The book abounded in assurances of God's willingness to save to the uttermost those who should place their trust fully in Him. As He had wrought in their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, so would He work mightily in establishing them in the Land of Promise and in placing them at the head of the nations of earth.
The encouragements offered as the reward of obedience were accompanied by prophecies of judgments against the disobedient; and as the king heard the inspired words, he
recognized, in the picture set before him, conditions that were similar to those actually existing in his kingdom. In connection with these prophetic portrayals of departure from God, he was startled to find plain statements to the effect that the day of calamity would follow swiftly and that there would be no remedy. The language was plain; there could be no mistaking the meaning of the words. And at the close of the volume, in a summary of God's dealings with Israel and a rehearsal of the events of the future, these matters were made doubly plain. In the hearing of all Israel, Moses had declared:
"Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, My speech shall distill as the dew, As the small rain upon the tender herb, And as the showers upon the grass: Because I will publish the name of the Lord: Ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, His work is perfect: For all His ways are judgment: A God of truth and without iniquity, Just and right is He." Deuteronomy 32:1-4.
"Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations: Ask thy father, and he will show thee; Thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people According to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, And in the waste howling wilderness; He led him about, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye." Verses 7-10.
But Israel "forsook God which made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, With abominations provoked they Him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; To gods whom they knew not, To new gods that came newly up, Whom your fathers feared not. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, And hast forgotten God that formed thee.
"And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, Because of the provoking of His sons, and of His daughters. And He said, 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. They 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."
