HE IS THE ROCK; ALL HIS WAYS ARE JUST

Deuteronomy 31:30-32:27 / Keywords 32:4

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.

The Song of Moses

30 And Moses recited the words of this song from beginning to end in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:

32:1 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.

    Oh, praise the greatness of 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 are corrupt and not his children;

    to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.

6 Is this the way you repay the Lord,

    you foolish and unwise people?

Is he not your Father, your Creator,[a]

    who made you and formed you?

7 Remember the days of old;

    consider the generations 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 Israel.[b]

9 For the Lord’s portion is his people,

    Jacob his allotted inheritance.

10 In a desert land he found him,

    in a barren and 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[c] grew fat and kicked;

    filled with food, they became heavy and sleek.

They abandoned the God who made them

    and rejected the Rock their Savior.

16 They made him jealous with their foreign gods

    and angered him with their detestable idols.

17 They sacrificed to false gods, 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 make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.

22 For a fire will be kindled by my wrath,

    one that burns down to the realm of the dead below.

It will devour the earth and its harvests

    and set afire 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 men and young women will perish,

    the infants and those with gray hair.

26 I said I would scatter them

    and erase their name from human memory,

27 but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,

    lest the adversary misunderstand

and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed;

    the Lord has not done all this.’”

1. God’s concern for future generations inspired this song, recited by Moses. Art, poetry, and music powerfully mold and shape culture, for better or worse. God uses all of these to continue to reveal himself generation to generation.

2. The song begins by revealing who God is. God is the Rock whose work is perfect and who remains faithful and just. As Creator and Father, God is objectively and subjectively intimate in relationship with His people who in contrast are corrupt. God chose Israel, cared and provided for them as the apple of his eye; God watched over them like a mother eagle. God led them day by day as a good Father providing all the best things.

3. But God’s people grew fat on God’s blessings and abandoned the God who made and saved them. Like an unfaithful spouse, they turn to idols of contemporary culture. God’s anger resulting in wrath and calamity were symbols of a jealous God. Yet God’s goal is to receive his people again – not based on their merits but based on his mercy and his desire to reveal that mercy to all nations of the world (26-27).

Prayer Father, you are so faithful and just to me and my family, in spite of my unfaithfulness. Thank you for seeking me and revealing your mercy. May songs of your mercy and faithfulness turn our culture and the hearts of our children back to you.

One Word The LORD is our Father