Deuteronomy 32:7

THE LOW ESTATE OF ISRAEL AT FIRST (Deuteronomy 32:7-11)

"Remember the days of old,

Consider the years of many generations:

Ask thy father, and he will show thee;

Thine elders, and they will tell thee.

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,

When he separated the children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.

For Jehovah's portion is his people;

Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

He found him in a desert land,

And in the waste howling wilderness:

He compassed him about, he cared for him,

He kept him as the apple of his eye.

As an eagle that stirreth up her nest,

That fluttereth over her young,

He spread abroad his wings, he took them,

He bare then on his pinions."

In the long history of Israel, God had nurtured and cared for Israel, finding them in the most dire circumstances, that is, in Egyptian slavery, and threatened with annihilation. God rescued them and developed them into a mighty people. That is the theme of these verses.

"When the Most high gave to the nations ..." This passage is difficult to understand; but there is N.T. light on it. If we understand the phrase, "According to the number of the children of Israel," as a reference including the members of the "New Israel" in Christ, as is surely indicated in Acts 17:26-27, we have this apparent meaning: "From the very first, God has determined the boundaries of nations in such a manner as to make it possible for them to know God, `that they should seek God ... and find him.'" What is taught is that God overrules in the affairs of nations in order that many men may believe and know the truth.

"Most High.." This name for God is used only here in the Book of Deuteronomy, but it is a term that belongs exclusively to the one true God of heaven and earth. This was the God that Abraham worshipped when he paid tithes to Melchizedek, and even the demons recognized Jesus Christ as the "Son of God Most High" (Luke 8:28). The Most High, therefore, was not a pagan deity, nor a Gentile god, but the true God!

Finding Israel in "the howling wilderness" is poetic language for the early wretchedness of the whole people.

The tender manner in which the mother eagle looks after her young until they are able to fly is here a figure of the manner in which God has looked after Israel.