Read & explore together
The Song of Moses
This song begins with Moses speaking to all Israel and ends with him urging them to take its words seriously. The poem praises God’s character, remembers his care, warns about rebellion, and calls the people to listen.
Understanding the passage
Read these words in context
The passage opens by saying Moses spoke this song to the whole assembly. The song itself addresses heaven and earth, then describes Yahweh, Israel, their corruption, God’s judgment, his compassion, and Moses’ final instruction to set their hearts on these words and teach them to their children.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47Main takeaway
This passage teaches that Yahweh is just and faithful, Israel’s unfaithfulness brings judgment, and the people must treat these words as their life.
Explore the poem and its images
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01The song begins by praising YahwehMoses first speaks the song to all Israel, then the poem calls on heaven and earth to hear.
Explanation
Moses first speaks the song to all Israel, then the poem calls on heaven and earth to hear. Its teaching is pictured as rain and dew, and the main note is clear: proclaim Yahweh’s name and give greatness to God. He is called the Rock, whose work is perfect, just, faithful, and right.
02Israel should remember God’s careThe song contrasts God’s uprightness with the people’s corruption. It asks whether this is how they repay Yahweh, who made and established them.
Explanation
The song contrasts God’s uprightness with the people’s corruption. It asks whether this is how they repay Yahweh, who made and established them. Israel is told to remember earlier days and hear from fathers and elders. Yahweh chose his people, cared for them in the wilderness, and led them alone like an eagle carrying its young.
03Plenty led to forgetting and judgmentAfter receiving rich provision from the land, Jeshurun grew full and then abandoned God, the Rock of salvation.
Explanation
After receiving rich provision from the land, Jeshurun grew full and then abandoned God, the Rock of salvation. The people turned to strange gods and forgot the Rock who fathered them. Yahweh responds with anger and judgment. The song describes hunger, terror, scattering, and defeat, all showing that their strength fails when Yahweh gives them up.
04Yahweh alone is God, so the words matterThe song does not end with false gods rescuing anyone. Yahweh says, “I myself am he” and “There is no god with me.”
Explanation
The song does not end with false gods rescuing anyone. Yahweh says, “I myself am he” and “There is no god with me.” He judges, takes vengeance on his adversaries, and has compassion on his servants. When Moses finishes, he tells Israel to set their heart on these words, teach them to their children, and obey, because this is their life.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What pictures in the opening lines show how Moses wants the song to affect its hearers?
Look at the images of rain, dew, and hearing, and connect them with the call to proclaim Yahweh’s name.
02How does the song describe Yahweh’s care before it speaks about Israel’s failure?
Notice the titles and actions given to God: Rock, father, maker, and the one who cared for Israel in the wilderness.
03Why does Moses say the people must set their heart on these words?
Use the closing verses, where Moses links these words with obedience, teaching children, and life in the land.
Read the Bible passages
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Deuteronomy 31:30
30Moses spoke in the ears of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song, until they were finished.
Deuteronomy 32:1–47
1Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2My doctrine will drop as the rain. My speech will condense as the dew, as the misty rain on the tender grass, as the showers on the herb.
3For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name. Ascribe greatness to our God!
4The Rock: his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. A God of faithfulness who does no wrong, just and right is he.
5They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation.
6Is this the way you repay Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Isn’t he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you.
7Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.
8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
9For Yahweh’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.
12Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him.
13He made him ride on the high places of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of the rock, oil out of the flinty rock;
14butter from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat. From the blood of the grape, you drank wine.
15But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.
16They moved him to jealousy with strange gods. They provoked him to anger with abominations.
17They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.
18Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
19Yahweh saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20He said, “I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.
21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23“I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them.
24They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
26I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men;
27were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is exalted; Yahweh has not done all this.’ ”
28For they are a nation void of counsel. There is no understanding in them.
29Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had delivered them up?
31For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves concede.
32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter.
33Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.
34“Isn’t this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my treasures?
35Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides, for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them.”
36For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.
37He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection.
39“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.
40For I lift up my hand to heaven and declare, as I live forever,
41if I sharpen my glittering sword, my hand grasps it in judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the head of the leaders of the enemy.”
43Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.
44Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.
45Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel.
46He said to them, “Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you today, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.
47For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”