The Song of Moses:
Deuteronomy 32:1-12
“Give ear, O
heavens, and let me speak;
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
“ Let my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distill as the dew,
as the droplets on the fresh grass
and as the showers on the herb.
“For I proclaim the name of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness to our God!
“ The Rock! His work is perfect,
for all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.
“They have acted corruptly toward Him,
They are not His children, because of their defect;
But are a perverse and crooked generation.
“Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is not He your Father who has bought you?
He has made you and established you.
“Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of all generations.
Ask your father, and he will inform you,
Your elders, and they will tell you.
“ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of man,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of Israel.
“ For the Lord’s portion is His people;
Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.
“He found him in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of a wilderness;
He encircled him, He cared for him,
He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
“ Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that hovers over its young,
He spread His wings and caught them;
He carried them on His pinions.
“The Lord alone guided him,
and there was no foreign god with him.
and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
“ Let my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distill as the dew,
as the droplets on the fresh grass
and as the showers on the herb.
“For I proclaim the name of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness to our God!
“ The Rock! His work is perfect,
for all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.
“They have acted corruptly toward Him,
They are not His children, because of their defect;
But are a perverse and crooked generation.
“Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and unwise people?
Is not He your Father who has bought you?
He has made you and established you.
“Remember the days of old,
Consider the years of all generations.
Ask your father, and he will inform you,
Your elders, and they will tell you.
“ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
When He separated the sons of man,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
According to the number of the sons of Israel.
“ For the Lord’s portion is His people;
Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.
“He found him in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of a wilderness;
He encircled him, He cared for him,
He guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
“ Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
that hovers over its young,
He spread His wings and caught them;
He carried them on His pinions.
“The Lord alone guided him,
and there was no foreign god with him.
JOHN PAUL II GENERAL
AUDIENCE: Wednesday 19 June 2002
Fidelity is the
best response to God's benefitsCanticle of Deuteronomy 32:1-12
Lauds on Saturday of the 2nd Week of the year
1. "Then Moses
pronounced the words of this song from beginning to end, for the whole assembly
of Israel to hear." This is how the canticle we have just heard begins.
It is taken from the last pages of the Book of Deuteronomy, to be precise, from
chapter 32. The Liturgy of Lauds took
the first 12 verses, recognizing in them a joyful hymn to the Lord who lovingly
protects and cares for his people amid the daylong dangers and difficulties.
2. Moses' canticle is longer than the passage used in the office of Lauds, which is only the
prelude…The image of God present in the Bible is not at all that of a dark
being, an anonymous and brute energy, an incomprehensible fact. Instead, he is a person who experiences sentiments, acts and
reacts, loves and condemns, participates in the life of his creatures and is
not indifferent to their actions. So, in our case, the Lord convokes a sort of trial,
in the presence of witnesses, denounces the crimes of the accused people,
exacts a punishment, but lets his verdict be permeated by infinite mercy…. The fundamental
event that must not be forgotten is that of the crossing of the desert after
the flight from Egypt, major topic of Deuteronomy and of the entire Pentateuch.
So the terrible and dramatic journey in the Sinai desert is evoked, "a
wasteland of howling desert" (cf. v. 10), as described with an image of
strong emotional impact. However, there God bends over his people with amazing
tenderness and gentleness. The paternal symbol is intertwined with an allusion
to the maternal symbol of the eagle: "He shielded them and cared for them,
guarding them as the apple of his eye, as an eagle incites its nestlings forth
by hovering over its brood. So he spread his wings to receive them and bore
them up on his pinions" (vv. 10-11). Then the way of the desert steppe is
transformed into a quiet and serene journey because of the protective mantle of
divine love.The canticle also refers to Sinai, where Israel became the Lord's ally, his "portion" and "hereditary share", namely, the most precious reality (cf. v. 9; Ex 19,5). Thus the canticle of Moses becomes a collective examination of conscience, so that in the end the response to the divine benefits will no longer be sin but fidelity.
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