Music has an amazing ability to remain within our minds. E.g., a song gets “stuck” in your head.

Teachers often use songs to help students learn and remember.

But imagine singing a song that is highly critical of your family or your nation. Imagine singing a song that describes your failures and that predicts a dreadful future for your people. Some songs are like that; they include all kinds of terrible things that have happened. That’s the kind of song recorded for us in Deut 32.

Moses composed a song (cf. 31:19), wrote it down and taught it to the people (31:22). This song serves to exhort the people toward faithfulness and it will serve as a testimony against them if they disobey God’s commandments.

Quote:  [Moses’] song is fundamentally about God’s faithfulness and the people’s faithlessness. Most of the song condemns the incomprehensible stupidity and ingratitude of Israel in turning from the LORD to other gods.^[1]

This song is ancient. It’s not much like songs we sing today. The song uses Hebrew poetry, symbolism, and figurative language that may be unfamiliar to us. Much of this uses past-tense language, but it’s actually referring to the future. This is a prophecy of what will happen to Israel after they settle in the PL.

Let’s consider the song of Moses and think about what we can learn from it. We must avoid Israel’s sin – unfaithfulness and ingratitude. If we want to avoid God’s severe discipline, we must be faithful and grateful.

^[1] Matt Fuller, Teaching Deuteronomy: From Text to Message, Teach the Bible (Ross‑shire, Scotland; London: Christian Focus; PT Resources, 2022), 325–326.