Thursday, July 30, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Deuteronomy 30-32
Key Verse
Deuteronomy 32:2 — “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:”
Devotional Thought
Moses is one hundred and twenty years old, and he knows he will not cross the Jordan. So on the plains of Moab he does the most loving thing a dying leader can do: he tells Israel the truth about themselves, and the truth about their God. He sets before them “life and good, and death and evil,” and then pleads, “therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” This is not a burden too heavy or too distant. The word is not in heaven, not beyond the sea; it is “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.” On this ordinary Thursday in late July, with the summer at its fullness, the same choice lies before us — not in some dramatic crisis, but in the quiet minutes of the day, in what we love, what we obey, and where we turn when no one is watching.
Notice how honest Moses is about the future. God tells him plainly that after his death the people will “rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers,” that they will “waxen fat, and kick,” forsaking the Rock that made them. So God gives them a song — a witness to be taught to their children, to lodge in their mouths and memory, so that when troubles come they will remember why. That is a mercy. The warnings of Deuteronomy 31 and 32 are not the words of a harsh God, but of a Father who knows His children’s forgetful hearts and gives them something to sing in the dark.
And what a song it is. It calls the heavens and earth to hear, and it names God as “the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment.” It remembers how He found Israel “in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness,” and kept him “as the apple of his eye,” like an eagle stirring up her nest and bearing her young on her wings. It also remembers Jeshurun growing fat and kicking, sacrificing to devils, forgetting the God who formed him. This is the whole story of grace and grief in one poem: a God who carries His people, and a people who drift.
Moses will not enter the land. He hands the charge to Joshua — “Be strong and of a good courage… he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee” — and he puts the book of the law beside the ark as a witness. Then he sings. The old man’s last public act is not complaint but worship and warning, entrusting the next generation to the God who goes before them. Late July is a season of ripening, and here is fruit that lasts: a word near us, a Rock beneath us, and a choice set before us today.
Reflection
- Moses says the commandment is “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart.” What in your life are you treating as far off and too hard, when God has already placed it within reach?
- Israel “waxed fat, and kicked” — prosperity became forgetfulness. Where has God’s goodness to you quietly become self-sufficiency, and how might you “consider your latter end” this week?
Prayer
O Lord, our Rock, whose work is perfect and whose ways are just: we confess that we are prone to forget You when we are full and to doubt You when we are empty. You found us in the wilderness and kept us as the apple of Your eye; You have borne us on eagles’ wings. Teach us the song of Moses, that Your word may dwell in our mouths and hearts. Give us courage like Joshua’s, and hearts circumcised to love You with all our soul. Set before us this day life and good; grant us grace to choose life, that we and our children may live, to the glory of Your name. Amen.