Deuteronomy 32:14

Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) Kidneys of wheat.—The metaphor is literally translated from the Hebrew. The kidneys are enclosed in the very best of the fat of the animal, fat that was strictly reserved for God’s altar by the Levitical Law.

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 32:14. Milk of sheep — Le Clerc renders it, Milk of sheep and goats; the Hebrew word signifying both. With fat of lambs — Or, lambs well fatted. The fat, indeed, wherewith the inwards were covered was not to be eaten by them, but offered to God; yet that fat which was mixed with the flesh they might eat. Bashan — A place famous for excellent cattle. Fat of kidneys of wheat — With the finest of the grains of wheat, compared to kidneys in their shape and colour; or with large and plump corn, affording a plenty of flour. The pure blood of the grape — This metaphor, as well as the preceding, is very elegant and natural, on account of the great resemblance between red wine and blood; and it is also a very animated expression.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:7-14 Moses gives particular instances of God's kindness and concern for them. The eagle's care for her young is a beautiful emblem of Christ's love, who came between Divine justice and our guilty souls, and bare our sins in his own body on the tree. And by the preached gospel, and the influences of the Holy Spirit, He stirs up and prevails upon sinners to leave Satan's bondage. In ver. 13,14, are emblems of the conquest believers have over their spiritual enemies, sin, Satan, and the world, in and through Christ. Also of their safety and triumph in him; of their happy frames of soul, when they are above the world, and the things of it. This will be the blessed case of spiritual Israel in every sense in the latter day.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Breed of Bashan - Bashan was famous for its cattle. Compare Psalm 22:12; Ezekiel 39:18.

Fat of kidneys of wheat - i. e., the finest and most nutritious wheat. The fat of the kidneys was regarded as being the finest and tenderest, and was therefore specified as a part of the sacrificial animals which was to be offered to the Lord: compare Exodus 29:13, etc.

The pure blood of the qrape - Render, the blood of the grape, even wine. The Hebrew word seems (compare Isaiah 27:2) a poetical term for wine.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. He made him ride on the high places, &c.—All these expressions seem to have peculiar reference to their home in the trans-jordanic territory, that being the extent of Palestine that they had seen at the time when Moses is represented as uttering these words. "The high places" and "the fields" are specially applicable to the tablelands of Gilead as are the allusions to the herds and flocks, the honey of the wild bees which hive in the crevices of the rocks, the oil from the olive as it grew singly or in small clumps on the tops of hills where scarcely anything else would grow, the finest wheat (Ps 81:16; 147:14), and the prolific vintage.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

With fat of lambs; for though the fat wherewith the inward parts were covered was not to be eaten by them, but offered to God, Leviticus 3:9,10, yet that fat which was fast joined to and mixed with the flesh they might eat, as the Jewish doctors note.

Bashan; a place famous for excellent cattle, Numbers 32:4,33.

With the fat of kidneys of wheat, i.e. with the finest of the grains or kernels of wheat, compared to kidneys for their shape, and plumpness, and largeness. Compare Psalm 81:16 147:14.

The pure blood of the grape; wine not mixed with water, but pure as it comes from the grape, which was of a red or bloody colour. See Psalm 75:8 Isaiah 27:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Butter of kine,.... Made of milk, which kine or cows give; Jarchi says, this is the fat that is gathered on the top of milk, he means cream, and which indeed was the butter of the ancients, and is here meant:

and milk of sheep: which they give, though not in such plenty as the kine, yet what is very wholesome and nourishing: the philosopher (b) observes, that sheep give more milk in proportion to the size of their bodies than cows: and Pliny (c) says their milk is sweeter and more nourishing, and the butter made of it is the fattest:

with fat of lambs; or fat lambs, rich and delicious food:

and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats; a fruitful country abounding with pasturage, where rams and goats of the best sort were and the breed of them was coveted and had in the land of Canaan; the kine of Bashan are mentioned elsewhere, Psalm 22:12,

with the fat of kidneys of wheat: that is, the best wheat, the grains are plump and full; and Aben Ezra observes, that a grain of wheat has some likeness to a kidney, see Psalm 81:16,

and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape; wine which comes from the grape, red wine, pure and unmixed, see Genesis 40:11; the land of Canaan was a land of vines, and abounded with good wine, Deuteronomy 8:8; which the Israelites, when they came into it, drank of in common, who had only drank water in the wilderness, and had but little flesh, and lived on manna, and now abounded with plenty of all good things; all which are observed as instances of divine goodness, and to aggravate their ingratitude in rejecting the Messiah, they then enjoying all these good things, the land being alike fertile and affluent then, as appears from Isaiah 7:14; Jarchi applies this fruitfulness to the times of Solomon, as the butter of kine, and the kidneys of wheat, 1 Kings 4:22; and fat of lambs, and the blood of the grape, to the times of the ten tribes, Amos 6:4; but this was the constant fertility of the land, and lasted to the times of the Messiah: now all these may be expressive of the blessings of grace, and the spiritual food of the Gospel: Ainsworth very prettily remarks, that here is both food for babes and for grown persons, butter and milk for the one, and meat for the other, and drink for them both: the plain truths of the Gospel are like butter, soft and easy to be taken in, and like milk, easy of digestion, cooling, nourishing, sweet, and pleasant; the more sublime truths of the Gospel are meat for strong men, signified by the flesh of fat lambs, rams, and goats; which all being used in sacrifices were typical of Christ; as also the finest of wheat is an emblem of him the bread of life, on whom the weakest believer lives by faith; and the drink for both, the wine the blood of the grape, may signify the love of Christ, the Gospel and the truths of it, and the blessings of grace, which come through the everlasting covenant.

(b) Aristot. Problem. sect. 10. qu. 6. (c) Nat. Hist. l. 28. c. 9.

Geneva Study Bible

Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. Curd of kine] Fermented milk, Ar. leben.

fat of lambs and of rams] So LXX, bringing forward rams from next line.

Bulls of Bashán] Lit. the sons, or breed, of Bashán (Deuteronomy 3:1), celebrated for its steers, Psalm 22:12 (13), etc.

fat of the kidneys] The richest fat, Leviticus 3:4, Isaiah 34:6; here figuratively of the richest wheat.

blood of the grape thou drankest in foam] There is no need to read with the LXX he drank (so Steuern. to harmonise with the next line), nor to take the line as a gloss (Marti), though it be an odd line and not one of a couplet. This is the climax of the passage of Israel from the nomadic to the agricultural stage of life, and is still regarded as the last distinction of the fellaḥ from the Bedawee; cp. Deuteronomy 33:28, Genesis 49:11 f. Foam (EVV. wine), Heb. ḥemer from root ḥmr, to ferment or foam; cp. Psalm 46:3 (4), Psalm 75:8 (9).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - Butter of kine. The Hebrew word (חֶמְאָה) here used designates milk in a solid or semi-solid state, as thick cream, curd, or butter. As distinguished from this is the milk of sheep; where the word used (חָלָב) properly denotes fresh milk, milk in a fluid state, and with all its richness (חֶלֶב, fatness) in it (cf. Genesis 18:8; Isaiah 7:22). Fat of lambs; lambs of the best, "fat" being a figurative expression for the best (Numbers 18:12). Rams of the breed of Bashan; literally, rams, sons of Bashan; i.e. reared in Bashan, a district famous for its cattle. With the fat of kidneys of wheat; with the kidney-fat of wheat; i.e. the richest fat, the best and most nutritious wheat. And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. The blood of the grape is the expressed juice of the grape, which, being red, is compared to blood. The rendering "pure" here is not inapt. The original word (חֶמֶר, from חָמַר, to boil up, to foam, to rise in bubbles) describes this juice as it appears when pressed into a vessel, when the surface of the liquid is covered with froth or foam. There is no ground for the explanation "fery wine" (Keil); wine in such a state was never among the Hebrews counted a blessing. That they had and used fermented wine is certain; but what they specially esteemed as a luxury was the pure unadulterated juice of the grape freshly pressed out and drunk with the foam on it. Deuteronomy 32:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Lord caused the Israelites to take possession of Canaan with victorious power, and enter upon the enjoyment of its abundant blessings. The phrase, "to cause to drive over the high places of the earth," is a figurative expression for the victorious subjugation of a land; it is not taken from Psalm 18:34, as Ewald assumes, but is original both here and in Deuteronomy 33:29. "Drive" (ride) is only a more majestic expression for "advance." The reference to this passage in Isaiah 58:14 is unmistakeable. Whoever has obtained possession of the high places of a country is lord of the land. The "high places of the earth" do not mean the high places of Canaan only, although the expression in this instance relates to the possession of Canaan. "And he (Jacob) ate:" for, so that he could now eat, the productions of the field, and in fact all the riches of the fruitful land, which are then described in superabundant terms. Honey out of the rock and oil out of the flint-stone, i.e., the most valuable productions out of the most unproductive places, since God so blessed the land that even the rocks and stones were productive. The figure is derived from the fact that Canaan abounds in wild bees, which make their hives in clefts of the rock, and in olive-trees which grow in a rocky soil. "Rock-flints," i.e., rocky flints. The nouns in Deuteronomy 32:14 are dependent upon "to suck" in Deuteronomy 32:13, as the expression is not used literally. "Things which are sweet and pleasant to eat, people are in the habit of sucking" (Ges. thes. p. 601). חמאה and חלב (though הלב seems to require a form חלב; vid., Ewald, 213, b.) denotes the two forms in which the milk yielded by the cattle was used; the latter, milk in general, and the former thick curdled milk, cream, and possibly also butter. The two are divided poetically here, and the cream being assigned to the cattle, and the milk to the sheep and goats. "The fat of lambs," i.e., "lambs of the best description laden with fat" (Vitringa). Fat is a figurative expression for the best (vid., Numbers 18:12). "And rams:" grammatically, no doubt, this might also be connected with "the fat," but it is improbable from a poetical point of view, since the enumeration would thereby drag prosaically; and it is also hardly reconcilable with the apposition בשׁן בּני, i.e., reared in Bashan (vid., Ezekiel 39:18), which implies that Bashan was celebrated for its rams, and not merely for its oxen. This epithet, which Kamphausen renders "of Bashan's kind," is unquestionably used for the best description of rams. The list becomes poetical, if we take "rams" as an accusative governed by the verb "to suck" (Deuteronomy 32:13). "Kidney-fat (i.e., the best fat) of wheat," the finest and most nutritious wheat. Wine is mentioned last, and in this case the list passes with poetic freedom into the form of an address. "Grape-blood" for red wine (as in Genesis 49:11). חמר, from חמר to ferment, froth, foam, lit., the foaming, i.e., fiery wine, serves as a more precise definition of the "blood of the grape."