John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 32:21

"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 that are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation." — Deuteronomy 32:21 (ASV)

They have moved me to jealousy. He now proceeds further, namely, that God, after having withdrawn Himself for a time, would eventually be the open enemy of the people, so as to repay them in kind.

He points out the mode of this retaliation: as they had insultingly brought empty phantoms and vanities into antagonism with God, so on His part, He would exalt against them barbarous and worthless nations.

This analogy is also taken from jealous husbands who, when they perceive themselves to be despised by their adulterous wives, avenge themselves by their own affairs. Why God should attribute to Himself the feeling of jealousy has been explained under the Second Commandment; Moses now only shows that it would be a most equitable mode of revenge, that God should insult, by means of despised and ignoble nations, those apostates who had made idols for themselves in disparagement of Him.

The fulfillment of this judgment was manifested from time to time, when they were tyrannically oppressed by the neighboring nations. It is true, indeed, that the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans were included among those people of nothing and foolish nations, although they were preeminent in power and wealth, and famous for other splendid endowments.

But it is no matter of surprise that, in comparison with the dignity God had conferred upon the Israelites, all other nations should be considered mere refuse. The sum is that God’s vengeance was ready, by which He would punish the vanities of His people, since He could create out of nothing the enemies by whom they should be reduced to nothing.

There is much elegance in Paul’s allusion, where he extends this pronouncement further: when God introduced the Gentiles into His Church, He stirred up the Jews to jealousy, so that they might be led to repentance by a sense of their ignominy. Surely the calling of the Gentiles was exactly as if He created shadows, whom He might prefer to His reprobate people (Romans 10:19).