Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked

“Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked” is the Song of Moses’ sharpest image of prosperity becoming rebellion. After recalling how God cared for Israel in the wilderness and supplied its needs, the song portrays a people grown abundant who turn from their maker and forget the Rock of their salvation.

The Image in the Song

The expression appears in Moses’ song as a hinge between divine provision and Israel’s infidelity. Jeshurun grows fat, grows thick, and becomes gross; the physical accumulation of abundance is immediately answered by the verb “kicked,” which figures prosperity as a forceful turning away. The song does not present plenty itself as the offense: the decisive change is that Jeshurun forsakes God and treats the Rock of salvation with contempt.

Provision and Reversal

The song sets this fall against a vivid account of care. God finds Israel in a desert land and a howling wilderness, guards it as the apple of his eye, and leads it like an eagle bearing its young. Israel receives the produce of the land, honey from the crag, oil from the flinty rock, milk, meat, and foaming wine. “Waxed fat” gathers these gifts into a single image of flourishing; “kicked” turns that image into an accusation of ingratitude.

A Covenant Warning

The surrounding song explains what the rejection entails: Israel provokes God with strange gods, sacrifices to demons, and forgets the one who bore it. God declares that he will hide his face and that calamity will follow. The image therefore condenses the song’s argument about covenant betrayal: abundance does not secure loyalty, and the gifts of a land can become the setting for forgetting their giver.

Moses writes and teaches the song to Israel as a witness intended to remain in the mouths of later generations. Its memorable contrast between being nourished and kicking against the provider makes the warning portable: when prosperity gives way to disaster, the song identifies the rupture as Israel’s forsaking of God, not a failure of the care described earlier.