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Deuteronomy 32:1-52
A Poetic Expression of How I Read Ha'azinu
A Poetic Expression of How I Read Ha'azinu
1Listen, O heavens, to what I now say,
let the earth hear the words I speak!
2My teaching will come down like rain,
my message will condense like dew,
like rain showers on young vegetation,
like droplets of rain resting on the leaves of grass.
3For it is the Name of the Lord that I make known
in order that you ascribe to our God His greatness.
4The Anchor Stone:
what he does in every way is perfect.
Indeed, his every decision is made with justice.
God is faithful. He is not unjust.
He is righteous and straight.
5There is no corruption with him.
There is a blemish in his children.
They are a twisted and knotted generation.
6Is this who you would be to the Lord?
Is this how you want to repay him?
You are an incompetent people,
not a wise, accomplished one.
Is it not he, your Father who acquired you?
He created you. He established you.
7Consider your history, your genealogy.
Recall what happened in generations past.
Ask your father to recount it to you and he will.
Your elders know all your history and will teach you well.
8The Most High gave the nations their allotted places
When he did this, he set the divisions between the families of Adam.
He drew the boundaries between the peoples
according to his measure of the number of the children of Israel.
9For the Lord's own portion is his people Jacob,
the inheritance that he has measured and apportioned to himself.
10He found them in a land of desert wilderness,
a desolate, howling wasteland.
He took them into his embrace
and lavished compassionate understanding upon them;
He guarded them as carefully as the pupil of his eye.
11Like and eagle rousing its nest
hovering in over its young
he spread his wings to lift and carry them
through the strength of his flight feathers.
12The Lord showed them the way and guided them by himself,
no alien power, no god, at his side.
13He made them ride on the elevated plains of the earth;
that they might feast on the yield of the worldwide field.
He spoon fed him honey from the mountain rock
and oil from the flint hard stone.
14Even buttered beef and sheep's milk,
milking ewes and lambs and the rams of Bashan;
young billy goats among the finest wheat.
Indeed, I gave them the finest blood of grapes.
15But Jeshurun became full, entitled and rebellious.
He grew and enlarged, and became profane and coarse.
You shut out the God who made you.
He forsook the Rock that made him straight and strong.
16They enraged him by serving alien gods.
Through their abominations they provoked his anger.
17They offered sacrifices to demons
pretending to be gods.
Such gods they had never known,
newly discovered gods, just invented.
Your fathers and mothers
never had these superstitious fears.
18The Rock who gave you birth,
you dishonourably put out of your mind.
You forgot the God who carried and mothered you.
19Seeing this, the Lord turned away in indignation
from his sons and daughters.
20saying, "I will completely conceal myself from them.
I will see then what will become of them.
For they are a highly changeable, unreliable,
treacherous group of people.
They do not act like children that I have raised.
21They have made me jealous
through something that is not a god.
I will make them jealous
through what is not a nation.
I will make them jealous
through a simple-minded people.
22For my anger burned as a blazing fire,
a fire raging to the depths of Sheol,
a fire consuming the earth and its industry,
a fire eating the roots of the mountains.
23I will send never ending disasters upon them.
I will send one volley of arrows after another upon them.
24Economic collapse, starvation and plagues,
disease pandemics and wilderness terrors,
I will not restrain from coming upon them,
poisonous creatures arising against them from the dust.
25Violence and death shall come from without.
Fears and terror shall overwhelm from within.
Upon young men, young women,
the nursing child and the elders.
26I said, "I would have reduced them to nothing,
made them to be forgotten among the human race,
27were it not that the adversary's rage was pent up,
lest their enemy twist the truth,
and falsely claim, 'We have prevailed against them!
It was not the Lord who did this!'"
28For they are a nation that does not learn,
without insight or understanding.
29Were they indeed wise,
these things would be all too evident.
They would reconsider their path forward.
30How could one person successfully bully a thousand,
and two people cause ten thousand to back down,
unless their Rock had let them be a commodity,
an easy prey,
and the Lord had let them be on their own?
31For the rock of our enemies is not like our Mighty Rock.
Nevertheless, they are left at liberty to judge us.
32Their vine is the poison vine of Sodom,
spreading in the fields of Gomorrah.
Its grapes are the invasive seeds of hemlock,
growing in cancerous clusters.
33Their wine has the bitter bite of serpents,
the bitter sting of unforgiving vipers.
34Do I not have all of this in store,
kept sealed in storage in my storehouses?
35I have it ready as repayment
waiting for the time that they trip up.
Clearly, their day of disaster approaches.
Their destiny crushes in upon them.
36For the Lord will justify his people
and console his servants,
when he sees their hand is played out,
and they have accomplished nothing
and can neither stay nor leave.
37Then he will say, "Where, their so-called god or gods,
the rock upon which they built their confidence?
38Where is the deity who ate the fat of their offerings,
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let that deities arise; you need them to save you!
Let them all show themselves and help you!
Let them be your shelter from the coming storm!
39Now you see that it is I! I am the One.
There is no other God.
It is I. I cause death and I cause life.
If I have wounded then I alone will heal.
There is no salvation out of my hand.
40Because I lift my hand into the heavens
and I proclaim, I am life forever!
41If I sharpen the edge of my blade
and my hand takes hold in judgment,
I will bring my enemies to an abrupt account.
Those who hate me will know the consequences.
42My arrows drink blood until they are drunk.
My blade consumes all flesh.
The Blood from all the slaughtered captive generations
and from all the chief leaders of the enemy.
43Sing praise you gentiles with his people, his nation!
For he will right the wrong, blood for blood, as done to his servants.
He will raise the issue of blood,
he will return the blood of his servants back upon them.
And he will make atonement for his land and his people.
(Remaining verses from the Sefaria translation)
44Moses came, together with Hosea son of Nun, and recited all the words of this poem in the hearing of the people.
45And when Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
46he said to them: Take to heart all the words with which I have warned you this day. Enjoin them upon your children, that they may observe faithfully all the terms of this Teaching.
47For this is not a trifling thing for you: it is your very life; through it you shall long endure on the land that you are to possess upon crossing the Jordan.
48That very day the LORD spoke to Moses:
49Ascend these heights of Abarim to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab facing Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving the Israelites as their holding.
50You shall die on the mountain that you are about to ascend, and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin;
51for you both broke faith with Me among the Israelite people, at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to uphold My sanctity among the Israelite people.
52You may view the land from a distance, but you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelite people.
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