John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 32:16

"They moved him to jealousy with strange [gods]; With abominations provoked they him to anger." — Deuteronomy 32:16 (ASV)

They provoked him to jealousy. It is only figuratively that jealousy is attributed to God, who is free from all passions. However, since people never sufficiently reflect on the great pollution they contract through their idolatries, it is necessary that the grossness of the sin should be expressed in terms like this. This implies that people do no less injury to God when they transfer to others the honor due to Him, and that the offense is no less severe than if a licentious woman were to provoke her husband to jealousy and inflict a wound upon him by running after adulterers.

This jealousy refers to the sacred and spiritual marriage by which God had bound His people to Himself. The sum is that the Israelites were as insulting to God through their superstitions as if they had intentionally provoked Him.

In the next verse, an amplification follows, namely, that they had transferred to devils the worship due to God alone. By the general consent of all nations, God ought to be worshipped by sacrifices; for although the Gentiles invented various gods for themselves, the belief still continued to prevail that this service was the unique prerogative of Deity. Nothing, then, could be more disgraceful or detestable than to rob God of His honor and to offer it to demons.

This, indeed, would never have been admitted by the Israelites, since they pretended that their minor gods were their advocates with the supreme and only Creator of the world, and did not hesitate to consider as rendered to Him whatever they shared among their idols. Here, however, He first of all repudiates all such mixtures by which His holy name is unworthily profaned and does not allow Himself to be associated with idols. Secondly, by whatever titles they may dignify their idols, He declares all false gods to be demons. Therefore, it follows that the sacrifices made to them are infected with sacrilege.

Both of these points are worthy of careful remark: first, that God abominates all corruptions of His service; and second, that whatever names the world may invent for its gods, they are so many masks under which the devil hides himself to deceive the simple.

Furthermore, Moses rebukes the folly of the Israelites in having indiscriminately devoted themselves to unknown gods, just as an adulterous woman might prostitute herself indiscriminately to all who came. When he says that they came from near,²⁶⁶ it refers to time and is equivalent to saying that they had recently sprung up. Thirdly, it is said that these gods were not honored by their fathers; for in this way their perverse love of novelty is proved against them, since they had not even been led by imitation of their fathers, but in their restless innovation had procured for themselves new and unusual gods.

This is not to say that the law of piety is founded on antiquity alone, as if it were sufficient to follow the customs handed down by our ancestors (for in that way any of the religions of the Gentiles might be proved true). Rather, it is because the genuine and faithful tradition of their fathers would be the sure and approved rule for the worship of God. For Moses assumes a higher principle: namely, that their fathers were truly and most unmistakably instructed about who was the one and only God, in whom alone they ought to trust.

Yet a distinction must be drawn here between these holy fathers and the reprobate. The imitation of their fathers, which here seems to be considered praiseworthy, is elsewhere severely condemned because the Jews were carried away indiscriminately, following the bad examples of their fathers. Moses, therefore, here refers only to those fathers who were in a position to hand down what they had learned from God Himself.

The word fear often comprises, by synecdoche, the whole service of God and is sometimes applied to outward ceremonies. The word שער, sagnar, however, is used here, which properly means to stand in awe of, or to dread;²⁶⁷ but still in the same sense.

²⁶⁶ A. V., “newly.” ., “newly.” Lat., e propinquo.”e propinquo.”

²⁶⁷ In the editions of Geneva, 1563 and 1573, C. is made to say, that this word is equivalent to “. is made to say, that this word is equivalent to “formare, vel pavere;” the former being probably a misprint for the former being probably a misprint for reformidare. —— W. The The Fr. renders the words “Redouter, ou avoir peur.”. renders the words “Redouter, ou avoir peur.”