Bless his substance, O LORD, and accept the work of his hands. Smash the loins of those who rise against him, and of his foes so they can rise no more." Sermons
I. THE GROUND OF THE BLESSING. 1. Levi's fidelity (ver. 8). "Among the faithless, faithful only he." The zeal and constancy of the tribe on critical occasions had been remarkable. Learn how the wicked, returning to God and proving zealous in his service, may retrieve past forfeitures and win great honor. 2. Levi's renunciation of earthly ties (ver. 9). Christ also requires that no earthly tie be allowed to stand between his disciples and the allegiance they owe to him (Matthew 10:37). II. THE BLESSING ITSELF. 1. Great privileges were conferred. (1) Levi was to be the medium of God's revelations. Urim and Thummim (ver. 8). This privilege of the tribe receives its highest fulfillment in Christ - God's "Holy One," by pre-eminence, and the Revealer of all his counsel to men. Note: The Urim and Thummim is attributed to the whole tribe, equally with burning incense and offering sacrifice (ver. 10), though no one pretends that the prerogative of consulting through the oracle belonged to any other than the high priest. This shows the futility of the argument that in Deuteronomy all Levites must be held as priests because priestly functions are in Deuteronomy 10:8, etc., attributed to the tribe as such. (2) They were to teach the Law to Israel (ver. 10). This privilege now preserved by ministers of the gospel, and other teachers in the Christian Church. In Levi's fidelity and spirit of consecration we see the qualifications required for such work. (3) They were to burn incense and offer sacrifice. This privilege has its fulfillment in Christians in general, in whose personal consecration and offering of spiritual sacrifices, with the incense of prayers, the character of a "royal priesthood" is maintained (1 Peter 2:5, 9). Their sacrifices are acceptable through the High Priest, Christ. 2. Great promises were given (ver. 10). His substance would be blessed, and special protection afforded him. God's servants have all an interest in these promises, especially those whose sacred calling deprives them of the ordinary means of livelihood. - J.O.
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.) 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, ZebulunPlaces Bashan, Massah, Meribah, Moab, Mount Paran, Seir, SinaiTopics Accept, Acceptest, Adversaries, Arms, Bless, Blessing, Crush, Foes, Hands, Hate, Hating, Heart, Hips, Lifted, Loins, O, Please, Pleased, Pleasing, Rise, Shatter, Skills, Smite, Strength, Strike, Substance, Till, Withstanders, WoundedOutline 1. The majesty of God6. The blessings of the twelve tribes 26. The excellence of Israel Dictionary of Bible Themes Deuteronomy 33:11Library 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 God and his Saints Shoes of Iron, and Strength Sufficient: a New Year's Promise "As Thy Days, So Shall Thy Strength Be" 2D Day. Needful Grace. Covenanting Predicted in Prophecy. Within what Tribe the Lake of Gennesaret Was. 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 Second Part With Israel's God who Can Compare? On Deut. xxxiii. Ii The Best Things Work for Good to the Godly Subterraneous Places. Mines. Caves. Wesley's Hymns Reconsidered The Covenant of an Everlasting Priesthood An Exposition on the First Ten Chapters of Genesis, and Part of the Eleventh Manner of Covenanting. Jesus Works his First Miracle at Cana in Galilee. Adam's Sin Mount Zion. Notes on the Third Century Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Links Deuteronomy 33:11 NIVDeuteronomy 33:11 NLT Deuteronomy 33:11 ESV Deuteronomy 33:11 NASB Deuteronomy 33:11 KJV Deuteronomy 33:11 Bible Apps Deuteronomy 33:11 Parallel Deuteronomy 33:11 Biblia Paralela Deuteronomy 33:11 Chinese Bible Deuteronomy 33:11 French Bible Deuteronomy 33:11 German Bible Deuteronomy 33:11 Commentaries Bible Hub |
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