Deuteronomy 32:9

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

But the LORD's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
But the Lord’s portion is his people,Jacob, his own inheritance.

Hebrew Names Version
For the LORD's portion is his people; Ya`akov is the lot of his inheritance.

King James Version
For the Lord 's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Lexham English Bible
For Yahweh's portion was his people, Jacob the share of his inheritance.

English Standard Version
But the Lord 's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

New Century Version
The Lord took his people as his share, the people of Jacob as his very own.

New English Translation
For the Lord 's allotment is his people, Jacob is his special possession.

Amplified Bible
"For the LORD'S portion and chosen share is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the allotment of His inheritance.

New American Standard Bible
"For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

Geneva Bible (1587)
For the Lordes portion is his people: Iaakob is the lot of his inheritance.

Legacy Standard Bible
For Yahweh's portion is His people;Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

Contemporary English Version
but the Lord himself takes care of Israel.

Complete Jewish Bible
but Adonai 's share was his own people, Ya‘akov his allotted heritage.

Darby Translation
For Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob the lot of his inheritance.

Easy-to-Read Version
The Lord chose his people to be his own. The people of Jacob belong to him.

George Lamsa Translation
For the LORDS portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Good News Translation
but Jacob's descendants he chose for himself.

Literal Translation
For Jehovah's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
For the LORDES parte is his folke, Iacob is the meetlyne of his enheritaunce.

American Standard Version
For Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Bible in Basic English
For the Lord's wealth is his people; Jacob is the land of his heritage.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
For the Lordes part is his people, and Iacob is the portion of his inheritauce.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
For the portion of the LORD is His people, Jacob the lot of His inheritance.

King James Version (1611)
For the Lords portion is his people: Iacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance.

English Revised Version
For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Forsothe the part of the Lord is his puple; Jacob is the litil part of his eritage.

Young's Literal Translation
For Jehovah's portion [is] His people, Jacob [is] the line of His inheritance.

Update Bible Version
For Yahweh's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Webster's Bible Translation
For the LORD'S portion [is] his people; Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.

World English Bible
For Yahweh's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

New King James Version
For the LORD's portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

New Living Translation
"For the people of Israel belong to the Lord ; Jacob is his special possession.

New Life Bible
For the Lord's share is His people. He chose the people of Jacob for Himself.

New Revised Standard
the Lord 's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
For, Yahweh's portion is his people, - Jacob, his inherited possession.

Douay-Rheims Bible
But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance.

Revised Standard Version
For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
"For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

Contextual Overview

⁷Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you. ⁸When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. ⁹But the LORD's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.¹⁰He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye. ¹¹As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them; He carried them on His pinions. ¹²The LORD alone led him, and no foreign god was with him. ¹³He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag, ¹⁴with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the Lord's: Deuteronomy 26:18, Deuteronomy 26:19, Exodus 15:16, Exodus 19:5, Exodus 19:6, 1 Samuel 10:1, Psalms 78:71, Psalms 135:4, Isaiah 43:21, Jeremiah 10:16, Jeremiah 51:19, Ephesians 1:18, 1 Peter 2:9, 1 Peter 2:10

lot: Heb. cord, Micah 2:5

Reciprocal: Exodus 34:9 - take us Deuteronomy 4:20 - a people Deuteronomy 9:26 - which thou hast redeemed 2 Samuel 20:19 - the inheritance 1 Kings 8:53 - separate Psalms 16:5 - The Lord Psalms 21:7 - most Psalms 74:2 - thine Psalms 94:14 - forsake Isaiah 5:2 - fenced it Isaiah 19:25 - and Israel Isaiah 43:1 - thou art mine Isaiah 43:4 - precious Amos 3:2 - only Zechariah 2:12 - inherit Acts 27:23 - whose 1 Peter 5:3 - heritage

Cross-References

Genesis 17:7
I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Genesis 28:13
And there at the top the LORD was standing and saying, "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you now lie.

Genesis 31:3
Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you."

Genesis 31:13
I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar and made a solemn vow to Me. Now get up and leave this land at once, and return to your native land.'"

Genesis 31:29
I have power to do you great harm, but last night the God of your father said to me, 'Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.'

Genesis 31:42
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the One Feared by Isaac, had not been with me, surely by now you would have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my affliction and the toil of my hands, and last night He rendered judgment."

Genesis 31:53
May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob swore by the One feared by his father Isaac.

Genesis 32:4
He instructed them, "You are to say to my master Esau, 'Your servant Jacob says: I have been staying with Laban and have remained there until now.

Genesis 32:6
When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, "We went to your brother Esau; he is coming to meet you-he and four hundred men with him."

Genesis 32:7
In great fear and distress, Jacob divided his people into two camps, as well as the flocks and herds and camels.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For the Lord's portion [is] his people, Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance. This is the reason why the Lord so early provided a portion or inheritance for the children of Israel in the land of Canaan; because they were his part, his portion, his inheritance, which he chose by lot for himself, or allotted to himself; whom he chose to be his special and peculiar people; for though all the world is his, he only reserved a part for himself, which he separated from all the rest, and considers as his portion and inheritance, see Psalms 33:12; thus the spiritual Israel of God, as they are his people, whom he has chosen, taken into covenant, given to Christ, and are redeemed and saved by him; they are his part or portion, separated by distinguishing grace from the rest of the world; and are the inheritance of Christ, who is appointed heir of all things, and is an unalienable inheritance; and is obtained by lot, or rather is measured out by a rod or line; by the line of electing grace, by which the church and people of God are circumscribed, marked out, and distinguished from others; and by the line and rule of the sacred Scriptures, which are the measure and standard of faith and practice, of worship and discipline to them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Song of Moses

If Deuteronomy 32:1-3 be regarded as the introduction, and Deuteronomy 32:43 as the conclusion, the main contents of the song may be grouped under three heads, namely,

(1) Deuteronomy 32:4-18, the faithfulness of God, the faithlessness of Israel;

(2) Deuteronomy 32:19-33, the chastisement and the need of its infliction by God;

(3) Deuteronomy 32:34-42, God’s compassion upon the low and humbled state of His people.

The Song differs signally in diction and idiom from the preceding chapters; just as a lyrical passage is conceived in modes of thought wholly unlike those which belong to narrative or exhortation, and is uttered in different phraseology.

There are, however, in the Song numerous coincidences both in thoughts and words with other parts of the Pentateuch, and especially with Deuteronomy; while the resemblances between it and Psalms 90:0: “A Prayer of Moses,” have been rightly regarded as important.

The Song has reference to a state of things which did not ensue until long after the days of Moses. In this it resembles other parts of Deuteronomy and the Pentateuch which no less distinctly contemplate an apostasy (e. g. Deuteronomy 28:15; Leviticus 26:14), and describe it in general terms. If once we admit the possibility that Moses might foresee the future apostasy of Israel, it is scarcely possible to conceive how such foresight could be turned to better account by him than by the writing of this Song. Exhibiting as it does God’s preventing mercies, His people’s faithlessness and ingratitude, God’s consequent judgments, and the final and complete triumph of the divine counsels of grace, it forms the summary of all later Old Testament prophecies, and gives as it were the framework upon which they are laid out. Here as elsewhere the Pentateuch presents itself as the foundation of the religious life of Israel in after times. The currency of the Song would be a standing protest against apostasy; a protest which might well check waverers, and warn the faithful that the revolt of others was neither unforeseen nor unprovided for by Him in whom they trusted.

That this Ode must on every ground take the very first rank in Hebrew poetry is universally allowed.

Deuteronomy 32:1-3

Introduction. Heaven and earth are here invoked, as elsewhere (see the marginal references), in order to impress on the hearers the importance of what is to follow.

Deuteronomy 32:4

He is the Rock, his work is perfect - Rather, the Rock, perfect is his work. This epithet, repeated no less than five times in the Song Deuteronomy 32:15, Deuteronomy 32:18, Deuteronomy 32:30-31, represents those attributes of God which Moses is seeking to enforce, immutability and impregnable strength. Compare the expression “the stone of Israel” in Genesis 49:24; and see 1 Samuel 2:2; Psalms 18:2; Matthew 16:18; John 1:42. Zur, the original of “Rock,” enters frequently into the composition of proper names of the Mosaic time, e. g., Numbers 1:5-6, Numbers 1:10; Numbers 2:12; Numbers 3:35, etc. Our translators have elsewhere rendered it according to the sense “everlasting strength” Isaiah 26:4, “the Mighty One” Isaiah 30:29; in this chapter they have rightly adhered to the letter throughout.

Deuteronomy 32:5

Render: “It” (i. e. “the perverse and crooked generation”) “hath corrupted itself before Him (compare Isaiah 1:4); they are not His children, but their blemish:” i. e., the generation of evil-doers cannot be styled God’s children, but rather the shame and disgrace of God’s children. The other side of the picture is thus brought forward with a brevity and abruptness which strikingly enforces the contrast.

Deuteronomy 32:6

Hath bought thee - Rather perhaps, “hath acquired thee for His own,” or “possessed thee:” compare the expression “a peculiar people,” margin “a purchased people,” in 1 Peter 2:9.

Deuteronomy 32:8

That is, while nations were being constituted under God’s providence, and the bounds of their habitation determined under His government (compare Acts 17:26), He had even then in view the interests of His elect, and reserved a fitting inheritance “according to the number of the children of Israel;” i. e., proportionate to the wants of their population. Some texts of the Greek version have “according to the number of the Angels of God;” following apparently not a different reading, but the Jewish notion that the nations of the earth are seventy in number (compare Genesis 10:1 note), and that each has its own guardian Angel (compare Ecclus. 17:17). This was possibly suggested by an apprehension that the literal rendering might prove invidious to the many Gentiles who would read the Greek version.

Deuteronomy 32:9-14

These verses set forth in figurative language the helpless and hopeless state of the nation when God took pity on it, and the love and care which He bestowed on it.

Deuteronomy 32:10

In the waste howling wilderness - literally, “in a waste, the howling of a wilderness,” i. e., a wilderness in which wild beasts howl. The word for “waste” is that used in Genesis 1:2, and there rendered “without form.”

Deuteronomy 32:11

Compare Exodus 19:4. The “so,” which the King James Version supplies in the next verse, should he inserted before “spreadeth,” and omitted from Deuteronomy 32:12. The sense is, “so He spread out His wings, took them up,” etc.

Deuteronomy 32:12

With him - i. e., with God. The Lord alone delivered Israel; Israel therefore ought to have served none other but Him.

Deuteronomy 32:13

i. e., God gave Israel possession of those commanding positions which carry with them dominion over the whole land (compare Deuteronomy 33:29), and enabled him to draw the richest provision out of spots naturally unproductive.

Deuteronomy 32:14

Breed of Bashan - Bashan was famous for its cattle. Compare Psalms 22:12; Ezekiel 39:18.

Fat of kidneys of wheat - i. e., the finest and most nutritious wheat. The fat of the kidneys was regarded as being the finest and tenderest, and was therefore specified as a part of the sacrificial animals which was to be offered to the Lord: compare Exodus 29:13, etc.

The pure blood of the qrape - Render, the blood of the grape, even wine. The Hebrew word seems (compare Isaiah 27:2) a poetical term for wine.

Deuteronomy 32:15

Jesbarun - This word, found again only in Deuteronomy 33:5, Deuteronomy 33:26, and Isaiah 44:2, is not a diminutive but an appellative (containing an allusion to the root, “to be righteous”); and describes not the character which belonged to Israel in fact, but that to which Israel was called. Compare Numbers 23:21. The prefixing of this epithet to the description of Israel’s apostasy contained in the words next following is full of keen reproof.

Deuteronomy 32:16

They provoked him to jealousy - The language is borrowed from the matrimonial relationship, as in Deuteronomy 31:16.

Deuteronomy 32:17

Devils - Render, destroyers. The application of the word to the false gods points to the trait so deeply graven in all pagan worship, that of regarding the deities as malignant, and needing to be propitiated by human sufferings.

Not to God - Rather, “not God,” i. e., which were not God; see the margin and Deuteronomy 32:21. Compare Deuteronomy 13:7; Deuteronomy 29:25.

Deuteronomy 32:19

The anger of God at the apostasy of His people is stated in general terms in this verse; and the results of it are described, in words as of God Himself, in the next and following verses. These results consisted negatively in the withdrawal of God’s favor Deuteronomy 32:20, and positively in the infliction of a righteous retribution.

Daughters - The women had their full share in the sins of the people. Compare Isaiah 3:16 ff; Isaiah 32:9 ff; Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 44:15 ff.

Deuteronomy 32:20

I will see what their end shall be - Compare the similar expression in Genesis 37:20.

Deuteronomy 32:21

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).

Deuteronomy 32:24

Burning heat - i. e., the fear of a pestilential disease. On the “four sore judgments,” famine, plague, noisome beasts, the sword, compare Leviticus 26:22; Jeremiah 15:2; Ezekiel 5:17; Ezekiel 14:21.

Deuteronomy 32:26, Deuteronomy 32:27

Rather, I would utterly disperse them, etc., were it not that I apprehended the provocation of the enemy, i. e., that I should be provoked to wrath when the enemy ascribed the overthrow of Israel to his own prowess and not to my judgments. Compare Deuteronomy 9:28-29; Ezekiel 20:9, Ezekiel 20:14, Ezekiel 20:22.

Behave themselves strangely - Rather, misunderstand it, i. e., mistake the cause of Israel’s ruin.

Deuteronomy 32:30

The defeat of Israel would be due to the fact that God, their strength, had abandoned them because of their apostasy.

Deuteronomy 32:31

Our enemies - i. e., the enemies of Moses and the faithful Israelites; the pagan, more especially those with whom Israel was brought into collision, whom Israel was commissioned to “chase,” but to whom, as a punishment for faithlessness, Israel was “sold,” Deuteronomy 32:30. Moses leaves the decision, whether “their rock” (i. e. the false gods of the pagan to which the apostate Israelites had fallen away) or “our Rock” is superior, to be determined by the unbelievers themselves. For example, see Exodus 14:25; Numbers 23:0; Numbers 24:0; Joshua 2:9 ff; 1 Samuel 4:8; 1 Samuel 5:7 ff; 1 Kings 20:28. That the pagan should thus be constrained to bear witness to the supremacy of Israel’s God heightened the folly of Israel’s apostasy.

Deuteronomy 32:32

Their vine - i. e., the nature and character of Israel: compare for similar expressions Psalms 80:8, Psalms 80:14; Jeremiah 2:21; Hosea 10:1.

Sodom ... Gomorrah - Here, as elsewhere, and often in the prophets, emblems of utter depravity: compare Isaiah 1:10; Jeremiah 23:14,

Gall - Compare Deuteronomy 29:18 note.

Deuteronomy 32:35

Rather: “Vengeance is mine and recompence, at the time when their foot slideth.

Deuteronomy 32:36

Repent himself for - Rather, have compassion upon. The verse declares that God’s judgment of His people would issue at once in the punishment of the wicked, and in the comfort of the righteous.

None shut up, or left - A proverbial phrase (compare 1 Kings 14:10) meaning perhaps “married and single,” or “guarded and forsaken,” but signifying generally “all men of all sorts.”

Deuteronomy 32:40-42

Render: For I lift up my hand to heaven and say, As I live forever, if I whet, etc. On Deuteronomy 32:40, in which God is described as swearing by Himself, compare Isaiah 45:23; Jeremiah 22:5; Hebrews 6:17. The lifting up of the hand was a gesture used in making oath (compare Genesis 14:22; Revelation 10:5).

Deuteronomy 32:42

From the beginning of revenges upon the enemy - Render, (drunk with blood) from the head (i. e. the chief) of the princes of the enemy.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Deuteronomy 32:9. The Lord's portion is his people — What an astonishing saying! As holy souls take GOD for their portion, so GOD takes them for his portion. He represents himself as happy in his followers; and they are infinitely happy in, and satisfied with, God as their portion. This is what is implied in being a saint. He who is seeking for an earthly portion, has little commerce with the Most High.