Context No. 4214 of 4322 · Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 32:1-16: in context

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 the LORD’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 the LORD, 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 the LORD’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. 12The LORD 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.

In the Song of Moses, God's care for his people is painted in tender images. He found Jacob in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he encircled him, cared for him, and kept him as the apple of his eye. Like an eagle stirring up its nest and hovering over its young, spreading its wings to catch them, so God bore his people up and carried them. It is a picture of intimate, protective love.

But the song turns to warning. Once God had brought his people into plenty, feeding them richly on the good of the land, they grew fat and comfortable and forgot the God who had carried them. Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; he abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation. Prosperity, which came from God's hand, became the occasion for forgetting God's hand.

The comfort: God cares for his people with the tenderness of an eagle bearing its young, keeping them as the apple of his eye. The warning: the danger of forgetting that care once we are comfortable and well-fed. It is often in plenty, not in want, that we drift from God, taking his gifts while forgetting the Giver.

Am I in danger of growing comfortable and forgetting the God who has carried me as an eagle bears its young and kept me as the apple of his eye, taking his good gifts while drifting from the Giver, as Jeshurun grew fat and abandoned the Rock of his salvation?

Sources

Deuteronomy 32:10: "He found him in a desert land... He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye."
Deuteronomy 32:11: "As 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."
Deuteronomy 32:15: "Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation."