Weekly Torah Readings: Ha’azinu
(from One New Man Bible translated by William Morford)
Ha’azinu
Song of the Lord, Verses 1-42
32.1. “Listen, O you heavens and I shall speak! You will hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2. My doctrine will drop as the rain, my speech will be like the dew, like the small rain upon the tender herb, and like the showers upon the grass 3. because I shall call the name of the LORD*. Ascribe greatness to our God.
32:4. “He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His Ways are justice. A God of truth and without injustice, just and right is He. (Rev. 15:3) 5. They have corrupted themselves. They are not His children, because of their blemish. They are a perverse and crooked generation. 6. Do you requite the LORD* in this manner, O foolish and unwise people? Is not He your Father Who has bought you?! Has He not made you and established you?!
32:7. “Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will tell you; your elders and they will tell you. 8. When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. 9. For the LORD’s* portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance. 10. He found it in a desert land and in the waste of a howling wilderness. He led them about. He instructed them, He kept them as the apple of His eye. (Zech. 2:12) 11. As an eagle stirs her nest, fluttering over her young, spreading wide her wings, taking them, carrying them on her wings, 12. so the LORD* alone did lead them, and there was no strange god with Him. 13. He made them ride on the high places of the earth, so they could eat the increase of the fields and He made them draw honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock, 14. butter from cows and milk from sheep, with fat of lambs and rams from the breed of Bashan, and goats with the fat of kernels of wheat and you drank wine, the blood of grapes.
32:15. “And Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You have grown fat, you have grown thick. You are covered with fatness. They forsook God Who made them, and lightly esteemed the Rock of their Salvation. 16. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger. 17. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods whom they did not know, to new gods that recently came up, whom your fathers did not dread. (Rev. 9:20) 18. You are unmindful of the Rock (sheer cliff) that begot you and have forgotten God Who formed you.
32:19. “And the LORD* saw it and abhorred them because of the provoking of His sons and of His daughters. 20. And He said, ‘I shall hide My face from them, I shall see what their end will be, for they are a very rebellious generation, children in whom there is no faith. 21. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities and I shall move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. (Rom. 10:19; 11:11) I shall provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22. For a fire is kindled in My anger and it will burn to the lowest hell and will consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23. I shall heap evils upon them. I shall spend My arrows upon them. 24. They will be burned with hunger and devoured with burning heat and with bitter destruction. I shall also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents crawling in the dust. 25. The sword will destroy outside and terror within, both the young man and the virgin, the nursing baby with the man of gray hairs.’
32:26. “I said, I would scatter them to the corners, I would make their remembrance cease from among men. 27. Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD* has not done all this.
32:28. “For they are a nation devoid of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. 29. Othat they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30. How could one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD* had given them up? 31. For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter, 33. their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps. 34. Is this not laid up in store with Me and sealed up among My treasures? 35. Vengeance is Mine, and recompense at the time when their foot will slip. (Rom. 12:19, Heb. 10:30) The day of their calamity is at hand and the things that will come upon them are hastening. 36. For the LORD* will judge His people (Heb. 10:30) and have compassion for His servants, when He sees that their power is gone and there is none shut up or left. 37. And He will say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted? 38. Who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
32:39. “See now that I AM, I AM He and there is no god but Me. I kill and I make alive. I wound, and I heal. Neither is there one who can deliver from My hand. 40. For I lift up My hand to heaven and say, I live forever. (Rev. 10:6) 41. IfI whet my glittering sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I shall render vengeance to My enemies, and will repay those who hate Me. 42. I shall make My arrows drunk with blood and My sword will devour flesh, and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the bared head of the enemy.” 43. Nations, Sing with joy of His people, (Rom. 15:10) for He will avenge the blood of His servants and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will forgive His land and His people! (Rev. 6:10; 18:2)
32:44. And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea the son of Nun. 45. And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel. 46. And he said to them, “Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you this day, which you will command your children to observe to do, all the words of this teaching. 47. For it is not a vain thing for you because it is your life, and through this thing you will prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”
Moses Told He Will See the Land Then Die
32:48. And the LORD* spoke to Moses that same day saying, 49. “Go up on this Mount Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is opposite Jericho and see the land of Canaan, which I AM giving to the children of Israel for a possession, 50. and die on the mountain where you go up and be gathered to your people, like Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, 51. because you acted faithlessly against Me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, (Num. 20:12) in the wilderness of Zin because you did not sanctify Me among the children of Israel. 52. For you will see the land before you, but you will not go there to the land which I give the children of Israel.”
Next week’s Torah readings: V’zot Hab’rakhah