To Heap Mischief

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.

-- Deuteronomy 32: 22-23 (KJV)

These dire words, quoting the Lord, are found in the so-called "Song of Moses," one of the leader's last lectures to what he calls a "perverse and crooked generation" of Israelites. Moses recalls their complacency and their embracing "strange gods" in the face of God's good deeds toward them.

He then warns of God's promised reaction. The Lord will turn away from Israel and inflict it with foreign enemies, who will by proxy unleash the fires of hell (sheol in the Hebrew) and various other mischiefs. They can expect famine, plague, and pestilence, the ravages of wild beasts and the poisons of "serpents of the dust" -- in short, "The sword without, and terror within" (verse 25).

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, indeed. But the Lord will stop short of letting any enemy destroy Israel entirely, lest such enemies get the wrong idea that it was all their doing. And in any case, the Lord pledges to one day show up all the foreign gods, thus disposing with any cause for future jealousy. In other words, Israel faces a terrifying future if it remains disobedient, but it will at least survive. And Moses goes on to pull a velvet glove over the Lord's stark fist in chapter 33 of Deuteronomy, in which each of the twelve tribes of Israel receives a blessing and a promise. This will be Moses' last address to the people.

 
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Michael Macrone is Associate Site Producer of GraceCom and the author of nine books on language, literature, and ideas, including the best-selling Brush Up Your Shakespeare!