‏ Deuteronomy 33:1-6

CHAPTER XXXIII

Moses delivers a prophetical blessing to the children of Israel, 1.

The introduction, 2-5.

Prophetic declarations concerning Reuben, 6;

concerning Judah, 7;

concerning Levi, 8-11;

concerning Benjamin, 12;

concerning Joseph, 13-17;

concerning Zebulun, 18, 19;

concerning Gad, 20, 21;

concerning Dan, 22;

concerning Naphtali, 23;

concerning Asher, 24, 25.

The glory of the God of Jeshurun, and the glorious privileges of his true followers, 26-29.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIII

Verse 1. And this is the blessing wherewith Moses-blessed, &c.] The general nature of this solemn introduction, says Dr. Kennicott, is to show the foundation which Moses had for blessing his brethren, viz., because God had frequently manifested his glory in their behalf; and the several parts of this introduction are disposed in the following order:-

1. The manifestation of the Divine glory on Sinai, as it was prior in time and more magnificent in splendour, is mentioned first.

2. That God manifested his glory at Seir is evident from Jud 5:4: Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the fields of Edom, the earth trembled and the heavens dropped, &c.

3. The next place is Paran, where the glory of the Lord appeared before all the children of Israel, Nu 14:10.

Instead of he came with ten thousand saints, by which our translators have rendered meribeboth kodesh, Dr. Kennicott reads Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a place: for we find that, towards the end of forty years, the Israelites came to Kadesh, Nu 20:1, which was also called Meribah, on account of their contentious opposition to the determinations of God in their favour, Nu 20:13; and there the glory of the Lord again appeared, as we are informed Nu 20:6. These four places, Sinai, Seir, Paran, and Meribah-Kadesh, mentioned by Moses in the text, are the identical places where God manifested his glory in a fiery appearance, the more illustriously to proclaim his special providence over and care of Israel.

 Verse 3. Yea, he loved the people] This is the inference which Moses makes from those glorious appearances, that God truly loved the people; and that all his saints, kedoshaiv, the people whom he had consecrated to himself, were under his especial benediction; and that in order to make them a holy nation, God had displayed his glory on Mount Sinai, where they had fallen prostrate at his feet with the humblest adoration, sincerely promising the most affectionate obedience; and that God had there commanded them a law which was to be the possession and inheritance of the children of Jacob, De 33:4. And to crown the whole, he had not only blessed them as their lawgiver, but had also vouchsafed to be their king, De 33:5.

Dr. Kennicott proposes to translate the whole five verses thus:-

--Verse 1. And this is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of

God, blessed the children of Israel before his death. And he

said,

2. Jehovah came from SINAI,

And he arose upon them from SEIR;

He shone forth from Mount PARAN,

And he came from MERIBAH-KADESH:

From his right hand a fire shone forth upon them. 3. Truly, he loved the people,

And he blessed all his saints:

For they fell down at his feet,

And they received of his words. 4. He commanded us a law,

The inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. 5. And he became king in Jeshurun;

When the heads of the people were assembled,

Together with the tribes of Israel.

We have already seen that Dr. Kennicott reads Meribah-Kadesh, the name of a place, instead of meribeboth kodesh, which, by a most unnatural and forced construction, our version renders ten thousands of saints, a translation which no circumstance of the history justifies.

Instead of a fiery law, esh dath, he reads, following the Samaritan version, esh ur, a fire shining out upon them. In vindication of this change in the original, it may be observed, 1. That, though dath signifies a law, yet it is a Chaldee term, and appears nowhere in any part of the sacred writings previously to the Babylonish captivity: torah being the term constantly used to express the Law, at all times prior to the corruption of the Hebrew, by the Chaldee. 2. That the word itself is obscure in its present situation, as the Hebrew Bibles write it and esh in one word eshdath, which has no meaning; and which, in order to give it one, the Massorah directs should be read separate, though written connected. 3. That the word is not acknowledged by the two most ancient versions, the Septuagint and Syriac. 4. That in the parallel place, Hab 3:3, 4, a word is used which expresses the rays of light, karnayim, horns, that is, splendours, rays, or effulgence of light. 5. That on all these accounts, together with the almost impossibility of giving a rational meaning to the text as it now stands, the translation contended for should be adopted.

Instead of All his saints are in his hand, Dr. Kennicott reads, He blessed all his saints-changing beyadecha, into barach, he blessed, which word, all who understand the Hebrew letters will see, might be easily mistaken for the other; the daleth and the resh being, not only in MSS., but also in printed books, often so much alike, that analogy alone can determine which is the true letter; and except in the insertion of the yod, which might have been easily mistaken for the apex at the top of the beth very frequent in MSS., both words have the nearest resemblance. To this may be added, that the Syriac authorizes this rendering.

Instead of leraglecha, and middabberotheycha, THY feet, and THY words, Dr. Kennicott reads the pronouns in the third person singular, leraglaiv and middabberothaiv, HIS feet, HIS words, in which he is supported both by the Septuagint and Vulgate. He also changes yissa, HE shall receive, into yisseu, THEY shall receive.

He contends also that Mosheh, Moses, in the fourth verse, was written by mistake for the following word morashah, inheritance; and when the scribe found he had inserted a wrong word, he added the proper one, and did not erase the first. The word Moses, he thinks, should therefore be left out of the text, as it is improbable that he should here introduce his own name; and that if the word be allowed to be legitimate, then the word king must apply to him, and not to GOD, which would be most absurd. See Kennicott's first Dissertation, p. 422, &c.

 Verse 6. Let Reuben live, and not die] Though his life and his blessings have been forfeited by his transgression with his father's concubine, Ge 49:3, 4; and in his rebellion with Korah, Nu 16:1-3, &c., let him not become extinct as a tribe in Israel. "It is very usual," says Mr. Ainsworth, "in the Scripture, to set down things of importance and earnestness, by affirmation of the one part, and denial of the other; Isa 38:1: Thou shalt die, and not live; Nu 4:19: That they may live, and not die; Ps 118:17: I shall not die, but live; Ge 43:8: That we may live, and not die; Jer 20:14: Cursed be the day-let not that day be blessed; 1Jo 2:4: He is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 1Jo 2:27: Is truth, and no lie; Joh 1:20: He confessed, and denied not; 1Sa 1:11: Remember me, and not forget thy handmaid; De 9:7: Remember, forget not; De 32:6: O foolish people, and unwise. In all these places it is evident that there is a peculiar emphasis in this form of expression, as if he had said, Let him not only not die, but let him live in great and increasing peace and prosperity. Do not only not forget me, but keep me continually in remembrance. He denied not, but confessed FULLY and PARTICULARLY. O foolish people-silly and stupid, and unwise-destitute of all true wisdom."

And let not his men be few.] It is possible that this clause belongs to Simeon. In the Alexandrian copy of the Septuagint the clause stands thus: καισυμεωνεστωπολυςεναριτμω, and let SIMEON be very numerous, but none of the other versions insert the word. As the negative particle is not in the Hebrew, but is supplied in our translation, and the word Simeon is found in one of the most ancient and most authentic copies of the Septuagint version; and as Simeon is nowhere else mentioned here, if not implied in this place, probably the clause anciently stood: Let Reuben live, and not die; but let the men of Simeon be few. That this tribe was small when compared with the rest, and with what it once was, is evident enough from the first census, taken after they came out of Egypt, and that in the plains of Moab nearly forty years after. In the first, Simeon was 59,300; in the last, 22,200, a decrease of 37,100 men!
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