John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 32:10

"He found him in a desert land, And in the waste howling wilderness; He compassed him about, he cared for him, He kept him as the apple of his eye." — Deuteronomy 32:10 (ASV)

He found him in a desert land. If Moses's intention had been to record all the instances of God’s paternal kindness toward the people, he would have had to begin from the time of Abraham. He would be like the prophet who, when presenting a complete narrative in the Psalm, begins from that original covenant which God had made with the fathers (Psalms 105:8), and who also introduces the benefits He had conferred upon them when they were but few in number and strangers in the land. When they went from one nation to another, He still allowed no one to do them wrong and reproved kings for their sakes (Psalms 105:14).

But Moses, aiming for brevity, considered it sufficient to bring forward a more recent and more notorious blessing. Indeed, he omits the early part of their deliverance and only mentions the desert. He says, then, that God found them in the desert; not because He then first began to take pity on them (since they had previously been rescued from Pharaoh's tyranny by His marvelous power and had passed through the Red Sea dry-shod), but because it was beneficial for them to have it set before their eyes how they had been rescued from the deep abyss of death, so that they might more readily acknowledge this to have been, as it were, the beginning of their life.

For what was that desolate and barren desert—in which not a crumb of bread nor a drop of water was to be found—but a grave ready to swallow up a thousand lives? Therefore, it is also called “the devastation of horror.”²⁵⁹ The sum of it is that their safe escape from it was a kind of type of resurrection, not from one death only, but from innumerable deaths.

That they should have survived, even if their march through it had been straight and swift, could not have happened without a miracle. But since they wandered there for forty years, our minds can hardly comprehend a hundredth part of the miracles that followed one upon another.²⁶⁰ Thus, the phrase ‘led about’ is not superfluous, for God’s power was far more conspicuous than if they had flown swiftly through the air.

I apply the same meaning to what follows, ‘he instructed him’; for some, in my opinion, improperly refer this to the Law,²⁶¹ whereas it relates more to the teaching of experience. For there was diverse and extraordinary instruction in all these acts of bounty and punishment, in which God, as it were, extended His hand and manifested His glory.

Two comparisons follow to express God’s love, mingled with a solicitude even greater than paternal. First, he says that God protected them from all injury and annoyance no less anxiously than anyone is accustomed to protect the pupil of his eye, which is the most tender part of the body and against whose injury the greatest precautions are taken. David also, when asking to be kept safe under God's special guardianship, uses the same expression (Psalms 17:8).

Secondly, God compares Himself to an eagle, which not only shelters her young ones under her outspread wings but also indulgently and with maternal tenderness encourages them to fly. It would be inappropriate here to delve into more subtle philosophical discussions about the eagle's nature. The Jews, who are accustomed to speculate dangerously about things they do not understand, have invented fables concerning this passage that have no relation to Moses's meaning, as he undoubtedly spoke of the eagle as he might of any other bird. Nor can it be doubted that Christ, when He compares Himself to a hen, desired to express the same diligent care.

“How often (he says) would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37).

If, however, anyone should choose to apply here what Aristotle writes about the eagle, I would not stand in his way; although I do not think Moses had anything in mind beyond what the words naturally express. And surely, what immediately occurs to us should be sufficient: namely, that we should be overwhelmed by rightful admiration for God’s inestimable goodness and indulgence when He condescends to stoop so low to us as to protect us with His wings, like a bird, and, hovering before us, to instruct and accustom us to follow Him. In these latter words, a more than maternal anxiety to teach us is represented.

²⁵⁹ “The waste howling wilderness.” — A. V. “Un lieu vague off il n’y avoit . “Un lieu vague off il n’y avoit qu’horreur, ou hurlement;” a waste place, in which there was nothing but horror or howling. — ou hurlement;” a waste place, in which there was nothing but horror or howling. — Fr.

²⁶⁰ Added from Fr.

²⁶¹ “He taught them the words of his law.” — Chaldee.