The Song of Moses, pt. 1
Deuteronomy 32:1-3
“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God!”
One thing I love about prophetic songs in the Scriptures is the way the poetic voice shifts from first person to third person from stanza to stanza. How some lyrics pour out directly from the hymnists’ mouth, till the LORD Himself breaks through the orchestration with words of His own. In that way, prophetic psalms read like a call and response between the human singer and the divine Composer: the Spirit taking the melody and the human accompanist singing the harmony. Can there be any more profound a prize to strive after as human instruments than to sing so truthfully and righteously that Almighty God would join in the song?! In effect, Moses isn’t merely composing a song to retell all the highs and lows of redemptive history; but he’s performing it, sometimes thrusting back his head to hit a central tenor strain, and other times humming in the background to the thunder of God’s vibrato. I challenge you to read this entire chapter through that lens, friend, as if you’re in the front row of a concert hall listening to a duet. And the concert hall is the cosmos, and the stage is the earth, and the sold-out assembly is all of nature.
Moses’ part in this cosmic ensemble is simple: “I will ascribe greatness to our God!”, an act he’ll perform, even if it leads him to decry man’s wickedness in the same breath. He’ll keep singing the mighty power of God and the obstinacy of fellow men in equal measure. Effectively, throughout the song, Moses will keep an open hand raised in revival-type fashion to heaven while pointing a trembling finger first at his himself and then at his idolatrous brethren. And get this: even if the unutterable joy that fills his soul—like the rains fill a river—bubbles up with deep despair over a stained, corrupted world, still he follows the pulsating symphony of gospel truth and sings on.
May we do the same today.