1Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak.
Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2My doctrine will drop as the rain.
My speech will condense as the dew,
as the misty rain on the tender grass,
as the showers on the herb.
3For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name.
Ascribe greatness to our God!
4The Rock: his work is perfect,
for all his ways are just.
A God of faithfulness who does no wrong,
just and right is he.
5They have dealt corruptly with him.
They are not his children, because of their defect.
They are a perverse and crooked generation.
6Is this the way you repay Yahweh,
foolish and unwise people?
Isn’t he your father who has bought you?
He has made you and established you.
7Remember the days of old.
Consider the years of many generations.
Ask your father, and he will show you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
8When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the children of men,
he set the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the children of Israel.
9For Yahweh’s portion is his people.
Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10He found him in a desert land,
in the waste howling wilderness.
He surrounded him.
He cared for him.
He kept him as the apple of his eye.
11As an eagle that stirs up her nest,
that flutters over her young,
he spread abroad his wings,
he took them,
he bore them on his feathers.
12Yahweh alone led him.
There was no foreign god with him.
13He made him ride on the high places of the earth.
He ate the increase of the field.
He caused him to suck honey out of the rock,
oil out of the flinty rock;
14butter from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs,
rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
with the finest of the wheat.
From the blood of the grape, you drank wine.
15But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
You have grown fat.
You have grown thick.
You have become sleek.
Then he abandoned God who made him,
and rejected the Rock of his salvation.
16They moved him to jealousy with strange gods.
They provoked him to anger with abominations.
17They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods that they didn’t know,
to new gods that came up recently,
which your fathers didn’t dread.
18Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful,
and have forgotten God who gave you birth.
19Yahweh saw and abhorred,
because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
20He said, “I will hide my face from them.
I will see what their end will be;
for they are a very perverse generation,
children in whom is no faithfulness.
21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God.
They have provoked me to anger with their vanities.
I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people.
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22For a fire is kindled in my anger,
that burns to the lowest Sheol,
devours the earth with its increase,
and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.
23“I will heap evils on them.
I will spend my arrows on them.
24They shall be wasted with hunger,
and devoured with burning heat
and bitter destruction.
I will send the teeth of animals on them,
with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25Outside the sword will bereave,
and in the rooms,
terror on both young man and virgin,
the nursing infant with the gray-haired man.
26I said that I would scatter them afar.
I would make their memory to cease from among men;
27were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,
lest their adversaries should judge wrongly,
lest they should say, ‘Our hand is exalted;
Yahweh has not done all this.’”
28For they are a nation void of counsel.
There is no understanding in them.
29Oh that they were wise, that they understood this,
that they would consider their latter end!
30How could one chase a thousand,
and two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
and Yahweh had delivered them up?
31For their rock is not as our Rock,
even our enemies themselves concede.
32For their vine is of the vine of Sodom,
of the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison grapes.
Their clusters are bitter.
33Their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.
34“Isn’t this laid up in store with me,
sealed up among my treasures?
35Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
at the time when their foot slides,
for the day of their calamity is at hand.
Their doom rushes at them.”
36For Yahweh will judge his people,
and have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.
37He will say, “Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
38which ate the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their drink offering?
Let them rise up and help you!
Let them be your protection.
39“See now that I myself am he.
There is no god with me.
I kill and I make alive.
I wound and I heal.
There is no one who can deliver out of my hand.
40For I lift up my hand to heaven and declare,
as I live forever,
41if I sharpen my glittering sword,
my hand grasps it in judgment;
I will take vengeance on my adversaries,
and will repay those who hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with blood.
My sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the head of the leaders of the enemy.”
43Rejoice, you nations, with his people,
for he will avenge the blood of his servants.
He will take vengeance on his adversaries,
and will make atonement for his land and for his people.
44Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel. 46He said to them, “Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you today, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47For it is no vain thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it.”
48Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, 49“Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is across from Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession. 50Die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and was gathered to his people; 51because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn’t uphold my holiness among the children of Israel. 52For you shall see the land from a distance; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.”
This is a short chapter of just eight verses. In these, we see that the number seven is used seven times. Seven is God’s number for completion. What is to take place is the total completion of God’s wrath on the earth. The word used here for “wrath” in Greek is a powerful word. It is (θυμός – thymos/thumos). You can recognize it in the word “thermos,” which means “heat.” It is something beyond mere anger. It is unusual. It speaks of a passionate, overwhelming “flash point”, an explosive kind of anger. It is a seething, boiling, burning kind of anger. The text tells us that in these plagues, the wrath of God is “complete”. Interestingly, the word “complete” is related to tetelestai [God’s work of redemption is done], the last word Jesus uttered from the cross. The word used here is ἐτελέσθη (etelesthe), meaning that in these judgments God’s wrath will be perfected, finished, and completed. God’s judgment will be over. God will vindicate His people.
John looks into heaven and sees all the saints of God as victorious. That’s all the believers in Jesus throughout history, standing on a sea of what looks like water mixed with fire. He sees the saints of God standing victoriously above all of humanity. They are on something “like” a sea of glass and fire, and they are holding harps. I think the description of “fire” describes what these saints have been through. They are standing victoriously, having passed the test. The mention of harps is interesting to me. I guess this is where the idea of people sitting around in heaven playing harps comes from. And they are having a great big huge praise and worship service. Two or three songs of Moses are recorded in the Torah and the Ketuvim. We find a song of Moses in Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, and Moses also wrote Psalms 90. One song of Moses is recorded as being sung after the children of Israel have crossed the Red Sea. The song begins, “I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.” Moses sings of God’s faithfulness in triumphing over the enemies of God and His people. (see Exodus 15:11).
God will indeed avenge the blood of His servants. He will avenge the blood of righteous Gentiles along with His own righteous people. This revenge is part of what is happening during the time of these bowls of wrath. John sees seven angels clothed in bright linen coming out of the temple's inner shrine. This is the place where the Ark of the Covenant is housed. Each of these seven angels is given a bowl of wrath. The presence of God saturates the temple in smoke and glory and will remain so until the end of the wrath is completed. I have to admit, when I read this, all I could think about was that scene from Indiana Jones: “In Search of the Lost Ark”. The Nazis have tried to use the Ark to somehow harness the power of God in their quest for evil. When they get out in the desert and open the Ark, holy angels come out of it, clothed in linen robes, and they annihilate the Nazi goons. These plagues, these bowls of wrath, are God pulling out all the stops. These seven angels came out of the area where not only the Ark of the Covenant was placed, but where the Menorah, the Showbread Table, and the Altar of Incense rested (Exodus 35-40). Reader, the only normative instruction to be found in this passage is that we don’t want to experience anything of the wrath of God. In Scripture, you and I are given repeated opportunities to avoid the wrath of God. It is in accepting Jesus and His work on the cross that the wrath of God passes over us. He that knew no sin was made sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21 paraphrased).