9 For Yahweh’s portion is his people. Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, in the waste howling wilderness. He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his wings, he took them, he bore them on his feathers.
12 Yahweh alone led him. There was no foreign god with him.
KJVKing James Version
9 For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:
12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
9 For the portion of the LORD is His people, Jacob the lot of His inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste, a howling wilderness; He compassed him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.
11 As an eagle that stirreth up her nest, hovereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her pinions —
12 The LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with Him.
Jeremiah 10:16(v9)The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the maker of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is…
Zechariah 2:8(v10)For Yahweh of Armies says: ‘For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his…
Exodus 19:4(v11)‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself.
Deuteronomy 8:15-16(v10)who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who…
Psalms 17:8(v10)Keep me as the apple of your eye. Hide me under the shadow of your wings,
Show all 46 cross-references
Hosea 13:5(v10)I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.
1 Peter 2:9-10(v9)But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of…
Isaiah 46:4(vv11–12)Even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry, and will deliver.
Exodus 19:5-6(v9)Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples; for all…
1 Kings 8:51(v9)(for they are your people, and your inheritance, which you brought out of Egypt, from the middle of the iron furnace);
1 Kings 8:53(v9)For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth, to be your inheritance, as you spoke by Moses your servant, when you…
Psalms 32:7-10(v10)You are my hiding place. You will preserve me from trouble. You will surround me with songs of deliverance. I will instruct you and teach…
Psalms 78:52-53(v12)But he led out his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock. He led them safely, so that they weren’t afraid,…
Jeremiah 2:6(v10)They didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, who led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts…
Nehemiah 9:19-21(v10)yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead…
Proverbs 7:2(v10)Keep my commandments and live! Guard my teaching as the apple of your eye.
Song of Solomon 8:5(v10)Who is this who comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree I aroused you. There your mother conceived you.…
Isaiah 63:9(v11)In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore…
Jeremiah 51:19(v9)The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things; including the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his…
Deuteronomy 4:36(v10)Out of heaven he made you to hear his voice, that he might instruct you. On earth he made you to see his great fire; and you heard his…
Deuteronomy 26:18-19(v9)Yahweh has declared today that you are a people for his own possession, as he has promised you, and that you should keep all his…
Psalms 135:4(v9)For Yah has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel for his own possession.
Psalms 147:19-20(v10)He shows his word to Jacob, his statutes and his ordinances to Israel. He has not done this for just any nation. They don’t know his…
Isaiah 40:31(v11)but those who wait for Yahweh will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They…
Isaiah 43:21(v9)the people which I formed for myself, that they might declare my praise.
Isaiah 44:7-8(v12)Who is like me? Who will call, and will declare it, and set it in order for me, since I established the ancient people? Let them declare…
Romans 2:18(v10)know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law,
Exodus 15:16(v9)Terror and dread falls on them. By the greatness of your arm they are as still as a stone, until your people pass over, Yahweh, until the…
Deuteronomy 1:31(v12)and in the wilderness where you have seen how that Yahweh your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way that you went,…
1 Samuel 10:1(v9)Then Samuel took the vial of oil, and poured it on his head, and kissed him, and said, “Hasn’t Yahweh anointed you to be prince over his…
Psalms 78:14(v12)In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
Psalms 78:71(v9)from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
Psalms 107:4-5(v10)They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
Psalms 136:16(v12)to him who led his people through the wilderness; for his loving kindness endures forever:
Isaiah 43:11-12(v12)I myself am Yahweh. Besides me, there is no savior. I have declared, I have saved, and I have shown, and there was no strange god among…
Isaiah 63:9-13(v12)In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore…
Micah 2:5(v9)Therefore you will have no one who divides the land by lot in Yahweh’s assembly.
Romans 3:2(v10)Much in every way! Because first of all, they were entrusted with the revelations of God.
Ephesians 1:18(v9)having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, and what are the riches of the glory of his…
Deuteronomy 32:39(v12)“See now that I myself am he. There is no god with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can deliver out of…
Nehemiah 9:12(v12)Moreover, in a pillar of cloud you led them by day; and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light in the way in which they should go.
Psalms 27:11(v12)Teach me your way, Yahweh. Lead me in a straight path, because of my enemies.
Isaiah 31:5(v11)As birds hovering, so Yahweh of Armies will protect Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it. He will pass over and preserve it.”
Hebrews 11:3(v11)By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which…
Revelation 12:4(v11)His tail drew one third of the stars of the sky, and threw them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give…
Psalms 80:1(v12)Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock, you who sit above the cherubim, shine out.
46 distinct cross-references across this passage (47 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (17 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv11–12To teach them to fly.
To teach them to fly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Deu 32:9 For the LORD’S portion [is] his people;…
Deu 32:9 For the LORD’S portion [is] his people; Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.
Ver. 9. For the Lord’s portion.] Dear to God, though despised of the world. They are the Lord’s "inheritance," {Isa 19:25} "peculiar" ones, {Exo 19:5} the people of his purchase, that comprehended all his gettings, {1Pe 2:9} his "glory," {Isa 46:13} his "ornament," {Eze 7:20} his "throne," {Jer 4:17} his "diadem," {Isa 62:3} "heirs of the kingdom," saith St James, {Jas 2:5} heads destinated to the diadem, saith Tertullian.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv9–12It is no wonder God had so great a…
It is no wonder God had so great a regard to this people, for he chose them out of all mankind to be his peculiar portion and treasure.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv9–12For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is…
For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. This is the reason why the Lord so early provided a portion or inheritance for the children of Israel in the land of Canaan; because they were his part, his portion, his inheritance, which he chose by lot for himself, or allotted to himself; whom he chose to be his special and peculiar people; for though all the world is his, he only reserved a part for himself, which he separated from all the rest, and considers as his portion and inheritance, see Psa 33:12; thus the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world; and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.
; thus the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world; and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.
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Deuteronomy 32:10
deu 32:10
deu 32:10
deu 32:10He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness,.... In Deu 32:10 instances are given of the goodness of God to the people of Israel, when in the wilderness; by which is meant, either "the wilderness of the land of Egypt", as it is called, Eze 20:36; where they were in a most miserable and forlorn condition, in which the Lord found them, and out of which he brought them; or rather the desert of Arabia, a waste place, where no provisions could be had; a howling wilderness, through the blowing of the winds, the cries of wild creatures, as dragons, owls, ostriches, and the like, as the Targum of Jonathan, Jarchi, and Aben Ezra, and the howling of passengers lost, or for want of provisions; here the Lord found them, and they were as acceptable to him as grapes to a traveller in a wilderness; see Gill on Hos 9:10, this is an emblem of the world, in which the spiritual Israel are, when called by grace out of it; or of an unregenerate state, in which they are found, and out of which they are brought: the phrase sometimes signifies sufficing, or finding with everything sufficient; see Num 11:22; so Onkelos renders it here; which is true of the Lord's dealing with this people; he supplied them with manna, the corn of heaven, angels' food, and with water out of the rock, and flesh to eat in fulness, yea, with raiment as well as food; with everything convenient for them: so the Lord does for his spiritual Israel, feeding them with his word and ordinances, clothing them with the righteousness of his Son, giving them fresh supplies of grace, and withholding no good thing from them; so that they have enough, having all things richly to enjoy:
he led him about; when he brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, he did not lead them the nearest way to the land of Canaan, through the the land of the Philistines, but he led them about the way of the wilderness of the Red sea; and when they were come to the borders of the land, because of their murmurings, and disobedience, they were ordered back into the wilderness again; nor were they suffered to go through the land of Edom when on the confines of it, which would have been a shorter way; but they were obliged to go round that land, which was very discouraging to them, see Exo 13:17; and thus the Lord, though he could if he would, bring his people at once to heaven; he could sanctify them at once, as well as justify them; he could take them the moment he regenerates them into his kingdom, as the thief on the cross; yet this is not his usual way: though he calls them out from among the men of the world, he continues them in it, having something for them to do or suffer for his name's sake; he indeed leads them soon into the right and plain way of salvation, and not in a roundabout way of duties; yet he leads them in many roundabout ways in Providence, which are all right, though sometimes rough; they seem at times to be near to heaven, and then they are turned into the world again; nay, the Apostle Paul was in heaven, and yet sent into the wilderness of the Gentiles again, for the good of souls and the interest of a Redeemer; however, they all at last come safe to heaven and happiness: the words may be rendered, "he surrounded" or "compassed him about" (p), and the rather, since leading them about seems to be by way of resentment or punishment, whereas Moses is enumerating instances of goodness and kindness, as this was one; he covered them with the clouds of glory, so the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, Jarchi and Aben Ezra: he protected them with his power and providence, and preserved them from serpents and scorpions, and the wild beasts of the wilderness, as well as from all their enemies: and the Lord surrounds his spiritual Israel with angels, who encamp about them; with himself, who is a wall of fire round about them; with his power, in which they are kept as in a garrison; and with his love, which encompasses them as a shield:
he instructed him; he taught him the law, as the Targum of Jonathan; so Jarchi and Aben Ezra; or the decalogue, as the Jerusalem Targum; he instructed him in the knowledge of the true God and his worship; in the knowledge of the Messiah, and of his righteousness, and salvation by him; for he instructed him by his good Spirit, Neh 9:20; so the Lord instructs his spiritual Israel, by his Spirit, his ministers, his word and ordinances, in the knowledge of themselves, and of himself in Christ, and of Christ and the way of life by him; and this being joined with the Lord's leading about his people, may suggest that he instructs them by adverse dispensations of Providence: the word (q) signifies causing to understand; and God only can teach and instruct in such sense as to give men an understanding of the things they are taught and instructed in:
he kept him as the apple of his eye; in the most careful and tender manner: the apple of the eye is an aperture in it, which lets in rays of light into the "retina" or chamber where the images of things are formed; this is wonderfully guarded in nature, for, besides the orbit of the eye, which is strong and bony, and the eyelids, which in sleep are closed, to prevent anything falling into the eye to disturb it; and the eyebrows, which are fringed with hair to break off the rays of light, which sometimes would be too strong for it; besides all these, there are no less than six tunics or coats to keep and preserve it: and in like manner did the Lord keep and guard Israel, while passing through the wilderness, from fiery serpents, scorpions, and the nations, that none might hurt, as Jarchi; and especially thus he keeps his spiritual Israel, who are parts of himself, one with him, near and dear to him; and about whom he sets guard upon guard, employs all his perfections to secure them, and constantly watches over them night and day, and keeps them from all evil and every enemy, and preserves them safe to his kingdom and glory.
(p) "circumdedit eum", Piscator; so Cocceius, Van Till, Vitringa. (q) "intelligere fecit eum", Pagninus, Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv9–12His people - It is no wonder God had…
His people - It is no wonder God had so great a regard to this people, for he chose them out of all mankind to be his peculiar portion.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Verse 9. The Lord's portion is his people] What…
Verse 9. The Lord's portion is his people] What an astonishing saying! As holy souls take GOD for their portion, so GOD takes them for his portion. He represents himself as happy in his followers; and they are infinitely happy in, and satisfied with, God as their portion. This is what is implied in being a saint. He who is seeking for an earthly portion, has little commerce with the Most High.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Deu 32:9. The Lord’s portion is his people —…
Deu 32:9. The Lord’s portion is his people — Highly prized and loved by him, Exo 19:5-6. As if he had said, The Israelites are that portion of mankind whom God was pleased to redeem out of bondage, and to make his peculiar people. It is no wonder, therefore, that he has so great a regard for them, and takes special care of them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv9–12Lot. Hebrew literally, "the cord," in allusion to the…
Lot. Hebrew literally, "the cord," in allusion to the ancient method of dividing lands with a cord. Herodotus (ii. 6,) observes, that the length of one, in the Upper Egypt, was 60 stadia, or 7700 paces, while it was only half as much in the Lower Egypt.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv10–11found him in a desert land--took him into a…
found him in a desert land--took him into a covenant relation at Sinai, or rather "sustained," "provided for him" in a desert land.
a waste howling wilderness--a common Oriental expression for a desert infested by wild beasts.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv10–1210. Found him in a desert land — This…
10. Found him in a desert land — This entire passage (10-14) is a highly poetical description of Jehovah’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and of the divine care and guidance. He finds Israel as a man ready to perish. Egypt, though a land of fertility and wealth, was a desert to the toiling Hebrew serf. The harsh measure of the Egyptian king would have resulted, if not arrested, in the extirpation of the people. To heighten the figure and give it local colouring Moses brings out the desolateness of the Wilderness of Wandering, and the howling of the wild beasts that must at times have made the way terrible.
He kept him as the apple of his eye — This figure denotes the tenderest care of Jehovah. Comp. Psa_17:8 : “Keep me as the apple of the eye;” also, Pro_7:2 : “Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv9–129. portion] Or lot; in Deu_12:12 with inheritance.
9. portion] Or lot; in Deu_12:12 with inheritance.
his people] LXX removes Jacob to this line, and to the end of the following adds Israel. In that case his people is superfluous both to the sense and to the rhythm.
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lot] Lit. measuring-rope, i.e. scale or range; cp. Deu_9:26, Psa_105:11.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv10–11(10) The whole of this verse is in the…
(10) The whole of this verse is in the pictorial present in the Hebrew—
“He findeth him in a desert land,
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In a waste howling wilderness;
He compasseth him about, He instructeth him,
He guardeth him as the apple of his eye.”
He found him.—This beautiful expression is common to the Old and New Testaments as a description of God’s first revelation of Himself to man. In the case of Hagar it is written (Gen_16:7), “the angel of Jehovah found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness.” Concerning Jacob, that “He found him in Bethel,” when Jacob said “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not” (Hos_12:4; Gen_28:16). A series of similar passages is closed by the three examples of the lost sheep, the lost money, and the son that had been lost, and was found (Luke 15).
He led him about.—The commoner meaning is given in the margin. Rashi has this remark: “He caused them to abide round about His glory (Shechinah), the tent of the congregation in the middle, and four standards on the four sides.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv10–12God"s fatherly care of Israel. In the desert land,…
God"s fatherly care of Israel. In the desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; literally, in the land of the desert, in the waste (the formless waste; the word used is that rendered, (Gen_1:2, "without form the howling of the wilderness. "Israel is figuratively represented as a man without food or water, and surrounded by howling, ferocious beasts, and who must needs have perished had not God found him and rescued him" (Herxheimer). The apple of his eye; literally, the mannikin (wOvyai) of his eye, the pupil; so called because in it, as in a mirror, a person sees his own image reflected in miniature (Gesenius), or because, being the tenderest part of the eye, it is guarded as one would a babe. (cf. Psa_17:8; Pro_7:2; Zec_2:12) By Delitzsch and others this explanation of the word is rejected as not philologically justified, there being no evidence that the termination wO had a diminutive force; and as not in keeping with the earnestness of the passages in which this word occurs. They prefer the explanation man image to mannikin. Anyhow, the use of the word here must be taken as indicating that Israel is ever in the eye of the Lord, the object of his constant and tenderest care.
Vers. 19-25. An unfaithful people provoked to jealousy by God.
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This paragraph is the antithesis of the preceding one. In form the expressions are archaic. The principles underlying these ancient forms of expression are for all the ages. In fact, there are few of the Old Testament passages which are more pointedly referred to in the New Testament; and none, the principles of which are more frequently reproduced. The various clauses are seriatim explained in the Exposition. We propose but to develop the main thought, which is indicated in the heading of this Homily. Its contents are fourfold.
1. God was provoked to jealousy by his people choosing a no-God instead of him.
2. The time would come when he would, as a punishment to Israel, choose a no-people instead of them.
3. Those who had been exalted in privilege should be deprived of their privileges, and should pass through the bitterest sorrows.
4. At the thought of their privileges passing away from them, and passing on to others, Israel should be provoked to jealousy.
Now, it would be a most instructive and impressive exercise to compare what is here said by God in his Word with that which actually came to pass. What does history say? Does it not confirm Moses at every point? The facts of history are these
1. The people of Israel did fall away from the God of their fathers, and bring upon themselves the remonstrance of prophet after prophet, and were made in the course of God"s providence to suffer sorrow upon sorrow.
2. The time did come when the kingdom of God passed away from them, and when they were no longer, as they once had been, the favored people.
3. That kingdom of God passed over to the Gentiles.
4. At its so passing over, the Jews were exceedingly jealous and angry.
5. So much so was this the case, that Patti makes use of the fact in arguments to quicken both the Jew and the Gentile, as the case may be.
The following passages of Scripture should be carefully compared together, bearing as they do alike on the history, the principles revolved therein, and their everlasting application: Rom_10:19; Mat_8:11, 12 21:31, 43; Act_13:46; Rom_9:30-32; Hos_1:10 (latter part) Rom_9:25, Rom_9:26; 1Pe_2:10; Eph_2:11-13; Rom_11:13-25. From all which several all-important truths of permanent significance may be clearly deduced and powerfully applied.
I THESE ARE TIMES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE WITH US. True, we are not exclusively a favored race, in the same sense as was Israel of old. But our advantages are not less because others share them with us. We have all that Israel ever had, and vastly more. "The kingdom of God is come unto us." The "word of faith" is nigh us, in our mouth and in our heart. We are bidden to "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," etc.
II IF THESE PRIVILEGES REMAIN UNIMPROVED, OUR NEGLECT THEREOF WILL BE A GRIEVOUS SIN IN THE EYE OF GOD. We have but to read the Epistle to the Hebrews in order to find such an argument as this repeatedly presented, though in varying forms: If the Law of Moses was trifled with by any one, they did not escape punishment. But Jesus Christ is greater than Moses. By as much as he is greater than Moses, by so much are the sin and danger of neglecting him greater than those of neglecting the lawgiver of old.
III BOTH CHURCHES AND NATIONS HAVE A DAY OF PROBATION GRANTED THEM, DURING WHICH THEIR PRIVILEGES ARE CONTINUED. (see Isa_49:8; Luk_13:6-9; Rev_2:5, Rev_2:21; Luk_19:42-44) An unending probation is granted to no one.
IV IF THE PERIOD OF PROBATION PASSES BY UNIMPROVED, OUR PRIVILEGES WILL BE TAKEN AWAY FROM US.
V OTHER LANDS AND OTHER PEOPLES ARE READY, YEA, EAGER TO RECEIVE THE LIGHT WHICH SOME APPRECIATE SO LITTLE.
VI MANY, MANY WILL COME FROM LESS FAVORED LANDS AND FROM LESS CULTURED RACES, AND WILL STEP INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND BE SAVED; while many of the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Hear what our Lord says to the Pharisees: "The publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of God before you.
Vers. 10-14. A panorama of grace.
How Israel was found, led, taught, kept.
I WHERE GOD FOUND HIM. (Ver. 10.) Partly metaphorical the state of Israel in Egypt being likened to that of a man perishing in the desert; partly literal it being in the desert that God found the people when he took them into covenant. An image of the helpless and hopeless condition of the sinner. Cut off from life, without shelter, provision, resting-place, or final home.
II HOW GOD DEALT WITH HIM. (Vers. 10, 11.) That Israel was kept in the wilderness so long was his own fault. But grace overruled the discipline for good. The long sojourn in the desert made Israel"s case, also, a better type of our own. There are ends to be served by this sojourn. (Joh_17:15) God showed himself:
1. Condescending to Israel"s feebleness. (Hos_11:3, Hos_11:4)
2. Mindful of his ignorance. "Instructed him.
3. Watchful of his safety. "Kept him.
4. Careful of his training (ver. 11).
The love and solicitude implied in such phrases as, "kept him as the apple of his eye" (ver. 10), and "as an eagle stirreth up," etc. (ver. 11), specially deserve notice. The apple of the eye is a sensitive part, which we protect with the utmost care, and from the slightest injuries. (On the eagle, see below.)
III WHITHER GOD CONDUCTED HIM. (Vers. 13, 14.) To a land of plenty and rest. Made his defense the munitions of rocks. Provided him with all that heart could desire. So does God bring the believer to a large and wealthy place a place of "fullness of joy," of richest satisfactions, of most perfect delights. Spiritually, even here, where the most unpropitious circumstances yield him unexpected blessings. Eternally and in perfected form hereafter. Note: God alone did all this for Israel. (ver. 12). J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv9–11The Lords portion is His people.
Deu_32:9
The Lords portion is His people.
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A choice portion
1. The text teaches us that the Church of God is the Lords own peculiar and special property. The earth is the Lord s, and the fulness thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein. By creation, as well as by providence, Jehovah is the Sovereign possessor of the entire universe. Let none venture to dispute His claims, or say that He is not the great owner of all things, for thus saith the Lord, Behold, all souls are Mine. But He has a special property in His Church. As a king may have ample possessions, to all of which he has undoubted right, but still he has royal crown-lands which are in a very special sense his own; so hath the Lord of all a peculiar interest in His saints. As Osborne, and Balmoral, and Windsor belong to our sovereign by a tenure which differs from his title and claim to the United Kingdom, so the Church is the peculiar heritage of the King of kings. The Lords portion is His people. How are they His?
(1) We answer, first, by His own sovereign choice. He did so ordain to make His chosen and set His love upon them.
(2) They are not only His by choice, but by purchase.
(3) They are also His by conquest. Old Jacob, when he lay a-dying, gave to Joseph one portion above his brethren, which he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and with his bow. The Lord Jesus can truly say of His people, that He hath taken them out of the hand of the Amorite with His sword and with His bow. Thy conquering hand, O Jesus, when nailed to the Cross, rent away Thy childrens chains. We are indeed the conquered captives of His omnipotent love.
2. In the second place, the text shows that the saints are the objects of the Lords especial care. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth,--with what object?--to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. The wheels of providence are full of eyes; but in what direction are they gazing? Why, that all things may work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
3. The text includes the idea that the Church is the object of the Lords special joy, for a mans portion is that in which he takes delight. See what terms He uses; He calls them His dwelling place. In Jewry is God known, His name is great in Israel, in Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place in Zion. For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. Where is a man most at ease? Why, at home. We are expressly told that the Church is the Lords rest. This is My rest forever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it. As if all the world beside were His workshop, and His Church His rest. In the boundless universe He is busy marshalling the stars, riding upon the wings of the wind, making the clouds His chariot; but in His Church He is at rest, in Zion the Everlasting One spends His Sabbaths. Yet further, there is an unrivalled picture in the Word where the Lord is even represented as singing with joy over His people. Who could have conceived of the Eternal One as bursting forth into a song. Yet it is written, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing. As He looked upon the world, He spoke and said, It is very good, but He did not sing. And as He vieweth the works of providence, I hear not that He sings; but when He gazes on you, the purchase of Jesus blood, His own chosen ones, the great heart of the Infinite restrains itself no longer, but, wonder of wonders, God, the Eternal One, sings out of the joy of His soul. Truly, the Lords portion is His people.
4. Our text teaches us that Gods people are His everlasting possession. He will never sell His children at a price; nor if He could have better people instead, would He change them. They are His, and they shall be His while time lasts; and when time ends, and eternity rolls on, He never can, He never will cast away His chosen people. Let us in this rejoice and be exceeding glad. The Lords portion is His people. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Lords people
I. What is said of the Lords people?
1. They are a chosen people.
2. They are a renewed people.
3. They are a people of faith.
4. They are a justified people.
5. They are a people who perform good works.
II. Where God finds His people when He calls them.
1. Alienated from God.
2. Ignorant of God.
3. As wanderers, going astray.
4. Strangers to themselves.
5. Willing slaves to Satan.
6. Dead in sins.
III. The special care which the Lord takes of His people.
1. He leads them--
(1) To Christ for salvation.
(2) To see further into the plague of their own heart.
(3) Into the furnace of spiritual affliction.
2. He instructs them--
(1) In the plan of salvation.
(2) In the doctrine of the Trinity.
(3) In the efficacy of Christs death.
(4) In the endearing relationship which God sustains to His people, as their Father, etc.
(5) In all the blessings of the covenant. (J. J. Eastmead.)
Gods people His portion
The word portion signifies a possession which a man claims as his own, which he highly prizes, and in which he greatly delights. We cannot surf that the English are the people of God, or the French, or the Germans, or the Russians; but we may say that God has a people in England, and in France, and in Germany, and in Russia; and so on. For His real people are no longer known as Jew or Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free; but those in every nation under heaven are His who worship Him in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. These are His people; He has pleasure in them, and counts them His portion--a possession dear to Him above all others. Of course, we speak of earth. In heaven lie may have what is dearer still: but when He looks down on earth, He sees nothing so precious as those whom He has chosen to be His people, the lot of His inheritance. Let us, then, see on what grounds it is that He so highly values them. These are three: they are dear to Him--as bought by so costly a price; as regenerated by His grace on earth; as hereafter to be glorified in heaven.
I. Now, when a man pays a great price for anything, he must have esteemed it very valuable before he could be induced to give so much for it; and in like manner, we argue very correctly when we say that the fact of Gods giving His Son to save the world was a proof how strongly His bowels yearned over manhood, how precious they were in His sight. But this is not the exact feature of the case before us, which we are proposing to consider. We are not speaking of that love of God to the world which led Him to give His Son to save it; but of His love to those who are so purchased and saved. And here also, if we look at the manner of men, we well know that what a man has laboured hard for, and purchased dear, he prizes accordingly; he surveys the acres which, at the expense of much toil, he has made his own, with very different feelings from those of his heir, into whose hands they fall without any care or expense on his part, and who perhaps dissipates what his predecessor had acquired. It is this latter case which illustrates the love that God bears to His people, He loves them because so much has been paid for them; He would not that the souls should perish for which Christ died; His soul would be grieved at the loss of that which the counsels of His wisdom and the treasures of His love had been expended to procure.
II. When a man, at a very high price, has purchased a tract of waste land, which, on account of the scenery, the air, and the capabilities of the soil, he destines for his future residence, he surveys what has now become his property with much interest. But in its present state he cannot view it with entire satisfaction; he cannot dwell in the morass, nor take up his abode in the one mean hovel that stands on the premises; but he will not let the large sum which he has paid be lost. He therefore causes the whole to be surveyed, lays down a plan of improvement, and fixes on the site of his intended dwelling. After a while the scene is changed, the bog is reclaimed, furze and brushwood, and all unsightly objects are swept away, trees are planted, the grounds are tastefully laid out, and a beautiful mansion is erected. The proprietor now looks at it with other eyes than before, is delighted with the loveliness which he beholds, and gladly fixes his abode there. It is thus that the Lord at first beholds those whom He has purchased by the death of His Son. The mere fact of Christs having died for them makes no more change in their character than a mans having paid the purchase of a bleak common converts it into a scene of loveliness. No; much has to be done with the soil of the heart, as well as with the soil of the ground; and He who undertakes the work is a skilful operator, and is sure to succeed. But here the parallel ceases; our illustration leaves us--it can help us no further. How man acts upon the inert soil, we can understand; but cannot understand how God acts upon the mind. The process of education comes the nearest to it; for, as we teach children by books, and stimulate them by rewards and punishments, so God deals with His people in a way of instruction and discipline.
III. If, then, the people of God is His portion here below; if such is the excellence of real holiness, that, imperfect as their holiness is, their heavenly Father sees nothing to be compared to it, nothing worthy to be mentioned with it, in the whole compass of our globe--what a portion will His ransomed ones be to Him, when every remainder of sin shall be done away; when He shall see in them the full resemblance of their elder Brother, His well-beloved Son, and be well pleased with them, even as He is well pleased with Him! And now let me, in conclusion, show you that all the considerations which move God to take us for His portion should be so many arguments to induce us to follow after holiness.
1. In the first place, the price paid for us. Did Christ die to redeem us from this present evil world? and shall we be conformed to the world which crucified Him?
2. Further, consider how excellent true holiness is. If the Lords people are His portion, it is because they are a holy people. He rejoices over them on account of their holiness. Think, then, what a real dignity and sterling worth there must be in that which God Himself approves.
3. But look beyond the end of your days here below--look to those days which will know no end. Think of the sanctity and blessedness of that state for which God is training you, and be content to be led and disciplined for it in the way that He pleases. (J. Fawcett, M. A.)
Good men as the property of God
I. They are amongst His most valuable property.
1. They have souls. One soul is more valuable than the whole world. Souls can think of and love God; the material universe cannot.
2. Redeemed souls.
II. They are amongst His most gratifying property. (Homilist.)
The Church the portion of God
By this it is not intimated that God needs us, or any creature, to add anything to His blessedness; it is impossible to suppose it. We cannot be necessary to the Lord otherwise than as we supply Him with opportunities of displaying His grace and all-sufficiency. But though it implies not anything so derogatory to God, it means something of the greatest consequence to us.
1. In the first place, it implies tender care. A mans portion is the most valuable part of his substance, which he is solicitous above all things to preserve: and if it be at any time in danger, he is indefatigable till it be secured. In like manner is the Church, and every particular member of it, the charge of the providence of God.
2. A portion is an object of delight. With what pleasure does the worldling survey his possessions! He leaves his intimate friend, and agreeable company, to count his beloved treasure. He walks over his fields each day with fresh pleasure; and every time sees, or thinks he sees, new beauties in the prospect around him. Yet this very imperfectly represents the delight which the Lord is described as taking in His people. Jewels, treasure, heritage, children are the endearing appellations by which they are distinguished.
3. A portion implies expectation. Where much is given, much will be required. Where He has distinguished any with peculiar marks of regard, He expects works of faith and labours of love; fruitfulness in every good work, and increase in the knowledge of God. He expects that His people should be essentially different from the rest of the world; that they shine as lights in the world, and adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things; and that their progress in grace and holiness be proportionable to their various advantages.
4. I might here particularly show you how we came to be the portion of God.
(1) But let us now, from what has been said, consider how lamentable it is that the Lords portion is so small; that, among all the human race, there should be so few to whom the words of the text may be properly applied.
(2) How solicitous should we be to know whether we be the Lords portion or not!
(3) Let us walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.
(4) Finally, let us rejoice in the prospect of that glorious period, when the Lord will fully possess His portion, and we shall fully possess ours. (S. Lavington.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren1905 · Public DomainOn vv9, 11Deu 32:9 - Tit 2:14.
Deuteronomy
GOD’S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN
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Deu 32:9 - Tit 2:14.
I choose these two texts because they together present us with the other side of the thought to that which I have elsewhere considered, that man’s true treasure is in God. That great axiom of the religious consciousness, which pervades the whole of Scripture, is rapturously expressed in many a psalm, and never more assuredly than in that one which struggles up from the miry clay in which the Psalmist’s ‘steps had well-nigh slipped’ and soars and sings thus: ‘The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot,’ ‘The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.’
You observe the correspondence between these words and those of my first text: ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ The correspondence in the original is not quite so marked as it is in our Authorised Version, but still the idea in the two passages is the same. Now it is plain that persons can possess persons only by love, sympathy, and communion. From that it follows that the possession must be mutual; or, in other words, that only he can say ‘Thou art mine’ who can say ‘I am Thine.’ And so to possess God, and to be possessed by God, are but two ways of putting the same fact. ‘The Lord is the portion of His people, and the Lord’s portion is His people,’ are only two ways of stating the same truth.
Then my second text clearly quotes the well-known utterance that lies at the foundation of the national life of Israel: ‘Ye shall be unto Me a peculiar treasure above all people,’ and claims that privilege, like all Israel’s privileges, for the Christian Church. In like manner Peter {1Pe 2:9} quotes the same words, ‘a peculiar people,’ as properly applying to Christians. I need scarcely remind you that ‘peculiar’ here is used in its proper original sense of belonging to, or, as the Revised Version gives it, ‘a people for God’s own possession’ and has no trace of the modern signification of ‘singular.’ Similarly we find Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians giving both sides of the idea of the inheritance in intentional juxtaposition, when he speaks {Eph 1:14} of the ‘earnest of our inheritance . . . unto the redemption of God’s own possession.’ In the words before us we have the same idea; and this text besides tells us how Christ, the Revealer of God, wins men for Himself, and what manner of men they must be whom He counts as His.
Therefore there are, as I take it, three things to be spoken about now. First, God has a special ownership in some people. Second, God owns these people because He has given Himself to them. Third, God possesses, and is possessed by, His inheritance, that He may give and receive services of love. Or, in briefer words, I have to speak about this wonderful thought of a special divine ownership, what it rests upon, and what it involves.
I. God has special ownership in some people.
‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ Put side by side with those other words of the Old Testament: ‘All souls are Mine,’ or the utterance of the 100th Psalm rightly translated: ‘It is He that hath made us, and to Him we belong.’ There is a right of absolute and utter ownership and possession inherent in the very relation of Creator and creature; so that the being made is wholly and altogether at the disposal, and is the property, of Him that makes him.
But is that enough for God’s heart? Is that worth calling ownership at all? An arbitrary tyrant in an unconstitutional kingdom, or a slave-owner, may have the most absolute right of property over his subject or his slave; may have the right of entire disposal of all his industry, of the profit of all his labour; may be able to do anything he likes with him, may have the power of life and death; but such ownership is only of the husk and case of a man: the man himself may be free, and may smile at the claim of possession. ‘They may ‘own’ the body, and after that have no more than they can do.’ That kind of authority and ownership, absolute and utter, to the point of death, may satisfy a tyrant or a slave-driver, it does not satisfy the loving heart of God. It is not real possession at all. In what sense did Nero own Paul when he shut him up in prison, and cut his head off? Does the slave-owner own the man whom he whips within an inch of his life, and who dare not do anything without his permission? Does God, in any sense that corresponds with the longing of infinite love, own the men that reluctantly obey Him, and are simply, as it were, tools in His hands? He covets and longs for a deeper relationship and tenderer ties, and though all creatures are His, and all men are His servants and His possession, yet, like certain regiments in our own British army, there are some who have the right to bear in a special manner on their uniform and on their banners the emblazonment, ‘The King’s Own.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’
Well, then, the next thought is that the special relationship of possession is constituted by mutual love. I said at the beginning of these remarks that as concerns men’s relations, the only real possession is through love, sympathy, and communion, and that that must necessarily be mutual. We have a perfect right to apply the human analogy here; in fact, we are bound to do it if we would rightly understand such words as those of my text; and it just leads us to this, that the one thing whereby God reckons that He possesses a man at all is when His love falls upon that man’s heart and soaks into it, and when there springs up in the heart a corresponding emotion and affection. The men who welcome the divine love that goes through the whole world, seeking such to worship it, and to trust it, and to become its own; and who therefore lovingly yield to the loving divine will, and take it for their law-these are the men whom He regards as His ‘portion’ and ‘the lot of His inheritance.’ So that God is mine, and that ‘I am God’s,’ are two ends of one truth; ‘I possess Him,’ and ‘I am possessed by Him,’ are but the statement of one fact expressed from two points of view. In the one case you look upon it from above, in the other case you look upon it from beneath. All the sweet commerce of mutual surrender and possession which makes the joy of our hearts, in friendship and in domestic life, we have the right to lift up into this loftier region, and find in it the last teaching of what makes the special bond of mutual possession between God and man.
And deep words of Scripture point in that direction. Those parables of our Lord’s: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, in their infinite beauty, whilst they contain a great deal besides this, do contain this in their several ways; the money, the animal, the man belong to the woman of the house, to the shepherd, to the father. Each is ‘lost’ in a different fashion, but the most clear revelation is given in the last parable of the three, which explains the other two. The son was ‘lost’ when he did not love the father; and he was ‘found’ by the father when he returned the yearning of the father’s heart.
And so, dear brethren, it ever is; the one thing that knits men to God is that the silken cord of love let down from Heaven should by our own hand be wrapped round our own hearts, and then we are united to Him. We are His and He is ours by the double action of His love manifested by Him, and His love received by us.
Now there is nothing in all that of favouritism. The declaration that there are people who have a special relationship to the divine heart may be so stated as to have a very ugly look, and it often has been so stated as to be nothing more than self-complacent Pharisaism, which values a privilege principally because its possession is an insult to somebody else that has it not.
There has been plenty of Christianity of that sort in the world, but there is nothing of it in the thoughts of these texts rightly looked at. There is only this: it cannot but be that men who yield to God and love Him, and try to live near Him and to do righteousness, are His in a manner that those who steel themselves against Him and turn away from Him are not. Whilst all creatures have a place in His heart, and are flooded with His benefits, and get as much of Him as they can hold, the men who recognise the source of their blessing, and turn to it with grateful hearts, are nearer Him than those that do not do so. Let us take care, lest for the sake of seeming to preserve the impartiality of His love, we have destroyed all in Him that makes His love worth having. If to Him the good and the bad, the men who fear Him and the men who fear Him not, are equally satisfactory, and, in the same manner, the objects of an equal love, then He is not a God that has pleasure in righteousness; and if He is not a God that ‘has pleasure in righteousness,’ He is not a God for us to trust to. We are not giving countenance to the notion that God has any step-children, any petted members of His family, when we cleave to this-they that have welcomed His love into their hearts are nearer to Him than those that have closed the door against it.
And there is one more point here about this matter of ownership on which I dwell for a moment, namely, that this conception of certain men being in a special sense God’s possession and inheritance means also that He has a special delight in, and lofty appreciation of, them. All this material creation exists for the sake of growing good men and women. That is the use of the things that are seen and temporal; they are like greenhouses built for the great Gardener’s use in striking and furthering the growth of His plants; and when He has got the plants He has got what He wanted, and you may pull the greenhouse down if you like. And so God estimates, and teaches us to estimate, the relative value and greatness of the material and the spiritual in this fashion, that He says to us in effect: ‘All these magnificences and magnitudes round you are small and vulgar as compared with this-a heart in which wisdom and divine truth and the love and likeness of God have attained to some tolerable measure of maturity and of strength.’ These are His ‘jewels,’ as the Roman matron said about her two boys. The great Father looks upon the men that love Him as His jewels, and, having got the jewels, the rock in which they were embedded and preserved may be crushed when you like. ‘They shall be Mine,’ saith the Lord, ‘My treasures in that day of judgment which I make.’
And so, my brother, all the insignificance of man, as compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspires after Him, and should but increase our wonder and our gratitude that He has been mindful of man and has visited him, in order that He might give Himself to men, and so might win men for Himself.
II. That brings me, and very briefly, to the other points that I desire to deal with now. The second one, which is suggested to us from my second text in the Epistle to Titus, is that this possession, by God, of man, like man’s possession of God, comes because God has given Himself to man.
The Apostle puts it very strongly in the Epistle to Titus: ‘The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might purify unto Himself a people for a possession.’ Israel, according to one metaphor, was God’s ‘son,’ begotten by that great redeeming act of deliverance from the captivity of Egypt {Deu 32:6 - Deu 32:19}. According to another metaphor, Israel was God’s bride, wooed and won for His own by that same act. Both of these figures point to the thought that in order to get man for His own He has to give Himself to man.
And the very height and sublimity of that truth is found in the Christian fact which the Apostle points to here. We need not depart from human analogies here either. Christ gave Himself to us that He might acquire us for Himself. Absolute possession of others is only possible at the price of absolute surrender to them. No human heart ever gave itself away unless it was convinced that the heart to which it gave itself had given itself to it.
And on the lower levels of gratitude and obligation, the only thing that binds a man to another in utter submission is the conviction that that other has given himself in absolute sacrifice for him. A doctor goes into the wards of an hospital with his life in his hands, and because he does, he wins the full confidence and affection of those whom he treats. You cannot buy a heart with anything less than a heart. In the barter of the world it is not ‘skin for skin,’ but it is ‘self for self’; and if you want to own me, you must give yourself altogether to me. And the measure in which teachers and guides and preachers and philanthropists of all sorts make conquests of men is the measure in which they make themselves sacrifices for men.
Now all that is true, and is lifted to its superlative truth, in the great central fact of the Christian faith. But there is more than human analogy here. Christ is not only self-sacrifice in the sense of surrender, but He is sacrifice in the sense of giving Himself for our redemption and forgiveness. He has not only given Himself to us, He has given Himself for us. And there, and on that, is builded, and on that alone has He a right to build, or have we a right to yield to it, His claim to absolute authority and utter command over each of us.
He has died for us, therefore the springs of our life are at His disposal; and the strongest motives which can sway our lives are set in motion by His touch. His death, says this text, redeems us from iniquity and purifies us. That points to its power in delivering us from the service and practice of sin. He buys us from the despot whose slaves we were, and makes us His own in the hatred of evil and the doing of righteousness. Moved by His death, we become capable of heroisms and martyrdoms of devotion to Him. Brethren, it is only as that self-sacrificing love touches us, which died for our sins upon the Cross, that the diabolical chain of selfishness will be broken from our affections and our wills, and we shall be led into the large place of glad surrender of ourselves to the sweetness and the gentle authority of His omnipotent love.
III. The last thought that I suggest is the issues to which this mutual possession points. God owns men, and is owned by them, in order that there may be a giving and receiving of mutual services of love.
‘The Lord’s portion is His people.’ That in the Old Testament is always laid as the foundation of certain obligations under which He has come, and which He will abundantly discharge. What is a great landlord expected to do to his estate? ‘What ought I to have done to my vineyard?’ the divine Proprietor asks through the mouth of His servant the prophet. He ought to till it, He ought not to starve it, He ought to fence it, He ought to cast a wall about it, He ought to reap the fruits. And He does all that for His inheritance. God’s honour is concerned in His portion not being waste. It is not to be a ‘garden of the sluggard,’ by which people who pass can see the thorns growing there. So He will till it, He will plough it, He will pick out the weeds, and all the disciplines of life will come to us, and the ploughshare will be driven deep into the heart, that ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness’ may spring up. He will fence His vineyard. Round about His inheritance His hand will be cast, within His people His Spirit will dwell. No harm shall come near thee if thy love is given to Him; safe and untouched by evil thou shalt walk if thou walk with God. ‘He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine eye.’ The soul that trusts Him He takes in charge, and before any evil can fall to it ‘the pillared firmament must be rottenness, and earth be built on stubble.’ ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people,’ and ‘none shall pluck them out of His hand.’
And on the other side, we belong to God in Christ. What do we owe Him? What does the vineyard owe the husbandman? Fruit. We are His, therefore we are bound to absolute submission. ‘Ye are not your own.’ Life, circumstances, occupations, all-we hold them at His will. We have no more right of property in anything than a slave in the bad old days had in his cabin and patch of ground. They belonged to the master to whom he belonged. Let us recognise our stewardship, and be glad to know ourselves His, and all events and things which we sometimes think ours, His also.
We are His, therefore we owe absolute trust. The slave has at least this blessing in his lot, that he need have no anxieties; nor need we. We belong to God, and He will take care of us. A rich man’s horses and dogs are well cared for, and our Owner will not leave us unheeded. Our well-being involves His good name. Leave anxious thought to masterless hearts which have to front the world with nobody at their backs. If you are God’s you will be looked after.
We are His, therefore we are bound to live to His praise. That is the conclusion which one Old Testament passage draws. ‘This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise’ {Isa 43:21}. The Apostle Peter quotes these words immediately after those from Exodus, which describe Israel as ‘a people for God’s own possession,’ when he says ‘that ye should show forth the praise of Him who hath called you.’ Let us, then, live to His glory, and remember that the servants of the King are bound to stand to their colours amid rebels, and that they who know the sweetness of possessing God, and the blessedness of yielding to His supreme control, should acknowledge what they have found of His goodness, and ‘tell forth the honour of His name, and make His praise glorious.’ Let not all the magnificent and wonderful expenditure of divine longing and love be in vain, nor run off your hearts like water poured upon a rock. Surely the sun’s flames leaping leagues high, they tell us, in tongues of burning gas, must melt everything that is near them. Shall we keep our hearts sullen and cold before such a fire of love? Surely that superb and wonderful manifestation of the love of God in the Cross of Christ should melt into running rivers of gratitude all the ice of our hearts.
‘He gave Himself for me!’ Let us turn to Him and say: ‘Lo! I give myself to Thee. Thou art mine. Make me Thine by the constraint of Thy love, so utterly, and so saturate my spirit with Thyself, that it shall not only be Thine, but in a very deep sense it shall be Thee, and that it may be “no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.”‘
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv9, 11General Information:
General Information:
Moses speaks a poetic song to the people of Israel. As he speaks to the Israelites, he talks about them as if they were someone else and as if they were one man. (See: Parallelism)
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For Yahweh's portion is his people; Jacob is his apportioned inheritance
These two phrases means basically the same thing and and can be combined. AT: "The descendants of Jacob are Yahweh's inheritance" (See: Parallelism)
He found him ... shielded him and cared for him ... guarded him
"He found Jacob ... shielded him and cared for him ... guarded him" You may need to translate this as if Moses were talking about the Israelites as many people. AT: "He found our ancestors ... shielded them and cared for them ... guarded them"
howling wilderness
Here "howling" refers to the sound the wind makes as it blows through the empty land.
he guarded him as the apple of his eye
This is an idiom. The apple of an eye refers to the dark part inside the eyeball that allows a person to see. This is a very important and sensitive part of the body. This means that the people of Israel are very important to God and something he protects. AT: "he protected him as something very valuable and precious" (See: Idiom and Simile)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v932:9 his special possession (literally his inheritance): God declared…
32:9 his special possession (literally his inheritance): God declared Israel to be his son, whom he redeemed from bondage in Egypt (see Exod 4:22-23; 13:15; Deut 7:6).
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11–12 To teach them to fly.
To teach them to fly.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Deu 32:9 For the LORD’S portion [is] his people;…
Deu 32:9 For the LORD’S portion [is] his people; Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.
Ver. 9. For the Lord’s portion.] Dear to God, though despised of the world. They are the Lord’s "inheritance," {Isa 19:25} "peculiar" ones, {Exo 19:5} the people of his purchase, that comprehended all his gettings, {1Pe 2:9} his "glory," {Isa 46:13} his "ornament," {Eze 7:20} his "throne," {Jer 4:17} his "diadem," {Isa 62:3} "heirs of the kingdom," saith St James, {Jas 2:5} heads destinated to the diadem, saith Tertullian.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv9–12 It is no wonder God had so great a…
It is no wonder God had so great a regard to this people, for he chose them out of all mankind to be his peculiar portion and treasure.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv9–12 For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is…
For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. This is the reason why the Lord so early provided a portion or inheritance for the children of Israel in the land of Canaan; because they were his part, his portion, his inheritance, which he chose by lot for himself, or allotted to himself; whom he chose to be his special and peculiar people; for though all the world is his, he only reserved a part for himself, which he separated from all the rest, and considers as his portion and inheritance, see Psa 33:12; thus the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world; and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.
; thus the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world; and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.
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Deuteronomy 32:10
deu 32:10
deu 32:10
deu 32:10He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness,.... In Deu 32:10 instances are given of the goodness of God to the people of Israel, when in the wilderness; by which is meant, either "the wilderness of the land of Egypt", as it is called, Eze 20:36; where they were in a most miserable and forlorn condition, in which the Lord found them, and out of which he brought them; or rather the desert of Arabia, a waste place, where no provisions could be had; a howling wilderness, through the blowing of the winds, the cries of wild creatures, as dragons, owls, ostriches, and the like, as the Targum of Jonathan, Jarchi, and Aben Ezra, and the howling of passengers lost, or for want of provisions; here the Lord found them, and they were as acceptable to him as grapes to a traveller in a wilderness; see Gill on Hos 9:10, this is an emblem of the world, in which the spiritual Israel are, when called by grace out of it; or of an unregenerate state, in which they are found, and out of which they are brought: the phrase sometimes signifies sufficing, or finding with everything sufficient; see Num 11:22; so Onkelos renders it here; which is true of the Lord's dealing with this people; he supplied them with manna, the corn of heaven, angels' food, and with water out of the rock, and flesh to eat in fulness, yea, with raiment as well as food; with everything convenient for them: so the Lord does for his spiritual Israel, feeding them with his word and ordinances, clothing them with the righteousness of his Son, giving them fresh supplies of grace, and withholding no good thing from them; so that they have enough, having all things richly to enjoy:
he led him about; when he brought the people of Israel out of Egypt, he did not lead them the nearest way to the land of Canaan, through the the land of the Philistines, but he led them about the way of the wilderness of the Red sea; and when they were come to the borders of the land, because of their murmurings, and disobedience, they were ordered back into the wilderness again; nor were they suffered to go through the land of Edom when on the confines of it, which would have been a shorter way; but they were obliged to go round that land, which was very discouraging to them, see Exo 13:17; and thus the Lord, though he could if he would, bring his people at once to heaven; he could sanctify them at once, as well as justify them; he could take them the moment he regenerates them into his kingdom, as the thief on the cross; yet this is not his usual way: though he calls them out from among the men of the world, he continues them in it, having something for them to do or suffer for his name's sake; he indeed leads them soon into the right and plain way of salvation, and not in a roundabout way of duties; yet he leads them in many roundabout ways in Providence, which are all right, though sometimes rough; they seem at times to be near to heaven, and then they are turned into the world again; nay, the Apostle Paul was in heaven, and yet sent into the wilderness of the Gentiles again, for the good of souls and the interest of a Redeemer; however, they all at last come safe to heaven and happiness: the words may be rendered, "he surrounded" or "compassed him about" (p), and the rather, since leading them about seems to be by way of resentment or punishment, whereas Moses is enumerating instances of goodness and kindness, as this was one; he covered them with the clouds of glory, so the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem, Jarchi and Aben Ezra: he protected them with his power and providence, and preserved them from serpents and scorpions, and the wild beasts of the wilderness, as well as from all their enemies: and the Lord surrounds his spiritual Israel with angels, who encamp about them; with himself, who is a wall of fire round about them; with his power, in which they are kept as in a garrison; and with his love, which encompasses them as a shield:
he instructed him; he taught him the law, as the Targum of Jonathan; so Jarchi and Aben Ezra; or the decalogue, as the Jerusalem Targum; he instructed him in the knowledge of the true God and his worship; in the knowledge of the Messiah, and of his righteousness, and salvation by him; for he instructed him by his good Spirit, Neh 9:20; so the Lord instructs his spiritual Israel, by his Spirit, his ministers, his word and ordinances, in the knowledge of themselves, and of himself in Christ, and of Christ and the way of life by him; and this being joined with the Lord's leading about his people, may suggest that he instructs them by adverse dispensations of Providence: the word (q) signifies causing to understand; and God only can teach and instruct in such sense as to give men an understanding of the things they are taught and instructed in:
he kept him as the apple of his eye; in the most careful and tender manner: the apple of the eye is an aperture in it, which lets in rays of light into the "retina" or chamber where the images of things are formed; this is wonderfully guarded in nature, for, besides the orbit of the eye, which is strong and bony, and the eyelids, which in sleep are closed, to prevent anything falling into the eye to disturb it; and the eyebrows, which are fringed with hair to break off the rays of light, which sometimes would be too strong for it; besides all these, there are no less than six tunics or coats to keep and preserve it: and in like manner did the Lord keep and guard Israel, while passing through the wilderness, from fiery serpents, scorpions, and the nations, that none might hurt, as Jarchi; and especially thus he keeps his spiritual Israel, who are parts of himself, one with him, near and dear to him; and about whom he sets guard upon guard, employs all his perfections to secure them, and constantly watches over them night and day, and keeps them from all evil and every enemy, and preserves them safe to his kingdom and glory.
(p) "circumdedit eum", Piscator; so Cocceius, Van Till, Vitringa. (q) "intelligere fecit eum", Pagninus, Cocceius.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv9–12 His people - It is no wonder God had…
His people - It is no wonder God had so great a regard to this people, for he chose them out of all mankind to be his peculiar portion.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Verse 9. The Lord's portion is his people] What…
Verse 9. The Lord's portion is his people] What an astonishing saying! As holy souls take GOD for their portion, so GOD takes them for his portion. He represents himself as happy in his followers; and they are infinitely happy in, and satisfied with, God as their portion. This is what is implied in being a saint. He who is seeking for an earthly portion, has little commerce with the Most High.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Deu 32:9. The Lord’s portion is his people —…
Deu 32:9. The Lord’s portion is his people — Highly prized and loved by him, Exo 19:5-6. As if he had said, The Israelites are that portion of mankind whom God was pleased to redeem out of bondage, and to make his peculiar people. It is no wonder, therefore, that he has so great a regard for them, and takes special care of them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv9–12 Lot. Hebrew literally, "the cord," in allusion to the…
Lot. Hebrew literally, "the cord," in allusion to the ancient method of dividing lands with a cord. Herodotus (ii. 6,) observes, that the length of one, in the Upper Egypt, was 60 stadia, or 7700 paces, while it was only half as much in the Lower Egypt.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv10–11 found him in a desert land--took him into a…
found him in a desert land--took him into a covenant relation at Sinai, or rather "sustained," "provided for him" in a desert land.
a waste howling wilderness--a common Oriental expression for a desert infested by wild beasts.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv10–12 10. Found him in a desert land — This…
10. Found him in a desert land — This entire passage (10-14) is a highly poetical description of Jehovah’s deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and of the divine care and guidance. He finds Israel as a man ready to perish. Egypt, though a land of fertility and wealth, was a desert to the toiling Hebrew serf. The harsh measure of the Egyptian king would have resulted, if not arrested, in the extirpation of the people. To heighten the figure and give it local colouring Moses brings out the desolateness of the Wilderness of Wandering, and the howling of the wild beasts that must at times have made the way terrible.
He kept him as the apple of his eye — This figure denotes the tenderest care of Jehovah. Comp. Psa_17:8 : “Keep me as the apple of the eye;” also, Pro_7:2 : “Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.”
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv9–12 9. portion] Or lot; in Deu_12:12 with inheritance.
9. portion] Or lot; in Deu_12:12 with inheritance.
his people] LXX removes Jacob to this line, and to the end of the following adds Israel. In that case his people is superfluous both to the sense and to the rhythm.
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lot] Lit. measuring-rope, i.e. scale or range; cp. Deu_9:26, Psa_105:11.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv10–11 (10) The whole of this verse is in the…
(10) The whole of this verse is in the pictorial present in the Hebrew—
“He findeth him in a desert land,
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In a waste howling wilderness;
He compasseth him about, He instructeth him,
He guardeth him as the apple of his eye.”
He found him.—This beautiful expression is common to the Old and New Testaments as a description of God’s first revelation of Himself to man. In the case of Hagar it is written (Gen_16:7), “the angel of Jehovah found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness.” Concerning Jacob, that “He found him in Bethel,” when Jacob said “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not” (Hos_12:4; Gen_28:16). A series of similar passages is closed by the three examples of the lost sheep, the lost money, and the son that had been lost, and was found (Luke 15).
He led him about.—The commoner meaning is given in the margin. Rashi has this remark: “He caused them to abide round about His glory (Shechinah), the tent of the congregation in the middle, and four standards on the four sides.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv10–12 God"s fatherly care of Israel. In the desert land,…
God"s fatherly care of Israel. In the desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; literally, in the land of the desert, in the waste (the formless waste; the word used is that rendered, (Gen_1:2, "without form the howling of the wilderness. "Israel is figuratively represented as a man without food or water, and surrounded by howling, ferocious beasts, and who must needs have perished had not God found him and rescued him" (Herxheimer). The apple of his eye; literally, the mannikin (wOvyai) of his eye, the pupil; so called because in it, as in a mirror, a person sees his own image reflected in miniature (Gesenius), or because, being the tenderest part of the eye, it is guarded as one would a babe. (cf. Psa_17:8; Pro_7:2; Zec_2:12) By Delitzsch and others this explanation of the word is rejected as not philologically justified, there being no evidence that the termination wO had a diminutive force; and as not in keeping with the earnestness of the passages in which this word occurs. They prefer the explanation man image to mannikin. Anyhow, the use of the word here must be taken as indicating that Israel is ever in the eye of the Lord, the object of his constant and tenderest care.
Vers. 19-25. An unfaithful people provoked to jealousy by God.
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This paragraph is the antithesis of the preceding one. In form the expressions are archaic. The principles underlying these ancient forms of expression are for all the ages. In fact, there are few of the Old Testament passages which are more pointedly referred to in the New Testament; and none, the principles of which are more frequently reproduced. The various clauses are seriatim explained in the Exposition. We propose but to develop the main thought, which is indicated in the heading of this Homily. Its contents are fourfold.
1. God was provoked to jealousy by his people choosing a no-God instead of him.
2. The time would come when he would, as a punishment to Israel, choose a no-people instead of them.
3. Those who had been exalted in privilege should be deprived of their privileges, and should pass through the bitterest sorrows.
4. At the thought of their privileges passing away from them, and passing on to others, Israel should be provoked to jealousy.
Now, it would be a most instructive and impressive exercise to compare what is here said by God in his Word with that which actually came to pass. What does history say? Does it not confirm Moses at every point? The facts of history are these
1. The people of Israel did fall away from the God of their fathers, and bring upon themselves the remonstrance of prophet after prophet, and were made in the course of God"s providence to suffer sorrow upon sorrow.
2. The time did come when the kingdom of God passed away from them, and when they were no longer, as they once had been, the favored people.
3. That kingdom of God passed over to the Gentiles.
4. At its so passing over, the Jews were exceedingly jealous and angry.
5. So much so was this the case, that Patti makes use of the fact in arguments to quicken both the Jew and the Gentile, as the case may be.
The following passages of Scripture should be carefully compared together, bearing as they do alike on the history, the principles revolved therein, and their everlasting application: Rom_10:19; Mat_8:11, 12 21:31, 43; Act_13:46; Rom_9:30-32; Hos_1:10 (latter part) Rom_9:25, Rom_9:26; 1Pe_2:10; Eph_2:11-13; Rom_11:13-25. From all which several all-important truths of permanent significance may be clearly deduced and powerfully applied.
I THESE ARE TIMES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE WITH US. True, we are not exclusively a favored race, in the same sense as was Israel of old. But our advantages are not less because others share them with us. We have all that Israel ever had, and vastly more. "The kingdom of God is come unto us." The "word of faith" is nigh us, in our mouth and in our heart. We are bidden to "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," etc.
II IF THESE PRIVILEGES REMAIN UNIMPROVED, OUR NEGLECT THEREOF WILL BE A GRIEVOUS SIN IN THE EYE OF GOD. We have but to read the Epistle to the Hebrews in order to find such an argument as this repeatedly presented, though in varying forms: If the Law of Moses was trifled with by any one, they did not escape punishment. But Jesus Christ is greater than Moses. By as much as he is greater than Moses, by so much are the sin and danger of neglecting him greater than those of neglecting the lawgiver of old.
III BOTH CHURCHES AND NATIONS HAVE A DAY OF PROBATION GRANTED THEM, DURING WHICH THEIR PRIVILEGES ARE CONTINUED. (see Isa_49:8; Luk_13:6-9; Rev_2:5, Rev_2:21; Luk_19:42-44) An unending probation is granted to no one.
IV IF THE PERIOD OF PROBATION PASSES BY UNIMPROVED, OUR PRIVILEGES WILL BE TAKEN AWAY FROM US.
V OTHER LANDS AND OTHER PEOPLES ARE READY, YEA, EAGER TO RECEIVE THE LIGHT WHICH SOME APPRECIATE SO LITTLE.
VI MANY, MANY WILL COME FROM LESS FAVORED LANDS AND FROM LESS CULTURED RACES, AND WILL STEP INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AND BE SAVED; while many of the children of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. Hear what our Lord says to the Pharisees: "The publicans and harlots will go into the kingdom of God before you.
Vers. 10-14. A panorama of grace.
How Israel was found, led, taught, kept.
I WHERE GOD FOUND HIM. (Ver. 10.) Partly metaphorical the state of Israel in Egypt being likened to that of a man perishing in the desert; partly literal it being in the desert that God found the people when he took them into covenant. An image of the helpless and hopeless condition of the sinner. Cut off from life, without shelter, provision, resting-place, or final home.
II HOW GOD DEALT WITH HIM. (Vers. 10, 11.) That Israel was kept in the wilderness so long was his own fault. But grace overruled the discipline for good. The long sojourn in the desert made Israel"s case, also, a better type of our own. There are ends to be served by this sojourn. (Joh_17:15) God showed himself:
1. Condescending to Israel"s feebleness. (Hos_11:3, Hos_11:4)
2. Mindful of his ignorance. "Instructed him.
3. Watchful of his safety. "Kept him.
4. Careful of his training (ver. 11).
The love and solicitude implied in such phrases as, "kept him as the apple of his eye" (ver. 10), and "as an eagle stirreth up," etc. (ver. 11), specially deserve notice. The apple of the eye is a sensitive part, which we protect with the utmost care, and from the slightest injuries. (On the eagle, see below.)
III WHITHER GOD CONDUCTED HIM. (Vers. 13, 14.) To a land of plenty and rest. Made his defense the munitions of rocks. Provided him with all that heart could desire. So does God bring the believer to a large and wealthy place a place of "fullness of joy," of richest satisfactions, of most perfect delights. Spiritually, even here, where the most unpropitious circumstances yield him unexpected blessings. Eternally and in perfected form hereafter. Note: God alone did all this for Israel. (ver. 12). J.O.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv9–11 The Lords portion is His people.
Deu_32:9
The Lords portion is His people.
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A choice portion
1. The text teaches us that the Church of God is the Lords own peculiar and special property. The earth is the Lord s, and the fulness thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein. By creation, as well as by providence, Jehovah is the Sovereign possessor of the entire universe. Let none venture to dispute His claims, or say that He is not the great owner of all things, for thus saith the Lord, Behold, all souls are Mine. But He has a special property in His Church. As a king may have ample possessions, to all of which he has undoubted right, but still he has royal crown-lands which are in a very special sense his own; so hath the Lord of all a peculiar interest in His saints. As Osborne, and Balmoral, and Windsor belong to our sovereign by a tenure which differs from his title and claim to the United Kingdom, so the Church is the peculiar heritage of the King of kings. The Lords portion is His people. How are they His?
(1) We answer, first, by His own sovereign choice. He did so ordain to make His chosen and set His love upon them.
(2) They are not only His by choice, but by purchase.
(3) They are also His by conquest. Old Jacob, when he lay a-dying, gave to Joseph one portion above his brethren, which he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and with his bow. The Lord Jesus can truly say of His people, that He hath taken them out of the hand of the Amorite with His sword and with His bow. Thy conquering hand, O Jesus, when nailed to the Cross, rent away Thy childrens chains. We are indeed the conquered captives of His omnipotent love.
2. In the second place, the text shows that the saints are the objects of the Lords especial care. The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth,--with what object?--to show Himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward Him. The wheels of providence are full of eyes; but in what direction are they gazing? Why, that all things may work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.
3. The text includes the idea that the Church is the object of the Lords special joy, for a mans portion is that in which he takes delight. See what terms He uses; He calls them His dwelling place. In Jewry is God known, His name is great in Israel, in Salem also is His tabernacle, and His dwelling place in Zion. For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired it for His habitation. Where is a man most at ease? Why, at home. We are expressly told that the Church is the Lords rest. This is My rest forever, here will I dwell, for I have desired it. As if all the world beside were His workshop, and His Church His rest. In the boundless universe He is busy marshalling the stars, riding upon the wings of the wind, making the clouds His chariot; but in His Church He is at rest, in Zion the Everlasting One spends His Sabbaths. Yet further, there is an unrivalled picture in the Word where the Lord is even represented as singing with joy over His people. Who could have conceived of the Eternal One as bursting forth into a song. Yet it is written, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing. As He looked upon the world, He spoke and said, It is very good, but He did not sing. And as He vieweth the works of providence, I hear not that He sings; but when He gazes on you, the purchase of Jesus blood, His own chosen ones, the great heart of the Infinite restrains itself no longer, but, wonder of wonders, God, the Eternal One, sings out of the joy of His soul. Truly, the Lords portion is His people.
4. Our text teaches us that Gods people are His everlasting possession. He will never sell His children at a price; nor if He could have better people instead, would He change them. They are His, and they shall be His while time lasts; and when time ends, and eternity rolls on, He never can, He never will cast away His chosen people. Let us in this rejoice and be exceeding glad. The Lords portion is His people. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Lords people
I. What is said of the Lords people?
1. They are a chosen people.
2. They are a renewed people.
3. They are a people of faith.
4. They are a justified people.
5. They are a people who perform good works.
II. Where God finds His people when He calls them.
1. Alienated from God.
2. Ignorant of God.
3. As wanderers, going astray.
4. Strangers to themselves.
5. Willing slaves to Satan.
6. Dead in sins.
III. The special care which the Lord takes of His people.
1. He leads them--
(1) To Christ for salvation.
(2) To see further into the plague of their own heart.
(3) Into the furnace of spiritual affliction.
2. He instructs them--
(1) In the plan of salvation.
(2) In the doctrine of the Trinity.
(3) In the efficacy of Christs death.
(4) In the endearing relationship which God sustains to His people, as their Father, etc.
(5) In all the blessings of the covenant. (J. J. Eastmead.)
Gods people His portion
The word portion signifies a possession which a man claims as his own, which he highly prizes, and in which he greatly delights. We cannot surf that the English are the people of God, or the French, or the Germans, or the Russians; but we may say that God has a people in England, and in France, and in Germany, and in Russia; and so on. For His real people are no longer known as Jew or Gentile, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free; but those in every nation under heaven are His who worship Him in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. These are His people; He has pleasure in them, and counts them His portion--a possession dear to Him above all others. Of course, we speak of earth. In heaven lie may have what is dearer still: but when He looks down on earth, He sees nothing so precious as those whom He has chosen to be His people, the lot of His inheritance. Let us, then, see on what grounds it is that He so highly values them. These are three: they are dear to Him--as bought by so costly a price; as regenerated by His grace on earth; as hereafter to be glorified in heaven.
I. Now, when a man pays a great price for anything, he must have esteemed it very valuable before he could be induced to give so much for it; and in like manner, we argue very correctly when we say that the fact of Gods giving His Son to save the world was a proof how strongly His bowels yearned over manhood, how precious they were in His sight. But this is not the exact feature of the case before us, which we are proposing to consider. We are not speaking of that love of God to the world which led Him to give His Son to save it; but of His love to those who are so purchased and saved. And here also, if we look at the manner of men, we well know that what a man has laboured hard for, and purchased dear, he prizes accordingly; he surveys the acres which, at the expense of much toil, he has made his own, with very different feelings from those of his heir, into whose hands they fall without any care or expense on his part, and who perhaps dissipates what his predecessor had acquired. It is this latter case which illustrates the love that God bears to His people, He loves them because so much has been paid for them; He would not that the souls should perish for which Christ died; His soul would be grieved at the loss of that which the counsels of His wisdom and the treasures of His love had been expended to procure.
II. When a man, at a very high price, has purchased a tract of waste land, which, on account of the scenery, the air, and the capabilities of the soil, he destines for his future residence, he surveys what has now become his property with much interest. But in its present state he cannot view it with entire satisfaction; he cannot dwell in the morass, nor take up his abode in the one mean hovel that stands on the premises; but he will not let the large sum which he has paid be lost. He therefore causes the whole to be surveyed, lays down a plan of improvement, and fixes on the site of his intended dwelling. After a while the scene is changed, the bog is reclaimed, furze and brushwood, and all unsightly objects are swept away, trees are planted, the grounds are tastefully laid out, and a beautiful mansion is erected. The proprietor now looks at it with other eyes than before, is delighted with the loveliness which he beholds, and gladly fixes his abode there. It is thus that the Lord at first beholds those whom He has purchased by the death of His Son. The mere fact of Christs having died for them makes no more change in their character than a mans having paid the purchase of a bleak common converts it into a scene of loveliness. No; much has to be done with the soil of the heart, as well as with the soil of the ground; and He who undertakes the work is a skilful operator, and is sure to succeed. But here the parallel ceases; our illustration leaves us--it can help us no further. How man acts upon the inert soil, we can understand; but cannot understand how God acts upon the mind. The process of education comes the nearest to it; for, as we teach children by books, and stimulate them by rewards and punishments, so God deals with His people in a way of instruction and discipline.
III. If, then, the people of God is His portion here below; if such is the excellence of real holiness, that, imperfect as their holiness is, their heavenly Father sees nothing to be compared to it, nothing worthy to be mentioned with it, in the whole compass of our globe--what a portion will His ransomed ones be to Him, when every remainder of sin shall be done away; when He shall see in them the full resemblance of their elder Brother, His well-beloved Son, and be well pleased with them, even as He is well pleased with Him! And now let me, in conclusion, show you that all the considerations which move God to take us for His portion should be so many arguments to induce us to follow after holiness.
1. In the first place, the price paid for us. Did Christ die to redeem us from this present evil world? and shall we be conformed to the world which crucified Him?
2. Further, consider how excellent true holiness is. If the Lords people are His portion, it is because they are a holy people. He rejoices over them on account of their holiness. Think, then, what a real dignity and sterling worth there must be in that which God Himself approves.
3. But look beyond the end of your days here below--look to those days which will know no end. Think of the sanctity and blessedness of that state for which God is training you, and be content to be led and disciplined for it in the way that He pleases. (J. Fawcett, M. A.)
Good men as the property of God
I. They are amongst His most valuable property.
1. They have souls. One soul is more valuable than the whole world. Souls can think of and love God; the material universe cannot.
2. Redeemed souls.
II. They are amongst His most gratifying property. (Homilist.)
The Church the portion of God
By this it is not intimated that God needs us, or any creature, to add anything to His blessedness; it is impossible to suppose it. We cannot be necessary to the Lord otherwise than as we supply Him with opportunities of displaying His grace and all-sufficiency. But though it implies not anything so derogatory to God, it means something of the greatest consequence to us.
1. In the first place, it implies tender care. A mans portion is the most valuable part of his substance, which he is solicitous above all things to preserve: and if it be at any time in danger, he is indefatigable till it be secured. In like manner is the Church, and every particular member of it, the charge of the providence of God.
2. A portion is an object of delight. With what pleasure does the worldling survey his possessions! He leaves his intimate friend, and agreeable company, to count his beloved treasure. He walks over his fields each day with fresh pleasure; and every time sees, or thinks he sees, new beauties in the prospect around him. Yet this very imperfectly represents the delight which the Lord is described as taking in His people. Jewels, treasure, heritage, children are the endearing appellations by which they are distinguished.
3. A portion implies expectation. Where much is given, much will be required. Where He has distinguished any with peculiar marks of regard, He expects works of faith and labours of love; fruitfulness in every good work, and increase in the knowledge of God. He expects that His people should be essentially different from the rest of the world; that they shine as lights in the world, and adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour in all things; and that their progress in grace and holiness be proportionable to their various advantages.
4. I might here particularly show you how we came to be the portion of God.
(1) But let us now, from what has been said, consider how lamentable it is that the Lords portion is so small; that, among all the human race, there should be so few to whom the words of the text may be properly applied.
(2) How solicitous should we be to know whether we be the Lords portion or not!
(3) Let us walk worthy of the vocation wherewith we are called.
(4) Finally, let us rejoice in the prospect of that glorious period, when the Lord will fully possess His portion, and we shall fully possess ours. (S. Lavington.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv9, 11 Deu 32:9 - Tit 2:14.
Deuteronomy
GOD’S TRUE TREASURE IN MAN
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Deu 32:9 - Tit 2:14.
I choose these two texts because they together present us with the other side of the thought to that which I have elsewhere considered, that man’s true treasure is in God. That great axiom of the religious consciousness, which pervades the whole of Scripture, is rapturously expressed in many a psalm, and never more assuredly than in that one which struggles up from the miry clay in which the Psalmist’s ‘steps had well-nigh slipped’ and soars and sings thus: ‘The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup; Thou maintainest my lot,’ ‘The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.’
You observe the correspondence between these words and those of my first text: ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ The correspondence in the original is not quite so marked as it is in our Authorised Version, but still the idea in the two passages is the same. Now it is plain that persons can possess persons only by love, sympathy, and communion. From that it follows that the possession must be mutual; or, in other words, that only he can say ‘Thou art mine’ who can say ‘I am Thine.’ And so to possess God, and to be possessed by God, are but two ways of putting the same fact. ‘The Lord is the portion of His people, and the Lord’s portion is His people,’ are only two ways of stating the same truth.
Then my second text clearly quotes the well-known utterance that lies at the foundation of the national life of Israel: ‘Ye shall be unto Me a peculiar treasure above all people,’ and claims that privilege, like all Israel’s privileges, for the Christian Church. In like manner Peter {1Pe 2:9} quotes the same words, ‘a peculiar people,’ as properly applying to Christians. I need scarcely remind you that ‘peculiar’ here is used in its proper original sense of belonging to, or, as the Revised Version gives it, ‘a people for God’s own possession’ and has no trace of the modern signification of ‘singular.’ Similarly we find Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians giving both sides of the idea of the inheritance in intentional juxtaposition, when he speaks {Eph 1:14} of the ‘earnest of our inheritance . . . unto the redemption of God’s own possession.’ In the words before us we have the same idea; and this text besides tells us how Christ, the Revealer of God, wins men for Himself, and what manner of men they must be whom He counts as His.
Therefore there are, as I take it, three things to be spoken about now. First, God has a special ownership in some people. Second, God owns these people because He has given Himself to them. Third, God possesses, and is possessed by, His inheritance, that He may give and receive services of love. Or, in briefer words, I have to speak about this wonderful thought of a special divine ownership, what it rests upon, and what it involves.
I. God has special ownership in some people.
‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’ Put side by side with those other words of the Old Testament: ‘All souls are Mine,’ or the utterance of the 100th Psalm rightly translated: ‘It is He that hath made us, and to Him we belong.’ There is a right of absolute and utter ownership and possession inherent in the very relation of Creator and creature; so that the being made is wholly and altogether at the disposal, and is the property, of Him that makes him.
But is that enough for God’s heart? Is that worth calling ownership at all? An arbitrary tyrant in an unconstitutional kingdom, or a slave-owner, may have the most absolute right of property over his subject or his slave; may have the right of entire disposal of all his industry, of the profit of all his labour; may be able to do anything he likes with him, may have the power of life and death; but such ownership is only of the husk and case of a man: the man himself may be free, and may smile at the claim of possession. ‘They may ‘own’ the body, and after that have no more than they can do.’ That kind of authority and ownership, absolute and utter, to the point of death, may satisfy a tyrant or a slave-driver, it does not satisfy the loving heart of God. It is not real possession at all. In what sense did Nero own Paul when he shut him up in prison, and cut his head off? Does the slave-owner own the man whom he whips within an inch of his life, and who dare not do anything without his permission? Does God, in any sense that corresponds with the longing of infinite love, own the men that reluctantly obey Him, and are simply, as it were, tools in His hands? He covets and longs for a deeper relationship and tenderer ties, and though all creatures are His, and all men are His servants and His possession, yet, like certain regiments in our own British army, there are some who have the right to bear in a special manner on their uniform and on their banners the emblazonment, ‘The King’s Own.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.’
Well, then, the next thought is that the special relationship of possession is constituted by mutual love. I said at the beginning of these remarks that as concerns men’s relations, the only real possession is through love, sympathy, and communion, and that that must necessarily be mutual. We have a perfect right to apply the human analogy here; in fact, we are bound to do it if we would rightly understand such words as those of my text; and it just leads us to this, that the one thing whereby God reckons that He possesses a man at all is when His love falls upon that man’s heart and soaks into it, and when there springs up in the heart a corresponding emotion and affection. The men who welcome the divine love that goes through the whole world, seeking such to worship it, and to trust it, and to become its own; and who therefore lovingly yield to the loving divine will, and take it for their law-these are the men whom He regards as His ‘portion’ and ‘the lot of His inheritance.’ So that God is mine, and that ‘I am God’s,’ are two ends of one truth; ‘I possess Him,’ and ‘I am possessed by Him,’ are but the statement of one fact expressed from two points of view. In the one case you look upon it from above, in the other case you look upon it from beneath. All the sweet commerce of mutual surrender and possession which makes the joy of our hearts, in friendship and in domestic life, we have the right to lift up into this loftier region, and find in it the last teaching of what makes the special bond of mutual possession between God and man.
And deep words of Scripture point in that direction. Those parables of our Lord’s: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son, in their infinite beauty, whilst they contain a great deal besides this, do contain this in their several ways; the money, the animal, the man belong to the woman of the house, to the shepherd, to the father. Each is ‘lost’ in a different fashion, but the most clear revelation is given in the last parable of the three, which explains the other two. The son was ‘lost’ when he did not love the father; and he was ‘found’ by the father when he returned the yearning of the father’s heart.
And so, dear brethren, it ever is; the one thing that knits men to God is that the silken cord of love let down from Heaven should by our own hand be wrapped round our own hearts, and then we are united to Him. We are His and He is ours by the double action of His love manifested by Him, and His love received by us.
Now there is nothing in all that of favouritism. The declaration that there are people who have a special relationship to the divine heart may be so stated as to have a very ugly look, and it often has been so stated as to be nothing more than self-complacent Pharisaism, which values a privilege principally because its possession is an insult to somebody else that has it not.
There has been plenty of Christianity of that sort in the world, but there is nothing of it in the thoughts of these texts rightly looked at. There is only this: it cannot but be that men who yield to God and love Him, and try to live near Him and to do righteousness, are His in a manner that those who steel themselves against Him and turn away from Him are not. Whilst all creatures have a place in His heart, and are flooded with His benefits, and get as much of Him as they can hold, the men who recognise the source of their blessing, and turn to it with grateful hearts, are nearer Him than those that do not do so. Let us take care, lest for the sake of seeming to preserve the impartiality of His love, we have destroyed all in Him that makes His love worth having. If to Him the good and the bad, the men who fear Him and the men who fear Him not, are equally satisfactory, and, in the same manner, the objects of an equal love, then He is not a God that has pleasure in righteousness; and if He is not a God that ‘has pleasure in righteousness,’ He is not a God for us to trust to. We are not giving countenance to the notion that God has any step-children, any petted members of His family, when we cleave to this-they that have welcomed His love into their hearts are nearer to Him than those that have closed the door against it.
And there is one more point here about this matter of ownership on which I dwell for a moment, namely, that this conception of certain men being in a special sense God’s possession and inheritance means also that He has a special delight in, and lofty appreciation of, them. All this material creation exists for the sake of growing good men and women. That is the use of the things that are seen and temporal; they are like greenhouses built for the great Gardener’s use in striking and furthering the growth of His plants; and when He has got the plants He has got what He wanted, and you may pull the greenhouse down if you like. And so God estimates, and teaches us to estimate, the relative value and greatness of the material and the spiritual in this fashion, that He says to us in effect: ‘All these magnificences and magnitudes round you are small and vulgar as compared with this-a heart in which wisdom and divine truth and the love and likeness of God have attained to some tolerable measure of maturity and of strength.’ These are His ‘jewels,’ as the Roman matron said about her two boys. The great Father looks upon the men that love Him as His jewels, and, having got the jewels, the rock in which they were embedded and preserved may be crushed when you like. ‘They shall be Mine,’ saith the Lord, ‘My treasures in that day of judgment which I make.’
And so, my brother, all the insignificance of man, as compared with the magnitude and duration of the universe, need not stagger our faith that the divinest thing in the universe is a heart that has learnt to love God and aspires after Him, and should but increase our wonder and our gratitude that He has been mindful of man and has visited him, in order that He might give Himself to men, and so might win men for Himself.
II. That brings me, and very briefly, to the other points that I desire to deal with now. The second one, which is suggested to us from my second text in the Epistle to Titus, is that this possession, by God, of man, like man’s possession of God, comes because God has given Himself to man.
The Apostle puts it very strongly in the Epistle to Titus: ‘The glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that He might purify unto Himself a people for a possession.’ Israel, according to one metaphor, was God’s ‘son,’ begotten by that great redeeming act of deliverance from the captivity of Egypt {Deu 32:6 - Deu 32:19}. According to another metaphor, Israel was God’s bride, wooed and won for His own by that same act. Both of these figures point to the thought that in order to get man for His own He has to give Himself to man.
And the very height and sublimity of that truth is found in the Christian fact which the Apostle points to here. We need not depart from human analogies here either. Christ gave Himself to us that He might acquire us for Himself. Absolute possession of others is only possible at the price of absolute surrender to them. No human heart ever gave itself away unless it was convinced that the heart to which it gave itself had given itself to it.
And on the lower levels of gratitude and obligation, the only thing that binds a man to another in utter submission is the conviction that that other has given himself in absolute sacrifice for him. A doctor goes into the wards of an hospital with his life in his hands, and because he does, he wins the full confidence and affection of those whom he treats. You cannot buy a heart with anything less than a heart. In the barter of the world it is not ‘skin for skin,’ but it is ‘self for self’; and if you want to own me, you must give yourself altogether to me. And the measure in which teachers and guides and preachers and philanthropists of all sorts make conquests of men is the measure in which they make themselves sacrifices for men.
Now all that is true, and is lifted to its superlative truth, in the great central fact of the Christian faith. But there is more than human analogy here. Christ is not only self-sacrifice in the sense of surrender, but He is sacrifice in the sense of giving Himself for our redemption and forgiveness. He has not only given Himself to us, He has given Himself for us. And there, and on that, is builded, and on that alone has He a right to build, or have we a right to yield to it, His claim to absolute authority and utter command over each of us.
He has died for us, therefore the springs of our life are at His disposal; and the strongest motives which can sway our lives are set in motion by His touch. His death, says this text, redeems us from iniquity and purifies us. That points to its power in delivering us from the service and practice of sin. He buys us from the despot whose slaves we were, and makes us His own in the hatred of evil and the doing of righteousness. Moved by His death, we become capable of heroisms and martyrdoms of devotion to Him. Brethren, it is only as that self-sacrificing love touches us, which died for our sins upon the Cross, that the diabolical chain of selfishness will be broken from our affections and our wills, and we shall be led into the large place of glad surrender of ourselves to the sweetness and the gentle authority of His omnipotent love.
III. The last thought that I suggest is the issues to which this mutual possession points. God owns men, and is owned by them, in order that there may be a giving and receiving of mutual services of love.
‘The Lord’s portion is His people.’ That in the Old Testament is always laid as the foundation of certain obligations under which He has come, and which He will abundantly discharge. What is a great landlord expected to do to his estate? ‘What ought I to have done to my vineyard?’ the divine Proprietor asks through the mouth of His servant the prophet. He ought to till it, He ought not to starve it, He ought to fence it, He ought to cast a wall about it, He ought to reap the fruits. And He does all that for His inheritance. God’s honour is concerned in His portion not being waste. It is not to be a ‘garden of the sluggard,’ by which people who pass can see the thorns growing there. So He will till it, He will plough it, He will pick out the weeds, and all the disciplines of life will come to us, and the ploughshare will be driven deep into the heart, that ‘the peaceable fruit of righteousness’ may spring up. He will fence His vineyard. Round about His inheritance His hand will be cast, within His people His Spirit will dwell. No harm shall come near thee if thy love is given to Him; safe and untouched by evil thou shalt walk if thou walk with God. ‘He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of Mine eye.’ The soul that trusts Him He takes in charge, and before any evil can fall to it ‘the pillared firmament must be rottenness, and earth be built on stubble.’ ‘He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.’ ‘The Lord’s portion is His people,’ and ‘none shall pluck them out of His hand.’
And on the other side, we belong to God in Christ. What do we owe Him? What does the vineyard owe the husbandman? Fruit. We are His, therefore we are bound to absolute submission. ‘Ye are not your own.’ Life, circumstances, occupations, all-we hold them at His will. We have no more right of property in anything than a slave in the bad old days had in his cabin and patch of ground. They belonged to the master to whom he belonged. Let us recognise our stewardship, and be glad to know ourselves His, and all events and things which we sometimes think ours, His also.
We are His, therefore we owe absolute trust. The slave has at least this blessing in his lot, that he need have no anxieties; nor need we. We belong to God, and He will take care of us. A rich man’s horses and dogs are well cared for, and our Owner will not leave us unheeded. Our well-being involves His good name. Leave anxious thought to masterless hearts which have to front the world with nobody at their backs. If you are God’s you will be looked after.
We are His, therefore we are bound to live to His praise. That is the conclusion which one Old Testament passage draws. ‘This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise’ {Isa 43:21}. The Apostle Peter quotes these words immediately after those from Exodus, which describe Israel as ‘a people for God’s own possession,’ when he says ‘that ye should show forth the praise of Him who hath called you.’ Let us, then, live to His glory, and remember that the servants of the King are bound to stand to their colours amid rebels, and that they who know the sweetness of possessing God, and the blessedness of yielding to His supreme control, should acknowledge what they have found of His goodness, and ‘tell forth the honour of His name, and make His praise glorious.’ Let not all the magnificent and wonderful expenditure of divine longing and love be in vain, nor run off your hearts like water poured upon a rock. Surely the sun’s flames leaping leagues high, they tell us, in tongues of burning gas, must melt everything that is near them. Shall we keep our hearts sullen and cold before such a fire of love? Surely that superb and wonderful manifestation of the love of God in the Cross of Christ should melt into running rivers of gratitude all the ice of our hearts.
‘He gave Himself for me!’ Let us turn to Him and say: ‘Lo! I give myself to Thee. Thou art mine. Make me Thine by the constraint of Thy love, so utterly, and so saturate my spirit with Thyself, that it shall not only be Thine, but in a very deep sense it shall be Thee, and that it may be “no more I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.”‘
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv9, 11 General Information:
General Information:
Moses speaks a poetic song to the people of Israel. As he speaks to the Israelites, he talks about them as if they were someone else and as if they were one man. (See: Parallelism)
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For Yahweh's portion is his people; Jacob is his apportioned inheritance
These two phrases means basically the same thing and and can be combined. AT: "The descendants of Jacob are Yahweh's inheritance" (See: Parallelism)
He found him ... shielded him and cared for him ... guarded him
"He found Jacob ... shielded him and cared for him ... guarded him" You may need to translate this as if Moses were talking about the Israelites as many people. AT: "He found our ancestors ... shielded them and cared for them ... guarded them"
howling wilderness
Here "howling" refers to the sound the wind makes as it blows through the empty land.
he guarded him as the apple of his eye
This is an idiom. The apple of an eye refers to the dark part inside the eyeball that allows a person to see. This is a very important and sensitive part of the body. This means that the people of Israel are very important to God and something he protects. AT: "he protected him as something very valuable and precious" (See: Idiom and Simile)
translationWords
Yahweh
people group
Jacob
inherit
desert
barren
shield
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v9 32:9 his special possession (literally his inheritance): God declared…
32:9 his special possession (literally his inheritance): God declared Israel to be his son, whom he redeemed from bondage in Egypt (see Exod 4:22-23; 13:15; Deut 7:6).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.