John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 32:13

"He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he did eat the increase of the field; And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, And oil out of the flinty rock;" — Deuteronomy 32:13 (ASV)

He made him ride on the high places. It is but a frivolous imagination of those who suppose that Judea was so called because it was the navel or center of the earth;²⁶² it is more likely that it was called high in reference to Egypt. Indeed, it is by no means an unusual expression that those who go into Egypt are said to go down, and those who come into Judea to come up. Still, I am rather inclined to think that by height he denotes its excellence, because that land, on account of its illustrious endowments, was, so to speak, the most noble theater in the world.

Moses celebrates its fertility when he says that the people sucked honey from the rock and oil from the stones: for he means to indicate that no part of it was unproductive, since they gathered honey from the rocks, and the olive also grew upon them.

The same is the intention of the other figures, that they ate butter of kine, and milk of sheep; by which he signifies that the land was full of rich pastures. By fat of lambs, he undoubtedly means the plumpness of their flesh, because it was not lawful to eat their actual fat; but it is not unusual for this word to denote any kind of richness, as soon afterwards he calls the best meal or flour, from which the more delicate kind of bread was made, the fat of wheat.

With respect to the wine, he magnifies God’s liberality by the use of a poetic figure when he says they drank of the blood of the grape. There is no doubt that he alludes to its color; yet he takes the opportunity to extol more highly the beneficence of God, by intimating that when the juice of the grapes is expressed, it is just as if their blood flowed forth for the nutriment of men.

Since, then, the metaphor is taken from the redness of wine, I have not hesitated to translate the epithet חמר, chamer, at the end of the verse, as red.²⁶³ From many passages, it appears to have been very delicious; and in Isaiah 27:2, the word חמר, chamer, is used for a vine of great preciousness and of exquisite flavor. Those who render it pure have considered the fact rather than the signification of the word.

²⁶² “In summa parte orbis, qubd Terra Saneta sit in medio climate mund” — Vatablus, in Poole’s Synopsis.

²⁶³ It may either mean red or or effervescing; it is not easy to see why it is not easy to see why A. V. renders it . renders it pure —— W.