Did the Greatest Prophet Foresee Isaiah 53 in the Last Days of His Life?
At first glance, the Torah portion Ha’azinu, “Give ear” (Deuteronomy 32:1-52) looks like a conclusion of Mosheh’s last address to the nation of Israel. But a closer examination shows that there is much to it than that. It is difficult to imagine the picture which floated in Mosheh’s mind when he wrote this Torah portion, for he was thinking of a future state of the nation of Israel but in images drawn from his present world. Centuries later, another great prophet, perhaps only second to Mosheh, would write Messianic prophecies concerning the last days. It is the object of this work to find a connection between writings once we understand the meaning of Mosheh’s words in Ha’azinu, “Give ear”. We will explain the reason for this in due course.
The preceding Torah portions Nitzavim, “You stand” (Deuteronomy 29:9-30:20), Va’yelech, “And he went” (Deuteronomy 31:1-30) and Ha’Azinu, “Give year” (Deuteronomy 32:1-52) are all speeches Mosheh made on the day he died. This is why he repeatedly referred to היום, hayom, “this day” or “today” both in Nitzavim (29:9) and in Vayelech (30:2). In our Torah portion Ha’Azinu, the expression hayom occurs also (32:49) as it does in the last portion in the Torah VeZot HaBerachah, “And this is the blessing” (Deuteronomy 33:1-34:12).
The brief Torah portion of Ha’azinu is a poem, which encodes the entire history of Israel. In it Mosheh praises Mighty One of Israel and criticizes the sins of Israel. He describes the misfortunes that Israel will ultimately face if the nation does not give ear to His teachings and the retributions that will come upon the children of Israel. Hence the name of our Torah portion: Ha’azinu, “Give ear” whose meaning is “Come closer and listen carefully”. With the end of the poem, the Torah portion ends as the Eternal commands Mosheh to ascend Mount Nevo, where he is to die in peace.
The poem Ha’azinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-43), which is part of Torah portion, forms a monumental prophetic history of Israel, structured across four major thematic divisions. We will first present them in brief, after which we will explain them at length.
Division 1: The Prayer to Heaven and Earth as Witnesses (Verses 1–6)
Division 2: Israel’s Election as His People (Verses 7–14)
Division 3: Israel’s Rise and Fall (Verses 15–28)
Division 4: The Turning Point and Vengeance (Verses 29–43)
Epilogue (not part of the song): the death of Mosheh (Verses 44–52)
In order to properly understand the meaning of the Song Ha’azinu, it is worthwhile to closely study its content, language, and structure. The song that Mosheh recited to the people includes a historical overview of the nation, from its journey in the desert until the entry into the promised land, and until the future exile and redemption: the whole history of Israel summarized in one song. The overview makes no mention of the period of the patriarchs, or the Exodus from Egypt, or the acceptance of the Torah, as it does not deal with events prior to the desert, as the verse states, “He found them in a desert region” (32:10), because Mosheh here adopted a concise approach to the history of Israel before his death.
Division 1: The Prayer to Heaven and Earth as Witnesses (Verses 1–6)
As the end of his life was approaching, Mosheh addressed the heavens in direct speech, while he spoke of the earth in indirect speech, as he was feeling closer to heavens than to earth on the day he was going to die. We read thus in the opening of the poem,
Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my instruction fall as rain, my speech drop down as dew, as fine rain on the tender plants, and as showers on the grass. For I proclaim the Name of the Eternal, ascribe greatness to our Elohim. (Deuteronomy 32:1-3)
This is a direct continuation of the last verse in the previous portion Vayelech, in which Mosheh had announced this song to the people. The last verse of Vayelech reads as follows,
So Mosheh spoke in the hearing of all the assembly of Israel the words of this song till their completion: (Deu 31:30)
Why our Torah portion is called by Ha’azinu, “Give ear”? It is a tradition to name the Torah portion after the first meaningful word or words in it. The wise man Shelomoh comes to explain what the great man Mosheh had in mind: Anyone who turns his ear away from hearing the words of Torah, his prayers remain unaddressed, as it is stated in Proverbs 28:9: “One who turns his ear away from hearing Torah, even his prayer is an abomination”. And this is the main theme of the Song.
Careful reading of the song shows that Mosheh used the term Ha’azinu, “Give ear” when addressing the heavens, while he used the term shema , “listen up”, when addressing the earth. Why?
Mosheh asked the heavens and the earth to act as witnesses and to hear what he was about to say. The word listen [Hebrew: ha‘azinu] comes from the word “ear” [Hebrew: ozen], as if to say, “incline your ear”. When speaking to someone close by, the expression ha‘azinu is appropriate. As he was feeling closer to heaven than to earth on the day of his death, he spoke to heavens, saying, “Give ear, O heavens”. While when addressing the earth, he said “Listen up, O earth”, which is a more general term to express the same thing.
Because heaven and earth last forever, Mosheh called them, saying “Give ear, O heavens” and “Hear, O earth”, as witnesses against the people, who might sin. Mosheh was the man of Elohim (Deuteronomy 33:1) who split the sea, stood on Mount Sinai, and led his people through the wilderness for forty years, but in his last words, he now sounded more like an ordinary man, a man like all other children of Israel.
The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are justice; El of truth and without unrighteousness, righteous and straight is He. (Deuteronomy 32:4) … Do you do this to the Eternal, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who bought you, Who created you and established you? (Deuteronomy 32:6)
Mosheh praised the Eternal to make plain to the children of Israel that if they would experience hardship, the cause must not be attributed to the Creator but they must search for it in their own shortcomings, because their Rock is perfect and all His ways are justice; no unrighteousness can be found in Him. This idea of their imperfectness was meant to reflect and resonate in their minds and hearts, when they would hear what he was about to say.
Division 2: Israel’s Election as the Chosen People (Verses 7–14)
Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will declare to you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the portion of the Eternal is His people, Ya’akov the lot of His inheritance. (Deuteronomy 32:7-9)
Near the end of his life, Mosheh told the people that they could begin to understand the Omniscient One, saying, “Remember the days of old”. The Hebrew word behind “old” is עוֹלָם olam which other translation may have it as “past”. Both translations imply looking back at the past. But olam may not have any past connotation. While there are a few verses in which olam indeed refers to the past, most of the times it is used to refer to the future. And this should not be a surprise. Yet olam does not mean “the past”, nor “the future.” Olam refers to the totality of time, past, present, and future, olam is eternity, time out of human comprehension. Hence the best translation of olam would be “eternity”. It is only when the broad view of time is considered that we can clearly see the justice of the Omniscient One, as we will see what follows in the Song.
Division 3: Israel’s Rise and Fall Foretold (Verses 15–28)
But Yeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, you grew thick. You are covered with fat. So he forsook Eloah who made him, and scorned the Rock of his deliverance. They moved Him to jealousy with foreign [matters], with abominations they provoked Him. (Deuteronomy 32:15-16)
Up until that time Israel had never been called Yeshurun in the Torah. The name Yeshurun is related to the word יָשָׁר yashar (upright), and it became an honorable name given to Israel. But the epithet Yeshurun, “Righteous-nation”, as Yeshurun may be rendered, was intended to remind Israel of its calling to be a nation of priests with the warning that they would eventually fail to fulfill. And the reproof of their apostasy is further developed in the Song.
They made Me jealous by what is not El. They provoked Me with their vanities. But I make them jealous by those who are no-people, I provoke them with a foolish nation. (Deuteronomy 32:21)
This verse forms a core part of the prophetic song Ha’azinu delivered by Mosheh. This verse operates on the principle of “measure-for-measure” justice, meaning just as Israel abandoned the Creator for lo El “no-god”, He, the true El, promises to punish them through lo am, “no-people”. Israel eventually worshiped newly invented deities that their fathers never knew. In return He responded “measure for measure”: since they provoked Him with a “non-god” (lo El), He would provoke them with no-nation (lo am). Hence, in the literal rendering, the verse establishes a parallelism, in which the first half addresses Israel’s betrayal via the idols of the nations, and the second half addresses the tool of retribution.
But who are the “no-people” Mosheh used to warn them?
According to the classic Rabbinic commentators, one way to interpret this term is that “no-people” (lo am) means “a nation who are not My people” referring to any nation that holds no covenantal status with the Eternal, yet is used as an instrument of judgment. Another approach to the plain meaning of the phrase is that it denotes an uncivilized or base people that possess no historical significance—a mob or inferior culture that acts purely out of primitive impulses, morally inferior to the very people they oppress.
For a nation chosen to be a kingdom of priests to be subjugated by lo am, makes their dominion over Israel uniquely humiliating. With this the Elohim of Israel warns that when His people breaks its bond with Him, He removes His protection, allowing brute and animalistic people to dominate and oppressed them. The tragedy comes from the fact that Israel is brought low not by a superior culture, but by devoid people. The profound genius of classical Rabbinic interpretation on this verse is how it transforms a chain of human choices into an existential threat that serves as an instrument of punishment. When a society abandons the true God, El Elyon, for “non-gods”, it inevitably suffers a collapse, falling under the oppression of “no-people”. Targum Yonathan identifies the “no-people” as barbaric nations that lack law or culture, brought to oppress Israel during their exiles. Historically, this is an allusion to the exile of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom during the conquest by the Assyrians, as it is said further in the Song,
The sword bereaves from the outside and terror from within, slaying both young man and virgin, suckling babies with venerable elders. (Deuteronomy 32:25)
But nowadays, the ‘Palestinians’ and the 7th October massacre might have been meant. Shockingly, this was indeed what happened in Israel on that fatal date. Where it is said, “The sword bereaves from the outside”, it means “outside the city, the sword of hostile militias will bereave the victims, “and terror from within”: when the victims tried to flee for their life, escaping from the sword, the terror was in their hearts while the terrorists were pounding them until they die; more than 1,100 Israelis died on that day.
Insight: ‘Palestinians’ in the Gaza Strip are Arabs who came in Levant much later with the Arab conquest. Compared to the other Arabs, there is no unique Palestinian culture and history. There are no historical records for the existence of such people prior to 1970’s when the term, as it is known today, came into circulation. ‘Palestinians’ are invented people. It is this “no-people” that Mosheh may refer to here. Throughout this song “no-people” explained by a “foolish nation” are spoken of as an instrument of discipline used against Israel. Until the 6th of October, Israel was a divided nation, torn by political rivalry and internal judicial conflicts. We now return to the text.
The next verses explain what happened on the 7th of October 2023.
Division 4: The Turning Point and Vengeance (Verses 29–43)
If they were wise, they would understand this, they would consider their latter end! How would one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Eternal had given them up? … (Deuteronomy 32:29-32)
The Israeli society as a whole understood this, and they did consider what their latter end would be. No one in Israel is the same person he/she was the 6th of October. The no-people were used as an instrument of punishment and warning of their latter end if they had continued on the same path of self-destruction. But why did the no-people succeed? Israel’s enemies succeed only because Shomer Israel (the Guardian of Israel) withdrew His protection [on the 7th of October] from His people. The oppressing mobs are morally corrupt like Sodom on the account of the atrocities they did. But the Guardian of Israel keeps account of their cruelties, storing their punishment until the appointed time comes and delays the reward of the righteous, as it is written in,
Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries? (Deuteronomy 32:34)
And when Israel’s strength is totally exhausted by the no-people, and help or hope remains, the Eternal will show compassion.
For the Eternal rightly rules His people and has compassion on His servants, when He sees that their power is gone, and there is no one remaining, enclosed or at large. (Deuteronomy 32:36)
The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) cites verse 36 to teach that the Son of David (Mashiach) will not come until hopelessness reaches its peaks in Israel and in diaspora (this is what is meant by “enclosed or at large”) and redemption becomes entirely dependent on the Eternal’s compassion. The redemption will come when it is clear to Israel and to the world that there is no one to stand up for Israel to protect them but He, the Holy One, the Guardian of Israel.
Forwarding again to our days, when Israel realizes that no U.S. president or U.N. general secretary will stand up for Israel, that is precisely when the Eternal will show compassion and come to rescue. But as long as Israel relies on any foreign dependency and subservient to political pressure, the redemption will not happen. Only once the Jews (“eclosed or at large”) realize that the whole world hates them, and the “peace plans” are full of deceit or political naivete, and the faithful remnant (“at large”) returns home and the united nation turns to the Eternal, will His Mashiach come. We learn this from the exile in Egypt. The children of Israel cried to the Mighty One of their fathers under the oppression of tyranny, and He came to rescue (Exodus 2:23).
Up until now of the poem, Mosheh had been speaking. At this point he sums up what he had been saying in his words. But at this juncture of the Song (verse 39), the Eternal resumes speaking. In His words,
See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me. I put to death and I make alive. I have wounded, and I am healing. And from My hand no one delivers! (Deuteronomy 32:39)
Hearing the promise of redemption from the Source of life directly is more reassuring than hearing it from the mouth of Mosheh. It convinced the people that the redemption of Israel will be directed by the Eternal Himself (“I, I am He, and there is no Elohim besides Me”), and not through any mediators. The Eternal is the only deity, and there is other god(s) besides Him who can redeem. And when the redemption occurs, all nations will sing the praises of His people climaxed in verse 43.
Insight: The Sages noticed the peculiar order of the words “I put to death and I make alive”, where we should have expected to find the natural order of life: “I make alive and I put to death”. But here the proper order is intentionally meant to teach that there is resurrection of the dead derived from the Torah; first death is mentioned, then life. We now return to the text.
For I lift My hand to the heavens and say: “As I live forever, if I have sharpened My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I shall return vengeance to My enemies, and repay those who hate Me. I shall make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the enemy”. (Deuteronomy 32:40-42)
This is a direct address to the nations of the world expressed in the opening: “For I lift My hand [with the sword] to the heavens”. When the Supernal One lifts up His hand with a sword in it to repay His enemies, swearing by His Eternal Self to deliver justice on them, that is a warning of the impeding judgement long time due. In his commentary on Deuteronomy 32:40, the leading Torah scholar of the Middle Ages Mosheh ben Nachman, also known as Ramban, says,
“And so the Rabbis mentioned in the Sifre Ha’azinu 333, “Great is this Song, for there is in it the present, the past, the future, and there is in it This World and the World to Come”. It is to this that Scripture alludes in saying, And Mosheh came and spoke all the words of this Song in the ears of the people. It mentions all in order to indicate that the Song contains everything that is to come upon them although it is brief in words, for Moses explained its many subjects to them”.
We know that whenever the word “sword” is mentioned, this is a reference to His Justice. There are many examples like this in the Scripture. But the Rabbis (Mekhilta d’Rabbi Yishmael 15:3), as Rashi points at, derived from the wording of the text which states, “and My hand takes hold on judgment”, that the nature of the Holy One is not like the nature of human beings. The nature of a human being is that when he shoots an arrow he cannot bring it back. But when He shoots His arrows and it is in His power to bring them back as though He is still holding them in hand. This comes to teach that if His enemies repent from doing evil to His people, even then He will hold His judgement that was hanging upon them, and their destruction will be avoided. But is there repentance found among the nations?
The verses in Deuteronomy 32:40-42 serve as prelude to what follows in the next verse of the poem.
The Climax of the Song: Moving from Exile to Vindication
In Deuteronomy 32:43, the Song Ha’azinu concludes with a dramatic shift when the nations praise Israel while the Supernal One avenges His servants and pardons His Land. It looks like some nations will come eventually to repentance. We read what follows in the last verse of the poem,
O nations, acclaim His people! For He avenges the blood of His servants, and returns vengeance to His adversaries, and shall pardon His land, His people. (Deuteronomy 32:43)
Classical commentators analyze how the cycle closes, turning the humiliation of verse 21 into the ultimate restoration. Connecting the themes of Deuteronomy 32:21 to the final verses of Ha’azinu (culminating in verse 43) reveals how they bridge the gap between historical exile (verse 21) under “no-nation” (lo am) and the ultimate redemption in verse 43.
Ramban notes that the entire Song of Mosheh functions as a prophetic overview of history of Israel. Crucially, he observes that towards the end of the song, there is no explicit condition of repentance required for the final redemption to start. Because Israel suffered under the oppression of “no-people”, the Eternal cannot allow His Name and Honor to be eclipsed by these nations. Redemption occurs for the sake of His Name only, because at the end His Honor is ultimately what forces the redemption.
The Bible commentator, philosopher, and apologist Don Isaac Abarbanel explains that the empires (lo am) which oppressed Israel during exiles will ultimately destroy themselves through their own internal corruption and violence; take Rome as an example. What he means is that just as these empires rose to power because Israel chased “non-god”, justice dictates that these transient no-people will diminish or fall into oblivion. Once their role as a punishing rod is complete, the Supernal One turns the vengeance on them to force them to recognize Israel as a nation.
Malbim (1809–1879) focuses on the reversal of “Let Me hide My Face from them” introduced in verse 20. In his view, the exile under “no people” is characterized by the total withdrawal of Israel’s protection. The redemption, however, is the sudden re-emergence of the Eternal One as the Guardian of Israel. The nations that once oppressed the Jewish people and mocked Israel’s statelessness in the exiles are forced now to sing praise, ” O nations, acclaim His people”, because the illusion of the might of the nations shatters against the reality of Israel’s restoration that occurred in May 1948, when the nation was born in one day. We read from the Book of Isaiah,
Who has heard the like of this? Who has seen such things? Is a land born in one day? Is a nation born at once? For as soon as Tsiyon labored, she gave birth to her children. (Isaiah 66:8)
Beautiful depiction of the of the restoration of the Third Commonwealth of Israel in 1948.
The transition from verse 21 to the end of Ha’azinu teaches a profound lesson on Jewish and world history, namely, that Israel’s exiles are painful and characterized by a total loss of political and social standing. Yet, because the punishment was exacted through a measure-for-measure justice, it carries an “expiration date”. The redemption does not arrive because the nations have suddenly developed conscience, but because reality comes back upon them to make the confess what was long due and to vindicate the everlasting and unchangeable Covenant between the Eternal and the nation of Israel.
The question that is forced upon the careful reader is: How would the nations that once oppressed the Jewish people and mocked Israel’s statelessness come to the point of “O nations, acclaim His people! For He avenges the blood of His servants …”? Can they develop conscience? In our opinion, they can and it is happening now. And what is the long-due confession that these nations will make?
The Isaiah 53 Connection
The dispersed Jews in exile were despised and abhorred, but now the nations are called to acclaim Israel, so that what is written by Mosheh may become true: “All the peoples of the earth will see that the Name of YHVH is called upon you…” (Deuteronomy 28:10). The time has come when the nations will come to prostrate themselves to Israel in humility, just as Alexander the Great prostrated himself in front of the High Priest (Yuma 69). For indeed, when the Name of YHVH is called upon Israel visibly to all the nations, Israel is perceived as being His favorite and recognized as His own.
Various strands of Deuteronomy and Isaiah are here fitly interwoven in the proper context.
They made Me jealous by what is not El. They provoked Me with their vanities. But I make them jealous by those who are no-people, I provoke them with a foolish nation. (Deuteronomy 32:21) … The sword bereaves from the outside and terror from within, slaying both young man and virgin, suckling babies with venerable elders. (Deuteronomy 32:25) … How would one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Eternal had given them up? … (Deuteronomy 32:29-32)
And when the time for the gentiles to face justice has come for what they had done to the Jewish people,
For I lift My hand to the heavens and say: “As I live forever, if I have sharpened My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I shall return vengeance to My enemies, and repay those who hate Me. I shall make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the enemy”. (Deuteronomy 32:40-42) …
Israel is vindicated …,
O nations, acclaim His people! For He avenges the blood of His servants, and returns vengeance to His adversaries, and shall pardon His land, His people. (Deuteronomy 32:43) … Behold, My servant (Israel) shall prosper, he shall be exalted and raised to great heights. Just as the many were appalled at you, so marred was his appearance unlike that of a man, and his form beyond that of the sons of men. So shall he startle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for they shall see what has not been told them, and they shall perceive what they have never heard. (Isa 52:13-15) (The kings of the nations are speaking in astonishment) Who shall believe what we have heard? And to whom was the arm of the Eternal revealed? (Isa 53:1)
Then after the acclamation and astonishment of the nations, the report itself follows naturally in Isaiah 53:2-9, namely, what the nations have never heard:
He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains, and acquainted with disease, … And his grave was set among the wicked …, (Isaiah 53:2-9).
We do not know which verses can be more explicit than these because it reads clearly who is speaking in Isaiah 53, when read in context. The kings of the nations were bewildered by what they had not realized until that moment, but now they do. Israel was among them, but they by their hatred were blinded to see: They had oppressed God’s people, saying, “He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of pains”. Their confession will go on to admit that,
But he was wounded from our transgressions. He was crushed from our iniquities. The chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Insight: In the issue of translation, there is a common mistake made when it is asserted that the English text properly and correctly renders the Hebrew in Isaiah 53:5. The English text reads: “But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities” thus implying vicarious death of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. In the article “The Servant in Isaiah 53: Collective figure of Israel or an Individual”, we explained what the Hebrew actually reads. We now return to the text.
This is the correct and literal translation of the crucial verse 5 of Isaiah 53. The nations will make this confession at the end of days, when they admit that the servant (Israel) suffered by their hands from the judgment of torments until now. Every nation will admit that Israel was stricken “because of our iniquities”, and “with his stripes we are healed”. Upon seeing the suffering of the innocent Jews (i.e., Holocaust footage), the nations of the world felt guilty (for a moment) and voted for the creation of a Jewish state. That did not last long though. But now, the reason why kings “shut their mouths at him” is expressly stated: what was never revealed to them, now they see, and what was never heard of by them, now they perceive. After the punishment that came upon the nations, their conscience is now awakened, and their kings confess their guilt.
Suggested reading: “The Servant in Isaiah 53: Collective figure of Israel or an Individual”.
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