Abstract:
The Song of Moses blames Israel for the idolatry that caused divine
wrath and led to the people’s near annihilation by their enemies. This
article analyses the Song’s structure and dynamics, its rhetoric of
blaming and shaming, and its literary context within the book of
Deuteronomy before re-evaluating the Song’s message through the
lens of psychological and sociological trauma theory. Psychological
research on the relation between trauma and feelings of guilt and
shame helps us to understand the divine message of blaming and
shaming as an externalised transformation of self-blame. Through
the lens of the sociological concept of cultural trauma, the Song can
be seen as an intellectual ‘working through’ of past collective
suffering that marks the community’s identity for the future.
