Deuteronomy33chapter 33

Deuteronomy 33:1-2

Moses ends where Jacob ended, blessing the tribes by name before he dies, and Genesis 49 is the only other place in Scripture where that happens. Jacob's words carried rebuke in them and these carry almost none, so Reuben and Levi are spoken well of here where Genesis 49:3-7 spoke against them. Verse 2 opens with God coming from Sinai, Seir and mount Paran, the same three-cornered picture Judges 5:4-5 and Habakkuk 3:3 draw of the same event. The clause rendered a fiery law rests on two Hebrew words whose division translators have never agreed on, and the ten thousands of saints is the ground on which Acts 7:53, Galatians 3:19 and Hebrews 2:2 speak of the law being given by angels.

Deuteronomy 33:3-5

Between the theophany and the tribes stands a people gathered at God's feet to receive his words, and verse 4 calls the law an inheritance, which is the language used elsewhere of land. Jeshurun is a name for Israel that falls four times in Scripture, three of them in this book at 32:15, 33:5 and 33:26, and once at Isaiah 44:2. Commentators divide over who the king of verse 5 is, some reading it of God and others of Moses among the assembled heads, and the Hebrew names neither.

Deuteronomy 33:6

Let Reuben live, and not die: Reuben lost the birthright at Genesis 49:3-4 and is here asked for survival and numbers. Simeon is the one tribe this chapter never names, and the text gives no reason for the silence. The Septuagint carries a clause at this verse asking that Simeon be many in number, which the Hebrew does not have, and readers who look for a reason point to Genesis 49:7, where Simeon and Levi are to be divided in Jacob, and to Joshua 19:1-9, where Simeon's inheritance lies inside Judah's. Eleven tribes are named in the chapter and Joseph's two sons make up the twelfth portion at verse 17.

Deuteronomy 33:7

Judah gets a prayer where Genesis 49:8-12 gave a sceptre and Shiloh, and the whole of it asks for help in a fight and for the tribe to be brought home to its people. Judah marched first at Numbers 10:14 and went up first at Judges 1:2, which is the position this prayer assumes. The royal promise is left to Jacob's words to carry, and Moses adds nothing to it here.

Deuteronomy 33:8-9

Levi is handed the Urim and Thummim, the means of decision carried on the high priest's breastplate at Exodus 28:30, so the tribe's first named privilege is asking God and getting an answer. Massah and Meribah at Exodus 17:7 and Numbers 20:13 were failures, and readers differ over whom the holy one proved there refers to, some taking it of Levi as a tribe and others of Aaron or of Moses by name. Verse 9 is the golden calf at Exodus 32:26-29, where Levi answered Moses' call and used the sword on brother and son, and Genesis 49:7 had cursed that same fierceness before it was turned to this account.

Deuteronomy 33:10-11

Teaching is named before incense and burnt sacrifice, so the priest's first work in this blessing is instruction, which is how Leviticus 10:11 assigns it and how Malachi 2:7 remembers it when it says the priest's lips should keep knowledge. The tribe with no territory of its own is given an office in place of one. Verse 11 asks that the work of Levi's hands be accepted and that those who rise against him be struck down, and Numbers 16 shows the danger was a real one.

Deuteronomy 33:12

Benjamin is the only tribe called beloved in the chapter, and the covering promised lasts all the day long. The clause about dwelling between his shoulders has been read two ways, of land lying in a fold between ridges and of a child carried on the back. Readers from early times have tied the verse to the sanctuary, since Joshua 18:28 lists Jerusalem among Benjamin's cities and the temple stood on the border between Benjamin and Judah.

Deuteronomy 33:13-15

Joseph's blessing runs so close to Genesis 49:25-26 that the two can be laid side by side line for line, with the deep that coucheth beneath, the everlasting hills and the head of him separated from his brethren all held in common. What Moses adds is farming: dew, the fruits the sun brings forth, what the moon puts forth month by month, and the chief things of the ancient mountains. The word rendered precious falls five times across verses 13 to 16, more often than in any other tribe's blessing here.

Deuteronomy 33:16-17

God is identified by the burning bush of Exodus 3:2, a title that appears nowhere else in the Old Testament, and Jesus points at the same passage the same way at Mark 12:26 when he calls it the place in the book of Moses. Him that was separated from his brethren is word for word Genesis 49:26, and in Joseph's case the separating was being sold. Verse 17 divides the one blessing between two tribes and gives Ephraim ten thousands against Manasseh's thousands, which is the order Jacob set at Genesis 48:19 when he crossed his hands.

Deuteronomy 33:18-19

Two tribes share one blessing and it splits between going out and staying home, which is how Genesis 49:13-15 had already drawn them. They call people to a mountain for sacrifices of righteousness, so the trade in view feeds worship and reaches beyond the household. Treasures hid in the sand has been read of glass and purple dye worked on that coast and of shipping in general, and the verse names neither. Matthew 4:13-16 places the start of Jesus' preaching in the land of Zabulon and Nephthalim, the two tribes blessed at verses 18 and 23.

Deuteronomy 33:20-21

Gad asked for land east of Jordan at Numbers 32:1-5 and received it, and the first part he provided for himself is commonly read of that choice. The clause about a portion of the lawgiver is obscure in the Hebrew and translators have never settled it. What follows can be checked against the record: Gad came with the heads of the people and executed the justice of the Lord, which Joshua 4:12 gives as the eastern tribes crossing armed ahead of their brethren, and Joshua 22 as their going home afterward.

Deuteronomy 33:22-23

Genesis 49:17 called Dan a serpent by the way and this calls him a lion's whelp, and the two pictures are left standing together. Judges 18:27-29 has the tribe leaving its allotted coast and taking Laish in the far north, which is the country near Bashan that this verse names. Naphtali is told to possess the west and the south, where the Hebrew word rendered west is the ordinary word for sea, and Naphtali's border ran along the water at Galilee.

Deuteronomy 33:24-25

Asher held olive country, and dipping the foot in oil pictures a press running over. Genesis 49:20 had said his bread should be fat, and Joshua 19:24-31 puts his coast on the hills above the sea where the trees grew. Shoes of iron and brass fit a border tribe expecting to walk hard ground, and the closing line, as thy days, so shall thy strength be, is the clause readers have carried furthest out of this chapter after verse 27.

Deuteronomy 33:26-27

The tribes are finished and the last four verses turn back to God, picking up the name Jeshurun that verse 5 used at the start. The word rendered refuge in verse 27 is a word for a dwelling place, and Psalm 90:1, the one psalm the titles give to Moses, opens with the same thought when it says Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Underneath are the everlasting arms sets a floor under a people about to lose the man who has led them, and the same verse ends with an order to destroy, so the comfort and the war stand together in one sentence.

Deuteronomy 33:28-29

Dwelling alone is what Balaam saw at Numbers 23:9, that the people shall dwell alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations, and here the same condition is spoken as a blessing. Who is like unto thee is the question Exodus 15:11 asked about God at the sea, and the last words of Moses in the Torah ask it about the people, on the ground that they are saved by the Lord. The chapter closes with God himself named as the shield and the sword, so the strength belongs to him and the happiness to them.