Deuteronomy 31 begins the transition that the book has been building toward since its opening chapter. Moses will not cross the Jordan. He has known this since the rebuke at Meribah (Deuteronomy 1:37, 3:23–28), and now the moment has arrived. What follows in chapters 31 and 32 is the carefully ordered transfer of leadership, the deposit of the law, and a remarkable poem — the Song of Moses — that is designed to outlive everyone in the assembly.
Deuteronomy 31-32
Joshua Commissioned and Song of Moses
Main Highlights
- Moses publicly names his own limitation before all Israel — he is 120 years old and cannot cross the Jordan — and commissions Joshua without self-pity or bitterness.
- The law is deposited with the priests and commanded to be read publicly every seven years, because covenant faithfulness requires regular communal re-exposure to God's word.
- God commands Moses to write the Song as a preemptive witness against Israel's future unfaithfulness — so they will not be confused when the curses arrive.
- The Song moves from Israel's rebellion and God's judgment through to ultimate vindication, ending with the heavens called to rejoice over what God will yet do.
The Public Commissioning of Joshua
Moses opens chapter 31 by announcing his age and his limitation: he is 120 years old and is no longer able to go out and come in. The LORD has told him he will not cross the Jordan. This is Moses' first act of pastoral leadership in these final chapters — he names his own limitation publicly, without evasion or bitterness.
He then commissions Joshua before all Israel:
"Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." — Deuteronomy 31:7–8 (ESV)
The commission is grounded, as Deuteronomic courage always is, not in Joshua's qualities but in God's presence. "It is the LORD who goes before you." Patrick Miller, in his Deuteronomy commentary (Interpretation, 1990), notes that the double command — "be strong and courageous" — appears three times in these chapters (31:6, 7, 23), each time connected to a theological declaration that makes the command possible. Courage in Deuteronomy is never a call to willpower. It is trust in the God who has already promised.
What we find significant here is the transparency of Moses in this moment. He is 120 years old. He will not see what Joshua sees. He is handing off everything he has spent his life building, to a man who will take it somewhere Moses cannot follow. And the way he does it is without self-pity or drama — just a clear-eyed acknowledgment of his own limitation, followed immediately by the encouragement that matters: God is going with you. We find something deeply pastoral in that. Moses' care for Israel at the end of his life is not about his own legacy. It is about making sure Joshua knows where his strength comes from.
The Reading of the Law
Moses deposits the written law with the Levitical priests and commands that it be read publicly every seven years, during the Feast of Booths, in the hearing of all Israel:
"Assemble the people, men, women, and little ones, and the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this law, and that their children, who have not known it, may hear and learn to fear the LORD your God." — Deuteronomy 31:12–13 (ESV)
This command establishes that covenant faithfulness is not self-sustaining. It requires regular re-exposure to God's word. J.G. McConville observes that this instruction anticipates the problem that the rest of Israel's history will demonstrate: the people do not naturally retain what God has revealed. They need to hear it again, read together, in the presence of the whole community. The seven-year public reading is not a refresher course. It is the community's ongoing formation in the fear of God.
A Song as Covenant Witness
God's instruction to Moses in Deuteronomy 31:19 is striking: "Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel." The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) is not composed as a celebration of present faithfulness. It is composed as a witness against future unfaithfulness. God already knows what Israel will do. He gives them the song so that when the curses come, they will have no excuse — the song told them what would happen and why.
The song itself is one of the great poems of the Old Testament. It opens with a call to cosmic witness:
"Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb." — Deuteronomy 32:1–2 (ESV)
Against the backdrop of God's tender care for Israel — "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions" (Deuteronomy 32:11) — the song sets Israel's rebellion: they grew fat and kicked, they stirred God to jealousy with strange gods (Deuteronomy 32:15–18). The song moves through divine anger and judgment to eventual vindication: God will yet have compassion on His servants and avenge their blood against their enemies (Deuteronomy 32:36, 43). The heavens and earth summoned as witnesses in 30:19 are here called again — the cosmos itself bears testimony to what God has done and what Israel has done in return.
What strikes us about the song is that God gives it to them before they need it. He composes a preemptive witness — a poem that says: here is what will happen, here is why, here is what it means, here is how it ends. It is not given in judgment; it is given in mercy. If Israel will carry this song in their mouths, they will not be confused when the curses arrive. They will know who they are, what they have done, and who the God is who will not ultimately abandon them. The song is a love letter that contains grief — which is perhaps what love sometimes looks like.
Last updated: March 3, 2026.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.