Deuteronomy 32:15 - Meaning and Application

Here Moses describes Israel’s turning away from God, which would soon happen and was already taking shape in their hearts. One might have expected a people under so many obligations to their God, in duty, gratitude, and self-interest, to stay faithful. Yet they quickly turned aside. Moses gives two main examples of this wickedness, and each one was a form of turning from God.

First, there was the abuse of prosperity, shown in security, sensuality, pride, and insolence, as in Deuteronomy 32:15. These people were called Jeshurun, meaning either “upright people” or “seeing people,” but they soon lost both their good name and their real righteousness. When they were well fed, they grew fat and thick. That means they gave themselves over to luxury and every kind of appetite, as if life were only for pleasing the body.

Their fatness also pictures a dull and heavy spirit. They became sluggish, careless, and unfit for serious duty, and this was the fruit of their plenty. “The prosperity of fools destroys them” (Proverbs 1:32). But that was not the worst part. They kicked. They became proud and insolent, and even turned their anger against God himself.

If God warned them through his prophets or through his providence, they resisted like an untamed calf that kicks against the goad. In their rage, they persecuted the prophets and fought against God’s dealings with them. In this way, they forsook God who made them. They showed no proper honor toward their Creator, and they treated with contempt the Rock of their salvation, as if they owed him nothing for past mercies and had no need of him in the future. When people make themselves and their appetites their god, and cannot bear correction, they have already turned away from the true God.

Idolatry was the great proof of Israel’s apostasy, and the sins just mentioned led them there. Prosperity made them weary of true religion, set in their own ways, and eager for change. Moses notes what kind of gods they chose when they abandoned the God who made them.

They sacrificed to strange gods, gods who had never done them any good and never laid any claim on them. They were strangers to Israel, and Israel had no reason to seek help from them. They were also new gods, recently introduced. Even in religion, where old truth is a mark of honor, human minds often chase after novelty. In contempt of the Ancient of Days, they preferred new gods. A new god is a shocking contradiction. If we want the right path, we must ask for the good old way (Jeremiah 6:16).

It was true that their fathers had once worshiped other gods (Joshua 24:2). If the children had returned to those earlier idolatries, that would have been bad enough. But they went after new gods that their fathers never feared, and they liked them better simply because they were new. That opened the door to endless idolatries. These were not really gods at all, only inventions of human minds and works of human hands. Even worse, they were demons. Far from being true gods, or fathers and benefactors of mankind, they were destroyers.

If any evil spirits were connected with idol temples and images, they were malicious powers. Yet true worshipers of God do not need to fear the devil’s power. In fact, the devil can finally destroy only those who sacrifice to him. How foolish idolaters are, to leave the Rock of salvation and run to the rock of ruin.

This was also a direct insult to the Lord their God. It was rightly counted as forgetting him: “Of the Rock who fathered you, you were unmindful” (Deuteronomy 32:18). Remembering God would keep a person from sin. But when people serve the world and indulge the flesh, they forget God. And what could be more shameful than forgetting the God who gave us being, who keeps us alive, and in whom we live and move?

There is nothing gained by forgetting God. Scripture says that when people forget the God of their salvation and do not remember the Rock of their strength, the pleasant things they pursued at first will end in grief and bitter sorrow (Isaiah 17:10, 11). This offense was also a serious insult because it provoked God to jealousy and anger (Deuteronomy 32:16). Their idols were hateful to him.

God is jealous of idols because they compete with him for the throne of the heart. He hates them because they oppose his rule. And he will be very angry with those who show any love or respect for them. People who provoke God often do not stop to think what they are doing. Who can know the power of his anger?