The Lord is going to give Moses a song to write down for the Israelites. Before Moses teaches them the song, the Lord explains the purpose of the song.
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Now the day of your death is near. Call Joshua and present yourselves at the tent of meeting, where I will commission him.' So Moses and Joshua came and presented themselves at the tent of meeting." (Deuteronomy 31:14) Joshua's succession of Moses has already been announced (for the second time in the Old Testament) by Moses in our current chapter but now the Lord shows up to confirm that Joshua is His choice. "Then the Lord appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud, and the cloud stood over the entrance to the tent." (Deuteronomy 31:15)
The Lord also shows up to predict a turning away of Israel. Because Israel will turn away from the Lord for a time, the Lord gives Moses the words of the song the people are to sing when they realize they have turned from the Lord and lost the many benefits of being close to Him.
"And the Lord said to Moses: 'You are going to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves to the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will forsake Me and break the covenant I made with them. And in that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide My face from them, and in that day they will ask, 'Have not these disasters come on us because our God is not with us?' And I will certainly hide My face in that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods." (Deuteronomy 31:16-18) The Lord knows all things, so He knew many of the Israelites would adopt the practices of the heathen tribes of Canaan. He also knew He would allow those who forsake Him to experience the consequences of their actions, which is why He said He would "hide My face from them". The consequences of our sins can be very unpleasant, can't they? But this is the mercy of God, for if there were never any painful results of sin, we might not repent of it. Sin can be pleasant at first but the pleasure of sin is fleeting and lasts only for a season. (Hebrews 11:25)
The Lord will give the people a song to sing on the day when they realize they've lost a measure of His protection due to their own waywardness. It will be a song about the goodness of God and about how they repaid the Lord's goodness with unfaithfulness and rebellion. "Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for Me against them." (Deuteronomy 31:19) The song will testify against the people. It will prove that the Lord did everything that could have been done to help them successfully follow Him but that they abandoned the one true God who called them out of Egypt and made a covenant with them.
But the song will end on a positive note. The Lord's discipline won't last forever. The people will turn back to Him when they realize the gods of the heathens cannot save them. When they see how much they gave up by turning away from God, and when they admit that the Lord is the source of all good things, they will repent. The song will end by saying that the Lord will "make atonement for His land and people." (Deuteronomy 32:43)
We have all sinned and rebelled against the Lord, both before we made Him the Lord of our lives and after we came to salvation in Him. We struggle against our carnal natures and sometimes we give in to our carnal natures. Sometimes we put other people or other things ahead of God. Sometimes we put ourselves ahead of God by deciding to go our own way and have the thing that is wrong or have the thing that is right but at the wrong time. When we charge down the wrong path and keep going down it in spite of knowing it's the wrong path, our Father may have to discipline us in order to get us to turn around. In addition to that, there are natural earthly consequences to wrong behavior. For example, if we steal from someone we can repent of our sin and be forgiven by God, but the person we stole from may never trust us again no matter what we do or say to try and make things right. Another example would be that of a person who is unfaithful to their spouse; though they may repent of their sin and deeply wish they could undo it, their marriage may still be over. One more example might be if a person commits a crime and ends up in jail. Confessing and repenting to the Lord makes things right with the Lord but it won't make it right with the legal system; the person will still have to serve their sentence.
In order to avoid the Lord's discipline and to avoid the natural consequences of sin, the best thing to do would be to not sin. But we are frail. We are beset by temptations in this fallen world. We are going to make mistakes from time to time. That's why the song the Lord gives to Israel ends on a note of forgiveness and restoration. That's why the Lord makes a way for all of us to repent and turn back to Him to receive forgiveness and restoration. The price of rebellion can be high. The consequences can be unpleasant. The discipline of the Lord can be difficult to bear. But the song doesn't end there! The song ends in hope, thanks be to our merciful and loving Creator.
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