Deuteronomy 33

The Lord is committed to His people. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, He made promises to us that stretched all the way forward to the resurrection age. Like a father, He disciplines His children, but He has promised to bring great blessing upon us through His Son.

Long before Jesus came to secure for us eternal blessings through His death and resurrection, God used special servants like Jacob and Moses to pronounce blessings upon the tribes of Israel. Here Moses was called by the prophetic title, “the man of God.” He spoke these words just before His departure. He spoke not from His own opinions, but as the servant of the Lord to His people.

The Lord God Almighty talked to Israel from His place of highest authority in heaven, surrounded by a great host of angelic beings. His gift of the Law from Mount Sinai was an expression of His love. “Yes, he loved his people, all his holy ones were in his hand; so they followed in your steps, receiving direction from you.”

The Law was God's Law. The people were God's people. He was the King of Israel. His people assembled to hear Him, worship Him, and follow Him.

The Lord was not only the Law-Giver. He was also the sovereign Ruler and God of Israel. Each tribe had a future according to His decree.

Reuben the first-born would live, and not die. Yet he would not have preeminence, just as Jacob had pronounced centuries before. Who would be first?

The word to Judah was brief, but significant in placement and content: “Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him in to his people. With your hands contend for him, and be a help against his adversaries.” David and the line of kings would come from this tribe until the Messiah King was given. This King, the Word of God made flesh, would be the Voice of the Lord. God would hear this anointed Voice, and would bring about the fulfillment of the longed-for communion between the Messiah and His people. The Lord would preserve the line of the King, contending for Him as His great Help against all His adversaries.

Levi, the tribe of priests and tabernacle servants, would teach the Law of God and offer up sacrifices on the Lord's altar, until that day when the final Sacrifice would come. Not long after that day of the Messiah Priest, Israel would be without Levitical priests or sacrifices. See Hosea 3:4-5.

Benjamin would be the beloved of the Lord. He would dwell under the Lord's protection.

Joseph would be blessed by the Lord in his land, especially Ephraim, the part of Joseph that would eventually be the leading tribe of northern Israel. Though conquered and scattered by the Assyrians, the strong influence of this prince among Israel would be felt all over the earth.

Zebulun and Issacar would rejoice in the gifts of the Lord in the land that God would give to them. Gad, Dan, Naphtali, and Asher would have their particular words of victory and bounty from God. Only Simeon would not be mentioned here.

These words to the tribes of the conquest generation were surprisingly bountiful in view of the earlier warnings that God spoke through Moses. Nothing here denied the curse of the covenant that would come upon Israel. But even after those earlier devastating words had been given, these last prophetic words of the man of God would still come to pass. God would bless His people Israel.

Why would He do this? This oracle of Moses ended with the answer. Because of the Most High. “There is none like God.” He would make a way for covenant-breaking Israel to be called by the name “Jeshurun,” which means “the upright one.”

The God of Israel, the Voice that saves, He alone is the upright One. Yet in Him, in His death for Israel and for His people everywhere, the blessings of God upon His elect would be secure. Israel would have His Name, the upright One, in their connection to His Son, Jesus.

This Voice has come from heaven to be our Help. The eternal God is our dwelling place. His are the everlasting arms that support Israel and the church. He is our happiness, our salvation, our protection, and our victory forever.