(Deuteronomy 32) He is the Rock
(Translated from Chinese by chatgpt, edited by mijiale)
Deuteronomy 32:4 says: “He is the Rock (tsur); His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is He.” How should we interpret this Bible verse? One approach is to use keywords to search for related scriptures (nowadays, computers make this convenient), and then pray to the giver of the Bible, asking for the Holy Spirit to inspire us and use relevant scriptures to teach us.
Let’s try searching for the keyword “Rock.” Two contrasting passages caught my attention (even though the Hebrew words used are different):
Exodus 17:6 says: “Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock (tsur) at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock (tsur), and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” Moses did this in front of the elders of Israel when they were thirsty in the wilderness in the second year after leaving Egypt.
Numbers 20:8 says (during a similar event about 38 years later) : “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock (sela) before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock (sela) for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.”
In the former, Moses “struck” the rock (tsur) to bring forth water, as per the Lord’s command, and in the latter, he was supposed to “speak” to the rock (sela) but struck it instead, disobeying the Lord’s command. The Lord punished Moses, the leader who had led the Israelites for forty years, by not allowing him to enter the promised land of Canaan alongside the Israelites (Numbers 20:12). Could Moses have viewed the Lord’s judgment as unfair or too severe?
Now, in Deuteronomy 32:4, Moses says: “He is the Rock (tsur), His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of faithfulness, and without iniquity, just and upright is He.” In this verse, Moses uses the same word “tsur” to refer to the Lord, as he did in the first incident when he obeyed the Lord’s command to strike the rock. From Moses’s perspective, the Lord is always right, and it was indeed Moses who erred. Even if we don’t fully understand why the Lord’s punishment was so harsh, there will come a day when we will understand. Moses said this when he was 120 years old, on the last day of his earthly life. If he did not understand the deeper meaning behind the Lord’s actions at that moment, then when would he come to understand it in the future? Will he carry a lifelong regret?
Now, let’s look at another Bible passage that mentions “Rock,” Psalm 92, known as the Sabbath song. It concludes: (Psalm 92:12-15) “The righteous will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They will be planted in the house of the Lord; they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age; they will be ever full of sap and green, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock (tsuri), and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
This Sabbath song, traditionally attributed to Moses (https://www.hatanakh.com/es/node/55200), shares similar keywords like “Rock,” “upright,” and “no unrighteousness” with Deuteronomy 32:4. In this song (Psalm 92:5), the author exclaims, “How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep!” The righteous may have regrets in this life, but there is a deeper meaning behind them.
Psalm 92 is called the Sabbath song (Psalm 92:1), and the Sabbath can symbolize the hereafter for the resurrected. I believe that for Moses, on the last day of his earthly life, it wasn’t the end of hope but the imminent entry into the hereafter and eternity. Although the resurrection of the dead is a long way off, for Moses, death is like a long slumber, and in feeling, it will pass quickly. After a brief moment, he will awaken from sleep and immediately enter a new phase of eternal life. The blessings missed in this life by the righteous will be more than compensated for in the hereafter, with greater glory. Moses may not have entered the Land of Canaan in this life, but in the hereafter, he will come to a place even closer to the Lord than the Land of Canaan, “planted in the house of the Lord,” and he will “flourish in the courts of our God” (Psalm 92:13). In a vision promised to them by Jesus, the New Testament apostles even saw a future Moses after his resurrection (Matthew 16:28-17:3).
May we one day sincerely declare, “He is my Rock (tsuri), and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”