The music of Moses plays an important role in prophetic interpretation. He joined all of Israel as they sang a song of victory over the armies of Pharaoh (Exod. 15:1–18). Over 400 years earlier, God had told Abraham about their bondage in Egypt and how he would redeem them from it (Gen. 15:13–14). Moses celebrated the fulfillment of that prophecy in song at the start of his role as Israel’s leader.
Perhaps Moses’s most important musical contribution to prophecy came at the end of his life. He had led Israel through the wilderness for forty years, and they were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses would die before that happened, but God gave him a musical assignment to complete before his departure. He must write a song for Israel’s distant future. Our Scriptures preserve that song in Deut. 32:1–43.
The New Testament contains several references to this song, but John’s introduction to The Vision of Seven Vials (Rev. 15:1–16:21)1 is the only Scripture that mentions it by name. John hears the saints in heaven “sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints” (Rev. 15:3).
This makes the song important to our application of inmillennialism to Revelation. This book contains figurative descriptions of the “great tribulation” in Jesus’s generation, during which the Temple fell (Rev. 7:14; Matt. 24:1–3, 21, 34). These events happened in the “last days” (Heb. 1:2) of the Mosaic Age. The Song of Moses fits well into this context.
A Song to End the Mosaic Age
God said the Song of Moses would be a witness against Israel at the end of the Mosaic Age (Deut. 31:14–21). After Moses’ death, Israel would forsake God, break his covenant, and serve other gods (Deut. 31:16).
When Moses explained the reason for the song to the people, he said,
I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands. (Deut. 31:29; emphasis added)
The Song of Moses was for Israel’s “latter days.”
This fits well into inmillennialism, which emphasizes that the apostles viewed themselves as living in the “last days” of the Mosaic Age (Matt. 16:27; 23:36; Acts 2:17; Rom. 13:12; 16:20; 1 Cor. 7:29; Heb. 1:2; 9:26; 10:37; and many others).
In the song, God refers to Israel’s “end.” He says, “I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith” (Deut. 32:20). And, “O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!” (Deut. 32:29).
Jesus and the apostles refer often to this “end” as a reality in their day. They saw themselves living in the time described by the Song of Moses. They associated “the end” of the age with the Temple’s destruction (Matt. 24:3, 6, 13, 14). “The end of the ages” (1 Cor. 10:11, NKJV) had come upon them. Christ had appeared “at the end of the ages” (Heb. 9:26, NKJV). Theirs was an end-time ministry: not the end of history, but the end of the Mosaic Age.
Inmillennialism sees five2 of Revelation’s seven visions as descriptions of God’s judgment of Israel3 during her “last days.” This perspective allows John’s vision of the saints singing the Song of Moses (Rev. 15:1–4) to fulfill its role as God’s witness against Israel during this pivotal time.
Let us pursue this idea further. God designed the song for the time when he would execute vengeance against apostate Israel. In it, God says, “To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste. For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left” (Deut. 32:35–36).
In Luke’s account of the Olivet Discourse, Jesus describes the “great tribulation” and judgment of the Temple as the time of God’s vengeance against Israel. He says, “For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. But woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck, in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people” (Luke 21:22–23). Jesus linked the Song of Moses to the Temple’s destruction during his generation (Luke 21:32).
According to Moses’s song, this was the time for God to “judge his people” (Deut. 32:36). The apostles knew this was to happen in their generation. Peter says, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Pe 4:17), by which he means the Temple and Israel as made up in the Mosaic Age. God was not about to judge his church, the Messianic-Age house (1 Tim. 3:15).4 He would, however, soon judge the Mosaic-Age house (cp. Heb. 3:1–6).
Paul says, “For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. . . . For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb 10:30, 37). He conceived of God’s judgment of apostate Mosaic-Age Israel and the coming of Christ as events in his very near future.5
Jude takes the same view. Speaking of the “latter days,” the Song of Moses said: “They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation” (Deut. 32:5). Jude applies this to apostate Jews in his day: “These are spots in your feasts of charity” (Jude 12). He places this situation “in the last time” (Jude 18).
Jesus and the apostles apply the Song of Moses to their generation. The song speaks of the end of the Mosaic Age.
John’s Vision of Seven Vials is consistent with this point of view. It refers to God’s vengeance and judgment against apostate Mosaic-Age Israel in the first century. Inmillennialism places it in just this context.
A Song to Begin the Messianic Age
Inmillennialism also links the judgment of apostate Israel as comprised under the Mosaic covenant to the beginning of the Messianic Age. God was taking “away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb. 10:9). This judgment would allow God’s blessings to flow to all nations through Israel as comprised under the Messianic Covenant.
The Song of Moses shows this move. God says, “They (i.e., Israel after the flesh) have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation” (Deut. 32:21; emphasis added).
Paul places the fulfillment of this part of the Song of Moses in his day. While explaining the relationship between Israel after the flesh to Israel after the Spirit he says, “Did not Israel (i.e., after the flesh) know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you” (Rom. 10:19). The Apostle believes God’s provocation of Israel by the Gentiles is occurring as he writes his Roman letter.
God’s judgment of Old Testament Israel would bring blessings to all the nations. The Song of Moses had put it this way: “Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people” (Deut. 32:43).
This avenging occurred in Jesus’s generation. He told the apostate Jews:
Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. (Matt. 23:34–38)
In the song, the rejoicing of the nations occurs during and after these days of vengeance (Deut. 32:36–42).
Based on this, Paul encourages Gentile believers to see themselves as full participants in the Messianic Age. He reminds them of what God had said in the Song of Moses: “Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people” (Rom. 15:10).
Paul associated the Song of Moses with the beginning of Messianic-Age blessings to the nations. Inmillennialism places this song there as well.
Conclusion
Inmillennialism places the Song of Moses in its proper place. This music served as a witness against apostate Israel in her “latter days.” God judged apostate Mosaic-Age Israel and executed vengeance against them, bringing Messianic-Age blessings to all the nations.
The saints in heaven sang this song as these events happened. John reports it was so in his introduction to The Vision of Seven Vials.
Footnotes
- For our outline of Revelation, see Mapping God’s Highway In Revelation.
- Visions two through six. See our post Repetition In Revelation.
- Scripture defines “Israel” in two ways. Please see our posts The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 1: Identities and The Seven Mystic Figures — Part 2: Exodus.
- God judged the church through their Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
- Please see our glossary entry Parousia for an explanation of the coming of Christ.
2 comments
Thank you, Mike, for this very helpful article.
I wonder if there is also a partial, preliminary fulfilment of Deut. 32:21 in the events of the Exile of Israel, and later, of Judah. For example, there is Jonah’s anger at the repentance of Nineveh. As a prophet to Israel, Jonah represents the nation by “anticipating”, in his own experience, the “being made angry” (Jon. 4:1) at God’s favour to the “foolish” Assyrians in accordance with the above verse. Thus, at the start of the era of the “writing prophets”, God, through Jonah, uses one of His two “tools” in Deut. 32:21 for arousing (the right kind of) zeal in the Nation – namely anger. At the climactic end of this period, as shown by Paul in Rom. 11:14, Paul emphasises the other tool – jealousy. (Rom. 10:19, like Deut. 32:21, refers to anger and jealousy equally, and both seem to refer to the whole era of prophetic judgement on Israel, but climaxing, as shown in your excellent article, in the final destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. Rev. 15:3 (“Great and amazing are all Your deeds!”) thus, in a way, parallels Paul’s amazement at God’s way of bringing salvation to both Jews and Gentiles in Rom. 11:32 – an aspect of the Song of Moses to which you (with customary eloquence!) drew attention towards the end of your article!
With very best wishes as ever, Stewart (Fleming)
Stewart,
Thank you for these comments. You make some very interesting observations.
Mike