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| 1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. |
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| 2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: |
Drop as the rain – "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." (John 6:63) R1937:2
My speech – "Never man spake like this man" (John 7:46); "Grace is poured into thy lips." (Psa. 45:2)
Distil as the dew – "All bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth." (Luke 4:22) R1937:2
As the showers – "They could not take hold of his words ... before the people; and they marveled at his answers and held their peace." (Luke 20:26) R1937:2
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| 3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. |
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| 4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. |
His work is perfect – Even though he may temporarily permit evil angels and evil men to pervert and misuse it. F17
Therefore God's law is perfect. R386:5
Therefore God is not the author of sin. R1225:2, R870:3; Q359:5
He does not do evil so that good may follow. R3145:4
The mentally, physically and morally blemished are not God's workmanship. E309; R2912:1, R2285:1, R5360:5
Adam was physically and morally perfect. E406; R2394:5, R1719:4, R386:5; Q741:2
Thus man will be perfect at the end of the Millennium. R5167:2
Satan was created perfect but fell by ambition. F612; SM95:1
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| 5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. |
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| 6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee? |
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| 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. |
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| 8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. |
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| 9 For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. |
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| 10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. |
The apple of his eye – Nothing shall by any means injure these. R4462:5
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| 11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: |
Stirreth up her nest – Mixes the thorny outside with the downy inside so the young will leave the nest and learn to fly. R3351:4*
The Lord permits trials, persecutions, etc.--for strengthening and helping his people. R4335:2
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| 12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. |
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| 13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock; |
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| 14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. |
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| 15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. |
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| 16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger. |
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| 17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. |
Unto devils – Ritualism in the Christian church is of pagan origin. R1991:4*
Mediums of the fallen spirits. God commanded that any amongst them who became such a medium should be put to death. R5910:2; PD42/52
Not to God – To whom the ransom was paid. R685:4
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| 18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee. |
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| 19 And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. |
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| 20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. |
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| 21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. |
They – Paul quotes part of this prophecy and applies it to "all the house of Israel" living in his day, both in Jerusalem and scattered throughout the world. (Rom. 10:19-21) R2125:3
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| 22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Sheol, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. |
For a fire – The fire of God's jealousy. E357
And shall burn – "They shall be burnt with hunger." (vs. 24) E357
The lowest hell – Sheol, oblivion, the tomb, the state of death--a figurative representation of the utter ruin of Israel as a nation. R2599:3; E357; R5154:2
Sheol, admitted by Pastor L. S. White simply to denote the world of departed spirits and not of itself to teach anything about the punishment of the wicked. HG209:3*
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| 23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. |
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| 24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. |
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| 25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. |
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| 26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: |
Scatter them – The whole house of Israel. R2125:2
The remembrance – The same Hebrew word is rendered "scent" in Hos. 14:7 and "memorial" in Esther 9: R2125:2
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| 27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this. |
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| 28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. |
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| 29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! |
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| 30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? |
One chase a thousand – Harvest laborers, though few in number, accomplish the harvest work. R1349:5, R6023:1
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| 31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. |
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| 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
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| 33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. |
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| 34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? |
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| 35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. |
Vengeance – The time of trouble. D73, D549
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| 36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left. |
The LORD shall judge – Jehovah himself is the supreme Judge, yet the "Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son." (John 5:22) F396
Punish--perhaps chasten an individual with business reverses or with physical disease. R5957:2
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| 37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, |
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| 38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. |
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| 39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. |
No god with me – Not triune. R1052:5*
I wound, and I heal – It is the wounded heart that is ready to be bound up and to be healed and to be transformed. HG270:3
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| 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. |
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| 41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. |
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| 42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revengers upon the enemy. |
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| 43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people. |
Rejoice – These victories shall ultimately be attained by all the Israel of God--the Jew first and also the Gentile, during the Millennial age. R3078:2
O ye nations – All the true Israel of God, all who shall become Israelites according to the faith and obedience of Abraham. R3078:3
And to his people – --after divine wrath has burned out their national transgression the Lord will speak peaceably toward Israel. E357
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| 44 And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. |
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| 45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel: |
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| 46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. |
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| 47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. |
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| 48 And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, |
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| 49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: |
Mount Nebo – It is quite possible that Elijah was taken from this same mountain. R3416:3
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| 50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: |
Die in the mount – Mount Nebo. PD37/48
If the meekest man in all the earth was overcome by the circumstances of his position, it should not surprise us if we find that in spiritual Israel some who start out meek and humble become more or less arrogant. R3866:4
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| 51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. |
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| 52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel. |
Thou shalt not go – Although usually a type of Christ-in the one instance of disobediently smiting the rock Moses became a type of Christ's followers who put him to open shame and who, in consequence, will die the Second Death. (Heb. 10:29) R4058:1, R3077:4, R5333:3
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