Deuteronomy Chapter 32 – Sing In Remembrance of Me…
When Mother was little, she sang in the city’s children’s choir. When she became Mother, she took Jiejie and Didi to the choir for audition. Standing next to the piano, Jiejie and Didi took turns trilling notes of different scales to Mrs. Conductor. Jiejie was later assigned to alto and Didi soprano. Mother explained, children have good memories. If they memorize songs as she did, the songs will remain with them throughout their lives. The songs will help them express their thoughts and feelings, elevate mindset and rise above fear. Jiejie and Didi couldn’t quite understand what Mother meant. But Jiejie did notice when Didi trilled his notes, his expression looked like Mother’s. When they eventually grow up, the songs revisit them just as Mother said. Whenever fragments of a song from childhood revisit them, they think of Mother.
The Song of Moses is God’s ultimate expression of love for His people. As shared in my reflection on Deuteronomy chapter 20, the entire book can be viewed as a how-to manual for the Israelites to navigate their everyday life that is ethical in God’s eyes.
Written in the first person, the book consists of Moses’ autobiographical reflection and documentation of God’s instruction in its most detailed and comprehensive. The voice we hear in the book is one that pleads, insists, urges and chides. It is unsparing and yet broken-hearted and tender in tone. The messages that God untiringly reiterates through Moses can essentially be boiled down to the following:
- Look at Canaan, it’s all yours.
- I have promised.
- Go get it.
- Do not be afraid.
- I am here to help you score.
- I will show you how to score.
- Please go and get it.
- Please follow my instructions.
- Would you please?!
- I repeat
God is a parent that turns to every possible means to teach His children.
Knowing ahead of time that the Israelites will eventually rebel and fail to completely receive His promise, God left no stone unturned in impressing His instruction on His people. He called upon the heaven and the earth to bear witnesses, a dramatic and interactive experience that leave an indelible impression on the chosen (Deut 4:26).
Yet, knowing the impression made by such experiential encounter is short-lived, God asks Moses to bring two stone tablets for Him to inscribe His instructions (the ten commandments) (Deut 5:24). By leaving permanent traces on the stones, God wants to transmit His instructions into the future (Deut 6:2). Unfortunately, Moses ends up breaking the two stone tablets upon witnessing the Israelites’ idolatry. God then again asks Moses to prepare another two and a protective case (the ark of covenant). The same instructions are then inscribed (Deut 10: 1, 4 and 5).
Yet God is fully aware the limitation of any written documentation.
With the stone tablets, He is able to pass on His instruction beyond the present generation. But it does not necessarily provide future generations a full experience of God like the generation who witnessed His signs and wonders firsthand (Deut 11:2).
He therefore appeals to the Israelites to take His instruction to heart. The instructions are to be visually inscribed on everyday objects (wrist bands and headbands) and living spaces (door posts), verbally reiterated to their children. He wants them to converse about and meditate on His words as they go about their daily activities (Deut 11:18-20). In addition to Moses, the elders are also appointed to remind the people of God’s instructions (Deut 27:1).
God does not want His instructions to remain two tablets of stone. He wants them to be inscribed in the hearts and minds of the people, proliferated in their everyday living spaces, and manifested in their daily conducts.
Yet God wants more. He wants the Israelites to remember Him even at a subconscious level in the form of an aesthetic experience. In chapter 31 God pinpoints to Moses poignantly and outrightly that the Israelites’ rebellion is already a future reality (Deut 31:16).
To contend with that future reality, God asks Moses to compose a song. The song will bear witness to the Israelites their own rebellion through their very mouths (Deut 31:21). Whenever they sing, they will not only bring back memories but also the presence of God. Through the vibration of their vocal cords, the frequency that travels through their very beings, and the resonance felt in their bodies, God wants to align the body, the soul and the spirit of His children in the full totality of becoming Him.
When the children of God sings the song of Moses, God is also softly whispering, sing in remembrance of Me…
