Verse 51
Ye trespassed against me - at the waters of Meribah - See the note on [Num 20:12].
Verse 52
Thou shalt see the land before thee - See [Num 27:12], etc. How glorious to depart out of this life with God in his heart and heaven in his eye! his work, his great, unparalleled usefulness, ending only with his life. The serious reader will surely join in the following pious ejaculation of the late Rev. Charles Wesley, one of the best Christian poets of the last century: - "O that without a lingering groan
I may the welcome word receive;
My body with my charge lay down,
And cease at once to work and live!"
It would require a dissertation expressly formed for the purpose to point out the general merit and extraordinary beauties of this very sublime ode. To enter into such particulars can scarcely comport with the nature of the present work. Drs. Lowth, Kennicott, and Durell, have done much in this way; and to their respective works the critical reader is referred. A very considerable extract from what they have written on this chapter may be found in Dr. Dodd's notes. In writing this ode the design of Moses was,
1. To set forth the Majesty of God; to give that generation and all successive ones a proper view of the glorious perfections of the object of their worship. He therefore shows that from his holiness and purity he must be displeased with sin; from his justice and righteousness he must punish it; and from the goodness and infinite benevolence of his nature he is ever disposed to help the weak, instruct the ignorant, and show mercy to the wretched, sinful sons and daughters of men.
2. To show the duty and interest of his people. To have such a Being for their friend is to have all possible happiness, both spiritual and temporal, secured; to have him for their enemy is to be exposed to inevitable destruction and ruin.
3. To warn them against irreligion and apostasy; to show the possibility of departing from God, and the miseries that would overwhelm them and their posterity should they be found walking in opposition to the laws of their Creator.
4. To give a proper and impressive view of the providence of God, by referring to the history of his gracious dealings with them and their ancestors; the minute attention he paid to all their wants, the wonderful manner in which he led, fed, clothed, protected, and saved them, in all their travels and in all perils.
5. To leave on record an everlasting testimony against them, should they ever cast off his fear and pollute his worship, which should serve at once as a warning to the world, and a vindication of his justice, when the judgments he had threatened were found to be poured out upon them; for he who loved them so long and so intensely could not become their enemy but in consequence of the greatest and most unprincipled provocations.
6. To show the shocking and unprecedented ingratitude which induced a people so highly favored, and so wondrously protected and loved, to sin against their God; and how reasonable and just it was, for the vindication of his holiness, that God should pour out upon them such judgments as he had never inflicted on any other people, and so mark their disobedience and ingratitude with fresh marks of his displeasure, that the punishment should bear some proportion to the guilt, and that their preservation as a distinct people might afford a feeling proof both of the providence and justice of God.
7. To show the glory of the latter days in the re-election of the long reprobated Jewish nation, and the final diffusion of his grace and goodness over the earth by means of the Gospel of Christ.
And all this is done with such strength and elegance of diction, with such appropriate, energetic, and impressive figures and metaphors, and in such a powerful torrent of that soul-penetrating, pure poetic spirit that comes glowing from the bosom of God, that the reader is alternately elated or depressed, filled with compunction or confidence, with despair or hope, according to the quick transitions of the inimitable writer to the different topics which form the subject of this incomparable and wondrously varied ode. May that Spirit by which it was dictated give it its fullest, most durable, and most effectual impression upon the mind of every reader!
Introduction
Moses delivers a prophetical blessing to the children of Israel, [Deu 33:1]. The introduction, [Deu 33:2-5]. Prophetic declarations concerning Reuben, [Deu 33:6]; concerning Judah, [Deu 33:7]; concerning Levi, [Deu 33:8-11]; concerning Benjamin, [Deu 33:12]; concerning Joseph, [Deu 33:13-17]; concerning Zebulun, [Deu 33:18], [Deu 33:19]; concerning Gad, [Deu 33:20], [Deu 33:21]; concerning Dan, [Deu 33:22]; concerning Naphtali, [Deu 33:23]; concerning Asher, [Deu 33:24], [Deu 33:25]. The glory of the God of Jeshurun, and the glorious privileges of his true followers, [Deu 33:26-29].
Verse 1
And this is the blessing wherewith Moses - blessed, etc. - The general nature of this solemn introduction, says Dr. Kennicott, is to show the foundation which Moses had for blessing his brethren, viz., because God had frequently manifested his glory in their behalf; and the several parts of this introduction are disposed in the following order: -
1. The manifestation of the Divine glory on Sinai, as it was prior in time and more magnificent in splendor, is mentioned first.
2. That God manifested his glory at Seir is evident from [Jdg 5:4] : Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the fields of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, etc.
3. The next place is Paran, where the glory of the Lord appeared before all the children of Israel, [Num 14:10].
Instead of he came with ten thousand saints, by which our translators have rendered מרבבת קדש meribeboth kodesh, Dr. Kennicott reads Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a place: for we find that, towards the end of forty years, the Israelites came to Kadesh, [Num 20:1], which was also called Meribah, on account of their contentious opposition to the determinations of God in their favor, [Num 20:13]; and there the glory of the Lord again appeared, as we are informed [Num 20:6]. These four places, Sinai, Seir, Paran, and Meribah-Kadesh, mentioned by Moses in the text, are the identical places where God manifested his glory in a fiery appearance, the more illustriously to proclaim his special providence over and care of Israel.
Verse 3
Yea, he loved the people - This is the inference which Moses makes from those glorious appearances, that God truly loved the people; and that all his saints, קדשיו kedoshaiv, the people whom he had consecrated to himself, were under his especial benediction; and that in order to make them a holy nation, God had displayed his glory on Mount Sinai, where they had fallen prostrate at his feet with the humblest adoration, sincerely promising the most affectionate obedience; and that God had there commanded them a law which was to be the possession and inheritance of the children of Jacob, [Deu 33:4]. And to crown the whole, he had not only blessed them as their lawgiver, but had also vouchsafed to be their king, [Deu 33:5].
Dr. Kennicott proposes to translate the whole five verses thus: -
Verse 1
And this is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death - And he said [Deu 33:2]. Jehovah came from Sinai, And he arose upon them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, And he came from Meribah-kadesh: From his right hand a fire shone forth upon them. [Deu 33:3]. Truly, he loved the people, And he blessed all his saints For they fell down at his feet, And they received of his words. [Deu 33:4]. He commanded us a law, The inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. [Deu 33:5]. And he became king in Jeshurun; When the heads of the people were assembled, Together with the tribes of Israel.
We have already seen that Dr. Kennicott reads מריבה קדש Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a place, instead of מרבבת קדש meribeboth kodesh, which, by a most unnatural and forced construction, our version renders ten thousands of saints, a translation which no circumstance of the history justifies. Instead of a fiery law, אש דת esh dath, he reads, following the Samaritan version, אש אור esh ur, a fire shining out upon them. In vindication of this change in the original, it may be observed,
1. That, though דת dath signifies a law, yet it is a Chaldee term, and appears nowhere in any part of the sacred writings previously to the Babylonish captivity: תורה torah being the term constantly used to express the Law, at all times prior to the corruption of the Hebrew, by the Chaldee.
2. That the word itself is obscure in its present situation, as the Hebrew Bibles write it and esh in one word אשדת eshdath, which has no meaning; and which, in order to give it one, the Massorah directs should be read separate, though written connected.
3. That the word is not acknowledged by the two most ancient versions, the Septuagint and Syriac.
4. That in the parallel place, [Hab 3:3], [Hab 3:4], a word is used which expresses the rays of light, קרנים karnayim, horns, that is, splendours, rays, or effulgence of light.
5. That on all these accounts, together with the almost impossibility of giving a rational meaning to the text as it now stands, the translation contended for should be adopted.
Instead of All his saints are in his hand, Dr. Kennicott reads, He blessed all his saints - changing בידך beyadecha, into ברך barach, he blessed, which word, all who understand the Hebrew letters will see, might be easily mistaken for the other; the ד daleth and the ר resh being, not only in MSS., but also in printed books, often so much alike, that analogy alone can determine which is the true letter; and except in the insertion of the י yod, which might have been easily mistaken for the apex at the top of the ב beth very frequent in MSS., both words have the nearest resemblance. To this may be added, that the Syriac authorizes this rendering. Instead of לרגלך leraglecha, and מדברתיך middabberotheycha, Thy feet, and Thy words, Dr. Kennicott reads the pronouns in the third person singular, לרגליו leraglaiv and מדברותיו middabberothaiv, His feet, His words, in which he is supported both by the Septuagint and Vulgate. He also changes ישא yissa, He shall receive, into ישאו yisseu, They shall receive. He contends also that משה Mosheh, Moses, in the fourth verse, was written by mistake for the following word מורשה morashah, inheritance; and when the scribe found he had inserted a wrong word, he added the proper one, and did not erase the first. The word Moses, he thinks, should therefore be left out of the text, as it is improbable that he should here introduce his own name; and that if the word be allowed to be legitimate, then the word king must apply to him, and not to God, which would be most absurd. See Kennicott's first Dissertation, p. 422, etc.
Verse 6
Let Reuben live, and not die - Though his life and his blessings have been forfeited by his transgression with his father's concubine, [Gen 49:3], [Gen 49:4]; and in his rebellion with Korah, [Num 16:1-3], etc., let him not become extinct as a tribe in Israel. "It is very usual," says Mr. Ainsworth, "in the Scripture, to set down things of importance and earnestness, by affirmation of the one part, and denial of the other; [Isa 38:1] : Thou shalt die, and not live; [Num 4:19] : That they may live, and not die; [Psa 118:17] : I shall not die, but live; [Gen 43:8] : That we may live, and not die; [Jer 20:14] : Cursed be the day - let not that day be blessed; [1Jn 2:4] : He is a liar, and the truth is not in him; [1Jn 2:27] : Is truth, and no lie; [Joh 1:20] : He confessed, and denied not; [1Sam 1:11] : Remember me, and not forget thy handmaid; [Deu 9:7] : Remember, forget not; [Deu 32:6] : O foolish people, and unwise. In all these places it is evident that there is a peculiar emphasis in this form of expression, as if he had said, Let him not only not die, but let him live in great and increasing peace and prosperity. Do not only not forget me, but keep me continually in remembrance. He denied not, but confessed Fully and Particularly. O foolish people - silly and stupid, and unwise - destitute of all true wisdom."
And let not his men be few - It is possible that this clause belongs to Simeon. In the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint the clause stands thus: Και Συμεων εστω πολυς εν αριτμῳ, and let Simeon be very numerous, but none of the other versions insert the word. As the negative particle is not in the Hebrew, but is supplied in our translation, and the word Simeon is found in one of the most ancient and most authentic copies of the Septuagint version; and as Simeon is nowhere else mentioned here, if not implied in this place, probably the clause anciently stood: Let Reuben live, and not die; but let the men of Simeon be few. That this tribe was small when compared with the rest, and with what it once was, is evident enough from the first census, taken after they came out of Egypt, and that in the plains of Moab nearly forty years after. In the first, Simeon was 59,300; in the last, 22,200, a decrease of 37,100 men!
Verse 7
And this is the blessing of Judah - Though the word blessing is not in the text, yet it may be implied from [Deu 33:1]; but probably the words, he spake, are those which should be supplied: And this he spake of Judah, Lord, hear the voice of Judah; that is, says the Targum, receive his prayer when he goes out to battle, and let him be brought back in safety to his own people. Let his hands be sufficient for him - let him have a sufficiency of warriors always to support the tribe, and vindicate its rights; and let his enemies never be able to prevail against him! Three things are expressed here:
1. That the tribe of Judah, conscious of its weakness, shall depend on the Most High, and make prayer and supplication to him;
2. That God will hear such prayer; and,
3. That his hands shall be increased, and that he shall prevail over his enemies. This blessing has a striking affinity with that which this tribe received from Jacob, [Gen 49:9]; and both may refer to our blessed Lord, who sprang from this tribe, as is noticed on the above passage, who has conquered our deadly foes by his death, and whose praying posterity ever prevail through his might.
Verse 8
Of Levi he said - Concerning the Urim and Thummim, see [Exo 28:30] (note).