Our ETERNAL GOD is our ‘HELP’ and our ‘REFUGE’
March 3 Bible
Reading: Deuteronomy Chapters 31-34
Our ETERNAL GOD is our ‘HELP’ and our ‘REFUGE’!
"There is no one like the God of
Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His Excellency on the
clouds. The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting
arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, 'Destroy!'
Then Israel shall dwell in safety, the fountain of Jacob alone, in a land of
grain and new wine; His heavens shall also drop dew. Happy are you, O Israel!
Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help and the
sword of your majesty! Your enemies shall submit to you, and you shall tread
down their high places." (Deut 33:26-29)
Just like
Jacob had blessed his sons on his deathbed (Gen. 49:1–27), Moses blessed their
descendants by their tribes as his final public act. After praising the
greatness of God and His covenant sovereignty (33:2–5), Moses addressed each
tribe in turn with words of blessing, except
the tribe of Simeon, which was soon to be absorbed by the tribe of Judah (vv.
6–25). He concluded with a general blessing for all Israel, one whose very
possibility lay in the nature of God as Creator and Lord and in His saving work
in bringing Israel to Himself (vv. 26–29).
Moses thus invokes
blessings upon the tribes of Israel, and the foundation of these blessings is
the strong confidence in Israel’s unique,
incomparable God, who rides the heavens to help Israel. He is an eternal
God whose everlasting arms are never exhausted and who is their refuge and
safety. These closing verses celebrate the greatness
of God as He acts in behalf of His people. The God of Jeshurun is unique in the heavens to help His people during
their time of need!
Like a
soldier, God is constantly on the lookout for ways to defend His people from
attack, and the Divine Warrior is always providing protection because He is
eternal. God is a refuge or fortress for the people to flee to in times of
distress (Ps. 90:1; 91:9). The God who
redeemed Israel with His strong arm will always be with His people in love and
power!
This above
passage has blessed the hearts of God’s people through the ages. He is the majestic God (v. 26), the eternal God (v. 27), the protecting and providing God (v. 28).
The great blessing of Israel was that He
was their God. God’s people are privileged to be in His hand for safekeeping (John 10:28–29) and at His feet for learning and obeying
(v. 3). We are “between His shoulders,”
next to His heart (v. 12), and He bears us with His “everlasting arms” (v. 27). What more could we want?
