'
Then comes the Song of the Rock--the song of which (it seems) the
Lord said to him, 'Write this song, and teach it the children of
Israel, that it may be a witness for me against them.'
And so Moses writes; and seemingly before all the congregation of
Israel, according to the custom of those times, he chants his death-
song, the Song of the Rock. It is such a song as we should expect
from him. God is the Rock. He was thinking, it may be, of the
everlasting rocks of Sinai, where God had appeared to him of old.
But God is the true, everlasting Rock, on which all things rest; the
Eternal, the Self-existent, the I Am, whom he was sent to preach to
men. But he is a good and righteous God likewise. His work is
perfect. 'A God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is
he.'
In him Moses can trust, but not in the children of Israel; they are
a perverse and crooked generation, who have waxen fat and kicked.
God has done all for them, but they will not obey him. Even in the
wilderness they have worshipped strange gods, and sacrificed to
devils, not to God; and so they will do after Moses is gone; and
then on them will come all the curses of which he has so often
warned them.
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