Deuteronomy 33:26-29 There is none like to the God of Jeshurun, who rides on the heaven in your help, and in his excellency on the sky.… A noble climax! The round of blessing has been completed, and the dying lawgiver revels in the thought of the greatness and felicity thence resulting to favored Israel. One by one the tribes have passed before his eye, and he has sketched in outline, not indeed their actual future, but what might have been, what would have been their future, had they remained faithful to their God. The picture is largely an ideal one, though in the after-history of the tribes, in the lots assigned to them in Canaan, in the types of character exhibited by them, in the variety of their callings and destinies - as in the ruins of a temple we may trace something of its original design - we discern the fulfillment of many features of the prophecy. Moses' blessing on the tribes is at once a wish, a prayer, and a prediction: a wish that certain blessings may be theirs; a prayer that the blessings may be given; and a prediction of what, conditionally on obedience, would actually be realized. Reading the blessings, we think, as in the parable, of servants entrusted with certain talents to be used in their Lord's service, but capable of making a bad as well as a good use of them (Matthew 25:14-31). The tribes, speaking generally, used theirs badly, and the blessings were not fulfilled. What applies to the blessing as a whole applies especially to this magnificent concluding passage. It is the ideal, not the actual Israel which stands here before the great lawgiver's eye, and the language applies to the actual, only in so far as it was also the ideal, people of Jehovah. Its full application is to the Church of Christ - the Church catholic and invisible. I. THE BASIS OF ISRAEL'S HAPPINESS, viz. the relation which the tribes sustained to the eternal God. He was the God of Jeshurun - of the righteous people. He was a God bound to them by covenant. They had been saved by him. He was their changeless Dwelling-place, Defender, and Support. All power in heaven and earth was at their service, and engaged for their defense. They had nothing to fear with a Protector so almighty; they had everything to hope for from one so able to save and bless. Precisely similar is the relation of God in Christ to the Church of believers. II. THE GREATNESS OF IT. 1. Complete as regards its elements. No element of good a-wanting. Rising from natural blessings, and safety and protection against enemies, they had also, in the favor of God and communion with him, every pledge of spiritual blessing. 2. Permanent. Enduring as the eternal God. 3. Exalting and ennobling to the soul of its possessor. Such a relation to God as Israel sustained should have wrought in the people, did in part work in them, a surpassing elevation of consciousness; was fitted to raise thought and feeling to the pitch of sublimity; should have made of them a great nation, in the best sense of the words, a nation great in thought, aspiration, and endeavor - heroically great. A like elevation of spirit should characterize the people of Christ. - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky. |
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