Song of Moses - Part V - God's Anger Expressed But Cut Short -- Deuteronomy 32:23-27

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Song of Moses -- Part V -- God's Grace Checks His Anger --  Deuteronomy 32:23-27.

In these verses, and through the inspired Song of Moses, God continues to express His anger towards His children who turn to other gods. It's an interesting passage. It sounds violent and it is. But it is no less horrendous than what He is trying to address -- the idolatry of Israel, and by implication, our own idolatry today.

23. Misfortunes are guaranteed for the unfaithful. God's arrows will be directed at them (and us).

24. Famine, plagues, bitter destruction, the teeth of beasts, and venom of crawling things will come their way.

25. Outside their cities, war will cause great bereavement; inside their cities young and old men, virgins, and babies will be terrified.

And you have to love these next two verses.  God says:

26. He would have cut the Israelites to pieces and removed them from the memory of all other men (not just from His memory).

27. But He won't say that, and He certainly didn't do that because He did not want their enemies to claim that they were responsible for their extinction and not God.

What a passage. Chuck Smith has an interesting perspective on it: "I personally feel that this is a prophecy of the holocaust in Germany. And the being burned in the ovens in Germany was predicted in this song. And when their trouble came they were to sing this song, and if they would, it was to remind them of why the calamities befell them. Now so often today you talk to a Jew and you find he is an atheist because he will say, "Where was God when my parents or grandparents were burned in the ovens in Germany?" If they would have kept this song and sung this song, they would know why all the calamities befell them because they had forsaken God, and thus they had been forsaken by God."

Perhaps God's warnings are applicable to several stages of Israel's history. What is important for us is that we not miss the implication of the warning for us. I don't know if a more blatant description of God's anger is hidden elsewhere in Scripture. If so, I can't recall it right now. But I do know that God means business. And yet, as we saw in verses 26 and 27, His anger can, for different reasons, be held back. In this case, it was because He did not want to give occasion for the heathens to say they were the ones that did Israel in. In our case, it is His Grace that saves those that fully trust in Him. May it be so with you and me.

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