The Rock Remains While the People Change Their Allegiance

Isaiah’s book opens with the same summons with the verbs swapped: “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth” (Isaiah 1:2). Here the heavens are told to give ear, the earth to hear. The two witnesses named in 31:28 are addressed before Israel is.

“Doctrine” is leqach, what is received, teaching taken in. Four kinds of water follow: rain, dew, fine drizzle and heavy showers, each suited to what it falls on. Torah scrolls still lay out this song in a special two column format of short lines, set apart from the prose around it.

“Publish” is eqra, I will call out, proclaim. The Talmud (Berakhot 21a) drew from this verse the practice of blessing God before reading the Torah, and the congregation’s response to a blessing was likewise traced to “ascribe ye greatness”.

“Rock” is tsur, the word used of the rock at Horeb that Moses struck for water (Exodus 17:6). In this song it becomes a name for God, used again in verses 15, 18, 30, 31 and 37. “Without iniquity” uses avel, the “unrighteously” of 25:16.

The Greek Old Testament rendered the last phrase “a crooked and perverse generation”, and Paul takes the words over in Philippians 2:15, where believers shine “in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation”. The Hebrew for “crooked”, petaltol, twisted like a cord, occurs nowhere else.

In Hebrew scrolls the first letter of this verse, the he of the question, is written large and set apart as a word of its own. “Bought” is qanah, to acquire or create, the verb of Genesis 14:19, “possessor of heaven and earth”, and of Eve’s “I have gotten a man” (Genesis 4:1).

The song sends its hearers to the old people for evidence. Job 8:8 makes the same appeal, “enquire, I pray thee, of the former age”, and Psalm 78:3–4 describes exactly this chain: “which our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children.”

“Most High” is elyon, the title Melchizedek used (Genesis 14:18–20). “Separated the sons of Adam” recalls the scattering from Babel (Genesis 11:8–9). Rashi connected the seventy nations of Genesis 10 with the seventy persons of Jacob’s family who went down into Egypt (10:22).

“Lot” is chevel, a measuring cord: land was measured out with a rope. Psalm 16:6 uses the same word, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.” God is pictured stretching the surveyor’s line and marking Jacob as his own plot.

“Howling” is yelel, the wail of wind or wild animals in empty country. “Apple of his eye” is ishon, “little man”, the tiny reflection a person sees of himself in someone else’s pupil. “Led him about” means circled round him, which fits the long detours of the wilderness years.

“Fluttereth” is rachaf, the verb of Genesis 1:2, where the Spirit “moved” over the waters; the two verses are the only places the Pentateuch uses it. God had said at Sinai, “I bare you on eagles’ wings” (Exodus 19:4). The nesher is often taken to be the griffon vulture.

“Alone” is badad, the word Balaam used: “the people shall dwell alone” (Numbers 23:9), and Moses uses it again in 33:28. “Strange god” is el nekhar, a foreign god. The leading was done by one God, with no partner.

Isaiah 58:14 borrows the first line: “I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth.” Wild bees nest in rock clefts, and olive trees grow in stony hill country, so honey and oil do come out of rock. Psalm 81:16 also sings of honey out of the rock.

“Butter” is chemah, curds or thick soured milk. “Fat of kidneys of wheat” means the finest wheat, kidney fat being the choicest part of an animal. “Pure blood of the grape” echoes Judah’s blessing (Genesis 49:11). Bashan was cattle country east of the Jordan, the “strong bulls of Bashan” of Psalm 22:12.

“Kicked” is baat, the verb Eli’s household is charged with in 1 Samuel 2:29, “Wherefore kick ye at my sacrifice?” Mid verse the poem swerves into direct address, three verbs that rhyme in Hebrew: shamanta, avita, kasita, fat, thick, gorged.

“Strange gods” is simply zarim, strangers: the poem does not grant them the word god. “Provoked him to jealousy” recalls the second commandment, where the LORD calls himself “a jealous God” (5:9). Paul asks the Corinthians, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” (1 Corinthians 10:22).

“Devils” is shedim, found only here and in Psalm 106:37. The Akkadian shedu was a protective spirit, the name given to the winged bull guardians at Assyrian palace gates. “Came newly up” means gods lately arrived, with no history among Israel’s fathers.

“Formed thee” is meholelekha, from the verb for writhing in labour; Psalm 90:2 uses it for God bringing forth the earth. Here the Rock “begat”, and God is also pictured in birth pangs. “Unmindful” is a rare verb found only here.

“Abhorred” is naats, to spurn, the verb used of Israel toward God in 31:20; now God spurns them. “His sons, and of his daughters” is the only mention of daughters in the song. The provoking is a family affair.

“Froward” is tahpukhot, perversities, things turned upside down, a word Proverbs uses often. “No faith” is lo emun, nothing dependable, from the root of Amen. “I will see what their end shall be” pictures God stepping back to watch where they go.

“Vanities” is hevel, breath or vapour, the word Ecclesiastes repeats: “vanity of vanities”. Jeremiah 2:5 plays on it: they “walked after vanity, and are become vain”. “Foolish nation” is goy naval, from the word that named Nabal in 1 Samuel 25:25, “Nabal is his name, and folly is with him.”

“The lowest hell” is Sheol tachtit, the deepest part of the grave, the phrase of Psalm 86:13, “thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell”. In 1611 “hell” was the regular rendering of Sheol. “Her increase” is the harvest; the fire burns downward through the crops into the roots of the hills.

“Spend mine arrows” means use them all up. Job 6:4 speaks of “the arrows of the Almighty” within him, and Lamentations 3:12 has God bend his bow and set the poet “as a mark for the arrow”. The verbs are in the first person: God is the archer.

“Burning heat” is reshef, which was also the name of a Canaanite god of plague; Habakkuk 3:5 uses it of the plague that walks at God’s feet. “Bitter destruction” is qetev, the “destruction that wasteth at noonday” of Psalm 91:6. The list moves from famine to fever to fangs.

The two pairs cover everyone: young man and young woman, infant and grey head. Ezekiel 7:15 uses the same frame, “The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within,” and Lamentations 1:20 laments, “abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.”

“Scatter them into corners” renders a verb found only here, whose meaning is uncertain; suggestions include “blow them away” and “cut them in pieces”. To make their remembrance cease is the fate decreed for Amalek (25:19), threatened here against Israel.

The reasoning is Moses’ own. In 9:28 and Numbers 14:15–16 he pleaded that the nations would say the LORD was not able. The song puts that argument into God’s mouth. “Behave themselves strangely” is nakar, to misread, the verb of Joseph who “made himself strange” to his brothers (Genesis 42:7).

“Void of counsel” is literally “perishing of counsels”, using the verb avad, the “ready to perish” of the confession in 26:5. The nation that began with a perishing father now has perishing wisdom.

“Latter end” is acharit, what comes after. Lamentations 1:9 records the missed warning in Jerusalem’s fall: “she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully.”

The ratio turns earlier promises around: “five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight” (Leviticus 26:8), and “One man of you shall chase a thousand” (Joshua 23:10). “Sold them” becomes the Book of Judges’ formula for defeat: “he sold them into the hands of their enemies” (Judges 2:14).

“Judges” here is pelilim, arbiters or assessors, the word of Exodus 21:22. The enemies themselves concede the difference, as Rahab does in Joshua 2:11 and the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4:8, who cry “Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty Gods?”

Josephus described fruit growing near the Dead Sea that looked edible but turned to smoke and ashes when plucked (Jewish War 4.484), and the Calotropis shrub there is still called the apple of Sodom. The vine of this verse is a plant from the same cursed soil.

“Dragons” is tanninim, serpents or sea monsters; “asps” is petanim, usually taken as cobras. Psalm 58:4 compares the wicked to “the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear”, the same peten. The wine that should gladden has become venom.

Documents and storerooms were closed with a clay seal impressed by a signet. Job 14:17 uses the image of a man’s wrongs, “My transgression is sealed up in a bag.” Nothing is lost; it is kept under seal until the seal is broken.

Jonathan Edwards took the words “Their foot shall slide in due time” as the text of his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, preached at Enfield in 1741. “Make haste” gives the coming things feet of their own, running toward the day.

Psalm 135:14 quotes the first half word for word. “Shut up, or left” is a fixed Hebrew pair meaning everyone, bond and free, used when prophets threaten a royal house (1 Kings 14:10; 21:21) and in 2 Kings 14:26, where God saw “there was not any shut up, nor any left”.

“Trusted” is chasah, to take refuge, the verb of Psalm 2:12, “blessed are all they that put their trust in him”. The King James spells this false “rock” with a small letter; the song keeps the capital for the true one.

The irony is sharp: gods who could eat the fattest pieces and drink the wine offered to them cannot now get up. Psalm 50:13 puts God’s own answer on the subject, “Will I eat the flesh of bulls?” The address suddenly turns to “you”, plural, the people themselves.

“I, even I, am he” is ani ani hu, and Isaiah repeats the formula in his own chapters on idols (Isaiah 43:25; 51:12). Hannah’s song draws on the next line: “The LORD killeth, and maketh alive” (1 Samuel 2:6). No one else is left in the verse to credit.

Raising the hand was the gesture of an oath; Abram says “I have lift up mine hand unto the LORD” (Genesis 14:22). Men swear by God, and God, having no one greater, swears by his own life. “As I live” is his oath formula in Numbers 14:21.

“Glittering sword” is literally “the lightning of my sword”, beraq. Ezekiel 21:10 speaks of a sword “furbished that it may glitter”. The verse presents God as a warrior whose hand grips judgment the way it grips a hilt.

“The beginning of revenges” is disputed; many read it as “the long haired heads of the enemy”, from para, loose hair. The same rare word opens Deborah’s song in Judges 5:2, often rendered “when the leaders took the lead in Israel”.

The Hebrew verse is short. A Dead Sea Scroll of Deuteronomy and the Greek version preserve a longer form that includes “worship him, all ye gods” or “angels”, which Hebrews 1:6 quotes. “Be merciful unto his land” is kipper, to make atonement: the land itself is cleansed.

This verse and 31:30 frame the song like bookends, both saying Moses spoke its words in the people’s ears. The only other places the Pentateuch calls Joshua “Hoshea” are Numbers 13:8 and 13:16, before Moses renamed him.

“Made an end” is vaykhal, the verb the Greek version has in 31:1, and the verb of Genesis 2:2, “on the seventh day God ended his work”. The speaking that filled most of the book is finished here.

“Set your hearts” is simu levavkhem, put your hearts on them, as one sets a hand on something to hold it. Teaching the children echoes the Shema’s instruction (6:7). The final phrase ties song and law together: the song is set to the words of the whole law.

“Vain” is rek, empty. Rashi, following an earlier midrash, gave the phrase a famous twist: “it is not an empty thing from you”, and if it seems empty, the emptiness comes from you, from not labouring in it.

“That selfsame day” is beetsem hayyom hazeh, the phrase used when Noah entered the ark (Genesis 7:13) and when Israel left Egypt (Exodus 12:41). Rashi observed the three together: each an event done openly in daylight, whatever anyone wished to prevent.

Abarim means “the regions beyond” or “the crossings”, from avar, to cross over. The man forbidden to cross climbs the mountains named for crossing. The command first came in Numbers 27:12; Nebo looks across the Dead Sea’s north end to Jericho.

“Gathered unto thy people” is said of Abraham (Genesis 25:8), Isaac and Jacob. On Mount Hor Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son, and Aaron died on the mountain top (Numbers 20:28). Moses will have no son to dress.

“Trespassed” is maal, a breach of faith, the word used of Achan in Joshua 7:1. “Sanctified me not” plays on the place name: Kadesh means holy, and the failure at Kadesh was a failure to treat God as holy.

“Before thee” is minneged, from opposite, at a distance, the word used of Hagar sitting “over against” her child a bowshot away (Genesis 21:16). The verse repeats “which I give the children of Israel” from verse 49, closing the command where it began.