Dew of Heaven

Moses stood on the verge of the Promised Land and prayed for God’s blessing on the twelve tribes. For Joseph's tribes Moses prayed,

"May the LORD bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; … with the best gifts of the earth and its fullness and the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush.
Deuteronomy 33:13-16

A prayer for ‘precious dew’ would mean a lot to people who have lived in the dry desert for 40 years. Add ‘the deep waters that lie below’, the unseen wealth of aquifers, and you have the conditions for bountiful agricultural prosperity.

Moses believed that God is not stingy, that God would prosper Joseph’s tribes lavishly. Abundance, not scarcity is God’s signature, though with an invisible anonymous hand.

Dew comes naturally, but Moses calls it the ‘dew of heaven’. He foresees “the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills”, speaking of the spontaneous productivity of nature that has been evident since time immemorial, the best gifts of the earth and its fullness. Human eyes see the bounty of the land. Faith sees God’s goodness in it all.

Moses’ hope for nature’s bounty is balanced with a prayer for “the favor of him who dwelt in the burning bush”.

Arnold Friberg, 1913-2010

That bush is where God revealed himself to Moses as the “I AM” God and began his rescue of Israel.

Centuries earlier this “I AM” had rescued Joseph from oblivion in Egypt and established him as the food-provider during a time of scarcity.

This same God had now brought them out of Egypt and would continue to make his power and love evident to them in the fruitfulness of the land they were about to inherit. 

I love this linking of ‘burning bush’ and ‘precious dew’, fire and water - opposites that complement each other. Two metaphors of the infinite resources of God, two very different ways God makes himself known to us – revelation and providence, nature and grace.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning noted,

Earth is crammed with heaven,

and every common bush is on fire with God;

but only he who sees takes off his shoes;

the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.

– Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh