Deuteronomy 32:23

Amplified Bible

'I will heap misfortunes on them; I will use My arrows on them.

Parallel Translations

English Standard Version
"‘And I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on them;

Update Bible Version
I will heap evils on them; I will spend my arrows on them:

English Revised Version
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them:

New Century Version
"I will pile troubles upon them and shoot my arrows at them.

New English Translation
I will increase their disasters, I will use up my arrows on them.

Webster's Bible Translation
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them.

World English Bible
I will heap evils on them; I will spend my arrows on them:

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Y schal gadere `yuels on hem, and Y schal fille myn arewis in hem.

Young's Literal Translation
I gather upon them evils, Mine arrows I consume upon them.

Berean Standard Bible
I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.

Contemporary English Version
I'll send disaster after disaster to strike you like arrows.

American Standard Version
I will heap evils upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them:

Bible in Basic English
I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
I wyll heape mischiefes vpon them, & wyll destroy them with mine arrowes.

Complete Jewish Bible
I will heap disasters on them and use up all my arrows against them.

Darby Translation
I will heap mischiefs upon them; Mine arrows will I spend against them.

Easy-to-Read Version
"‘I will bring troubles to the Israelites. I will shoot all my arrows at them.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
I will heap evils upon them; I will spend Mine arrows upon them;

King James Version (1611)
I will heape mischiefes vpon them, I will spend mine arrowes vpon them.

New Life Bible
‘I will send much trouble upon them. I will use My arrows against them.

New Revised Standard
I will heap disasters upon them, spend my arrows against them:

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
I will heap on them, calamities, - Mine arrows, will I spend upon them:

Geneva Bible (1587)
I will spend plagues vpon them: I will bestowe mine arrowes vpon them.

George Lamsa Translation
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them.

Good News Translation
"‘I will bring on them endless disasters and use all my arrows against them.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows among them.

Revised Standard Version
"'And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them;

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
I will gather evils upon them, and will fight with my weapons against them.

Christian Standard Bible®
“I will pile disasters on them;I will use up my arrows against them.

Hebrew Names Version
I will heap evils on them; I will spend my arrows on them:

King James Version
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

Lexham English Bible
I will heap disasters upon them; my arrows I will spend on them.

Literal Translation
I will heap evils on them; I will use up My arrows on them.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
I wil heape myscheues vpo them, I wil spende all myne arowes at them.

New American Standard Bible
'I will add misfortunes to them; I will use up My arrows on them.

New King James Version
"I will heap disasters on them; I will spend My arrows on them.

New Living Translation
I will heap disasters upon them and shoot them down with my arrows.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
'I will heap misfortunes on them; I will use My arrows on them.

Legacy Standard Bible
‘I will heap calamities on them;I will exhaust My arrows on them.

Contextual Overview

¹⁹"The LORD saw it, and rejected them, Out of indignation with His sons and His daughters. ²⁰"Then He said, 'I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Sons in whom there is no faithfulness. ²¹'They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. ²²'For a fire is kindled by My anger, And it burns to the depths of Sheol (the place of the dead, the nether world), It devours the earth with its yield, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. ²³'I will heap misfortunes on them; I will use My arrows on them.²⁴'They will be wasted by hunger, and consumed by plague And a bitter destruction; And I will send the teeth of beasts against them, With the venom of crawling things of the dust. ²⁵'Outside the sword will bereave, And inside [the chambers] terror— For both young man and virgin, For the nursing child and the man of gray hair.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

heap mischiefs: Deuteronomy 28:15, Leviticus 26:18, Leviticus 26:24, Isaiah 24:17, Isaiah 24:18, Isaiah 26:15, Jeremiah 15:2, Jeremiah 15:3, Ezekiel 14:21, Matthew 24:7, Matthew 24:8

spend: Psalms 7:12, Psalms 7:13, Lamentations 3:13, Ezekiel 5:16

Reciprocal: Numbers 24:8 - pierce Deuteronomy 4:35 - none else Deuteronomy 32:42 - make mine 2 Samuel 22:15 - arrows Job 6:4 - the arrows Job 27:22 - For God Psalms 18:14 - Yea Psalms 64:7 - God Psalms 120:4 - arrows Psalms 144:6 - shoot out Jeremiah 48:43 - General Ezekiel 7:15 - General Ezekiel 7:26 - Mischief shall Nahum 1:6 - his fury Habakkuk 3:9 - bow

Gill's Notes on the Bible

I will heap mischief upon them,.... One calamity upon another, which are after particularly mentioned:

I will spewed mine arrows upon them; God is here represented as an enemy to the Jews, as having bent his bow against them like an enemy, Lamentations 2:4; and as having a quiver, and that full of arrows, and as determined to draw out and spend everyone of them, in taking vengeance upon them; which arrows are his four sore judgments mentioned

Ezekiel 14:21; and expressed in Deuteronomy 32:24.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Song of Moses

If Deuteronomy 32:1-3 be regarded as the introduction, and Deuteronomy 32:43 as the conclusion, the main contents of the song may be grouped under three heads, namely,

(1) Deuteronomy 32:4-18, the faithfulness of God, the faithlessness of Israel;

(2) Deuteronomy 32:19-33, the chastisement and the need of its infliction by God;

(3) Deuteronomy 32:34-42, God’s compassion upon the low and humbled state of His people.

The Song differs signally in diction and idiom from the preceding chapters; just as a lyrical passage is conceived in modes of thought wholly unlike those which belong to narrative or exhortation, and is uttered in different phraseology.

There are, however, in the Song numerous coincidences both in thoughts and words with other parts of the Pentateuch, and especially with Deuteronomy; while the resemblances between it and Psalms 90:0: “A Prayer of Moses,” have been rightly regarded as important.

The Song has reference to a state of things which did not ensue until long after the days of Moses. In this it resembles other parts of Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch which no less distinctly contemplate an apostasy (e. g. Deuteronomy 28:15; Leviticus 26:14), and describe it in general terms. If once we admit the possibility that Moses might foresee the future apostasy of Israel, it is scarcely possible to conceive how such foresight could be turned to better account by him than by the writing of this Song. Exhibiting as it does God’s preventing mercies, His people’s faithlessness and ingratitude, God’s consequent judgments, and the final and complete triumph of the divine counsels of grace, it forms the summary of all later Old Testament prophecies, and gives as it were the framework upon which they are laid out. Here as elsewhere the Pentateuch presents itself as the foundation of the religious life of Israel in after times. The currency of the Song would be a standing protest against apostasy; a protest which might well check waverers, and warn the faithful that the revolt of others was neither unforeseen nor unprovided for by Him in whom they trusted.

That this Ode must on every ground take the very first rank in Hebrew poetry is universally allowed.

Deuteronomy 32:1-3

Introduction. Heaven and earth are here invoked, as elsewhere (see the marginal references), in order to impress on the hearers the importance of what is to follow.

Deuteronomy 32:4

He is the Rock, his work is perfect - Rather, the Rock, perfect is his work. This epithet, repeated no less than five times in the Song Deuteronomy 32:15, Deuteronomy 32:18, Deuteronomy 32:30-31, represents those attributes of God which Moses is seeking to enforce, immutability and impregnable strength. Compare the expression “the stone of Israel” in Genesis 49:24; and see 1 Samuel 2:2; Psalms 18:2; Matthew 16:18; John 1:42. Zur, the original of “Rock,” enters frequently into the composition of proper names of the Mosaic time, e. g., Numbers 1:5-6, Numbers 1:10; Numbers 2:12; Numbers 3:35, etc. Our translators have elsewhere rendered it according to the sense “everlasting strength” Isaiah 26:4, “the Mighty One” Isaiah 30:29; in this chapter they have rightly adhered to the letter throughout.

Deuteronomy 32:5

Render: “It” (i. e. “the perverse and crooked generation”) “hath corrupted itself before Him (compare Isaiah 1:4); they are not His children, but their blemish:” i. e., the generation of evil-doers cannot be styled God’s children, but rather the shame and disgrace of God’s children. The other side of the picture is thus brought forward with a brevity and abruptness which strikingly enforces the contrast.

Deuteronomy 32:6

Hath bought thee - Rather perhaps, “hath acquired thee for His own,” or “possessed thee:” compare the expression “a peculiar people,” margin “a purchased people,” in 1 Peter 2:9.

Deuteronomy 32:8

That is, while nations were being constituted under God’s providence, and the bounds of their habitation determined under His government (compare Acts 17:26), He had even then in view the interests of His elect, and reserved a fitting inheritance “according to the number of the children of Israel;” i. e., proportionate to the wants of their population. Some texts of the Greek version have “according to the number of the Angels of God;” following apparently not a different reading, but the Jewish notion that the nations of the earth are seventy in number (compare Genesis 10:1 note), and that each has its own guardian Angel (compare Ecclus. 17:17). This was possibly suggested by an apprehension that the literal rendering might prove invidious to the many Gentiles who would read the Greek version.

Deuteronomy 32:9-14

These verses set forth in figurative language the helpless and hopeless state of the nation when God took pity on it, and the love and care which He bestowed on it.

Deuteronomy 32:10

In the waste howling wilderness - literally, “in a waste, the howling of a wilderness,” i. e., a wilderness in which wild beasts howl. The word for “waste” is that used in Genesis 1:2, and there rendered “without form.”

Deuteronomy 32:11

Compare Exodus 19:4. The “so,” which the King James Version supplies in the next verse, should he inserted before “spreadeth,” and omitted from Deuteronomy 32:12. The sense is, “so He spread out His wings, took them up,” etc.

Deuteronomy 32:12

With him - i. e., with God. The Lord alone delivered Israel; Israel therefore ought to have served none other but Him.

Deuteronomy 32:13

i. e., God gave Israel possession of those commanding positions which carry with them dominion over the whole land (compare Deuteronomy 33:29), and enabled him to draw the richest provision out of spots naturally unproductive.

Deuteronomy 32:14

Breed of Bashan - Bashan was famous for its cattle. Compare Psalms 22:12; Ezekiel 39:18.

Fat of kidneys of wheat - i. e., the finest and most nutritious wheat. The fat of the kidneys was regarded as being the finest and tenderest, and was therefore specified as a part of the sacrificial animals which was to be offered to the Lord: compare Exodus 29:13, etc.

The pure blood of the qrape - Render, the blood of the grape, even wine. The Hebrew word seems (compare Isaiah 27:2) a poetical term for wine.

Deuteronomy 32:15

Jesbarun - This word, found again only in Deuteronomy 33:5, Deuteronomy 33:26, and Isaiah 44:2, is not a diminutive but an appellative (containing an allusion to the root, “to be righteous”); and describes not the character which belonged to Israel in fact, but that to which Israel was called. Compare Numbers 23:21. The prefixing of this epithet to the description of Israel’s apostasy contained in the words next following is full of keen reproof.

Deuteronomy 32:16

They provoked him to jealousy - The language is borrowed from the matrimonial relationship, as in Deuteronomy 31:16.

Deuteronomy 32:17

Devils - Render, destroyers. The application of the word to the false gods points to the trait so deeply graven in all pagan worship, that of regarding the deities as malignant, and needing to be propitiated by human sufferings.

Not to God - Rather, “not God,” i. e., which were not God; see the margin and Deuteronomy 32:21. Compare Deuteronomy 13:7; Deuteronomy 29:25.

Deuteronomy 32:19

The anger of God at the apostasy of His people is stated in general terms in this verse; and the results of it are described, in words as of God Himself, in the next and following verses. These results consisted negatively in the withdrawal of God’s favor Deuteronomy 32:20, and positively in the infliction of a righteous retribution.

Daughters - The women had their full share in the sins of the people. Compare Isaiah 3:16 ff; Isaiah 32:9 ff; Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:15 ff.

Deuteronomy 32:20

I will see what their end shall be - Compare the similar expression in Genesis 37:20.

Deuteronomy 32:21

God would mete out to them the same measure as they had done to Him. Through chosen by the one God to be His own, they had preferred idols, which were no gods. So therefore would He prefer to His people that which was no people. As they had angered Him with their vanities, so would He provoke them by adopting in their stead those whom they counted as nothing. The terms, “not a people,” and “a foolish nation,” mean such a people as, not being God’s, would not be accounted a people at all (compare Ephesians 2:12; 1 Peter 2:10), and such a nation as is destitute of that which alone can make a really “wise and understanding people” Deuteronomy 4:6, namely, the knowledge of the revealed word and will of God (compare 1 Corinthians 1:18-28).

Deuteronomy 32:24

Burning heat - i. e., the fear of a pestilential disease. On the “four sore judgments,” famine, plague, noisome beasts, the sword, compare Leviticus 26:22; Jeremiah 15:2; Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 14:21.

Deuteronomy 32:26, Deuteronomy 32:27

Rather, I would utterly disperse them, etc., were it not that I apprehended the provocation of the enemy, i. e., that I should be provoked to wrath when the enemy ascribed the overthrow of Israel to his own prowess and not to my judgments. Compare Deuteronomy 9:28-29; Ezekiel 20:9, Ezekiel 20:14, Ezekiel 20:22.

Behave themselves strangely - Rather, misunderstand it, i. e., mistake the cause of Israel’s ruin.

Deuteronomy 32:30

The defeat of Israel would be due to the fact that God, their strength, had abandoned them because of their apostasy.

Deuteronomy 32:31

Our enemies - i. e., the enemies of Moses and the faithful Israelites; the pagan, more especially those with whom Israel was brought into collision, whom Israel was commissioned to “chase,” but to whom, as a punishment for faithlessness, Israel was “sold,” Deuteronomy 32:30. Moses leaves the decision, whether “their rock” (i. e. the false gods of the pagan to which the apostate Israelites had fallen away) or “our Rock” is superior, to be determined by the unbelievers themselves. For example, see Exodus 14:25; Numbers 23:0; Numbers 24:0; Joshua 2:9 ff; 1 Samuel 4:8; 1 Samuel 5:7 ff; 1 Kings 20:28. That the pagan should thus be constrained to bear witness to the supremacy of Israel’s God heightened the folly of Israel’s apostasy.

Deuteronomy 32:32

Their vine - i. e., the nature and character of Israel: compare for similar expressions Psalms 80:8, Psalms 80:14; Jeremiah 2:21; Hosea 10:1.

Sodom ... Gomorrah - Here, as elsewhere, and often in the prophets, emblems of utter depravity: compare Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 23:14,

Gall - Compare Deuteronomy 29:18 note.

Deuteronomy 32:35

Rather: “Vengeance is mine and recompence, at the time when their foot slideth.

Deuteronomy 32:36

Repent himself for - Rather, have compassion upon. The verse declares that God’s judgment of His people would issue at once in the punishment of the wicked, and in the comfort of the righteous.

None shut up, or left - A proverbial phrase (compare 1 Kings 14:10) meaning perhaps “married and single,” or “guarded and forsaken,” but signifying generally “all men of all sorts.”

Deuteronomy 32:40-42

Render: For I lift up my hand to heaven and say, As I live forever, if I whet, etc. On Deuteronomy 32:40, in which God is described as swearing by Himself, compare Isaiah 45:23; Jeremiah 22:5; Hebrews 6:17. The lifting up of the hand was a gesture used in making oath (compare Genesis 14:22; Revelation 10:5).

Deuteronomy 32:42

From the beginning of revenges upon the enemy - Render, (drunk with blood) from the head (i. e. the chief) of the princes of the enemy.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Deuteronomy 32:23. I will spend mine arrows upon them. — The judgments of God in general are termed the arrows of God, Job 6:4; Psalms 38:2-3; Psalms 91:5; see also Ezekiel 5:16; Jeremiah 50:14; 2 Samuel 22:14-15. In this and the following verses, to the 28th inclusive (Deuteronomy 32:23-28), God threatens this people with every species of calamity that could possibly fall upon man. How strange it is that, having this law continually in their hands, they should not discern those threatened judgments, and cleave to the Lord that they might be averted!

It was customary among the heathens to represent any judgment from their gods under the notion of arrows, especially a pestilence; and one of their greatest deities, Apollo, is ever represented as bearing a bow and quiver full of deadly arrows; so Homer, Il. i., ver. 43, where he represents him, in answer to the prayer of his priest Chryses, coming to smite the Greeks with the pestilence: -

Ὡς εφατ' ευχομενος· του δ' εκλυε Φοιβος Απολλων·

Βη δε κατ' Ουλυμποιο καρηνων χωομενος κηρ,

Τοξ' ωμοισιν εχων αμφηρεφεα τε φαρετρην. -

Ἑζετ' επειτ' απανευθε νεων· μετα δ' ιον ἑηκε·

Δεινη δε κλαγγη γενετ' αργυρεοιο βιοιο. κ. τ. λ.

"Thus Chryses pray'd; the favouring power attends,

And from Olympus' lofty tops descends.

Bent was his bow the Grecian hearts to wound;

Fierce as he moved, his silver shafts resound;---

The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly' bow,

And hissing fly the feather'd fates below.

On mules and dogs the infection first began;

And last the vengeful arrows fix'd in man."

How frequently the same figure is employed in the sacred writings, every careful reader knows; and quotations need not be multiplied.