C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch on Deuteronomy 32:39

Deu 32:39

The appeal to their own experience of the worthlessness of idols is followed by a demand that they should acknowledge Jehovah as the only true God. The repetition of “I” is emphatic: “I, I only it,” as an expression of being; I am it, ἐγώ εἰμι, Joh 8:24; Joh 18:5. The predicate Elohim (vid., 2Sa 7:28; Isa 37:16) is omitted, because it is contained in the thought itself, and moreover is clearly expressed in the parallel clause which follows, “there is not a God beside Me.” Jehovah manifests himself in His doings, which Israel had experienced already, and still continued to experience. He kills and makes alive, etc., i.e., He has the power of life and death. These words do not refer to the immortality of the soul, but to the restoration of life of the people of Israel, which God had delivered up to death (so 1Sa 2:6; 2Ki 5:7; cf. Isa 26:19; Hos 13:10; Wisd. 16:13; Tobit 13:2). This thought, and the following one, which is equally consolatory, that God smites and heals again, are frequently repeated by the prophets (vid., Hos 6:1; Isa 30:26; Isa 57:17-18; Jer 17:14). None can deliver out of His hand (vid., Isa 43:13; Hos 5:14; Hos 2:12).