Song of Moses

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The Song of Moses or The Song of Moses, also known by its Latin incipit, the Cantemus Domino, is found in Deuteronomy Chapter 32 and is the climax of the ministry of Moses. It is a poem that appears in Deuteronomy at 32:1-43. The Song is believed to have been written down and placed in the Ark of the Covenant along with Aaron's staff and the Pentateuch.

The Song of Moses was given as a witness, or testimony, towards the inevitable future rebellion of the Jews against God and the consequences thereof.

It is believed by some Biblical interpreters that the Song of Moses fulfilled its complete prophetic significance in the Destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The Song of Moses is also referenced in Hebrews, and by the Apostle Paul in Romans. Finally it is referenced directly, and alluded to, in the Book of Revelation.

Afried Eidersheim writes in The Temple that every Sabbath day throughout the history of the Tabernacle and Temple morning/evening service the Song of Moses was sung in 6 different segments throughout the day. Many of the Psalms, believed to have been written by King David, seem to have been inspired by the Song of Moses.

According to the modern documentary hypothesis the poem was an originally separate text, that was inserted by the deuteronomist into the second edition (of 2), of the text which became Deuteronomy (i.e. was an addition in 'Dtr2').

The poem, cast partly in the future tense, describes how Yahweh is provoked into punishing the Israelites due to their apostasy, resulting in the Israelites being destroyed. Dtr2 is believed to have been produced as a reaction to the Kingdom of Judah being sent into its Babylonian exile, and thus to Dtr1's (the hypothesised first edition of Deuteronomy) positive outlook, and suggestion of an upcoming golden age, being somewhat no longer appropriate. Consequently the poem fits the aim of Dtr2, in retroactively accounting for Israel's misfortune, and, indeed, may have been composed at a similar time.

Though both Jewish and Christian sources have traditionally attributed the song to Moses, the conditions presupposed by the poem render the Mosaic authorship of it impossible according to critical commentary. The Exodus and the wilderness wanderings lie in the distant past. The writer's contemporaries may learn of them from their fathers (verse 7). The Israelites are settled in Palestine (verses 13-14); sufficient time has passed for them not only to fall into idolatry (verses 15-19), but to be brought to the verge of ruin. They are pressed hard by heathen foes (verse 30); but Yahweh promises to interpose and rescue his people (verses 34-43).

Critics are not agreed, however, on the precise date of the song. George E. Mendenhall from the University of Michigan assigns it to the period just after the defeat of the Israelite militia at the battle of Eben-Ezer, and its authorship to the prophet Samuel: "The poem cannot have originated at any time than after the destruction of Shiloh" and "...there is an impressive number of linguistic correlations in this text with the language and idioms of the syllabic texts from Byblos; those correlations also cluster around Exodus 15, Judges 5, Deuteronomy 33, and Genesis 49".

When all of Deuteronomy 31: 14-23 was referred to JE, the poem was believed to be anterior thereto, and was believed to be contemporary with the Syrian wars under Jehoash and Jeroboam II. (c. 780). To this period it is referred by August Dillmann, Schrader, Samuel Oettli, Heinrich Ewald, Adolf Kamphausen and Edouard Guillaume Eugène Reuss. Kuenen and Driver, believing the expression "those which are not a people" of verse 21 to refer to the Assyrians, assign the poem to the age of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (c. 630), while Cornill, Steuernagel, and Bertholet refer it to the closing years of the Exile—the period of the second Isaiah. In the present state of modern knowledge the date can not be definitely fixed; but there is much to be said in favor of the exilic date.

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[edit] References

  • Kamphausen, Das Lied Moses, 1862;
  • Klostermann, in Studien und Kritiken, 1871, pp. 249 et seq.; 1872, pp. 230 et seq., 450 et seq.;
  • Mendenhall, George E. (1973). The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-1267-4. 
  • Mendenhall, George E., Samuel's "Broken Rîb": Deuteronomy 32, 1975, Reprint from No Famine in the Land Studies in honor of John L. McKenzie. Scholar's Press for The Institute for Antiquity and Christianity - Claremont
  • Stade's Zeitschrift, 1885, pp. 297 et seq.;
  • Cornill, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, 1891, pp. 70 et seq.,
  • Driver, Deuteronomy, in International Critical Commentary, 1895, pp. 344 et seq.;
  • Steuernagel, Deuteronomium, in Nowack's Handkommentar, 1900, pp. 114 et seq.;
  • Bertholet, Deuteronomium, in K. H. C. 1899, pp. 94 et seq.;