Deuteronomy 32:18

Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Of the Rock that begat thee.—“The Rock hath begotten thee forgetful, and thou hast forgotten God that travailed with thee” is another possible translation of this verse. The expression in the second clause is found also in Psalm 90:2 (a prayer of Moses), “Before the mountains were brought forth, while Thou wast yet in travail with earth and world, and from eternity unto eternity Thou art God!” The word which I have rendered “forgetful” is usually taken as a verb. But the verb is not found elsewhere (i.e., it is invented for the sake of this passage), and the word may not impossibly be an adjective.

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 32:18-19. Of the Rock that begat thee — Of God, one of whose titles this is; or of Christ, the rock that is said to have followed the Israelites in the wilderness, (1 Corinthians 10:4,) of which they drank, and whom they tempted. Moses still speaks in the prophetic style, representing what appeared present to his prophetic view as if it had already happened. The provoking of his sons and daughters — Such they were by calling and profession. Daughters are here expressly named, because the women were notoriously guilty of provoking God by idolatry. Thus we read, (Jeremiah 7:18,) “The women knead dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.” And again, (Jeremiah 44:15,) “The women burned incense to other gods.” And in Ezekiel 8:14, “The women sat weeping for Tammuz.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:15-18 Here are two instances of the wickedness of Israel, each was apostacy from God. These people were called Jeshurun, an upright people, so some; a seeing people, so others: but they soon lost the reputation both of their knowledge and of their righteousness. They indulged their appetites, as if they had nothing to do but to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts of it. Those who make a god of themselves, and a god of their bellies, in pride and wantonness, and cannot bear to be told of it, thereby forsake God, and show they esteem him lightly. There is but one way of a sinner's acceptance and sanctification, however different modes of irreligion, or false religion, may show that favourable regard for other ways, which is often miscalled candid. How mad are idolaters, who forsake the Rock of salvation, to run themselves upon the rock of perdition!

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Devils - Render, destroyers. The application of the word to the false gods points to the trait so deeply graven in all pagan worship, that of regarding the deities as malignant, and needing to be propitiated by human sufferings.

Not to God - Rather, "not God," i. e., which were not God; see the margin and Deuteronomy 32:21. Compare Deuteronomy 13:7; Deuteronomy 29:25.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

17. They sacrificed unto devils—(See on [168]Le 17:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Of the Rock, i.e. of God, one of whose titles this is, above, Deu 32:4 Isaiah 44:8; or of Christ, who is called the Rock, 1 Corinthians 10:4, whom the Israelites are said to have tempted, there, Deu 32:9.

That begat thee, i.e. who hath adopted you to be his people, and hath showed as much care and kindness to you as if he had begotten you.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Of the rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,.... The same with the rock of salvation, Deuteronomy 32:15; repeated and expressed in different words, that their wretched ingratitude might be taken notice of and observed: begetting is ascribed to this rock, as regeneration is to Christ, 1 John 2:29; and was true of some among the Jews: some choose to render the words, "the rock of thy kindred" (k); being a near kinsman, a brother through his incarnation, which aggravated their unmindfulness of him:

and hast forgotten God that formed thee: for the rock they were unmindful of and forgot is the true God and eternal life, the essential Word of God, as both the Targums of Jonathan and Jerusalem interpret it; him the Jewish nation forgot; they forgot the characters given of him in the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament; and therefore they knew him not when he came and fulfilled the voices of the prophets they were ignorant of in condemning him: hence they were unmindful of his person, his offices, his works, his benefits, and the great salvation by him; as indeed too many are that call themselves Christians: some observe that the word here used signifies bringing forth children with pain, and so way respect the bitter sorrows and sufferings of Christ, sometimes expressed by a word (l) which signifies the pains of women in childbirth, Acts 2:24; and called the travail of his soul, Isaiah 53:11; and so a further aggravation of their ingratitude, that they should forget him that suffered so much, at least on account of some of them; for, those he endured to bring forth children unto God, or to gather together the children of God, scattered abroad both in Judea and in the whole world, John 11:51.

(k) "rupem cognationis tuae", i.e. "fratrum tuorum", Van Till; see Rom. ix. 4, 5. (l) "parturientis te", Montanus; "parturitorem tuum", Van Till.

Geneva Study Bible

Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Rock] See on Deuteronomy 32:4; God, Heb. ’El. The predicates used of Him are generally interpreted as if attributing to Him the functions both of father and mother. But the first vb. is more usually in the O.T. of the mother, and is rightly rendered here by R.V. marg. bare; the second, gave thee birth, is rather was in travail with thee; cp. Numbers 11:12.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - Moses here returns to the thought of ver. 15, for the purpose of expressing it with greater force, and also of leading on to the description he is about to give of the Lord's acts towards the nation who had so revolted from him. Thou art unmindful; LXX., ἐγκατέλιπες: Vulgate, dereliquisti. The Hebrew word שָׁיָה occurs only here, and the meaning is doubtful. From the rendering of the versions, it would seem to be allied to the Arabic , saha, oblitus est. That formed thee; literally, that brought thee forth or caused thee to be born; "qui te eduxit ex utero materno" (Jarchi. Cf. for the use of the verb, Psalm 29:9). In the Samaritan Codex, מהלל, "who hath glorified or praised thee," is the reading, instead of מחלל; and this the Syriac also expresses. The other versions, however, support the Masoretic reading. Deuteronomy 32:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"They excited His jealousy through strange (gods), they provoked Him by abominations. They sacrificed to devils, which (were) not-God; to gods whom they knew not, to new (ones) that had lately come up, whom your fathers feared not. The rock which begat thee thou forsookest, and hast forgotten the God that bare thee." These three verses are only a further expansion of Deuteronomy 32:15. Forsaking the rock of its salvation, Israel gave itself up to the service of worthless idols. The expression "excite to jealousy" is founded upon the figure of a marriage covenant, under which the relation of the Lord to Israel is represented (vid., Deuteronomy 31:16, and the com. on Exodus 34:15). "This jealousy rests upon the sacred and spiritual marriage tie, by which God had bound the people to Himself" (Calvin). "Strange gods," with which Israel committed adultery, as in Jeremiah 2:25; Jeremiah 3:13. The idols are called "abominations" because Jehovah abhorred them (Deuteronomy 7:25; Deuteronomy 27:15; cf. 2 Kings 23:13). שׁדים signifies demons in Syriac, as it has been rendered by the lxx and Vulgate here; lit., lords, like Baalim. It is also used in Psalm 106:37. - "Not-God," a composite noun, in apposition to Shedim (devils), like the other expressions which follow: "gods whom they knew not," i.e., who had not made themselves known to them as gods by any benefit or blessing (vid., Deuteronomy 11:28); "new (ones), who had come from near," i.e., had but lately risen up and been adopted by the Israelites. "Near," not in a local but in a temporal sense, in contrast to Jehovah, who had manifested and attested Himself as God from of old (Deuteronomy 32:7). שׂער, to shudder, construed here with an accusative, to experience a holy shuddering before a person, to revere with holy awe. - In Deuteronomy 32:18 Moses returns to the thought of Deuteronomy 32:15, for the purpose of expressing it emphatically once more, and paving the way for a transition to the description of the acts of the Lord towards His rebellious nation. To bring out still more prominently the base ingratitude of the people, he represents the creation of Israel by Jehovah, the rock of its salvation, under the figure of generation and birth, in which the paternal and maternal love of the Lord to His people had manifested itself. חולל, to twist round, then applied to the pains of childbirth. The ἁπ. λεγ. תּשׁי is to be traced to שׁיה, and is a pausal form like יחי in Deuteronomy 4:33. שׁיה equals שׁהה, to forget, to neglect.