There is a passage in Virgil, Eclog. iv., ver. 58, very similar to this saying of Moses: -
Pan Deus Arcadia mecum si judice certet,
Pan etiam Arcadia dicat se judice victum. "Should the god Pan contend with me," (in singing the praises of the future hero, the deliverer, prophesied of in the Sibylline books), "were even
Arcadia judge, Pan would acknowledge himself to be vanquished, Arcadia herself being judge."
Verse 32
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom - The Jews are as wicked and rebellious as the Sodomites; for by the vine the inhabitants of the land are signified; see [Isa 5:2], [Isa 5:7].
Their grapes - Their actions, are gall and worm-wood-producing nothing but mischief and misery to themselves and others.
Their clusters are bitter - Their united exertions, as well as their individual acts, are sin, and only sin, continually. That by vine is meant the people, and by grapes their moral conduct, is evident from [Isa 5:1-7]. It is very likely that the grapes produced about the lake Asphaltites, where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood, were not only of an acrid, disagreeable taste, but of a deleterious quality; and to this, it is probable, Moses here alludes.
Verse 33
Their wine - Their system of doctrines and teaching, is the poison of dragons, etc., fatal and destructive to all them who follow it.
Verse 34
Sealed up among my treasures? - Deeds or engagements by which persons were bound at a specified time to fulfill certain conditions, were sealed and laid up in places of safety; so here God's justice is pledged to avenge the quarrel of his broken covenant on the disobedient Jews, but the time and manner were sealed in his treasures, and known only to himself. Hence it is said: -
Verse 35
Their foot shall slide in due time, etc. - But Calmet thinks that this verse is spoken against the Canaanites, the enemies of the Jewish people.
Verse 36
The Lord shall judge his people - He has an absolute right over them as their Creator, and authority to punish them for their rebellions as their Sovereign; yet he will repent himself - he will change his manner of conduct towards them, when he seeth that their power is gone - when they are entirely subjugated by their adversaries, so that their political power is entirely destroyed; and there is none shut up or left - not one strong place untaken, and not one family left, all being carried into captivity, or scattered into strange lands. Or, he will do justice to his people, and avenge them of their adversaries; see [Deu 32:35].
Verse 37
He shall say - He shall begin to expostulate with them, to awaken them to a due sense of their ingratitude and rebellion. This may refer to the preaching of the Gospel to them in the latter days.
Verse 39
See now that I-am he - Be convinced that God alone can save, and God alone can destroy, and that your idols can neither hurt nor help you.
I kill, and I make alive, etc. - My mercy is as great as my justice, for I am as ready to save the penitent as I was to punish the rebellious.
Verse 40
For I lift up my hand to heaven - See concerning oaths and appeals to God in the note on [Deu 6:13] (note).
Verse 42
From the beginning of revenges - The word פרעות paroth, rendered revenges, a sense in which it never appears to be taken, has rendered this place very perplexed and obscure. Mr. Parkhurst has rendered the whole passage thus: -
I will make my arrows drunk with blood;
And my sword shall devour flesh,
With the blood of the slain and captive
From the hairy head of the enemy.
Probably מראש פרעות merosh paroth may be more properly translated, from the naked head - the enemy shall have nothing to shield him from my vengeance; the crown of dignity shall fall off, and even the helmet be no protection against the sword and arrows of the Lord.
Verse 43
Rejoice, O ye nations - Ye Gentiles, for the casting off of the Jews shall be the means of your ingathering with his people, for they shall not be utterly cast off. (See [Rom 15:9], for in this way the apostle applies it). But how shall the Gentiles be called, and the Jews have their iniquity purged? He will be merciful unto his land and to his people, וכפר vechipper, he shall cause an atonement to be made for his land and people; i. e., Jesus Christ, the long promised Messiah, shall be crucified for Jews and Gentiles, and the way to the holiest be made plain by his blood.
The people have long been making atonements for themselves, but to none effect, for their atonements were but signs, and not the thing signified, for the body is Christ; now the Lord himself makes an atonement, for the Lamb of God alone taketh away the sin of the world. This is a very proper and encouraging conclusion to the awfully important matter of this poem.
Israel shall be long scattered, peeled, and punished, but they shall have mercy in the latter times; they also shall rejoice with the Gentiles, in the common salvation purchased by the blood of the Savior of all mankind.
Verse 44
And Moses came - Probably from the tabernacle, where God had given him this prophetic ode, and he rehearsed it in the ears of the people.
Verse 46
Set your hearts unto all the words - Another proof that all these awful denunciations of Divine wrath, though delivered in an absolute form, were only declaratory of what God would do If they rebelled against him.
Verse 47
Through this thing ye shall prolong your days - Instead of being cut off, as God here threatens, ye shall be preserved and rendered prosperous in the land which, when they passed over Jordan, they should possess.
Verse 49
Get thee up into this mountain Abarim - The mount of the passages, i. e., of the Israelites when they entered into the promised land. See the notes on [Num 27:12].
Verse 50
And die in the mount - as Aaron - Some have supposed that Moses was translated; but if so, then Aaron was translated, for what is said of the death of the one is said of the death of the other.