Paul and the Song of Moses

The Song of Moses, contained in this haftarah, is quoted several times by the apostle Paul in Romans. I am homing in on just one of these occasions. Paul used an imaginary opponent, a Jew who didn’t believe Yeshua to be the Messiah; a Jew defending Israel and looking for flaws in Paul’s earlier argument. Paul had already argued that most of Israel had missed Yeshua the Messiah because they did not grasp that the first requirement of the Torah is trusting God (faith), not legalistic obedience to a set of instructions (works). Paul had argued that Israel had the right goal but pursued it the wrong way (Rom 9:30-10:13).

This imaginary opponent argued that Israel did not hear the word that would have led them to Yeshua, but Paul proved otherwise. The opponent now posed the question: “But, I say, isn’t it rather that Israel didn’t understand?” Paul replied by quoting from, and thereby pointing to, the Song of Moses: “I will provoke you to jealousy over a non-nation, over a nation void of understanding I will make you angry” (Rom 10:19, Deut 32:21).

A lawsuit against Israel

Deuteronomy 32:1 summons witnesses and gives opening statements, including the accusation of Israel’s disloyalty. God’s credentials are stated as being a rock, just, faithful, trustworthy and incorrupt (3-4). In contrast, his children are crooked, perverted, foolish and lacking in wisdom (5-6). Verse 6 gives the basis of the lawsuit; Israel’s treatment of God contrasted with Father God’s loving actions of making Israel his own, precious to him like the pupil of his own eye. Israel in contrast abandoned God their maker, scorned the rock of their salvation, ignoring this rock who gave them birth and fathered them, rousing God to jealousy by going after false gods (16-18). Verse 21 is the verse referred to by Paul, which makes clear the punishment of Israel that will result: “They aroused my jealousy with a non-god and provoked me with their vanities; I will arouse their jealousy with a non-people and provoke them with a vile nation.”

Paul had hereby identified the ‘non-people’ of the Song of Moses as the Gentile Christians of Romans 10. But Paul also alluded to the rest of the song. Israel’s story by no means ended with Yeshua. The jealousy of the song sounds judgmental, like an eye for an eye. Paul however, having seen that possibility, had his imaginary opponent ask:

’In that case, I say, isn’t it that they have stumbled with the result that they have permanently fallen away?’ Heaven forbid! Quite the contrary, it is by means of their stumbling that the deliverance has come to the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to jealousy (Rom 11:12).

Verse 23 of the song continues to picture the results of this stumbling; a lasting legacy of hardships and disasters which the Jews have gone through over the centuries; indeed right up to the Holocaust (“I considered putting an end to them, erasing their memory from the human race” [v.26]), and even continuing today. This is the conclusion of God’s judgement that some might assume.

God’s better ways

But instead Paul saw God’s higher purpose for this jealousy, that by a good and proper provocation, we Gentile believers might use it as the catalyst for bringing about Israel’s salvation, one Jew at a time, as we share the Gospel with them.

So likewise, verse 41 of the song also turns the ‘eye for an eye’ assumption on its head. The time is coming (and indeed has already started) when God will fight for Israel again. An Armageddon-type picture is given here, similar to other Bible references regarding ‘The Day of the Lord’.

Verse 43 concludes with an exhortation for the nations to sing about Israel, God’s people, with a final day of atonement (also alluded to in Revelation) for the land of Israel. I reckon Paul had in mind this same conclusion when he wrote:

Moreover, if their stumbling is bringing riches to the world … how much greater riches will Israel in its fullness bring them!” and “if their casting Yeshua aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting him mean? It will be life from the dead! (Rom 11:12, 15).