Deuteronomy 32:21

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(21)“They have made me jealous with a no-god;

They have provoked me with their vanities:

And I will make them jealous with a no-people;

With a foolish nation will I provoke them.”

St. Paul comments on this in Romans 10, as proving that Israel was informed of the calling of the Gentiles, and compares Isaiah 65:1, “I was found of them that sought me not. I made myself manifest unto those that inquired not after me.”

Rashi quotes, perhaps not quite inappropriately Isaiah 23:13, and gives this explanation, “A no-people,” i.e., a nation without a name; as it is said, “Behold the land of the Chaldseans: this people was not.”

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 32:21. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities — By vanities here are meant the fictitious deities of the nations with whose worship the Israelites corrupted themselves: see Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 14:22. I will move them to jealousy, &c. — God here threatens to repay their frequent revolts from him in their own kind, in a way most mortifying to their proud spirits; by causing the very Gentile nations, whom they much despised, not only to become their masters and conquerors, but also to be taken into his covenant, while they themselves were excluded from it. See Matthew 21:43-44; Romans 10:19. With those that are not a people — With the heathen nations, who were none of God’s people, who scarce deserved the flame of a people, as being without the knowledge and fear of God, which is the foundation of all true policy and government, and many of them destitute of all government, laws, and order. And yet these people God declares he will take in their stead, receive them, and reject the Israelites, which when it came to pass, how desperately did it provoke the Jews to jealousy! A foolish nation — So the Gentiles were, both in the opinion of the Jews, and in truth and in reality, notwithstanding all their pretences to wisdom, there being nothing more foolish or brutish than the worship of idols.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:19-25 The revolt of Israel was described in the foregoing verses, and here follow the resolves of Divine justice as to them. We deceive ourselves, if we think that God will be mocked by a faithless people. Sin makes us hateful in the sight of the holy God. See what mischief sin does, and reckon those to be fools that mock at it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

God would mete out to them the same measure as they had done to Him. Through chosen by the one God to be His own, they had preferred idols, which were no gods. So therefore would He prefer to His people that which was no people. As they had angered Him with their vanities, so would He provoke them by adopting in their stead those whom they counted as nothing. The terms, "not a people," and "a foolish nation," mean such a people as, not being God's, would not be accounted a people at all (compare Ephesians 2:12; 1 Peter 2:10), and such a nation as is destitute of that which alone can make a really "wise and understanding people" Deuteronomy 4:6, namely, the knowledge of the revealed word and will of God (compare 1 Corinthians 1:18-28).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

21. those which are not a people—that is, not favored with such great and peculiar privileges as the Israelites (or, rather poor, despised heathens). The language points to the future calling of the Gentiles.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

With those which are not a people, i.e. with the Gentile or heathenish nations, who are none of my people, who scarce deserve the name of a people, as being without yoke, without the knowledge and fear of God, which is the foundation of all true policy and government, and without righteous and necessary laws; and many of them are destitute of all government, and laws, and order, barbarous and rude, and savage, and brutish in their manners. And yet these people I will prefer before you, and take in your stead; receive them, and reject you; which, when it came to pass, how desperately it provoked the Jews to jealousy, may be gathered from Matthew 21:43 Acts 11:2,3 22:21-23 1 Thessalonians 2:15,16.

A foolish nation; so the Gentiles were both in the opinion of the Jews, and in truth and reality, notwithstanding all their pretences to wisdom, Romans 1:22, there being nothing more foolish or brutish than the worship of idols. See Jeremiah 10:8 1 Corinthians 12:2.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God,.... With a false messiah; for after the death of Jesus, the true Messiah, God as well as man, many false Christs arose, as he predicted, and were received for a time, who were mere men, and deceivers; and their now vainly expected messiah, or whom they look for, according to their own sense of him, is no other than a mere creature, and not God: or with the idol of their own righteousness; which, as an idol is nothing in the world, that is, nothing in the business of justification, and put in the room of Christ highly provokes the Lord to jealousy:

they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; such were their false Christs they in vain trusted in, and such the idol of their own righteousness they set up, but could not make to stand; and such were the traditions of their elders; they put upon an equality with, or above the word of God; all which stirred up the wrath and anger of God against them:

and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people: this is not to be understood of any particular nation, but of the Gentiles in general, and of God's elect among them, and of the calling of them; which would be provoking to the Jews, as the Apostle Paul has taught us to understand it, Romans 10:19. These were not the people of God, or not my people, as he says Romans 9:25; In some sense indeed they were his people, being chosen by him, and taken into covenant with him; for he is God not of the Jews only, but of the Gentiles also; and those were given to Christ as his people, and are his other sheep which were not of the Jewish fold; and who were redeemed by him to be a peculiar people out of every kindred, tongue, people, and nation, all which was before their calling: yet, in another sense they were not his people; they were without any spiritual privileges, the word and ordinances, without the knowledge of God and Christ, without communion with them; they were not a people near unto the Lord, he had not laid hold on and formed them for himself in regeneration and conversion; they were not reckoned the people of God, nor called so, and especially by the Jews, who accounted themselves to be the only people of God; see Ephesians 2:11,

I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation; either the Romans in particular are meant, so called because of their gross idolatry, to which they were addicted, who otherwise in their political affairs were a wise and understanding people; to these Judea became a province, and were subject to tribute; and by the exactions of the Romans, and their ill usage of them, they were provoked to rise against them, which issued in their ruin: or rather the Gentiles in general, who might be called foolish because of their superstition and idolatry, ignorance, and blindness in religious matters, and especially were so in the account of the Jews; and the elect of God among them in particular, who in their state of unregeneracy were foolish, as all unregenerate men are; both their principles and practices were foolish, and they were the foolish things of the Gentile world that God chose and called: and the calling of them was exceedingly provoking to the Jews; which was as if a man, moved to jealousy by the behaviour of his wife, should strip her of her ornaments and jewels, and reject her as his wife; and take another before her eyes of mean estate, and marry her, and put her ornaments on her, to which the allusion is; for the Lord, being moved to jealousy by the conduct of the Jewish nation towards him, rejected them from being his people, and stripped them of all their privileges, civil and religious, and took the Gentiles in the room of them, and so in just retaliation moved them to jealousy and wrath. It was displeasing to the carnal Jews to hear of the prophecies of the calling of the Gentiles, Romans 10:20; and the first display of grace to them was resented even by believing Jews themselves at first, Acts 11:2. The anger of the Scribes and Pharisees on this account is thought by some to be hinted at in the parable of the two sons, Luke 15:27. The Jews were offended with Christ for eating with publicans, the Roman tax gatherers, and were greatly displeased when he told them the kingdom of God would be taken from them, and given to another nation, Matthew 9:10 Matthew 21:43. Their rage and envy were very great when the Gospel was first preached to the Gentiles, Acts 13:41; and there is such an extraordinary instance of their spite and malice to the Gentiles, and of their jealousy and anger they were moved unto, as is not to be paralleled, 1 Thessalonians 2:15.

Geneva Study Bible

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 {n} people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

(n) Which I have not favoured, nor given my law to them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. moved … to jealousy] See on Deuteronomy 32:16. Mark the antitheses: no-god (lo’-’el), no-people (lo’-‘am, as hitherto outside the nations known and to be reckoned with, by Israel, as unfit to serve any Divine purpose); and vanities (lit. breaths, or as we should say, bubbles, so in Jer. of the heathen gods, Deuteronomy 8:19, etc.) and foolish (nabal, chosen perhaps both because of its probable root-meaning fading, worthless, parallel to vanities, and because it was used in a religious sense, godless, infidel). See Paul’s application of the v. in Romans 10:19.

22 For a fire has flared from my wrath,

And burned to the lowest Shĕ’ól,

It devours earth and her increase,

It flames round the roots of the hills.

23 I will sweep up evils upon them,

Against them exhaust mine arrows.

24 Drained by famine, devoured by fever (?)

And poisonous pestilence (?),

The teeth of brute beasts will I send them,

With venom of things that crawl in the dust.

25 Abroad shall the sword bereave,

And terror be in the chambers—

As well the youth as the maiden,

The suckling and gray-headed man.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 21. - (Cf. Deuteronomy 5:16.) Because they had moved God to jealousy and provoked him to anger by their vanities, their nothingnesses, mere vapors and empty exhalations (הִבְלָים; cf. Jeremiah 10:6; John 2:8; 1 Corinthians 8:4); as they had forsaken him for a no-God, he would send retribution on them by adopting as his a no-people, and giving to a foolish nation, i.e. a nation not before possessed of that true wisdom the beginning of which is the fear of the Lord, the privileges and blessings which Israel had forfeited by their apostasy. By "a no-people" is not to be understood a savage tribe not yet formed into a community, but a people without God, and not recognized by him as in covenant union with him (cf. Romans 10:19; Ephesians 2:12; 1 Peter 2:10). Deuteronomy 32:21

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are a generation full of perversities, children in whom is no faithfulness. They excited My jealousy by a no-god, provoked Me by their vanities: and I also will excite their jealousy by a no-people, provoke them by a foolish nation. For a fire blazes up in My nose, and burns to the lowest hell, and consumes the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains." The divine purpose contains two things: - first of all (Deuteronomy 32:20) the negative side, to hide the face, i.e., to withdraw His favour and see what their end would be, i.e., that their apostasy would bring nothing but evil and destruction; for they were "a nation of perversities" (taphuchoth is moral perversity, Proverbs 2:14; Proverbs 6:14), i.e., "a thoroughly perverse and faithless generation" (Knobel); - and then, secondly (Deuteronomy 32:21), the positive side, viz., chastisement according to the right of complete retaliation. The Israelites had excited the jealousy and vexation of God by a no-god and vanities; therefore God would excite their jealousy and vexation by a no-people and a foolish nation. How this retaliation would manifest itself is not fully defined however here, but is to be gathered from the conduct of Israel towards the Lord. Israel had excited the jealousy of God by preferring a no-god, or הבלים, nothingnesses, i.e., gods that were vanities or nothings (Elilim, Leviticus 19:4), to the true and living God, its Father and Creator. God would therefore excite them to jealousy and ill-will by a no-people, a foolish nation, i.e., by preferring a no-people to the Israelites, transferring His favour to them, and giving the blessing which Israel had despised to a foolish nation. It is only with this explanation of the words that full justice is done to the idea of retribution; and it was in this sense that Paul understood this passage as referring to the adoption of the Gentiles as the people of God (Romans 10:19), and that not merely by adaptation, or by connecting another meaning with the words, as Umbreit supposes, but by interpreting it in exact accordance with the true sense of the words.

(Note: But when Kamphausen, on the other hand, maintains that this thought, which the apostle finds in the passage before us, would be "quite erroneous if taken as an exposition of the words," the assertion is supported by utterly worthless arguments: for example, (1) that throughout this song the exalted heathen are never spoken of as the bride of God, but simply as a rod of discipline used against Israel; (2) that this verse refers to the whole nation of Israel, and there is no trace of any distinction between the righteous and the wicked; and (3) that the idea that God would choose another people as the covenant nation would have been the very opposite of that Messianic hope with which the author of this song was inspired. To begin with the last, the Messianic hope of the song consisted unquestionably in the thought that the Lord would do justice to His people, His servants, and would avenge their blood, even when the strength of the nation should have disappeared (Deuteronomy 32:36 and Deuteronomy 32:43). But this thought, that the Lord would have compassion upon Israel at last, by no means excludes the reception of the heathen into the kingdom of God, as is sufficiently apparent from Romans 9-11. The assertion that this verse refers to the whole nation is quite incorrect. The plural suffixes used throughout in Deuteronomy 32:20 and Deuteronomy 32:21 show clearly that both verses simply refer to those who had fallen away from the Lord; and nowhere throughout the whole song is it assumed, that the whole nation would fall away to the very last man, so that there would be no further remnant of faithful servants of the Lord, to whom the Lord would manifest His favour again. And lastly, it is nowhere affirmed that God would simply use the heathen as a rod against Israel. The reference is solely to enemies and oppressors of Israel; and the chastisement of Israel by foes holds the second, and therefore a subordinate, place among the evils with which God would punish the rebellious. It is true that the heathen are not described as the bride of God in this song, but that is for no other reason than because the idea of moving them to jealousy with a not-people is not more fully expanded.)

The adoption of the Gentile world into covenant with the Lord involved the rejection of the disobedient Israel; and this rejection would be consummated in severe judgments, in which the ungodly would perish. In this way the retribution inflicted by the Lord upon the faithless and perverse generation of His sons and daughters becomes a judgment upon the whole world. The jealousy of the Lord blazes up into a fire of wrath, which burns down to sheol. This aspect of the divine retribution comes into the foreground in what follows, from Deuteronomy 32:23 onwards; whilst the adoption of the Gentile world, which the Apostle Paul singles out as the leading thought of this verse, in accordance with the special purpose of the song, falls back behind the thought, that the Lord would not utterly destroy Israel, but when all its strength had disappeared would have compassion upon His servants, and avenge their blood upon His foes. The idea of a no-people is to be gathered from the antithesis no-god. As Schultz justly observes, "the expression no-people can no more denote a people of monsters, than the no-god was a monster, by which Israel had excited the Lord to jealousy." This remark is quite sufficient to show that the opinion of Ewald and others is untenable and false, namely, that "the expression no-people signifies a truly inhuman people, terrible and repulsive." No-god is a god to whom the predicate of godhead cannot properly be applied; and so also no-people is a people that does not deserve the name of a people or nation at all. The further definition of no-god is to be found in the word "vanities" No-god are the idols, who are called vanities or nothingnesses, because they deceive the confidence of men in their divinity; because, as Jeremiah says (Jeremiah 14:22), they can give no showers of rain or drops of water from heaven. No-people is explained by a "foolish nation." A "foolish nation" is the opposite of a wise and understanding people, as Israel is called in Deuteronomy 4:6, because it possessed righteous statutes and rights in the law of the Lord. The foolish nation therefore is not "an ungodly nation, which despises all laws both human and divine" (Ros., Maur.), but a people whose laws and rights are not founded upon divine revelation. Consequently the no-people is not "a barbarous and inhuman people" (Ros.), or "a horde of men that does not deserve to be called a people" (Maurer), but a people to which the name of a people or nation is to be refused, because its political and judicial constitution is the work of man, and because it has not the true God for its head and king; or, as Vitringa explains, "a people not chosen by the true God, passed by when a people was chosen, shut out from the fellowship and grace of God, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger from the covenant of promise (Ephesians 2:12)." In this respect every heathen nation was a "no-people," even though it might not be behind the Israelites so far as its outward organization was concerned. This explanation cannot be set aside, either by the objection that at that time Israel had brought itself down to the level of the heathen, by its apostasy from the Eternal, - for the notion of people and no-people is not taken from the outward appearance of Israel at any particular time, but is derived from its divine idea and calling, - or by an appeal to the singular, "a foolish nation," whereas we should expect "foolish nations" to correspond to the "vanities," if we were to understand by the no-people not one particular heathen nation, but the heathen nations generally. The singular, "a foolish nation," was required by the antithesis, upon which it is founded, the "wise nation," from which the expression no-people first receives its precise definition, which would be altogether obliterated by the plural. Moreover, Moses did not intend to give expression to the thought that God would excite Israel to jealousy by either few, or many, or all the Gentile nations.