronomy 32:35a The Hebrew phrase "It is mine to avenge; I will repay" (li naqam veshillem) is quoted in the New Testament at Romans 12:19 and Hebrews 10:30 as the reason for not taking personal revenge. The Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the New Testament read "I will repay" where the standard Hebrew text has "vengeance and recompense"; the significance of this textual difference is reserved for scholarly review.
- Deuteronomy 32:36a This marks a turning point in the Song: judgment is not final. The LORD will "vindicate" (yadin), meaning he will do justice for his people, and "relent" toward his servants when they are completely helpless. This verse is quoted in Hebrews 10:30 alongside verse 35.
- Deuteronomy 32:39a The Hebrew phrase "I myself am he" ('ani 'ani hu') is one of the strongest declarations of one God in the Hebrew Bible (compare Isaiah 41:4; 43:10-13; and the New Testament "I am" sayings). The LORD's complete power over death and life, and the claim that no one can escape his hand, are central theological points reserved for scholarly review.
- Deuteronomy 32:40a Lifting the hand is a gesture for making a solemn oath. Here, the LORD swears by his own eternal life, saying "As I live forever," which is the strongest possible divine declaration, introducing the final message of judgment.
- Deuteronomy 32:42a This verse uses vivid imagery of a divine warrior, with arrows "drunk with blood" and a sword "devouring flesh." The final Hebrew phrase (mero'sh par'ot 'oyev), meaning "from the head of the leaders/long-haired chiefs of the enemy," is difficult to translate precisely, but the rendering aims to keep the general sense while acknowledging its obscurity. This is poetic language about judgment, not a legal command.
- Deuteronomy 32:43a Verse 43 has a significant difference in its ancient texts. The standard Hebrew text is shorter, reading: "Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he avenges the blood of his servants and renders vengeance to his adversaries and atones for his land, his people." However, the Septuagint and a Dead Sea Scroll (4QDeut-q) are much longer, adding phrases like "Rejoice, O heavens, with him, and let all the sons/angels of God worship him." This longer text is the basis for quotations in Romans 15:10 and is connected to Hebrews 1:6. The standard Hebrew text is used here; the additional phrases from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, and their use in the New Testament, are noted, and the full discussion is reserved for scholarly review.
- Deuteronomy 32:47a The Hebrew phrase "They are your life" (ki hu' chayyeikhem) echoes Deuteronomy 30:20, which states "the LORD is your life." This means the law is not meaningless, but is the very way to live in the land, serving as the book's most important encouragement.
- Deuteronomy 32:51a This refers to the Meribah incident (Numbers 20:1-13), where Moses was prevented from entering the land because he failed to "treat me as holy" before the people. The name "Meribah" means "strife/contention," and the place itself serves as a reminder of that failure.
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