As the Eagle Catches Her Young on Her Wings (Deuteronomy 32:10-14)

Good day! Indeed, it is a good day today. After all, Psalm 118:24 declares, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad it in.” Today is an especially good day, for it is Sunday! Ah yes, Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, the day of the week Christian set apart as holy, the day of the week Christians set apart to worship the Lord and to rest. And what a better way to rest than to watch football! I’m not sure if this is a boast or a confession, but in my colleges, I could easily watch right after church, from noon to midnight. As much criticism as football players and coaches have received for working on the Sabbath, think about how many more people rest on Sabbath because they can be found sitting in the stands or on their coach, watching. It’s almost like Jesus had people like me in mind when he resurrected on Sunday, knowing the future Christians would make Sunday their Sabbath, and knowing the NFL would schedule most of its games on a Sunday.

Where I grew up, our mailing address was technically Perkiomenville, but we more like Frederick. If you’re familiar with left half of Montgomery County, my home was halfway between the Boyertown/Gilbertsville area and the Harleysville/Souderton/Telford area. If you’re not familiar with that area, I grew up about 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. With that being said, if you knew someone who liked a sport, that person most likely rooted for the Philadelphia team in that sport. If a person liked hockey, that person rooted for the Flyers. If a person liked baseball, that person rooted for the Phillies. If a person liked basketball, that person rooted for the Sixers. If a person liked football, they rooted for the Eagles. I fell into that statistic. I liked watching football, and therefore, I rooted for the Eagles.

Another person who fell into that statistic was my Bible quizzing coach. My favorite thing about my Bible quizzing coach was that we could talk about the Bible, which made me both a better quizzer and a better Christian. My second favorite thing about my Bible quizzing coach was that when we weren’t talking about the Bible, we were talking about sports because we liked the same sports. My coach, living in Pottstown (Pottstown is probably the next biggest town to Frederick/Perkiomenville), also rooted for the Eagles. We could spend hours talking about the Eagles. I remember one time my coach turned to me and said, “You know, the Philadelphia Eagles are the most Biblical team name.” I chuckled. My quiz coach was one of those who would joke around and kid around with the guys, so I thought he was just joking or kidding. His face, however, showed he was dead serious. I stopped laughing. “OK, I’ll bite,” I said, “Please tell me how the Philadelphia Eagles have the most Biblical name.” “That’s easy,” my quiz coach replied, “The word Philadelphia appears in the Bible, and the word eagle appears in the Bible. Therefore, the Philadelphia Eagles have the most Biblical team name in sports.” To this day, I’m still not sure how much he was being serious, and how much he was kidding.

Indeed, the word Philadelphia appears in the Bible. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of you know the location of the word. The church in Philadelphia is one of the churches John addresses in the book. Might I also add the church in Philadelphia stands alone as the only church that John compliments and does not discipline. Go Philadelphia! (Not sure he would say the same about the church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania…) Indeed, the word eagle appears in the Bible, 29 times to be exact. Of those 29 times, 26 of them come from the Old Testament. Yes, only 3 times does the New Testament use the word eagle. Interesting enough, all 3 appearances happen in the book of Revelation. This is a helpful reminder that most of the times we see the word eagle in the Bible, it’s the prophets using the eagle as prophetic metaphor. The most famous instance comes from Isaiah 40:31, where Isaiah writes, “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” As famous as that verse is, I don’t find that verse the most interesting. I find the use of eagles most interesting in Deuteronomy 32:11. Today, we’ll observe how Deuteronomy 32:11 uses the eagle as a metaphor, and we’ll observe it in its context of Deuteronomy 32:10-14.

In Deuteronomy 32:10, Moses sings, “He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness.” Where exactly the “desert land” and “howling waste of the wilderness” is has caused a lot of conversation among scholars. Most scholars (Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, David Brown, Richard Brathcher and Howard Hatton to name some) think in the immediate context and think that the desert refers to the Sinai Desert, where God established the Mosaic Covenant with the Israelites through Moses. Indeed, the Sinai desert has a lot of howling, from howling animals to howling winds. This, too, would work because, at the foundation of the Mosaic Covenant, God promised that he would provide, sustain and take care of his people, the heart of this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage. While a majority of scholars believe Deuteronomy 32:10 refers to the Sinai Desert, a minority of scholars dissent.  Some scholars like, Jack Deere, believe that the desert land referred to in Deuteronomy 32:10 is Egypt. For the Israelites in their slavery, Egypt was a howling waste in the wilderness. It was nowhere near the Promised Land, the land flowing of milk and honey. In Egypt, the Pharaoh, who thought of himself as a god, killed the firstborn of the Israelites. On the contrary, Yahweh, the true God, cared for the Israelites. Eugene Merrill does not believe the desert refers to any even in the Israelites’ present, but rather, it refers to their past. The Lord found the patriarchs in Genesis wandering in desert as nomads. Since then, God has focused on working his redemptive history around these people, which involves protected them and providing for them.  Still other scholars, like Carl Keil and Franz Delitzsch, thinks the first half of verse 10 should be taken metaphorically, symbolizing that the Lord found the Israelites under unfortunate circumstance, and he took them out and placed them into a place of blessing. Still, the emphasis is on a caring God.

Either way, whenever or wherever Yahweh found the Israelites, he reacted to the Israelites’ helplessness with gestures of love and caring. This picture of the Lord encircling the Israelites most likely means God put a protective shielding barrier around the Israelites, but it also has undertones of love, like Yahweh encircled Israel with his arms in a loving embrace. The last words in the Hebrew text reads “The little man in the pupil.” This saying probably came from the fact when a person looks into another person’s pupil, that person sees a miniature reflection. The English phrase “the apple of his eye” will suffice here. This end of the verse explains why the Lord took care of the Israelites: the Israelites are the apple of his eye. The Hebrew word refers to the center of the eye, or the pupil. Just as the pupil is the center of the eye, so God’s people are the center focus for providing tender care.

Deuteronomy 32:11 switches to a new metaphor to explain how much Yahweh loves his people. Verse 11 compares God’s care for his to people to how an eagle cares for its young. Eagles place their nests in high elevations, like mountains, plateaus, cliffs or just very tall trees. When the time comes for the eaglet to learn to fly, the mother eagle has many ways that she teaches the little eaglets. First, she demonstrates how to fly. A mother eagles will fly around her nest, even sometimes hovering over the nest, displaying what flight looks like. Yes, despite having quite the opposite size of a hummingbird, just like the hummingbird, the eagle can flap its wings so fast that it can virtually hover in one place. The eaglets, look at their mother ahead, will begin to realize these wings attached to their back have a purpose. They might begin flapping their wings. In fact, on the opposite end of that, eaglets separated from their mother early in life never become airborne because they don’t know how to use their wings. Second, if the eagle chicks have not yet left the nest, the mother will quite literally push the eaglet out of the nest with a nudge, and the eaglet will begin plummet from the cliff. At this point, instinct kicks in and the eaglet takes flight and begins soaring. If not, the mother eagle will not let her chick fall to its death. Rather, the mother eagle does a nose dive, so she ends up below the eaglet. She catches the eaglet on her wingspan, and she brings the eaglet back into the nest. The mother eagle understands the eaglet is not ready. Third, if the eaglets have yet to fly away from the nest, as verse 11 reads, the mother eagle will agitate the nest. She begins to take it apart piece by piece. The goal here is that the little eaglet will think they can no longer reside in the nest safely or comfortably, so it abandons the nest for a new home. Why does the mother eagle go through all this? The mother eagle’s only concern is that the eaglets learn to fly and take care of themselves. She will go to any lengths to teach her eaglet this life lesson, even if it means pushing the eaglet out of its comfort zone, even destroying the comfort zone to get it to move on in life.

The metaphor works perfectly for the Israelites. Although the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, it would not surprise me to find out some of them got comfortable in their slavery. In fact, Exodus 16:3 (NIV) reads, “The Israelites said to [Moses and Aaron], ‘If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.’” Yes, shortly once out of Egypt and in the Sinai Desert, some of the Israelites already complained that life got worse leaving Egypt, and they wished they could returning to Egypt! Deuteronomy 32:11 reminds the Israelites that Yahweh, like the mother eagle, had a better plan of a more fulfilling life for his children, which including the Israelites living freely in the Promised Land. This life of fulfillment would take training and discipline. The Lord used the Israelites’ time in the Sinai desert to train them and discipline them. It may not have been what the Israelites wanted, but the Lord knew the Israelites needed it. Just like the eagle, God would catch the Israelites when needed, but only when needed. When the Israelites could not learn their lesson, Yahweh provided for them, protected them and took care of them when the Israelites lived the Sinai desert, just like he did in Egypt. Also remember with this illustration that the rough desert exposes the eaglet as weak and helpless. It would never survive in the desert alone. It needs to learn survival from its mother, and when it can’t learn, it needs its mother to survive. In the same way, the Israelites needed to learn from Lord, yet at the same time they needed to totally depend on God for all things.

In Deuteronomy 32:12, Yahweh makes it clear that no foreign god came to the aid of the Israelites. God alone tended to the Israelites’ needs. Therefore, the Israelites in exchange should only serve and trust in the Lord for help. The Israelites had struggled to stay faith to Yahweh. The previous generation of Israelites forgot this when the built the golden calf. Yahweh warns the next generation to not make the same mistake. The Lord faithfully protected and provided for the Israelites; therefore, the Israelites shall faithfully worship God alone.

When the Israelites obediently trusted in the Lord, they did reap the benefits. Deuteronomy 32:13 describes those benefits. Since God, in the words of Deuteronomy 33:26, “who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty,” the Israelites would reach to the tallest mountains, in both the desert and the Promised Land. Elevation would not stop the Israelites form conquering the land. In Old Testament times, whoever conquered the high lands would rule over the lands below it. Because of the omnipotent hand of Yahweh, who is higher than any human, the Israelites would conquer those high lands, and on conquering the high lands, the Israelites would rule over the land below it. Since the Israelites would have access to the highlands all the land below it, they would also have access to all its produce and other provisions of the land. Moses carefully chooses the verb “suckle” in verse 13. As uncomfortable as this metaphor might sound, this paints a mental picture of a mother breastfeeding her child. Just as a mother shows her love and provision in one act, God’s love and provision is one in the same. You might have noticed the phrase “honey out of the rock” in verse 13. Wild honey bees in Israel can make their nest almost anywhere, even in the crevice of the rocks. Olive trees, which grew abundantly in Israel, can grow in the harshest areas, even in rocky soil, even on rocky ledges. Furthermore, the phrase “oil out of the flinty rock” paints a picture that Israelites will harvest so much olive oil, it will almost appear as if the rocks used on the oil press seeped olive oil! Together, the phrases “honey out of the rock” and “oil from the flint rock” symbolizes that even the most barren areas would become rich and produce.

The list of rich and flavorful foods in Deuteronomy 32:14 illustrate the bountifulness of the Transjordan land, the land the Israelites dwelled just before entering the Promised Land. Even at this point, when the Israelites are in a healthy land and about to enter a bountiful land, Yahweh never said to the Israelites, “You should be good from here on out. You’re on your own.” No, in  Deuteronomy 32:14, the Lord assures the Israelites that he has continued and will continue to provide the Israelites access to any provision they need. In fact, grammar nerds will find it interesting that Moses wrote the whole Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage in the present progressive, meaning God’s provision is a present action ongoing into the future. By the end of this stanza, Moses communicates a clear message to the Israelites. From Egypt, to the Sinai Desert, to the Transjordan, to the Promised Land, the Lord protected and provided for the Israelites, out of his enormous love for them.

Let’s re-visit that metaphor and symbolism back in Deuteronomy 32:11. Earlier, I used explained the metaphor and its symbolizing in its then-and-there tense, referring to the Israelites. Now, I want to explain the metaphor and its symbolism in a here-and-now tense. Now I will use a more inclusive, all-encompassing term. Instead of using the term “the Israelites,” I’m going to switch to the broader, all-encompassing term “God’s people.” Listen to the metaphors and symbolism in Deuteronomy 32:10-14, now with the term “God’s people” instead of “the Israelites.”

God found his people in an unfortunate situation. God had bigger and better plans for his people. Therefore, God took his people out of that unfortunate situation. Out of pure love, God protected and provided for his people when God’s people could neither protect themselves nor provide for themselves. During that time, God took the time to train, disciple and discipline his people. God instructed his people how to live. Then God gave his people the opportunity to try to live it out themselves. If God’s people stumbled and fell, God would rescue his people and pull them back to safety, and he would continue to protect them and provide for them. Sometime God’s people would get too comfortable in their current position, and then God would push them to an uncomfortable state to encourage them to pursue bigger and better blessings, like God intended. God alone protected and provided for God’s people, with no other help. Never at any point did God abandon the people of God at a “good enough” spot, for the Lord wanted to continue the good work in them until it had come to completion.

The reason I use this inclusive, all-encompassing terminology is because the truths that we learn about God in Deuteronomy 32:10-14 (in regards to his protection, his provisions and his love) can be applied to all of God’s people, both those there-and-then and here-and-now, including the 2^nd generation of Israelites out of Egypt, and including you. I see 4 lessons we can learn from this passage. First, if you ever find yourself in an unfortunate place or an unfortunate time in your life, do not think that means God likes you there or God wants you there. Sometimes God allows unfortunate circumstances into his people’s lives, but God’s allowing does not mean God’s approving! On the contrary, when the Lord finds us in the unfortunate place, the Lord, out of love, desires to protect us from those unfortunate circumstances because the Lord, out of his love, has bigger and better plans of blessing for us. Second, God loves us! We all know that God loves us, but do we really know what that entails? God’s love for us means so much more than God has warm, fuzzy feelings about us. The Lord desires to manifest his love for us outwardly. He does so by protecting us and providing for us. Those protection and provision may not be what we had in mind, but they are what God had in mind, and they are better for us, better than we can ever comprehend. Third, this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 passage also teaches us that, in order to reach bigger and better blessings, sometimes we need to receiving training, discipling and discipling. We may not always like it or enjoy it, but if we want to move on to the bigger and better blessings, God needs to bring us through the trials. Finally, this Deuteronomy 32:10-14 should assure you that the Lord will not abandon you when you reach a “good enough” spot or a “close enough” spot. To borrow from Paul’s words in Philippians 1:6. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…” Until you reach that time of blessing of life, and even when you do arrive there, God will be there for you, protecting you, providing for you, and pouring out his tender love for you.

So then, how shall we, as God’s people respond to these truths about God we learned from Deuteronomy 32:10-14? Remember, Moses speaks to the second generation of Israelites out of Egypt in Deuteronomy 32:10-14. Moses did speak a similar message to the first generation of Israelites out of Egypt. In Exodus 19:4,5, the Lord, via Moses, tells the Israelites, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine.” Although not as poetic as Deuteronomy 32:10-14, Exodus 19:4,5 reminds us that another outward manifestation of God’s love is the covenant he made with his people. When two parties enter into a covenant, both parties have stipulations, or conditions, they must meet. If they meet those conditions, they reap blessings, but if they do not meet the conditions, curses fall upon them. See, God desires to bless his people with protection and provisions, but he expects obedience to his word and commands in return. The first generation of Israelites out of Egypt failed to adhere to the covenant. In fact, if you read the rest of Deuteronomy 32, Moses goes into great detail to remind the second generation of Israelites how the previous generation failed to obey the covenant, to warn the second generation of Israelites to follow the covenant.

Consider this your warning, too. The term “warning” sounds pessimistic, so let’s re-word it to more optimistic terms. The pessimistic will think, “I have to obey, or else I will get cursed,” but the optimistic thinks, “Since the Lord has held up his covenant by protecting me and provided for me, I can’t think of a better way to show my thanks and love toward him by holding up my end of the covenant by obeying his commands.” You’ll find out a circular process will happen. The more the Lord blesses you, the more you’ll desire to obey the Lord’s commands. The more you obey God’s commands, the more God will bless you. There’s no need to “name it, claim it,” there’s no need to actively pursue it. If you hold up your end of the covenant, the Lord will hold up his end. Once again, it may not be what you want or expect, but God knows you better than you know you, so he will bless you better than you can expect.

So next time you see an eagle, whether that’s a bird, a symbol of the United States of America, or a football player from the pro Philadelphia football team, may it remind you that you have a God that loves you very much, and may thinking of his love make you respond with a heart of obedience to his Word.