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The God of Jeshurun
The God of Jeshurun Deuteronomy 32:48 – 34:12 Key Verse: 33:26 “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides across the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. In last week’s passage, Moses wrote down a song that prophesied Israel’s rebellion and rejection of God. The song told of the terrible consequences of Israel doing this – God would turn His back on His chosen people and no longer listen to their prayers and cries for help. They would be overtaken by disease, pestilence and famine, completely defeated by their enemies, driven from the Promised Land and scattered among the nations. Yet, a remnant would remain faithful to the Lord and God would eventually rescue this group, make atonement for them and the land and bring them back to His promised land. For the most part, the song was a song of woe and despair, but in the end, there is always hope for those who remain faithful to the Lord. In today’s passage, we are once again reminded of Moses’ upcoming death. This would take place before the people were allowed to enter the Promised Land and before Moses would get the chance of ever entering it. Then we are given Moses’ final words to the people he had led for the past 40 years through their deliverance from Egypt and their wanderings in the wilderness. These words were words of prayer, blessing and prophesy – much different from his words from chapter 32. Finally, we are given an account of Moses death. A death he faced willingly, with absolute faith is the goodness and justice of the God he served and loved. Through the study of this passage I pray that God may open our spiritual eyes and ears so that we can know that God is the God of His righteous ones who give their lives in service to Him. We all make mistakes, but God is patient and forgiving and His heart’s desire is to bless those that serve Him. First, the death of Moses foretold (32:48-52). After Moses and Joshua had finished reciting the song in the hearing of all the people, the Lord spoke to Moses and told him that it was now time for him to die. Look at verses 49 and 50. “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo in Moab, across from Jericho, and view Canaan, the land I am giving the Israelites as their own possession. There on the mountain that you have climbed you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.” God gives Moses very simple and clear instructions concerning His death. It may seem strange to us that God doesn’t seem to give Moses and words of encouragement or thanks. However, God did give Moses something very special before He called Moses home. God enabled Moses to see the land that had been promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This was the land Moses had given the last forty years of his life to bring God’s chosen people to. Surely Moses wanted to enter this land and celebrate with the people after they had taken possession of it. But this was not to be. Moses was God’s servant. God had created Moses to do some very specific work for Him. He was to deliver the people from their bondage of slavery in Egypt, teach them the law of God and how to serve God and lead them to the Promised Land. Moses served God most excellently – although at times reluctantly. However, Moses and his brother Aaron made one very critical mistake. Look at verse 51. “This is because both of you broke faith with me in the presence of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Desert of Zin and because you did not uphold my holiness among the Israelites.” At the “waters of Meribah Kadesh,” God gave Moses and Aaron very specific instruction. They were to take Moses staff and gather the people before a rock. Then Moses was to speak to the rock and water would flow out of it so that the people and the livestock would live. Moses and Aaron gathered the people before the rock, but instead of following God’s instructions, Moses spoke to the people rebuking them calling them rebels and he struck the rock twice with his staff. God graciously permitted water to flow from the rock for the people, but he severely rebuked Moses and Aaron for not trusting Him enough to carefully follow His instructions in the sight of the Israelites. Because of this, God told them both that they would not be permitted to enter the promised land with the people. To some of us, what Moses did might not seem all that serious, but hallowing, or upholding the holiness of God’s name, is a very serious matter. When Jesus taught us to pray, he made this the very first thing in the prayer – “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.’” God is holy and we must never forget this. As His children and servants in this generation, we must do our best to see that His name is honored by all through what we do and the way we act. As Moses life shows us, there are very serious consequences for not upholding the holiness of God’s name before people. Second, Moses words of blessing for the tribes of Israel before his death (33:1-25). Before he went up the mountain to view God’s Promised Land and “be gathered to his people,” Moses had one final thing he needed to do. Like Jacob, just before he died, Moses wanted to bless the people. Moses must have felt like these people were his family. For 40 years he had taken care of them as a father would care for his own children. Before we look at the similarities and difference of the speeches of Jacob and Moses, we need to look at the introduction to Moses blessings. Moses begins by talking about God and what God had done for His people. Since meeting God in the burning bush forty years before, everything for Moses was about what God has done, what God was doing and what God would do in the future, so this is where Moses begins his prayer of blessing for the tribes. First, God had delivered His people from their bondage in Egypt and brought them to Mt. Sinai, where He appeared to them as a bright light with a heavenly host all around. Look at verse 2. “The Lord came from Sinai and dawned over them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran. He came with myriads of holy ones from the south, from his mountain slopes.” God was like the dawning of a new day, driving away the darkness of the night and making it light all around. According to verse 3, God appeared to them in this way because God loves His people. God holds his people in the palm of His hands and Jesus assures us that no one and nothing can take God’s people out of His hand. In verse 3, Moses also tells us the attitude that we should have as God’s people. We should bow down at His feet and listen carefully to His instruction like good disciples. Verses 4 and 5 are interesting. “The law that Moses gave us, the possession of the assembly of Jacob. He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel.” (Here, either Moses is speaking in the 3rd person, or this chapter was recorded by someone else after Moses death). The KJV calls the law “the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob.” The law belonged to the people of God and it was to be passed down through the generations as a precious possession or an inheritance among the people. It is also interesting to note that someone here is referred to as “the king over Jeshurun.” Some people say that this King is God, but most scholars I looked at think that this is referring to Moses since he was referred to in verse 4 as the one who gave the law, and Moses had indeed acted like the king of the people for the past 40 years. Who it refers to is not that important, what is important was that the people were referred to as Jeshurun, the righteous one, because they had the law of God and were doing their best to live according to it. As we will discuss later, we have also been given God’s words both in the Old Testament and in the Gospel, so we should be living as God’s Jeshurun in this generation. In verse 6, Moses begins his prayer of blessing and prophesy for the people. As I mentioned before, this imitates what Jacob did at the end of his life, with some differences. The order that Moses blesses the tribes of Israel and the content of his blessing differ from the order and the content of Jacob’s blessings of his sons. In this short message, I don’t have time to go into all the differences and why they might exist, but it is important to note that Jacob said that he wanted to “tell you [his sons] what will happen to you in days to come.” That is Jacob was prophesying, while according to verse 1, Moses was blessing. It is interesting to note a few of the similarities and difference between these two, while keeping in mind the difference in purpose of the two. First of all, both Jacob and Moses begin with Ruben, the firstborn son of Jacob. When Jacob spoke of Rueben, it was mostly a severe rebuke because Rueben had dishonored his father by sleeping with his concubine, Bilhah. Because of this, Rueben had lost his birthright as the firstborn. Nevertheless, both Jacob and Moses begin with Rueben. Moses words were much more encouraging for this tribe. He prays simply that they will live and not die out, but grow in number. Next Moses moves onto Judah. Moses blessing for Judah is far less detailed than the one given by Jacob. Moses prays that God’s ear would be open to Judah’s cries for help. This, along with the end of verse 7, seems to imply that Judah would be active in defending Israel against her enemies. In Jacob’s prophecy, Judah was to become the leader of Israel and the scepter would not depart from that tribe until Jesus came to claim it. After Judah, Moses moves onto Levi. Jacob had also mentioned Levi second, after his older brother Rueben, but Jacob had included Levi’s brother Simeon in his prophesy. It is very interesting to note that Moses doesn’t mention the tribe of Simeon at all in this prayer of blessing. In Jacob’s prophecy, his words to Rueben, his words to Levi and Simeon were also very harsh because of what they had done to the people of Shechem after Shechem had raped their sister. In his prophecy, Jacob ended by saying, “I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel.” This is indeed what happened to Levi, as they were given no inheritance of their own, but were scattered around in Israel to carry out the work of God. In Moses blessing, this work was to watch over the words of God, teach the law to the people and lead the people in worshipping God. Verse 9 of Moses blessing concerning the Levites is very interesting. “He said of his father and mother, ‘I have no regard for them.’ He did not recognize his brothers or acknowledge his own children, but he watched over your word and guarded your covenant.” As strange as this may sound, this should be the attitude of a servant of God. God and God’s word must come first for God’s servants – even before their family and friends. To see this, we only have to look at Jesus. As Jesus was teaching a large crowd in Mathew 12 and Luke 8 Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him. When he was told this, Jesus didn’t make room for them and welcome them. He said in Matthew 12:48-50 “He replied to him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’” Both the Levites and Jesus teach us that to be a servant of God great sacrifices must be made. One final point needs to be made concerning this. In Jacob’s prophecy Levi and Simeon were cursed by their father. Here, Simeon is not mentioned, but Levi is mentioned and with very special honors. Why? Well back at Mt. Sinai, after Moses had come down from the mountain and saw that the people had sinned greatly against God by making golden calf idols and indulging in revelry, the Levites showed great zeal for God by carrying out His punishment among the people. They went throughout the people striking down those who had rebelled against God – it didn’t matter if they were close family or friends, they just carried out God’s punishment. Although their being set apart for the work of God, was solely according to God’s grace of selection, this showed their zeal in carrying out God’s work. This same zeal must be shown by those who want to be God’s servants in this generation. After Levi, Moses mentions Benjamin who is the beloved of the Lord and finds security in God. As I studied this I learned something that I didn’t know. I always thought that Jerusalem was in the territory of Judah, and most of it is. However, the mountain that the temple was built on was apparently in the territory of Benjamin, and this may be why Moses prophetically said these words. Next Moses moves on to Joseph. Moses blessing for Joseph is the longest as was Jacob’s prophecy concerning him. The content of both are also fairly similar. Moses and Jacob both mainly speak about material blessing from the abundance of the land that God would provide for them. Both Moses and Jacob make it clear that the blessing of Joseph come only from the Lord and as long as the descendants of Joseph acknowledge this, these blessing would bring them great joy. When they stopped acknowledging this, these blessing simply made them fat and lazy and led to their downfall. It is also interesting to note that just as Jacob had switched the order of Joseph’s sons by placing his right hand on Ephraim’s head (the younger brother) instead of on Manasseh’s head when he blessed them, so Moses seems to put Ephraim ahead of Manasseh by attributing ten of thousands to Ephraim and only thousands to Manasseh. After Joseph, Moses moves on to Zebulun and Issachar, the final two sons of Leah, and mentions them together. In Jacob’s prophecy, Zebulun was going to grow into a merchant tribe traveling the seas buying and selling, whereas Issachar was going to grow into a people who preferred to stay at home taking care of their livestock and farms. Moses seems to stay in this same spirit, telling both of them to rejoice in their respective callings. In doing this, they could also be good influences to those around them, bringing those people with them as they came to worship the Lord. Next is Gad. Gad asked for land east of the Jordan that had been taken from the kings Sihon and Og. Moses granted them this land but made them promise to cross the Jordan and join their fellow Israelites in the fight to conquer the promised land. Moses blessing for them appears to be based on these two facts. The final three blessing go to Dan, Naphtali and Asher, in that order. Dan lived on the outskirts of the Jewish territory and therefore they were constantly going to have to fight skirmishes with their neighbors and Moses prophesied this. Naphtali’s blessing was simply a very nice generic blessing and Asher, though this tribe is mentioned last, was prophesied to be the most blessed of all and the most favored by his brothers. Third, there is no one like the God of Jeshurun (33:26-29) Look at verse 26 and 27a. “There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides across the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. The eternal God is your refuge.” Jeshurun means the righteous one or the upright one. Here Jeshurun is referring to the Israelites because they had been given the righteous law of God. If they lived according to this law, which they promised to do several times, they would indeed be righteous before God. We know that they failed to do this on several occasions, and yet God still referred to them as Jeshurun. Why? Because there is no one like God, who is full of compassion and love, who is patient with His people and willing to forgive them. According to verse 26 God had ridden across the heavens just to help his people. He came to rescue them from their bondage and take them into a land that He had promised to give to the descendants of their ancestors 4 centuries before. According to verse 27 and 28, God was going to drive out their enemies from that land and enable them to live there in safety. Finally, in verse 29, God was going to make them happy because they would know that they were a people saved by the Lord and He would be a shield for them from their enemies. No other God did this for any other people. Now I want you to think about who we are before God. According to the Gospel, we are a people saved by God. God has defeated our enemy Satan and He promises to shield us from Him. Jesus has gone ahead of us into an eternal Promised Land, where moth and rust cannot destroy, no one will break in and steal our things and no tears will be shed – Jesus is preparing a room for each of us there. He wants to bless us with all of this, and all he asks is that we sit at His feet, listen to His teaching and live according to it. This means we must live as His Jeshurun in the world today. Fourth, the death of Moses (34). Chapter 34 describes the death of Moses and what happened to Joshua. Moses simply obeyed God’s instructions and climbed to the top of a mountain peak named Pisgah. From there, God let him see all of the Promised Land. I can’t even imagine how much Moses wanted to go over there, but he simply submitted to God’s word and took this as God’s final blessing on his life. It is interesting to note that, according to verse 7, “Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone.” Moses was still a healthy, strong man, and he could have led the people into that land. However, instead of doing what I’m sure he wanted to do, he listened to God and walked up the mountain to his death. God will call us all home in His time. We don’t have to worry about when that will be, we just need to listen for His voice and carefully follow His instructions. Look at verse 9. “Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So, the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.” God knew that the people needed a leader to replace Moses, so he prepared Joshua. Moses had laid his hands on Joshua and given him a blessing. When Moses did this God listened and gave Joshua a spirit of wisdom to lead the people. Older servants of God must follow Moses example and pray over the younger leaders of the Church to ensure that the work of God can continue into the next generation. May God help us to listen to His words, obey His instructions and live as His Jeshurun in this generation. |
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