John Calvin Commentary Deuteronomy 32:6

"Do ye thus requite Jehovah, O foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? He hath made thee, and established thee." — Deuteronomy 32:6 (ASV)

Do ye thus requite the Lord. In order to expose the ingratitude of the people to greater infamy, he now begins to recount the benefits by which God had placed them under obligation to Himself. For the more generously God deals with us, the more earnest should be the piety awakened in our hearts; indeed, His goodness, as soon as we have tasted it, should draw us immediately to Him.

Now God, although he has always been bountiful toward the whole human race, had in a unique manner showered an immense abundance of His bounty upon that people; this, then, Moses asserts, and shows how despicably ungrateful they had been.

He first reasons with them by asking whether this was a fitting return for God’s special blessings, and then proceeds to list them. He asks them, then, whether God was not their father, since He had honored them with the distinction of His adoption. Under this single heading, he includes many things, because from this source came whatever blessings God had conferred upon them.

However, not to examine every point with the accuracy it deserves, what more binding obligation could be imagined than that God should have chosen one nation for Himself out of the whole world, to be their father by special privilege? For, although all human beings, since they were created in the image of God, are sometimes called His children, still, to be considered His children was the special privilege of the sons of Abraham.

And, to prove that this was not a natural, but an acquired dignity, Moses immediately afterward explains in what way God was their Father: namely, that he purchased, made, and prepared them. The foundation and origin, then, was the gratuitous good pleasure of God, when He took them to be His own special people.

Elsewhere, indeed, His second purchase of them is mentioned, when He redeemed them from Egypt. Here, however, Moses goes back further, namely, to the covenant made with Abraham, by which they were separated from other nations, as will soon become clearer. I reject, as not in harmony with the context, the translation which some give of the word קנה, kanah, that is, to possess.²⁵⁴

In the same sense it is added, that they were made by God: which does not refer to the general creation, but only to the privilege of adoption, by which they became God’s new work, and in which another form was given to them. In this sense also He is called their framer, or Maker. Elsewhere, also, when the Prophet says:

Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves (Psalms 100:3).

he undoubtedly magnifies that special prerogative by which God had distinguished the sons of Abraham above all other races. For, since the fall of Adam had brought disgrace upon all his posterity, God restores those whom He separates as His own, so that their condition may be better than that of all other nations.

At the same time, it must be remarked that this grace of renewal is erased in many who have afterwards profaned it. Consequently, the Church is called God’s work and creation in two senses: that is, generally with respect to its outward calling, and specially with respect to spiritual regeneration, as it concerns the elect; for the covenant of grace is common to hypocrites and true believers.

On this basis, all whom God gathers into His Church are indiscriminately said to be renewed and regenerated. But the internal renovation belongs to believers only, whom Paul therefore calls God’s workmanship, created unto good works, which God hath prepared, etc. (Ephesians 2:10).

The third word has a similar sense, which may, however, be understood as ‘to establish’;²⁵⁵ although I have preferred to follow the more commonly accepted meaning, namely, that God had prepared His people, as the craftsman fashions and fits his work.

²⁵⁴ S. M. has rendered this word has rendered this word possessed. A. V. agrees more nearly with . agrees more nearly with C. in rendering it . in rendering it bought. —— W.

²⁵⁵ So in., which Ainsworth follows; but explains, ”formed, fitted; and ordered, firm and stable, that thou mightest abide in his grace.”