Deuteronomy 32:19 - Meaning and Application

The song follows the same pattern as the warnings in the previous chapter. After Israel’s rebellion against God, described in the earlier verses, God’s righteous response comes immediately. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that God will be mocked by a foolish, unfaithful people who treat him lightly.

He had once delighted in them, but now he would reject them with disgust and scorn, verse 19. When the Lord saw their treachery, folly, and shameful ingratitude, he hated what they had become and despised them. Sin makes us hateful in the sight of the holy God. No sinners are more offensive to him than those he has called his sons and daughters, and who still keep provoking him. The closer people are to God in profession, the more offensive they are to him if they turn to sinful uncleanness (Psalm 106:39, Psalm 106:40).

He had given them clear signs of his presence and favor, but now he would hide his face from them, verse 20. When God hides his face, it shows deep displeasure. They had turned their backs on God, and now God would turn away from them (compare Jeremiah 18:17 with Jeremiah 2:27). This also shows how slowly God brings judgment at times. Their apostasy began with leaving good undone, and then moved on to open evil. In the same way, God first withholds his blessings and lets people see what comes from losing him. He wants them to feel what they have lost and to see whether this will lead them to repent. God sometimes seems to hide himself while waiting to see what will happen (Isaiah 57:17).

God also shows that there was no real way to deal with them. They were stubborn, a people who could not be pleased, persuaded, or turned back from sin. They were unfaithful, a people who could not be trusted. When he saved them and brought them into covenant with himself, he said, “Surely they are children who will not lie” (Isaiah 63:8). But when they proved to be the opposite, children without faith, they deserved to be left behind, and the God of truth had every reason to have no more to do with them.

He had done everything to make them content and satisfy them, but now he would send against them what would hurt and trouble them most. The punishment matches the sin, verse 21. They had provoked God with worthless gods that were no gods at all, only vanities, things they had made up in their own minds. Those idols could not deserve worship, and they could not repay it. The more empty and shameful the gods they chased after, the greater their insult to the great and good God they were putting against him. This added two great evils to their idolatry (Jeremiah 2:13).

So God would punish them with contemptible enemies, weak and unimportant people who did not deserve to be called a nation. That would deeply humble Israel and make their suffering even worse. The lower and baser the people were who ruled over them, the more bitter their oppression would feel. Nothing is more insolent than weakness lifted up, like a beggar on horseback. It was also a disgrace for Israel, who had often defeated powerful nations, to be trampled by the foolish and weak and to come under the curse of Canaan, who was to be “a servant of servants.” But God can use the weakest tool as a rod to punish the strongest sinner. And those who insult their mighty Creator by sin are rightly insulted by the lowest of his creatures.

This was clearly seen in the days of the judges, when they were sometimes oppressed by the very Canaanites they had conquered (Judges 4:2). The apostle also applies this to the bringing in of the Gentiles, who had once been outside God’s covenant and ignorant in spiritual things, yet were brought into the church. That stirred the Jews to great anger, which was both their sin and their punishment, since envy always harms the one who feels it (Romans 10:19).

He had planted them in a good land and filled them with every good thing. Now he would strip away their comforts and bring them to ruin. The judgments threatened here are very severe, verses 22-25. The fire of God’s anger will consume them, verse 22. Are they proud of their rich harvest? The fire will burn up the produce of the land. Are they confident in their strength? It will destroy the very foundations of their mountains. No barrier can hold back God’s judgments when he sends them to lay everything waste. It will burn down to the lowest hell, meaning it will bring them to the deepest misery in this life, though that would only faintly reflect the full and endless misery of sinners in the life to come. The damnation of hell, as our Lord calls it, is the fire of God’s anger, settling on the guilty conscience of a sinner in unbearable and lasting torment (Isaiah 30:33).

The arrows of God’s judgments will also be spent against them until his quiver is empty, verse 23. God’s judgments, like arrows, move quickly (Psalm 64:7), reaching people far away who think they will escape them (Psalm 21:8, Psalm 21:12). They come from an unseen hand, but they strike with deadly force, for God never misses his mark (1 Kings 22:34). The specific judgments threatened here include famine, because they will be burned or parched with hunger. They also include disease, here called burning heat and bitter destruction. Then come the attacks of lower creatures, the teeth of wild animals and the poison of snakes, verse 24. Finally there is war and all its deadly results, verse 25.

War brings constant fear. When the sword is outside, there can be no peace inside, as 2 Corinthians 7:5 says, “Without were fightings, within were fears.” Those who throw off the fear of God are rightly left open to fear of enemies. War also brings widespread death. When the sword of the Lord is sent to lay everything waste, it makes no distinctions. Neither the strength of a young man, nor the beauty of a young woman, nor the innocence of an infant, nor the dignity or weakness of an old man will protect them. The sword devours one as well as another. Such ruin war makes, especially when it is driven on by people as fierce as wild beasts and as poisonous as snakes (Deuteronomy 32:24). See from this what sin does, and count as fools those who make light of it.