Deuteronomy 33:1
This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced upon the Israelites before his death.
Sermons
The Blessing of the TribesT. G. Rooke, B. A.Deuteronomy 33:1-5
The End in Sight; or Last Works and Dying SongsW. H. Davison.Deuteronomy 33:1-5
The Godlike Act of BlessingD. Davies Deuteronomy 33:1-5
The King and His ViceroyR.M. Edgar Deuteronomy 33:1-5














Moses, having received the direction about his death, proceeds next to formally bless the tribes. We have in these verses the introduction to the blessing. It brings under our notice the Great King himself, and the minor king, Moses, the viceroy. As the parting blessing of him whom God had made "king in Jeshurun," it has more weight and significance than anything which ever came out of the lips of kings. Even David's dying words are not so sublime as these of Moses (cf. 2 Samuel 23:1-7). Let us look first at the Great King, and then at his viceroy who reigned in Jeshurun.

I. THE ADVENT OF GOD. He is represented as rising at Sinai, as scattering rays from Seir, and as riding forth in sunlike majesty from Mount Paran. The idea is borrowed from the dawn. Just as, before the sun appears in splendor, the mountaintops are tipped with gold, and then the dawn gathers into glory, and the sun at last steps forth in might, so the Lord made his proximity felt on the top of Sinai; there was a still greater impression made at Self, with the mercy of the brazen serpent; and last of all in Paran, in whose wilderness was Kadesh, the scene of chequered experience and yet abundant blessing, the sunlight having then fully come. God had come as the Light-giver. "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Next let us notice his court - "myriads [רִבְבות, which may mean a million] of saints." This cannot refer to Israel, as some suggest, but to the holy ones accompanying the Lord from heaven. What a magnificent array! Only the holy can stand in his sight or constitute his train. Next let us notice his gift to men - "from his-right hand went a fiery. Law for them." This fiery Law can only mean that moral law which penetrates unto the heart with its fiery heat. And all was in love (ver. 3), for the God who is light and fire is also love. The saints are safe in his hand, and they gather round his feet.

II. THE VICEROY. He is called here "the man of God," and justly so. He was the man who recognized himself as God's property, as God's servant, as God's minister. And this is why he was "king in Jeshurun." It is consecration to God's glory which secures the real kingship. No kingship is worth the name which consists not in holy influences; and every man is a "king of men" who reigns over them by the sovereignty of intelligent consecration. In these respects Moses was a type of Jesus. Pilate could not understand his kingship through truth; but the world recognizes it. He was so devoted to the Father's glory, and so bent on the good of men, that increasing multitudes every year are owning his sway and accepting of the Law at his mouth. Fiery it is doubtless, fitted to kindle the coldest heart to rapture. As it dwells within us, it molds to highest good the life. - R.M.E.

This is the blessing wherewith Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death.
The many successive "blessings" of Israel were a necessary consequence of his Divine election. In that seed all families of the earth were to be blessed. Therefore it was fitting that formal and repeated blessings should be pronounced upon the bearer of such high destinies, that none of the issues of his history might seem to be by chance, and that he and all men might know what was "the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of God's power towards us who believe." The notion of a distinct continuity in calling and in privilege between Israel and the Christian Church is no fancy of an antiquated theology. It springs out of the very root idea of the Bible, the principle which rightly leads us to speak of so many Scriptures, written at sundry times and in divers manners, as one book and one revelation. The first utterance of blessing upon the chosen people proceeded from the lips of God Himself, and was renewed in nearly the same form of language to each of the three great patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It can hardly be by an accident that the record in Genesis of this initial benediction is sevenfold. Seven times exactly did God declare His purpose to bless the seed of Abraham in the line of Isaac and of Jacob; and having thus established His covenant as by an oath, He spake no more by a like direct communication, but He used the lips of inspired men to enlarge the scope of His blessing, and to give definiteness to its first and necessarily somewhat vague generalities. The blessing of Moses was evidently founded upon the earlier utterance of the dying Jacob concerning the future of his twelve sons. But the differences between the two blessings are far more suggestive than their resemblances. There are parts of Jacob's discourse to which the notion of "blessing" is altogether foreign. Simeon and Levi are stricken in it with an absolute curse; the prediction concerning Issachar is at least equivocal in its reference to willing servitude; and for Reuben there is nothing but a mournful foreclosure of his natural birthright (Genesis 49:3-7, 14, 15). But the prophecy of Moses is really a benediction upon every tribe that is named therein. It is couched throughout in the language of unfeigned affection, intercession, and giving of thanks for what is or for what may be unequivocally good. Careful readers will observe that the tribes of Israel are arranged in different order in the two blessings by Jacob and by Moses. The natural order of age and of maternal parentage is followed by Jacob; but Moses at first sight seems to adopt an altogether arbitrary arrangement, three times putting a younger before an elder son, separating children of the same mother, and omitting one name altogether. This fact, however, is itself one of our clues to the right understanding of the blessing as a whole, for its only possible explanation depends upon the typical character of Israel's national history. The place which Divine Providence assigned to each tribe in the temporal commonwealth of Israel at different stages of its development was meant to illustrate some permanent principle of God's spiritual kingdom which Moses foresaw in its continuance to our own day. The thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy has a prologue and an epilogue, which may not be passed over in silence. The blessings of the children of Israel are embraced between them intentionally, for the inspired author wished to set forth the unalterable conditions of blessing in God's kingdom, and the inseparable connection which subsists between obedience, happiness, and faith towards God. No grander description of the Divine covenant with Israel was ever given than is contained in the opening verses of this chapter, nor has the law from Sinai been anywhere else depicted so awfully and yet so attractively in its character of "the inheritance" of Jehovah's "congregation." That law, in its outward form, has no doubt passed away for Christians, but the obligation of its spirit is perpetual, and the blessing of each citizen of God's new covenant kingdom depends upon a loving acceptance of that obligation. Not Moses, but Christ, has "commanded us a law." He is our "king," and we are "not without law to God, but under the law to Christ."

(T. G. Rooke, B. A.)

There is not a more illustrative example of the benefits of early training and religious culture than Moses. Whether we think of the depth of his religious convictions, the purity of his personal character, the clearness of his spiritual insight, the sagacity of his legislation, or the rectitude of his administration, we cannot but wonder at the manifold perfection of his human greatness and the closeness of his walk with God. But in one respect he stands preeminent. He was transcendent in moral glory when age had wrinkled his brow and whitened his head, when the sun began to go down in the golden west, and the shadows were casting their long lengths of darkness round him. "His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Neither was his mind obscured, nor were his sympathies narrowed, nor his heart soured. The shadow of a great disappointment was trailing over his path and clouding his future; yet, to his fellows, the radiance of his spirit was undimmed, and the clear shining of his intellect was as sparkling as the morning dew.

I. THE END IN SIGHT AND THE LAST WORKS OF THE MAN OF GOD.

1. He knew his death was certainly near. God hardly ever allows men to wear the crown of completed undertakings in this world — "that no flesh should glory in His presence."

2. Faithful in his house, he set everything in order, under the influence of this certainty.

3. The characteristics of the last work of his pen are worthy of special study. There is a rich and glowing beauty about these last words. There are in them some of the most marvellous predictions of the Old Testament. "The Prophet like unto himself" finds its fulfilment in Him who was both Prophet and Redeemer. There is also a forecast of the Hebrew history and the Hebrew doom, which cannot be read without wonder at its truth, and awe in presence of certain Divine judgments disclosed. His burdened heart looks down the vista of ages, and sees, with but too clear a vision, the sad departures from the true line of spiritual duty and obedience, which were only too possible. Side by side with ritual and ceremonial requirements, he lays down the principle that spiritual consecration, that loving devotion to God, is the only safety. He is not a Jew, even to Moses, who is one outwardly. Even here "love is the fulfilling of the law." But he uses, especially, "the terrors of the Lord" to fortify them against the unfaithfulness and unbelief which were their danger. As Dean Milman says, "The sublimity of these denunciations surpasses anything which has ever been known in the oratory or poetry of the whole world. Nature is exhausted in furnishing terrific images; nothing except the real horrors of Jewish history, the miseries of their sieges, the cruelty, the contempt, the oppressions, the persecutions, which for ages this scattered and despised nation have endured, can approach the tremendous maledictions which warned them against the violation of their law."

II. HIS DYING SONGS; OR THE THOUGHTS WHICH ANIMATED THE GREAT LAWGIVER IN THE NEAR PROSPECT OF DEATH.

1. Here is his faith in Divine relations to those who were to come after him. Nothing is more difficult to an old man than the graceful resignation of the power and authority which have come to him through his origination of office or business, and through the long experience of active, ruling life. Abdication is the most difficult act of sovereign authority. But Moses has supreme confidence in God.

2. Not only was there this confidence in God for those who were to succeed him, there was a supreme consciousness of the Divine glory. There is here a singular absence of self-glorying; a marvellous prominence given to the Divine ideas which underlie true life. Jehovah appears in almost every line of his dying song; Moses never. The song of the dying believer is always one which celebrates distinguishing, elective, and redeeming graze. When the spirit gets close to the realities of things, it is the Divine that is felt to be uppermost, the human which sinks and fades away. When John Owen, greatest of the Puritan theologians, the Nonconformist Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, was dying, he said to Charles Fleetwood, "I am going to Him whom my soul has loved, or rather, who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation. I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm; but while the Great Pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not despond; the promise stands invincible, and He will never leave us nor forsake us."

3. There was calm trust in a faithful God and in His faithful promises. These were the most powerful of his inspirations, and they poured themselves out in his glowing song. There is not one of the blessings but has this basis; and they have also a deep, inner, spiritual, religious, redemptive sense. Dr. Watts, after the scholarly labours of a long and devoted life, said: "I find it is the plain promises of the Gospel that are my support. And I bless God, they are plain promises that do not require much labour and pains to understand them, for I can do nothing now but look into my Bible for some simple promise to support me, and I live upon that. I bless God, I can lie down with comfort at night, not being solicitous whether I awake in this world or another." "Underneath are the Everlasting Arms!" So Guthrie felt that it was the simpler, fundamental truths and facts which inspired dying trust and hope, and said: "Sing me a bairn's hymn," and fell asleep on the bosom of the Eternal. So Benjamin Parsons said: "My head is resting very sweetly on three pillows: infinite power, infinite love, and infinite wisdom." Horace Bushnell, one of the great teachers of our age, but recently departed, woke up in the night and said, "Oh, God is a wonderful Being!" And when his daughter replied, "Yes; is He with you?" the old man replied, "Yes, in a certain sense He is with me; and I have no doubt He is with me in a sense I do not imagine." So He is. It is "above all we ask or think"! Then the old man eloquent said: "Well, now we are all going home together; and I say, the Lord be with you — and in grace — and peace — and love — and that is the way I have come along home!"

(W. H. Davison.)

People
Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Gad, Israelites, Issachar, Jacob, Joseph, Levi, Manasseh, Moses, Naphtali, Reuben, Seir, Zebulun
Places
Bashan, Massah, Meribah, Moab, Mount Paran, Seir, Sinai
Topics
Blessed, Blessing, Death, Israelites, Pronounced, Sons, Wherewith
Outline
1. The majesty of God
6. The blessings of the twelve tribes
26. The excellence of Israel

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Deuteronomy 33:1-11

     7266   tribes of Israel

Deuteronomy 33:1-29

     8638   benedictions

Library
Israel the Beloved
'The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell between His shoulders.'--DEUT. xxxiii. 12. Benjamin was his father's favourite child, and the imagery of this promise is throughout drawn from the relations between such a child and its father. So far as the future history of the tribes is shadowed in these 'blessings' of this great ode, the reference of the text may be to the tribe of Benjamin, as specially distinguished by Saul
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Shod for the Road
'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.' DEUT. xxxiii. 25. There is a general correspondence between those blessings wherewith Moses blessed the tribes of Israel before his death, and the circumstances and territory of each tribe in the promised land. The portion of Asher, in whose blessing the words of our text occurs, was partly the rocky northern coast and partly the fertile lands stretching to the base of the Lebanon. In the inland part of their territory
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

God and his Saints
'He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand: and they sat down at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words.'--DEUT. xxxiii. 3. The great ode of which these words are a part is called 'the blessing wherewith Moses blessed the children of Israel before his death.' It is mainly an invocation of blessing from Heaven on the various tribes, but it begins, as the national existence of Israel began, with the revelation of God on Sinai, and it lays that as the foundation of everything. It
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Shoes of Iron, and Strength Sufficient: a New Year's Promise
"And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil. Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be."--Deuteronomy 33:24-25. I once heard an old minister say that he thought the blessing of Asher was peculiarly the blessing of ministers; and his eyes twinkled as he added, "At any rate, they are usually blessed with children, and it is a great blessing for them if they are acceptable to their
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 35: 1889

"As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be"
In addressing you this morning, I shall first have to notice the self-weakness which is implied in our text; secondly, I shall come to the great promise of the text; and then I shall try and draw one or two inferences from it, ere I conclude. I. First, the SELF-WEAKNESS HINTED AT IN THE TEXT. To keep to my figure, if this promise be like a star, you know there is no seeing the stars in the daytime when we stand here upon the upper land; we must go down a deep well, and then we shall be able to discover
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 4: 1858

2D Day. Needful Grace.
"He is Faithful that Promised." "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."--DEUT. xxxiii. 25. Needful Grace. God does not give grace till the hour of trial comes. But when it does come, the amount of grace, and the nature of the special grace required is vouchsafed. My soul, do not dwell with painful apprehension on the future. Do not anticipate coming sorrows; perplexing thyself with the grace needed for future emergencies; to-morrow will bring its promised grace along with to-morrow's trials.
John Ross Macduff—The Faithful Promiser

Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy.
The fact of Covenanting, under the Old Testament dispensations, being approved of God, gives a proof that it was proper then, which is accompanied by the voice of prophecy, affording evidence that even in periods then future it should no less be proper. The argument for the service that is afforded by prophecy is peculiar, and, though corresponding with evidence from other sources, is independent. Because that God willed to make known truth through his servants the prophets, we should receive it
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Within what Tribe the Lake of Gennesaret Was.
By comparing the maps with the Talmudic writers, this question ariseth: for there is not one among them, as far as I know, which does not altogether define the sea of Gennesaret to be without the tribe of Naphthali; but the Talmudists do most plainly place it within. "The Rabbins deliver: The sea of Tiberias is in the portion of Naphtali; yea, it takes a full line for the nets on the south side of it: as it is said, 'Possess the sea and the south,' Deuteronomy 33:23." The Gloss is; "(Naphtali) had
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

1872 the Need of a Home Further West --Burning of the Marchmont Home --Home Restored by Canadian Gifts --Miss Macpherson and Miss Reavell Arrive in Canada
The need of a Home further West--Burning of the Marchmont Home--Home restored by Canadian gifts--Miss Macpherson and Miss Reavell arrive in Canada--First visit to Knowlton in the East--Belleville Home restored by Canadian friends--Help for the Galt Home--Miss Macpherson returns to England--Miss Reavell remains at Galt. In her first letter on returning to England Miss Macpherson writes:-- "BELOVED FELLOW-WORKERS,--Once more at home among the old familiar scenes in the East of London, the sadness
Clara M. S. Lowe—God's Answers

Second Part
Aphrahat the Persian Sage. 1. Name of Author of Demonstrations long Unknown.--The author of the Demonstrations, eight of which appear (for the first time in an English version) in the present volume, has a singular literary history. By nationality a Persian, in an age when Zoroastrianism was the religion of Persia, he wrote in Syriac as a Christian theologian. His writings, now known to us as the works of Aphrahat, were remembered, cited, translated, and transcribed for at least two centuries
Ephraim the Syrian—Hymns and Homilies of Ephraim the Syrian

With Israel's God who Can Compare?

John Newton—Olney Hymns

On Deut. xxxiii. Ii
On Deut. xxxiii. II Hippolytus, the expositor of the Targum, has said that Moses, when he had finished this prophecy, also pronounced a blessing upon all the children of Israel, by their several tribes, and prayed for them. Then God charged Moses, saying to him, Go up to Mount Nebo, which indeed is known by the name of the mount of the Hebrews, which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho. And He said to him: View the land of Chanaan, which I am to give to the children of Israel for an inheritance.
Hippolytus—The Extant Works and Fragments of Hippolytus

The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly
WE shall consider, first, what things work for good to the godly; and here we shall show that both the best things and the worst things work for their good. We begin with the best things. 1. God's attributes work for good to the godly. (1). God's power works for good. It is a glorious power (Col. i. 11), and it is engaged for the good of the elect. God's power works for good, in supporting us in trouble. "Underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. xxxiii. 27). What upheld Daniel in the lion's den?
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Subterraneous Places. Mines. Caves.
Thus having taken some notice of the superficies of the land, let us a little search into its bowels. You may divide the subterraneous country into three parts: the metal mines, the caves, and the places of burial. This land was eminently noted for metal mines, so that "its stones," in very many places, "were iron, and out of its hills was digged brass," Deuteronomy 8:9. From these gain accrued to the Jews: but to the Christians, not seldom slavery and misery; being frequently condemned hither by
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Wesley's Hymns Reconsidered
Bernard Manning A paper read before the Cambridge University Methodist Society on February 9, 1939. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, sometime Scholar of Jesus College in the University of Cambridge, once wrote some ingenious verses {Metrical Feet: Lesson for a Boy.} to help his sons to remember the chief sorts of metre. If Coleridge had been a Methodist instead of a pilgrim from Anglicanism to Unitarianism and back again, he would have needed to do no such thing: he would have needed only to advise his boys
Bernard L. Manning—The Hymns of Wesley and Watts: Five Papers

The Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood
"That My covenant might be with Levi. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared Me, and was afraid before My name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with Me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity."--MAL. ii. 4-6. ISRAEL was meant by God to be a nation of priests. In the first making of the Covenant this was distinctly stipulated. "If ye will obey My voice, and keep My covenant,
Andrew Murray—The Two Covenants

An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, and Part of the Eleventh
An unfinished commentary on the Bible, found among the author's papers after his death, in his own handwriting; and published in 1691, by Charles Doe, in a folio volume of the works of John Bunyan. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR Being in company with an enlightened society of Protestant dissenters of the Baptist denomination, I observed to a doctor of divinity, who was advancing towards his seventieth year, that my time had been delightfully engaged with John Bunyan's commentary on Genesis. "What,"
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Manner of Covenanting.
Previous to an examination of the manner of engaging in the exercise of Covenanting, the consideration of God's procedure towards his people while performing the service seems to claim regard. Of the manner in which the great Supreme as God acts, as well as of Himself, our knowledge is limited. Yet though even of the effects on creatures of His doings we know little, we have reason to rejoice that, in His word He has informed us, and in His providence illustrated by that word, he has given us to
John Cunningham—The Ordinance of Covenanting

Jesus Works his First Miracle at Cana in Galilee.
^D John II. 1-11. ^d 1 And the third day [From the calling of Philip (John i. 43). The days enumerated in John's first two chapters constitute a week, and may perhaps be intended as a contrast to the last week of Christ's ministry ( John xii. 1). It took two days to journey from the Jordan to Cana] there was a marriage [In Palestine the marriage ceremony usually began at twilight. The feast after the marriage was at the home of the bridegroom, and was sometimes prolonged for several days (Gen. xxix.
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Adam's Sin
Q-15: WHAT WAS THE SIN WHEREBY OUR FIRST PARENTS FELL FROM THE ESTATE WHEREIN THEY WERE CREATED? A: That sin was eating the forbidden fruit. 'She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also to her husband.' Gen 3:3. Here is implied, 1. That our first parents fell from their estate of innocence. 2. The sin by which they fell, was eating the forbidden fruit. I. Our first parents fell from their glorious state of innocence. God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.' Eccl
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Mount Zion.
"For ye are not come unto a mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that no word more should be spoken unto them: for they could not endure that which was enjoined, If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the appearance, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake: but ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

Notes on the Third Century
Page 161. Line 1. He must be born again, &c. This is a compound citation from John iii. 3, and Mark x. 15, in the order named. Page 182. Line 17. For all things should work together, &c. See Romans viii. 28. Page 184. Lines 10-11. Being Satan is able, &c. 2 Corinthians xi. 14. Page 184. Last line. Like a sparrow, &c. Psalm cii. Page 187. Line 1. Mechanisms. This word is, in the original MS., mechanicismes.' Page 187. Line 7. Like the King's daughter, &c. Psalm xlv. 14. Page 188. Med. 39. The best
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
Text: Romans 13, 8-10. 8 Owe no man anything, save to love one another: for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. 9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; love therefore is the fulfilment of the law. CHRISTIAN LOVE AND THE COMMAND TO LOVE. 1. This, like the two
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

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