Setting Us Up

Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, as the droplets on the fresh grass and as the showers on the herb. Deuteronomy 32:2 NASB

Droplets – Moses final song begins with a gentle invocation. “Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak,” he says, as if the words are to arrive as seirim, that sweet, benevolent rain nourishing the earth in the Spring. What makes this introduction so special? It is homage to the Rock, the foundation stone of Israel, the unfailing covenant God who demonstrates His justice and righteousness throughout the generations. But by the time we reach the middle of Moses’ second song, something changes. This glorious invocation to God’s majesty and compassion takes a decidedly different direction, not because of a change in YHVH but because the people are “foolish and unwise” (v. 6). What happens next is critically important.

For the Lord’s portion is His people;

Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

He found him in a desert land,

And in the howling waste of a wilderness;

He encircled him, He cared for him,

He guarded him as the pupil of His eye. (vv. 9-10)

YHVH did not fail to care for His own. In fact, He provided beyond all measure of expectation, especially to a people who struggled to show gratitude and obedience. In fact, the very ones He loved turned to other gods. They spurned the instruction of the Lord and ignored His kindness. So the tactics changed.

“Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be;” (v. 20).

Notice the serious implication. When YHVH hides His face, the end is up for grabs. Choices always have consequences, but when YHVH oversees, we can hope that the consequences of our choices are still under His protection. Now this has been removed. Now the end follows directly from our actions. And woe to those who must live with the eternal results of those choices. “I will heap misfortunes on them; I will use My arrows on them. They will be wasted by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter destruction;” (vv. 23-24). “Outside the sword will bereave, and inside terror—“ (v. 25a).

When YHVH removes the hand that shields us from the real consequences of our own desires, chaos follows. He does not withhold it. There is no longer any shelter under Heaven. God Himself becomes our enemy. That gentle, nourishing rain becomes a torrent of blood-soaked arrows, a horror of nightmares come alive. Without God, men die.

Moses’ final song sets us up for exposure. We begin by thinking that the God of heaven is on our side, overseeing our lives and overlooking our disobedience. After all, He is a good God. He would never do anything to harm those He loves. But Moses is here to remind us that there is an essential contingency built into the universe. The world works according to a partnership, not an empire.

In the end, Man’s fall is the consequence of total misperception of the order of the world. When we begin to think, “Our hand is triumphant, and the Lord has not done all this,” be prepared to discover that God has gone into hiding while men rush headlong into hell.

Topical Index: droplets, seirim, consequences, hiding, judgment, Deuteronomy 32:2