The big picture
Deuteronomy 31 is a chapter about succession, but it refuses to pretend that replacing Moses solves Israel's deeper problem. Joshua is publicly commissioned, and the repeated assurance is that the LORD goes before the people and will not fail them. At the same time, Moses writes the law, places it in the care of priests and elders, orders its public reading, and prepares a song that will remain in Israel's mouth after his death. The chapter is building witnesses that outlive a leader. Its most unsettling feature is the forecast of future betrayal inside the very ceremony of transition. Israel will enter the land, prosper, and turn aside. That prediction does not cancel Joshua's commission or make teaching pointless. It makes them more urgent. Leadership, written law, public hearing, remembered song, heaven, and earth all converge around one problem: how covenant words will continue to speak when Moses no longer can.
Central truth
As Moses prepares to die, he commissions Joshua, entrusts the written law to public reading, and teaches a song that will witness against Israel's future rebellion, placing the community's continuity in the Lord's presence and remembered words rather than one leader's survival. Moses' song calls heaven and earth to witness how the Lord's faithfully sustained people forsake their Rock, bringing judgment that exposes false gods while leaving vengeance, rescue, and the people's future in the Lord's hands.
The study notes have a page of their own
The movement by movement analysis, the words to trace, the verse by verse notes and where readers differ are written for someone studying alone. They are on the Deep Personal Reflections page for this chapter. This page is the lesson.
A chapter-specific teaching brief
These anchors come from this chapter itself. They help a teacher use the Level 1 overview, the Level 2 study, and the Scripture text as one lesson.
Open with the chapter’s first image
Deuteronomy 31:1: “And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel.”
Slow down at the turning point
Deuteronomy 31:17: “Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many…”
Keep this word trail visible
LORD, Moses, Israel, land, children, covenant
What to explain, in order
Teach the passage in this order. Each step names the verses it rests on, so every point can be shown in the text before it is applied.
Deuteronomy 31:1–29
Deuteronomy 31:1-6
An old man and a God who goes ahead
Begin with Moses' age and limit: "I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in" (31:2). Explain "go out and come in" as leading the people in daily life and war. Then show where he puts their hope: the LORD goes over before them, and Joshua with him. Read 31:6 aloud: "Be strong and of a good courage". Teach this first because the whole chapter is about continuity without Moses.
Deuteronomy 31:7-8
Joshua charged in public
Moses calls Joshua "in the sight of all Israel" and gives him the same charge he gave the people. Point out that the courage words are repeated, and that 31:8 adds "fear not, neither be dismayed". Explain that the commissioning is public so the people know who leads, and that Joshua 1:5-9 repeats the charge. This step shows leadership handed on openly and grounded in God's presence.
Deuteronomy 31:9-13
A law for everyone, read aloud
Moses writes the law and gives it to the priests and elders, not to keep but to read. Every seventh year, at Tabernacles, the whole people hears it. Explain the four verbs of 31:12: hear, learn, fear, observe. Note how strongly the children and strangers are named. Compare Nehemiah 8:1-8, where Ezra reads the law to the assembly. Teach this as the core of the chapter: the law belongs to the whole people.
Deuteronomy 31:14-22
A cloud, a prediction, and a song
The scene shifts to the tabernacle, where the LORD appears in the cloud. Read 31:16-18 honestly: God foretells that Israel will turn away and he will hide his face. Explain "hide my face" as withdrawing favour and help, the opposite of the blessing of Numbers 6:25. Then the remedy: a song, written and taught that day, to witness for God. Explain that a song is remembered when a book is not.
Deuteronomy 31:23-29
The book beside the ark
End with Joshua's charge from the LORD himself (31:23) and the book of the law placed "in the side of the ark". Readers understand this as beside the ark rather than inside it. Moses' final words in this section are hard: "I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck" (31:27), and he expects worse after his death. Teach it soberly: the witness is set up because the danger is real.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47
Deuteronomy 31:30-32:6
Heaven and earth, and the Rock
Begin with the setting: Moses speaks the song to the whole congregation. Explain that the song is a covenant lawsuit, calling witnesses (32:1) and laying out the case. Then read 32:2 slowly as a picture of good teaching. Introduce "the Rock", the song's main name for God, which appears again and again, and explain it as a picture of stability and shelter. Then the charge of 32:5-6. Teach this first because the whole song is a contrast between this Rock and the people's response.
Deuteronomy 32:7-14
Ask your elders what he did
Read 32:7 as an invitation to remember: ask your father and your elders. Then the history in images. 32:8 has a well-known textual difference; some ancient copies read "the sons of God" rather than "the children of Israel", and translations differ. Mention it briefly. Then the desert, the apple of his eye, the eagle stirring her nest and carrying her young, and the rich food of 32:13-14. Keep the eagle picture to what the verse says; popular embellishments go beyond it.
Deuteronomy 32:15-25
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked
This is the turn. Read 32:15-18: a well-fed animal kicking at its owner. Explain "devils" in 32:17 as demons or false spirits behind the idols, and "Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful" (32:18) as forgetting a parent. Then the LORD's response in 32:19-25: hidden face, jealousy answered with jealousy, and judgements of hunger, plague and sword. Read these soberly. Paul quotes 32:21 in Romans 10:19, and readers differ on how he applies it to the Gentiles.
Deuteronomy 32:26-35
Why the enemy does not win
Show the surprising restraint of 32:26-27: God holds back so the enemy will not boast. Then 32:28-33: the song mocks the enemies' rock and vine as poisonous. 32:35, "To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence", places judgement with God alone. Paul quotes it in Romans 12:19 to forbid personal revenge. Teach this step to show that judgement in the song is never handed to human beings to carry out on their own.
Deuteronomy 32:36-43
I kill and I make alive
The song turns to rescue. When Israel's power is gone, the LORD "shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants" (32:36). He mocks the idols and declares himself the only God who wounds and heals (32:39). The warrior images of 32:40-42 are vivid; read them as poetry of divine justice, not a call to human violence. End on 32:43: the nations are invited to rejoice with his people, and he "will be merciful unto his land, and to his people". Paul quotes this in Romans 15:10.
Deuteronomy 32:44-47
It is your life
Close with Moses and Joshua speaking the song together and Moses' final appeal. Point out that Joshua, called Hoshea here, stands beside Moses as the song is taught. Read 32:46-47 and make the connection to 6:6-7: words set on the heart and taught to children. Teach this last because it turns the song back into a call to obey.
Where learners get stuck
The misreadings this passage tends to produce, and how to answer each from the text.
Deuteronomy 31:1–29
"Once Moses died, the people lost God's guidance."
The chapter goes out of its way to say otherwise. The LORD goes before them (31:3, 8), Joshua is commissioned (31:7, 23), the law is written and read publicly (31:9-13), and a song is taught (31:19-22). Guidance continues through God's presence and his word, not through one man's survival.
"God promised never to forsake them, so the warnings do not really apply."
The promise of 31:6 and the warning of 31:17 sit in the same chapter. The warning has a stated cause: turning to other gods (31:16, 18). The hiding of God's face is a response to their forsaking him first. The promise is real and the warning is real; neither cancels the other.
"Scripture reading is for scholars and priests."
31:11-13 commands the law to be read "before all Israel in their hearing", including children who have "not known any thing" and strangers. The priests guard the book, but the reading is public and for everyone. Encourage learners who feel unqualified that the Bible was always meant to be heard by ordinary people.
"If God predicts that people will rebel, they cannot help it."
God's foreknowledge in 31:16-21 is spoken alongside a command for all Israel to hear and obey (31:12). The song is given precisely so that later generations will recognise their sin and return. Traditions explain foreknowledge and freedom in different ways; the text holds both and calls each generation to listen.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47
"The song is only about judgement, so it is a hopeless ending."
The song moves from charge to judgement to rescue. The LORD "shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants" (32:36), declares that he heals (32:39), and ends "and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people" (32:43). The warnings are real, but the last word is mercy. Read through to 32:43 every time you teach it.
"One shall chase a thousand means believers are always unbeatable."
32:30 explains Israel's defeat, not its strength: one enemy chased a thousand Israelites "except their Rock had sold them". The verse shows what happens when God gives his people over. Joshua 23:10 uses similar words of Israel's victories, but this verse should not be turned into a slogan about human power.
"If God says vengeance is his, then he is a vengeful God we should fear."
"To me belongeth vengeance" (32:35) means justice belongs to God and not to us. It frees the wronged from carrying revenge, which is why Paul uses it in Romans 12:19 to say "avenge not yourselves". The same God declares that he heals (32:39) and is merciful (32:43). Help learners see God's justice as a comfort for the oppressed.
"The eagle verse tells us exactly how eagles teach their young to fly."
32:11 gives a picture: the eagle stirs the nest, hovers over its young, spreads its wings, takes them and carries them. It does not describe flight lessons in detail, and some popular illustrations add things the verse does not say. Keep the point the song makes: the LORD alone led Israel with that kind of protective care (32:12).
Learning objectives
- Distinguish Joshua's leadership from the Lord's going before Israel.
- Identify the occasion appointed for public reading.
- Name the audience required to hear the law.
- Trace hearing through learning to obedient practice.
- Explain why the promised presence accompanies a warning about rebellion.
- Describe the different forms in which the covenant witness is preserved.
- Explain why heaven and earth are addressed as listeners.
- Trace the contrast between the faithful Rock and corrupt children.
- Identify the movement from wilderness care to prosperous forgetfulness.
- Explain the concern about enemy boasting in 32:27.
- Distinguish the Lord's exclusive power from the helplessness of false gods.
- Describe the responsibility attached to teaching the song's words.
Teacher preparation
- Read Deuteronomy 31:1–29; reserve the song introduced in 31:30 for the next unit.
- Compare 31:2 with 34:7; do not explain Moses' departure by inventing blindness or complete physical collapse.
- Connect the seventh year of release in 31:10 with chapter 15 and Tabernacles with 16:13–15.
- Distinguish the law book placed 'in the side of the ark' in 31:26 from the stone tables placed inside in 10:5.
- Prepare two columns for the promises in 31:6–8 and the warned covenant breach in 31:16–18; preserve the setting of each.
- Read Deuteronomy 31:19–22, 30 and 32:1–47; remember that the song has already been assigned the role of witness.
- Explain 'Jeshurun' as a poetic designation for Israel and identify Hoshea in 32:44 as Joshua by comparing Numbers 13:16.
- Mark each use of rock or Rock; check whose supposed protection is being described before treating every occurrence identically.
- Explain that 'repent himself for his servants' in 32:36 describes relenting or compassion, not the Lord confessing wrongdoing.
- Summarize judgment non-graphically; never turn growing fat in 32:15 into a joke about human bodies.
Evidence and interpretation checks
Explicit
Read Deuteronomy 31:3, 7–8: Joshua goes before the people, but the Lord goes before Joshua and will not fail him. Read Deuteronomy 32:4–6: the Rock's perfect work and justice stand against the people's corrupt response to the Father who made them.
Scripture-supported
Compare Deuteronomy 31:10–13 with 6:6–9. Both make the teaching of children integral to the community's continuing obedience. Compare Deuteronomy 32:15–18 with 8:12–14. Both connect abundance with the danger of forgetting the giver, not with a claim that food itself is evil.
Strong inference
Infer from Deuteronomy 31:9–13 that entrusting the law to priests and elders does not make it private clerical property; the whole assembly must hear it. Infer from Deuteronomy 31:21 and 32:46 that memorable words serve intergenerational accountability; the song is designed to outlive its first teacher.
Possible or traditional reading
Explain that Deuteronomy 31:26's placement language is understood as beside or at the side of the ark; do not supply an exact shelf, compartment, or fastening the verse does not describe. Treat elaborate traditional explanations of eagle parenting cautiously. Deuteronomy 32:11 gives stirring, hovering, spreading wings, and carrying, but does not describe every behavior used in popular illustrations.
Limit
State that Deuteronomy 31:16–21 predicts Israel's covenant betrayal without identifying every later individual as inevitably faithless or cancelling the call to hear and obey in 31:12. State that Deuteronomy 32:30 is not a general promise that two believers possess a mathematically multiplied power; the verse explains defeat through the Rock's giving people over.
Discussion with answer guidance
1. Who goes before Israel in 31:3, and why does that double answer matter?
What a good answer contains
Both the LORD and Joshua: "The LORD thy God, he will go over before thee", and "Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as the LORD hath said" (31:3). The order matters. The LORD goes first and Joshua follows his word. 31:8 says the same to Joshua himself: "the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee". A strong answer sees that the people's security rests on God, with Joshua as his appointed leader. A weak answer makes Joshua the new source of confidence and forgets who goes before him.
Show teacher guidance
Name both the Lord and Joshua. Keep Joshua's real task without making him the replacement source of divine presence.
2. Why is the public reading tied to the year of release and Tabernacles?
What a good answer contains
31:10-11 sets the reading "At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles", when "all Israel is come to appear before the LORD". A good answer notices that this is the moment when the most people are gathered, and may connect it with the release of debts (15:1-2) and with the harvest feast's memory of dependence in the wilderness. It should keep those connections as suggestions, since the text states only the timing.
Show teacher guidance
Identify 31:10–11's appointed gathering. Accept connections with remembered dependence and shared provision, but distinguish these from an explicitly stated reason.
3. Who must hear even when they do not already know the law?
What a good answer contains
"Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates" (31:12), and especially "their children, which have not known any thing" (31:13). A strong answer sees that the reading is for those who know least: children who were not at Horeb, strangers who were not born into Israel. A weak answer restricts the audience to adult men or to those already learned in the law, which is the opposite of the verse.
Show teacher guidance
Read 31:12–13, including strangers and children. Reject an audience restricted to experts or adult household heads.
4. What sequence follows the command to gather the people?
What a good answer contains
The verse says "that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law" (31:12). The sequence moves from hearing to learning, to reverent fear, to doing. A good answer sees that the reading is meant to form people, not just inform them. A weak answer stops at attendance, as if being present at the reading were the goal.
Show teacher guidance
Trace hear, learn, fear, and observe in 31:12. Explain that attendance alone is not the stated educational destination.
5. How can promises of presence and warnings of hidden presence occur in the same chapter?
What a good answer contains
Because one promise and one warning answer different situations. To the people and to Joshua: "he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee" (31:6, 8). To Moses about the future: the people will "go a whoring after the gods of the strangers" (31:16), and then "I will hide my face from them" (31:17-18). The trigger is stated: "in that they are turned unto other gods" (31:18). A strong answer keeps both and the cause between them. A weak answer sets them against each other as a contradiction.
Show teacher guidance
Compare 31:6–8 with 16–18. Identify the warning's stated trigger, turning to other gods, rather than treating the sentences as contextless opposites.
6. Why preserve both a written book and a taught song?
What a good answer contains
The book is kept beside the ark "for a witness against thee" (31:26); the song is put "in their mouths" so that "it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed" (31:19, 21). A good answer sees two kinds of memory: one fixed and public, one carried in people. The book stays in the sanctuary; the song travels into exile. Both testify. A weak answer treats the song as decoration and misses its purpose as witness.
Show teacher guidance
Read 31:19–22, 24–29. Identify durable testimony, words in the people's mouths, and witnesses against rebellion; do not reduce the song to entertainment.
7. Why begin a covenant witness with rain and dew?
What a good answer contains
Because the song is both gift and witness. Moses calls the heavens and the earth to listen (32:1), as he said he would in 31:28, and then describes his teaching as gentle water: "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb" (32:2). A strong answer keeps both: the words are nourishment for those who receive them and testimony against those who refuse. A weak answer chooses one and loses the other.
Show teacher guidance
Read 32:1–3 alongside 31:19. Hold together the nourishing teaching image and the serious testimony; do not force a choice between beauty and warning.
8. What makes the people's response so jarring beside the description of the Rock?
What a good answer contains
The Rock is described in five lines of faithfulness: "He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he" (32:4). Then: "They have corrupted themselves", and "they are a perverse and crooked generation" (32:5), and "Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee?" (32:6). A good answer sees the contrast between a perfect giver and an ungrateful child. A weak answer reduces it to people making mistakes.
Show teacher guidance
Compare 32:4–6. Identify the contrast between faithful justice and corrupt repayment, rather than merely saying people make mistakes.
9. What happens between being carried and kicking against the giver?
What a good answer contains
The LORD found Israel "in a desert land", "kept him as the apple of his eye" (32:10), carried him like an eagle carrying her young (32:11), and fed him with honey from the rock and the finest food (32:13-14). Then: "But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked", and "then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation" (32:15). A strong answer keeps the order: rescue, care, abundance, then forgetting. Explain Jeshurun as a poetic name for Israel, meaning upright, used here with irony.
Show teacher guidance
Trace 32:10–18 from protection through rich provision to forsaking and forgetting. Keep the sequence visible.
10. Why does the song mention what an enemy might claim?
What a good answer contains
Because God's restraint protects his own name. He would have scattered them, "Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy", lest the adversaries "should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this" (32:27). A good answer sees that the enemy would misread Israel's fall as their own victory and as proof the LORD is powerless. 32:30-31 confirms it: Israel's defeat came because "their Rock had sold them". A weak answer misses the enemy's boast entirely.
Show teacher guidance
Read 32:26–27. Identify the imagined boast that the enemy's own hand accomplished everything and that the Lord had no part.
11. What answer is expected when the Lord asks where the other gods are?
What a good answer contains
None: the other gods cannot answer. "Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted", and the taunt "let them rise up and help you" (32:37-38) expects silence. Then the LORD speaks: "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand" (32:39). A strong answer sees that the judgement exposes the idols and leaves the LORD alone as the one who can also heal. A weak answer hears only the threat.
Show teacher guidance
Read 32:37–39. Contrast their inability to help with the Lord's declaration that none can deliver from his hand.
12. Why does Moses call these words 'your life' rather than merely a memorable performance?
What a good answer contains
Because the words are the condition of their life in the land. "Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do" (32:46), "For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life" (32:47). Explain "vain" as empty. A good answer connects setting the heart, teaching the children, doing the words and prolonging days. A weak answer treats the song as a performance to admire and forget.
Show teacher guidance
Read 32:45–47. Connect setting the heart, teaching children, doing the law, and life in the land.
Responsible application
Heart and habits
Ask a fictional successor to distinguish confidence in the Lord's presence from confidence that every future decision must be right.
Relationships and community
Plan an imagined public reading that includes strangers and children rather than measuring success only by official attendance.
Continuity beyond the leader
Give a hypothetical community a departing teacher; identify what must be preserved in writing, teaching, and shared responsibility from 31:9–13, 19–26.
Songs that carry meaning
Evaluate a fictional lesson refrain that preserves the song's imagery but removes its warning; explain what its listeners would no longer learn.
Session plans
Two timings of the same lesson. The shorter keeps the reading, the central discussion and one response; the longer gives the confusions and the application their own time.
Deuteronomy 31:1–29
45 minutes
One hundred and twenty years
Read 31:1-3. Take question one.
Be strong
Read 31:6-8. Take confusion one.
Read it to everyone
Read 31:9-13. Take questions two, three and four, and confusion three.
The hidden face
Read 31:14-18. Take question five and confusion two.
Book and song
Read 31:19-29. Take question six and confusion four.
Handout
Read the key verse together and point to the take-home line.
90 minutes
Handing on
Ask the class to name someone who passed something important on to them. Read 31:1-2.
The LORD goes before
Read 31:3-8 and Joshua 1:5-9. Take question one and confusion one.
Every seventh year
Read 31:9-13 and Nehemiah 8:1-8. Take questions two, three and four, and confusion three.
A hard prediction
Read 31:14-18. Take question five and confusion two. Read Numbers 6:24-26 to explain the face of God.
Song and book
Read 31:19-29. Take question six and confusion four. Ask why songs last longer than sermons.
Courage words
Read 31:6, 7, 8 and 23 together and list the repeated phrases.
Application
Plan how the class could read a whole book of the Bible aloud together, including children and newcomers.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together and pray for leaders and for those who will lead after them.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47
45 minutes
Rain and dew
Read 32:1-3 aloud. Take question one.
The Rock and the child
Read 32:4-6. Take question two.
Carried, then kicking
Read 32:10-18. Take question three and confusion four.
The enemy's boast
Read 32:26-31. Take question four and confusion two.
Where are their gods
Read 32:35-43 and 32:46-47. Take questions five and six, and confusion one.
Handout
Read the key verse together, point to the take-home line, and close with 32:43.
90 minutes
Songs that remember
Ask the class what song they remember from childhood and why. Read 31:19-22 and 31:30.
Witnesses and a lawsuit
Read 32:1-6. Take questions one and two. Explain the Rock.
The history in pictures
Read 32:7-14. Take confusion four. Mention the textual note on 32:8.
Fat and forgetful
Read 32:15-25. Take question three. Read 8:12-14 beside 32:15.
Restraint and vengeance
Read 32:26-35. Take question four and confusions two and three. Read Romans 12:17-21.
I wound and I heal
Read 32:36-43. Take question five and confusion one. Read Romans 15:8-10.
Your life
Read 32:44-47 and take question six.
Application
Have the class write a short verse of their own, in the shape of 32:7, about something God has done for their parents or elders.
Handout and prayer
Read the key verse together and pray 32:3, ascribing greatness to God.
Adapting the lesson
Deuteronomy 31:1–29
Children
Act out Moses handing a scroll and a staff to Joshua in front of everyone. Teach the children to say "Be strong and of a good courage" with a strong pose. Read 31:12 and show that children were specially invited to hear God's word. Teach a short song of a Bible verse and explain that God gave his people a song to remember him.
Youth
Ask them who they will lead someday, at home, at work, in church. Read 31:7-8 as Joshua's charge and ask what makes courage possible. Discuss the hidden face of God in 31:17 honestly; some may feel God has hidden from them. Point out the role of songs in remembering and ask which songs carry faith for them.
Adults
Discuss succession: how Moses prepares Joshua, the people and the next generation. Ask how their church hands on leadership and Scripture. Give time to 31:16-18 and to the theological questions of foreknowledge and responsibility, presenting views fairly. Plan a public reading of Scripture that includes children and newcomers.
One to one
Ask whether they are facing a transition, a new role or the loss of someone who led them. Read 31:6 and 31:8 slowly. If they feel God is hidden, read 31:17-18 alongside 4:29-31 and remind them the song was given so people could return. Ask what words of Scripture they carry like a song.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47
Children
Bring water in a spray bottle and mist a plant while reading 32:2: God's words are like gentle rain. Build a nest from cloth and use a toy bird to show 32:11, the eagle carrying her young. Keep the judgement verses out. Teach the children to say "He is the Rock" and to stand firm on the floor while they say it.
Youth
Ask what happens to gratitude when life gets easy, then read 32:15. Talk about Jeshurun kicking the one who fed him. Use 32:35 and Romans 12:19 to discuss revenge and online conflict. Point out that the song was meant to be sung and remembered; ask which worship songs carry truth for them, and which only carry feeling.
Adults
Discuss the structure of the song as a covenant lawsuit. Look at its use in the New Testament, Romans 10:19, 12:19, 15:10 and Hebrews 1:6 in some readings. Mention the textual issue at 32:8. Discuss the danger of comfort in 32:15 for established churches. Give time to 32:39 and how God's wounding and healing are held together.
One to one
Read 32:10-12 and ask whether they have known God carrying them. If they are in a season of forgetfulness, read 32:15-18 gently. If they have been wronged, read 32:35 and 32:43 and talk about leaving vengeance with God. Close with 32:47: these words are your life.
Song and video learning lab
A song or video may interpret, compress, or dramatize the text. Its value becomes clearer when its choices are compared with Scripture.
- Before the media: the exact passage and its central movement.
- During the media: the words, people, events, and emotions the artist emphasizes.
- After the media: what it clarifies, what it leaves out, and what belongs back in the biblical text.
Handout
One page for learners to take home. The print button prints this section alone.
Deuteronomy 31:1–29
The passage in brief
Moses is a hundred and twenty years old and cannot cross the Jordan. He tells the people that the LORD will go ahead of them and Joshua will lead them, and he charges Joshua in front of everyone to be strong and courageous. He writes the law and gives it to the priests, who must read it aloud every seven years to everyone, including children and strangers. God tells Moses that the people will turn away, so Moses teaches them a song to remember.
A verse to keep
Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.
Deuteronomy 31:6 · King James Version
Questions to take home
Who goes before Israel in 31:3?
Who must hear the law read in 31:12-13?
Why does God give Israel a song in 31:19-21?
This week
Learn one verse of Scripture by heart this week, or sing one, so it stays in your mouth.
Deuteronomy 31:30–32:47
The passage in brief
Moses teaches Israel a song. It calls heaven and earth to listen and praises the LORD as the Rock whose ways are perfect. It remembers how God found Israel in the desert, cared for them like an eagle with her young, and fed them richly, but they grew fat and turned to other gods. God will judge them, yet he will not let their enemies boast, and in the end he will show mercy. Moses tells the people these words are their life.
A verse to keep
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
Deuteronomy 32:4 · King James Version
Questions to take home
What does 32:4 say about the Rock?
What happened after Jeshurun "waxed fat" in 32:15?
Why does Moses say these words are "your life" in 32:47?
This week
When life feels comfortable this week, stop once a day and thank the Rock who carried you.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
