The Blessing of Moses, Part 1

In Deuteronomy Chapter 33, we find the blessing of Moses over the people. Interesting enough several tribes are left out of this blessing and the birth order of the tribes is completely ignored. God doesn’t do things according to our idea of fairness. He blesses according to purposes can be discovered however if you look deeply enough.

[Deu 33:1-29 KJV] 1 And this [is] the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. 2 And he said, The LORD came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand [went] a fiery law for them. 3 Yea, he loved the people; all his saints [are] in thy hand: and they sat down at thy feet; [every one] shall receive of thy words. 4 Moses commanded us a law, [even] the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob. 5 And he was king in Jeshurun, when the heads of the people [and] the tribes of Israel were gathered together.

In reading this chapter you will notice the awkwardness of the references to Moses and the references to God. In researching this specific chapter you will see scholars suggest this is actually a collection of sayings attributed to Moses added in to the text of Deuteronomy over a period of time: “[Both] Genesis 49 and Deuteronomy 33 are thought to contain individual sayings, written at different times and places by different authors. The sayings originally circulated in oral form as folk literature and were then gathered in collections. “We may assume,” writes Frank Cross in his book Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry “that groups of blessings, ascribed to Jacob and Moses, and perhaps others, circulated orally in the period of the Judges.””

Moses is uniquely called “the man of God” which was a common designation of a prophet in those days. In the New Covenant we are all men and women of God. The difference is that we have God IN US taking up His habitation in us. In those times God only visited men but did not live in their hearts through the New Birth. The mention of the Lord coming from Sinai is a metaphor for the Lord coming to the people in the same way that that sun rises. John the Baptist makes reference to this very passage in Luke 1:78 when he declares Jesus as the Dayspring from on high that visits us. The Lord comes with 10,000 of His saints.

Enoch is said to have prophesied this same thing in a reference found in Jude 14 which interesting enough is a quote from the book of Enoch which is not accepted in the canon of scripture. An alternate reading of this phrase in De. 33 is that the Lord comes from “Meribah” which means “contention” and “combat” which implies that the Lord comes to fight for us as He did with Pharaoh in delivering the people of Egypt.

6 Let Reuben live, and not die; and let [not] his men be few. 7 And this [is the blessing] of Judah: and he said, Hear, LORD, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou an help [to him] from his enemies. 8 And of Levi he said, [Let] thy Thummim and thy Urim [be] with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, [and with] whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; 9 Who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. 10 They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar. 11 Bless, LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again.

When you see the tribes mention always look at birth order. Reuben was the oldest but Judah was the fourth born. Reuben, Simeon and Levi were all denied their birthrights for different reasons leaving Judah to inherit the promise of the first born and thereby become the bloodline out of which Jesus was born. It is interesting that Simeon is not blessed by Moses in this passage. Remember that Simeon and Levi were rejected from the birthright because of an act of cruelty by which they brought defamation on Jacob their father.

History tells us that the tribe of Simeon was absorbed into the tribe of Judah and disappears from history. Levi also was not given inheritance in Israel but rather the “Lord was their portion” and they were scattered through out Israel to serve as a caste of priests. This tells us that in the original transgression Levi must have truly repented because Simeon is eventually eliminated but Levi while facing consequences nonetheless in the midst of those consequences was given the opportunity to serve. This shows us that God chose the Levites to serve and produce a high priest not because they were the most qualified but because they where the least qualified.

To Be Continued Next Week