Deuteronomy 32:17-32: a reflection

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. 19The LORD 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; the LORD 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 the LORD 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.

In the song of Moses, God grieves over his people's forgetfulness with a tender and sorrowful image: You were unmindful of the Rock who bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. God had been their Rock, their stable foundation, the source of their very life; and they had forgotten him, turning to new gods, unmindful of the One who had borne them. It is the grief of a source forgotten, a foundation abandoned by those it had upheld.

Notice the images God uses for himself here: the Rock who bore them, the God who gave them birth. He was their source, the origin of their life; and he was their Rock, their stable foundation. And the grief is that they forgot him, became unmindful of the Rock, forgot the God who gave them life. To forget the Rock who bore us is a deep ingratitude, forgetting the very source of our being and the foundation of our stability, turning instead to things that cannot bear us up.

That forgetting is a danger we share, for we too can become unmindful of God, our Rock and our source. In the busyness and ease of life, we can forget the God who gave us life and who is our stable foundation, turning our attention and trust to other things. But to forget the Rock who bore us is to forget our very source and foundation, and to build our lives on what cannot uphold us. Do not become unmindful of God, your Rock and the source of your life. Remember him, the foundation on which your life truly rests, the source from whom you have your being; do not, in the ease of life, forget the Rock who bore you, turning your trust to lesser things that cannot uphold you. Keep God, your Rock, in mind; build your life on him, the stable foundation, and remember the source of your life, rather than forgetting the Rock who bore you, as Israel forgot, to their ruin.

Lord, in the song of Moses you grieve over your people's forgetfulness: you were unmindful of the Rock who bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth. You had been their Rock, their stable foundation, the source of their life; and they forgot you. Show me the images you use for yourself: the Rock who bore them, the God who gave them life. To forget the Rock who bore us is a deep ingratitude, forgetting the very source of our being and the foundation of our stability. That forgetting is a danger I share, for I too can become unmindful of you, my Rock and my source. In the busyness and ease of life, I can forget you, who gave me life and are my stable foundation, turning my attention and trust to other things. But to forget the Rock who bore me is to forget my very source and foundation, and to build my life on what cannot uphold me. Keep me from becoming unmindful of you, my Rock and the source of my life. Help me remember you, the foundation on which my life truly rests, and not, in the ease of life, forget the Rock who bore me, turning my trust to lesser things. Help me build my life on you, my Rock, Lord, and never forget the source of my life.