Deuteronomy — Chapter 32

Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak; let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth. The Canticle of Moses opens by calling heaven and earth as witnesses. Tropologically (St. Gregory, 2 Moral. 26): heaven signifies the order of superiors; earth, the mass of subjects. Both are called to hear God's law and His threats.

Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew. Lapide: The word of God is aptly compared to rain and dew, for it softens, moistens, and fertilises the soul. Abbot Pimen to a disciple who struggled to receive the word: 'Water is soft and stone is hard; yet drop by drop, it pierces the rock. So the word of God, soft and sweet, gradually softens even the hardest heart.'

God, his works are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: a faithful God and without any iniquity, he is just and right. Seven epithets and attributes of God are noted by Lapide: (1) magnificent; (2) rock (Hebrew: tsur)—immovable and faithful; (3) perfect in all works; (4) just; (5) faithful; (6) without iniquity, most holy; (7) right, swayed by neither favour nor hatred, gifts nor flattery. Lapide: 'In all your works, even the smallest, be excellent.'

Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee? Moses rebukes ingratitude: Israel abandons the God who 'possessed' them (redeemed them from Egypt and claimed them as His people), 'made' them (formed them as His Church at Sinai), and 'created' (firmly established) them as a nation. Lapide: Three progressive titles of God's claim on Israel—Redeemer, Lawgiver, Establisher.

When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the borders of people according to the number of the children of Israel. Lapide on the Septuagint reading 'according to the number of the angels of God': each nation has its guardian angel (Origen, hom. 11 in Num.; Chrysostom, hom. 3 in Coloss.); and God distributed the nations at Babel as He had foreseen the number of His elect. St. Gregory: the heavenly city is composed of men and angels, and as many men ascend as angels remained faithful.

But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the line of his inheritance. Israel is God's heritage, measured out with the measuring-line of divine election. Lapide: This is the foundation of the doctrine of election—Israel chosen from all peoples as God's peculiar portion. In the New Covenant, the Church is the portion of the Lord, His heritage among all the nations.

He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye. God found Israel in the desert of Sinai, not in Egypt where they served idols. Lapide on God keeping Israel as the apple of His eye: 'See what great solicitude, care, Providence, and protection God shows His own—as great as a man shows toward the most beloved, most tender, and most precious thing, namely the pupil of his own eye.'

As an eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders. The eagle is a symbol of God: (1) queen of birds; (2) long-lived and fruitful; (3) she looks directly at the sun; (4) she flies straight upward. St. Ambrose (l. 2 de Salomone c. 2) applies this allegory to Christ: as the eagle loves one nest, so Christ loves one Church; as the eagle tests her young by the sun, so Christ tests faith by the light of the Gospel; as the eagle fights serpents, so Christ conquered the devil; as the eagle soars aloft, so Christ ascended above all the heavens; as the eagle shares her prey, so Christ shares eternal blessedness with the saints.

The beloved grew fat, and kicked: he grew fat, and thick and gross. He forsook God who made him, and departed from God his saviour. Prosperity led Israel to apostasy—the perennial danger of wealth and plenty. Lapide (citing the Apostle on the rich young widows, 1 Tim. 5:11): those nourished in luxury turn against the benefactor. 'The root of all evil is covetousness' (1 Tim. 6:10).

They have provoked me with that which was not God, and have angered me with their vanities; and I will provoke them with that which is not a people, and with a foolish nation I will anger them. Lapide: God will provoke Israel to jealousy by calling the Gentiles to the faith—those who were not a people shall become the people of God. This is the great prophecy of the rejection of Israel and the vocation of the Gentiles, cited by St. Paul (Rom. 10:19; 11:11). St. Jerome: in this final canticle of Moses, the Synagogue is most openly rejected and the Church of the Lord is united to Him.

A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell. Lapide on the fires of hell: (1) this fire already exists, prepared from the beginning of the world (Matt. 25:41); (2) it is kindled by the 'wrath' of God—His tranquil and rational will to punish the impious in a terrible and extraordinary manner; (3) it burns to the lowest hell—not only consuming the earth at the Last Judgement, but burning reprobate souls eternally. He cites St. Prosper's description of hell: 'Groaning unceasing, torment eternal, supreme pain; the purifying sense tortures souls without consuming them; it punishes bodies without destroying them; the fire assigned to them does not extinguish life, so that remaining in a life fit only for suffering, the punishment endures eternally.'

Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is at hand, and the time makes haste to come. 'Revenge is mine' (mihi ultio) is cited by St. Paul (Rom. 12:19) and the Epistle to the Hebrews (10:30). Lapide: God's punitive justice is absolute sovereign right. Men must not avenge themselves but leave vengeance to God, Who will repay in His own time with perfect justice.

See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. Lapide: This solemn self-declaration of God affirms: (1) His absolute unity and uniqueness; (2) His sovereign dominion over life and death; (3) His absolute power, from which none can escape. All things—life, death, health, sickness—are in His hands. This is the 'Ego sum' of God's absolute supremacy over all created powers.

Praise his people, ye nations; for he will revenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to their adversaries, and will be merciful to the land of his people. The doxology of the Canticle: the nations are called to praise God's people, for God avenges the martyrs' blood and shows mercy to His land. Lapide (citing Theodoret, q. 42 and Paul at Rom. 11:15): mystically this promises the Gentiles' vocation to praise God through Christ, and Israel's future restoration.

And die in the mountain thou goest up, and be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his people. The deaths of Moses and Aaron on the mountains—both excluded from the Promised Land because of the sin at the waters of Contradiction (Num. 20)—show that God punishes even His greatest servants when they fail Him before the people. Yet both died holy deaths, gathered to their people. Lapide on the mount as a place of transition: 'Let us with Moses often ascend Mount Abarim, and contemplate our passing from this life to the other, what house awaits us, what place, what citizens, what eternity.'