DEUTERONOMY – CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Verses 1-4:

When Moses concluded his benediction, he ascended the mountain at God’s direction, obedient to the conclusion of his life. Compare this text with Deu 32:49-52.

On Nebo’s summit, God expanded Moses’ vision to enable him to have a panoramic view of the entire Land of Canaan.

Gilead, a mountainous region east of Jordan, occupied by the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, see Num 32:1; Num 32:26-40. This territory was later known as Perea.

Dan, the northernmost city of Canaan, originally known as Laish, or Leshem, Jos 19:27. The original inhabitants lived like the Zidonians, engaging in commerce and without any strong defense. Part of the tribe of Dan migrated to this region, conquered it, and settled there, Jdg 18:1; Jdg 18:7-10; Jdg 18:27-29. The present site is unknown.

Naphtali, the territory in the north of the Land, between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea.

Ephraim and Manasseh, the central highlands.

Judah, the southern territory.

Plains of Jericho, near the north part of the Dead Sea where the Jordan River empties into it.

Zoar, an ancient Canaanite city likely under the waters of the southeast part of the Dead Sea. It was originally known as Bela, Gen 14:2. It was saved from immediate destruction by Lot’s intervention, when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, Gen 19:20-22. See also Isa 15:5; Jer 48:34. It was an important point between Elath and Jerusalem, during the Middle Ages.

The territory which Moses viewed was more than 150 miles in length, and more than 65 miles in width. It would not be possible to view this range with the natural eye. The implication is that God miraculously increased Moses’ power of vision for this occasion.

At last Moses viewed the Land to which his rash actions had denied him entrance, Num 20:11-13. This illustrates the severe penalty for sin.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. And Moses went. up from the plains of Moab. It is not certain who wrote this chapter; unless we admit the probable conjecture of the ancients, that Joshua was its author. But since Eleazar the priest might have performed this office, it will be better to leave a matter of no very great importance undecided.

We have elsewhere said, that one part of mount Abarim was called Nebo, as another was called Pisgah, because they were distinct summits.

Now, the ascent of Moses was equivalent to a voluntary going forth to death: for he was not ignorant of what was to happen, but being called by God to die, he went to meet death of his own accord. Such willing submission proceeded from no other source than faith in God’s grace, whereby alone all terror is mitigated, and set at rest, and the bitterness of death is sweetened. Doubtless to Moses, as to every one else, it must have been naturally an awful thing to die; but inasmuch as the testimony of God’s grace is interposed, he does not hesitate to offer himself without alarm; and Because he was firmly persuaded that the inheritance of the people would be there set before his eyes, he cheerfully ascended to the place from which he was to behold it. Already, indeed, by faith had he beheld the land, and the promise of God had been, as it were, a lively representation of it; but; since some remaining infirmities of the flesh still environ even the most holy persons, an ocular view of it was no slight consolation, in order to mitigate the bitterness of his punishment, when he knew that he was prevented from actually entering it by the just sentence of God.

When it is said, that God “showed him all the land,” it could not have been the case without a miracle. For, although history records that some have been endued with incredible powers of vision, so as to have been able to see further than the whole length of Canaan; there is still a peculiarity to be remarked in this case, that Moses distinctly examined every portion of it, as if he had been really on the spot. I allow, indeed, that Naphtali, and Ephraim, and Manasseh are mentioned by anticipation, but, nevertheless, the Holy Spirit would express that every part was shown to Moses, as if they were close beneath his feet. Else the vision would have been but unsatisfactory and useless, if he had not been allowed to behold the future habitation of the people. And to the same effect is also what is afterwards added, that it was the land, which God sware to give unto His servants; for otherwise the desire of Moses would not have been satisfied, unless he had seen what a pleasant, fertile, and wealthy region the sons of Abraham were about to inhabit.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE RELATION OF CONDUCT TO CONSEQUENCES

Deu 27:1 to Deu 34:12.

An earnest study of these reveals: Blessing is a fruit of obedience; and curses are a consequence of disobedience. It was said to Israel,

If thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God (Deu 28:1-2, f).

Blessings in the city, blessings in the field (Deu 28:3), blessings on the fruit of the ground (Deu 28:4), triumph over enemies (Deu 28:7), richness in store-house (Deu 28:8), a great and good name (Deu 28:10), multiplied children (Deu 28:11), treasures from Heaven (Deu 28:12), their eventual supremacy (Deu 28:12), the head and not the tail, from above and not beneath (Deu 28:13)all conditioned upon their keeping the law (Deu 28:14).

Who would change it now? Who would dare to have blessings apart from obedience? Who would dare to divorce the one from the other and face the consequences? Men have always shown a disposition to obey their fellows and an almost equal disposition to forget God. The monk or the nunhow they yield to the Abbot or the Abbess; the Sister to the Mother Superior; the Papal churchwhat obedience to the Pope! Paganismwhat abject slavery to high potentates! But for Israeltype of the Christian it is theirs to obey God, and if conflict arises, then in the language of Peter, to obey God rather than men (Act 5:29).

One is compelled to recognize the fact that Modernism has so far discredited the personality of God, the Deity of Christ, and the authority of the Scriptures, that mens convictions no longer know a keen edge, and the Scripture commands no longer bind conscience, and the thus saith the Lord no longer settles subjects of controversy.

The Modernist argues against all external authority and has not only increased the waters of infidelity, but he has pushed back the floodgates of lawlessness and deluged the world.

If there were no other reason for studying the Book of Deuteronomy, the repeated ringing call to men for obedience to the Divine Law is both a defense and justification of the same.

As one moves on in its study he encounters the Palestinian covenant (Deu 29:1, f). That it is a Covenant in addition to the one made with them in Horeb, is perfectly clear, in fact, so clear that all debate about that subject is strained and needless. The former Covenant rested in right, tempered with mercy, and enriched by grace. This covenant explains itself in the light of experience; and while enunciating stringent conditions of blessing and strict rules of conduct, its promises are rich and lift to a higher spiritual level than the Horeb covenant. Circumcision of the flesh is changed now to the circumcision of the heart, and the bending of the knee to the surrender of the Spirit, and the blessings of the body to the life of the soul. The great lesson that runs throughout Deuteronomy, namely, that of the relation between obedience to God and Divine benediction, is a lesson upon which no mortal tongue will ever lay undue emphasis. The evils that grow out of disregard to Gods lawsno man can imagine them! The annals of human anguish is their record.

We are told that when the first cable was laid in the Atlantic, where it went down miles and miles deep, it was found to be a failure and had to be taken up, at the loss of an enormous amount of time and unthinkable expense, and it was discovered that the workmen had ignored the oft-repeated command to keep it immersed in water while working on it, and on one occasion had left it where the hot sun struck it for a few minutes and melted the gutta-percha. Years followed before it could be laid again. Friends of the enterprise were greatly discouraged. Fifty voyages were made across the Atlantic, and finally capital enough was secured to lay it the second time. Possibly through the fault of another, who had forgotten to obey when the steamer had proceeded six hundred miles to sea, the cable parted and a loss of six million dollars ensued. In July 1866, the third cable was ready and a vessel sent out on her way. This time the work was completely successful and the world applauded Field. It might have been so from the first. This loss of time, of talent, of means, might have been saved had men exactly obeyed, but even this is but a feeble type of what the world has felt in consequence of disobedience to God. Moses, then, must have brought his message from above, for only God Himself ever understood, or even now comprehends the relation of obedience to blessing, of covenant keeping to character and world consequences.

But we conclude with a further lesson of the relation of conduct to consequences.

The death of Moses is a fitting climax to Moses life. The thirty-second chapter records his swan song, and what a song it is! Volumes might be devoted to it without a waste word. Truth follows truth in an almost unlimited series of statements. When the great soul comes to his conclusion God permits his lips to pour forth blessing upon the Children of Israel before he dies. The tribes are taken in turn, and for each, blessing is announced, Reuben, Levi, Jacob, Benjamin, and so on. Moses is now to the tribes what Jacob was to his sonsa rare father yearning over them and blessing them. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! (Deu 33:29).

The concluding chapter of this Book, the thirty-fourth, records Moses death, and suggests the translation of his body. How can one speak as he ought to speak of this man when he comes to the last and hushed moment of life! Bettex writes: Forty years a prince in the palaces of Egypt; forty years a shepherd in the wild wastes of Midian; forty years in the power of God, he bears his people through the wilderness, as a mother carries her babe, and then dies on Mount Nebo, according to the Word of the Lord, literally at the mouth of the Lord which the rabbins interpret, by the kiss of the Lord (Deu 34:5). What inexpressible words this man may have heard; what heavenly mysteries and Divine visions he may have seen, when, oblivious of the world, he was with Jehovah forty days and forty nights, and ate no bread and drank no water! His countenance is radiant with it; his thundering words flash it; the song of Moses, which John hears the redeemed sing in Heaven, echoes it. And the Christian is permitted to ascend Sinai with him; to come into the presence of his God; to hear unspeakable things out of His Law, and to forget the world below, which is dancing around its golden calf.

And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. And the Children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab (Deu 34:7-8).

How simple and yet how sublime the record! It is enough! Moses tomb requires no epitaph. His name is sufficiently immortalized. Modernists will never take the coronet from Moses brow.

This was the bravest warrior

That ever buckled sword;

This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word:

And never earthy philosopher

Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage

As he wrote down for men.

That was the grandest funeral

That ever passed on earth,

But no one heard the tramping,

Or saw the train go forth,

None but the bald old eagle

On gray Bethpeors height,

Which from his rocky eyrie

Looked on the wondrous sight.

And had he not high honor

The hillside for his pall

To lie in state, while angels wait

With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave,

And Gods own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave?

O lonely tomb in Moabs land!

O dark Bethpeors hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours

And teach them to be still!

God hath His mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell,

He hides them deep, like the secret sleep

Of him He loved so well.

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

CRITICAL NOTES.This chapter, written after death of Moses, once formed an introduction to book of Joshua.

Deu. 34:1-4. Hoses ascends Nebo. Pisgah height, of which Nebo a peak; from which extensive prospect of land east of Jordan to Dan. Not Laish-Dan (Jdg. 18:27) which was not in Gilead. Probably a town in north of Pera. Utmost sea, Mediterranean, beyond which no land. Zoar, southern extremity of Dead sea (cf. Gen. 19:22). See, really with the naked eyes miraculously strengthened.

Deu. 34:5-6. Death and Burial of Moses. Word, lit. at the mouth of the Lord. The sense clear from Gen. 45:21. Vug. correctly jubente Domino. It denotes that Moses died, not because his vital powers were exhausted, but at the sentence of God, and as a punishment for his sin, of Deu. 32:51.(Speak. Com.) Buried. God buried him, an honour perhaps designed to sustain the authority of Moses, which might have been impaired through punishment. Sepulchre. Not merely lest he should become an object of superstitious honour, for Jews not prone to this particular form of error. But, bearing in mind the appearance at Transfiguration (Mat. 17:1-10) and what is said by Luk. 5:9, we may conjecture that Moses after death passed into same state with Enoch and Elijah; and that his sepulchre could not be found, because shortly translated from it (Speak. Com.)

Deu. 34:10-12. The character of Moses. Joshua filled with the spirit (Deu. 34:9) of practical wisdom in manifold action (Isa. 11:2); but not like Moses, gifted with power to work signs and miracles, to found a kingdom and create a nation. None equalled him (except Jesus) in official dignity, holy character and intimate friendship with God Knew God freely and familiarly conversed with him. This made him eminent above all prophets (cf. Num. 12:8).

UNREALISED VISIONS.Deu. 34:1-8

The great parable of the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness has one of its profoundest applications in the death of the two great leaders, Moses and Aaron. Men above all others entitled to enter the land of promise; neither falling in battle nor dying a natural death, both doomed to die by the sentence of Jehovah whom they served, and under whom they were leading the people. This startles into a recognition of the tragedy of life and the impress of reality. Aaron, the high priest of God, though infirm, a noble and saintly man; in character and service second only to his brother, led by Moses and his son out of the midst of the wondering, weeping people to die in priestly robes, on the lonely summit of the Mount in Edom. Moses must die on Nebo, but die alone; neither son nor brother to close his dying eyes or receive his last words. Yet in its romantic incidents and tragic crisis, his death a fitting close of his great heroic life. The command to climb Nebo and die after such a vision, seems a penal infliction wantonly aggravated. Imagination can scarcely enhance the mystery and the awe, terrible in deliberateness and conditions. Only sublimest faith could implicitly obey such a mandate. It is a twofold parable. First, of the unrealised hope of human life.

1. The unrealised hopes of human life; the frequent disappointments, the unfulfilled purposes which so often characterise it; and which, to the affections and the philosophy of life, are so mysterious and painful. Every life a pilgrimage seeking its goal in some Canaan of rest. We picture it, struggle for it and sometimes on verge of realizing it. We see it with our eyes; but in mysterious providence of life, forbidden to go over. Our purposes are broken off, we are disappointed, and resent if faith prevent not. Mark conditions under which Moses died.
(1) While as yet his physical strength was undiminished, His eye not dim, etc.
(2) While as yet there seemed a great work for him to do, Jordan to cross, Jericho to conquer, Canaanites to drive out, etc.
(3) He died just when bright prospects filled his eye, when all the hope of his life was about to be fulfilled. What explains this mystery or justifies the ways of God to man? Cannot always judge, but learn: Success is not the chief nobility of life.
2. The chief blessedness of life is capability of service.
3. It is a blessed thing to die when the work has been so far done that it justifies the worker, demonstrates his character, vindicates his nobleness; so that he is not ashamed to leave it for completion; so that his friends are proud of its unfinished fragments. This not always given, but the faithful servants accepts the conditions.
4. The formal denial of our hopes may be the means of perfecting our character.
5. If in our service we have sinned against right methods and tempers of service, sinned against Him whom we serve, it is well that his disapproval of our sin should be manifest.
6. The prohibition comes with gracious mitigations. The sting of death extracted.
(1) What greater grace wrought in a man than acquiescence in such a mandate.
(2) Moses is permitted to prepare for departure.
3. He is permitted to see his successor.
7. God honours his faithful servant by Himself preparing his sepulchre.
8. God fulfilled His promises and the hopes of his servant in a deeper and higher way than he anticipated.

Second, of the visions which may inspire human life, its unrealised hopes notwithstanding. To men who live greatly God gives visions through this very idealism of life, which are glorious inspiration and strength; visions of a great faith and a bright hope; of rest through the toil, of triumph while they fight, of heavenly perfection and blessedness. Many glorious visions had been given to Moses. Who knows but to the lofty soul of this man of God, Canaan would have been a disenchantment. Many of our realised hopes are. In the better country no shortcoming, no disappointment. Canaan may suffice for a suggestive prophecy; only Gods heaven can be a satisfactory fulfilment. A great thing for faith to climb and stand on heights to survey the heritage of God. And the nearer Jordan, the more glorious the prospect. The goodly land is revealed. All earthly lights pale before the great glory, all things here seem little and unimportant in that great blessedness. The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared, etc. Thus Moses disappears from sight and God buries him. One more glimpse of him vouchsafed on the Holy Mount. The prayer, show me thy glory, was finally answered. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we also shall appear with Him in glory. Such honour have all the saints.Dr. Allons Vision of God.

THE BURIAL OF MOSESITS LESSONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Strange and singular that the greatest of all Old Testament prophets should find a resting place in the earth and no man able to point it out. Sepulchres of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob among the groves of Hebron, Josephs bones rest in Shechem, sepulchre of David by Jerusalem, the home of his heart. Neglect of the people did not leave the spot unmarked. Not what a Jew wished or what popular history would have framed, this death and burial, fitted to be a source of fruitful reflection.
I. God will have no one, living or dead, to stand between His creatures and Himself. II. God wishes men to see something more left of His servants than the outward shrine. III. God takes the honour of His servants into His own keeping. IV. God would teach men that He has a relation to His servants which extends beyond their death. V. God would teach men from the very first that His regard is not confined to any chosen soil. VI. There is one concluding lesson which has been reserved for us in its fulness, and which could be seen only partially by the Jewsthat the seeming failure in a true life may have at least a complete compensation. Under the gospel this view clear. As God forgave the sin we see that long since he made up the loss. This a comfort to many who feel immeasurably distant from Moses, as if our nature were all broken by failure and flaw. A true purpose in life shall reach a perfect close one day, its shortcomings completed, its errors rectified, its visions realised. One greater than Moses ended life in what appeared utter failure, with His followers scattered, His mission rejected and He Himself betrayed to a death of agony and shame. But He cried, It is finished, achieved success and secured it for all who take up the cross and follow Him. There is full compensation for failure in every true life, and the highest where struggle and loss have been deepest. Most comforting of all these is reversal of consequences of sin in contrition and faith. The shadow on earths dial-plate is turned back when eternal life is gained and the sun no more goes down. Like Moses we shall rise to have hearts desire, to look on the land and on Him who is the glory of it.

Rev. John Ker.

THE DEATH OF MOSES

I. The greatest of men are but instruments in Gods hands, and He can afford to lay them aside when He chooses. Moses seemed indispensable. None of similar ability and character to carry on work, yet God determined to move him. Paul, Luther, Wesley, and great reformers removed, yet truth survives, progresses and triumphs.

1. Let this dispel fears for future of the Church of God.
2. Abate personal pride, and
3. Calm our fears for loved ones. God, the husband of the widow, etc. II. The time and the manner of each mans removal from earth are fixed by God. III. When God removes His servants from earth, it is that He may take them to Heaven. IV. Until God calls us away, let us be diligent in doing good. V. God frequently gives intimation that He is about to call them to Himself. VI. God will remove all difficulties away in our heavenward journey. Adapted from Vol. II. Preachers Monthly.

In His blessd life,

I see the path, and, in His death, the price,
And in His great ascent, the proof supreme
Of immortality.Young.

THE CHARMING PROSPECT.Deu. 34:1-4

The plains of Moab, the last station before entrance to Canaan (Num. 33:48). The prospect from Pisgah, charming in beauty and extent. About 160 miles in length and 50 or 60 in breadth. We borrow many of the following hints from an American Sunday School Journal.

I. The method of discerning it. He glanced before, not below him. In clear atmosphere, he saw verdure, sunshine and the glory of all lands. How?

1. With the naked eye. His eye not dim. Beauty everywhere if only an eye to see. An artists eye; a poets eye. Culture and communion with God help to discern and appreciate landscapes.

2. With the help of God. The Lord showed him. Indicated direction, gave supernatural strength to follow it. The eye and the object from God. To him are we indebted for a spirit of wisdom and revelation. Natural and spiritual vision, the hearing ear and the seeing eye the Lord hath made.

II. The summit from which it was viewed. Moses went up from the plains to the mount. Clouds and conflict below. We must rise higher and higher for rest, intercourse with God and heaven. The celestial city viewed from the delectable mountains. On the Mount of Transfiguration we see the glory of Christ. From Pisgah we discern Canaan. In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.

III. The hopes which were realised by it. Moses had written of places which he had never seen. Memory would sweeten this prospect.

1. The land was secured to the people. Promised and were about to possess it.

2. He was reaping the recompense of reward. Not overwhelmed with grief, because excluded from earthly inheritance. He desired a better country, that is a heavenly. He saw the type, but taken up to the reality. In the death of a good man eternity is seen looking through time.Goethe. When we see the salvation of God we may pray, Lord now let thy servant depart in peace.

THE SLEEPING SAINT.Deu. 34:5-7

Moses, the servant of the Lord, died, and rests from his labours.

I. Moses died by command of God. But his change more like sleep than death. Lazarus slept. Believers fall asleep in Christ. God put him to rest as you gently lay a child to sleep. The Jewish doctors so expound this text, as though God did indeed take away his soul with a kiss (the loving mother is seen to kiss the child and then lay it down to sleep); and so of their 903 kinds of death, this they say is the easiest. God bade Moses go lie down and sleep (Deu. 31:16), and he accordingly went to bed when his Father badeTrapp. Thou shalt sleep with thy fathers.

II. Moses was buried by the hand of God. God himself, or Michael at command of God buried him. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. He cares for soul and body. No man knoweth of His sepulchre unto this day. We shall not speculate or discuss about it. The grave is not deep; it is the shining tread of an angel that seeks us.Richter.

O, lonely tomb in Moabs land!

O, dark Bethpeors hill!

Speak to these anxious hearts of ours

And teach them to be still.

God hath his mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep like the sacred sleep

Of him he loved so well.

D. M. Moir.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 34:1. Moses went up. Climbing mountains. An address for children.

1. It is itself a picture: the old, clearvisioned, vigorous man, climbing the rugged and lofty mountains east of Canaan. His life a series of historical pictures the most impressive and instructive. The lesson is a picture of Canaan the most beautiful.
2. Climbing mountains! What boy or girl will not be interested in that?
3. The thoughts that may have entered Moses mind as he looked out on hills, plains, valleys, and river below, and the sea beyond!

Moses a Man of Mountains.

1. Mountain of conflict (Exo. 17:10).

2. Of the law (Exo. 19:20).

3. Of communion with God (Exo. 24:15-18).

4. Of bereavement (Num. 20:23-29).

5. Of vision and of death (Deu. 34:6).

6. Of transfiguration (Mat. 17:7). Mount Zion (Heb. 12:22-24).S. S. Journal.

Went up.

1. A good mans life an ascent. At Gods command, and by Gods help, in knowledge, strength, and meetness for heaven.
2. A good mans death an ascent. May be in the valley, but guided through and lifted up. God ordered that Aaron and Moses should go up to the tops of mountains to die, says J. Edwards, to signify that the death of a godly man is but an entrance into a heavenly state. Death is to the good an ascension.

Deu. 34:4. The Lord showed him. God gave Moses that day

(1) a lesson in eye-teaching.

2. A lesson in geography.

3. A lesson in prophecytribes not yet located. God showed him where He would locate them.

4. A lesson in history. I sware unto Abraham, etc. Deu. 34:4.S. S. Journal.

Deu. 34:5-6. Moses died according to the word of the Lord. What occurred in this case, occurs in that of every Christian. All threetime, place, and mannerare fixed in the word of the Lord. Here a higher power interposes and disposes of mans existence upon earth. The death of Moses was solemn, sudden, and though a chastisementa public visitation for sin in the eye of all the hosts of Israelyet in some respect an honourable one.Dr. cumming.

Thoughts on the death of Moses. I. The best must die: the servant of the Lord. II. The best may die in the zenith of their greatness. III. The best may die when apparently indispensible. IV. The best may die where they little expect. V. But all die when and where God decrees.R. A. Griffin.

A WEEPING PEOPLE.Deu. 34:8

Seven days the usual time of mourning, for persons of rank and eminence, thirty (Gen. 50:3; Gen. 50:10; Num. 20:29). Moses absent when he died, was not carried in public procession, hence hitter mourning (see Josephus Ant. Bk. iv. chap. 8, sect. 48). I. Bereaved by a mysterious event. Families robbed of heads, Christian churches of best workers, nations of leaders. We lose their counsels, influence and prayers, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof. We cry at the departure of every leader, Help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men. II. Punished for strange ingratitude. Israel often complained and rebelled against Moses, did not treat him kindly. Now missed, and murmurers are mourners. It is infamy to die and not be missed.(Wilcox). III. Taught by a wise providence. The justice, truth and firmness of God must be known (Deu. 32:49-52). They must be taught that God depends not upon any of his creatures, and that the best, most holy and most useful must die. The fathers where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever!

When some men die, a nation feels;
When others fall, the world is moved.

A WORTHY SUCCESSOR.Deu. 34:9

Anxiety of parents to be succeeded in business and profession by children, of noblemen by heirs, of monarchs by princes. Joshua a worthy successor.

I. He was introduced by Moses. Moses had laid his hands upon him, and thus designated the person and conferred the power (Num. 27:18; Num. 27:23). No breaks, no vacancies in Gods service. One goes, another comes; one finishes what another leaves incomplete. A leader succeeds a lawgiver. The law, says Bp. Wordsworth, led men to see the promises afar off, and to embrace them (rather to see and greet the promises from afar, Heb. 11:13), and it brought them to the borders of Canaan, but could not bring them into it; that was reserved for Joshua, the type of Jesus.

II. He was qualified by special endowments. Full of the spirit of wisdom. Intimacy with Moses and training under his care not enough. He had faith (Num. 14:6-9), and experience (Exo. 17:8-13); but required Divine gifts and graces to fit him to govern. The disciples had been with Jesus, but not equipped until the spirit given. Friendship and education, patronage and office, were shreds of honour. The Spirit needed as a spirit of wisdom, counsel, and might (Isa. 2:2).

III. He was successful in his work. The children of Israel hearkened unto him, etc. Gifted men admired. The presence and authority of God with His servants will secure the affection and obedience of the people. Joshua owned as leader and prosperous in undertaking. By strength of character, and superlative wisdom, men rise to honour and success; wield an influence after death, and become saviours and kings in society. On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they feared him, as they feared Moses, all the days of his life (Jos. 4:14; Jos. 3:7; Jos. 1:5).

THE INFLUENCE OF A HOLT LIFE.Deu. 34:10-12

Moses here commended for character official position and privilege. Unique in greatness and honour. There arose not a prophet, etc.

I. The source from which the influence came. Fellowship with God, whom the Lord knew, conversed with face to face (Num. 12:8). Intercourse with God gives power with man. None great and successful without this (Jacob, Joshua, Daniel and Luther). Retirement most requisite, most seasonable in our pressing and incessant duties. Moses in Midian (Exo. 2:15; Exo. 3:1); John the Baptist in the desert (Luk. 1:30); Jesus in Nazareth (Mat. 2:23). Learn to live alone, said Dr. Paley, when recommending to the younger clergy, communion with God. Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place.

II. The method by which the influence was acquired. The Lord sent him and he went in the land of Egypt to deliver the people. Obedient to God he was endowed with the power of God. Entire consecration of time and talents brings its reward. In the words of the apostle, we have the influence of devout life upon ministerial success. We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word (Act. 6:4). The hand of the Lord was with them; and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.

III. The ages through which the influence lasted. None like Moses in the days of Israel, and after intervening centuries he was still considered Mighty in words and deeds (Act. 7:22. The power of such a life not destroyed by one failure. Memory survives death, and deeds never pass into o livion and the tomb. Myriads crowd the lower walks of life, removed and no more missed than atoms from the base of a lofty pyramid. But men conspicuous for virtues and holy deeds will live in name and influence and act upon the race till the end of time. The righteous had in everlasting remembrance.

To hew his name out upon time

As on a rock; there in immortalness
To stand on time as on A pedestal.

HOMILETIC HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS

Deu. 34:9. Joshua chosen. All spiritual endowments from the Holy Ghost. The spirit of wisdom, courage and the fear of God specially needed for well-qualified leaders of men. Admire the goodness of God in raising up such men. If one burning and shining light is extinguished the Father of lights can kindle another.

Deu. 34:10-12. Not a prophet like Moses. Unequalled.

1. In rank.

2. In faithfulness to duty (Num. 12:7; Heb. 3:1-6).

3. In legislative Wisdom ,
4. In divine authority, displayed (a.) in signs to the enemy (b) in terror to Israel. Moses was warrior, states-man, poet, philosoper, hero and saint. No man has rivalled him, nor robbed him of his honour. A prophet who stood by himself in his greatness in relation to men and to God. To be the leader of a nation in such peculiar circumstances for 40 years was in itself a position without a parallel; but to have led them out of Egypt against the will of their enslavers, to have been at their head during a whole generation of which every day witnessed a stupendous miracle, to have been the founder of their laws and their religion, was a work such as far outshone the deeds of any one man from the beginning of history, and such as still remains unique.Blunt.

ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 34

Deu. 34:1-4. Showed. My work is done; I have nothing to do but to go to my Father; said the Countess of Huntingdon. I am on the bright side of seventybright side, because nearer to the everlasting glory. Top of Pisgah. The loneliness of death. Ordinarily when men die, there are friends to gather round their bed, with tender ministries of love and prayer. Sometimes in the case of men like Moses, a nation will hush its footsteps and wait the issue with agonising suspense. Shut us up to die alone, with no hand that our weakness may clasp, no tear that may soothe our love, no prayer that may wing our hope, and how appalling death becomes. What pathos there is in the shrinking wail of PascalI shall die alone!Dr. Allon.

Went up. What a contrast to a former Divine summons, to ascend Sinai to commune with Jehovah, to receive from Him comfort and strength and a renewed commission of service! Yet he evinces none of the trembling awe with which he ascended Sinai. Without remonstrance, without hesitancy save for a moment, he calmly obeys the stern injunction. A good man knows how to die (Dr. Allon). Death cannot come to him untimely who is fit to die (Milman).

Climb the ascent of being
And approach for ever nearer to the life divine.

Deu. 34:5. The servant of the Lord died. A man of God has fallen to-day.

Deu. 34:8. Weeping. When Augustus died the Romans wished that either he had never been born or had never died.

Deu. 34:10. Not a prophet since. Moses was one that exceeded all men that ever were in understanding, and made the best use of what that understanding suggested to him.Josephus.

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime, etc.

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

F. THE DEATH OF MOSES (Deu. 34:1-12)

1. MOSES SHOWN THE PROMISED LAND FROM

MOUNT NEBO; DIES AND IS BURIED (Deu. 34:1-8)

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And Jehovah showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Daniel , 2 and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the hinder sea, 3 and the South, and the Plain of the valley of Jericho the city of palm-trees, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed; I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. 5 So Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Jehovah. 6 And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day, 7 And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. 8 And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; so the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS 34:18

603.

Locate on a map the following places: (1) Gilead, (2) Dan, (3) Naphtali, (4) Ephraim and Manasseh, (5) Judah, (6) the hinder sea, (7) the South, (8) the Plain of the Valley of Jericho.

604.

How was Moses buried? Why?

605.

What do you imagine was the predominant thought of Moses on this occasion?

AMPLIFIED TRANSLATION 34:18

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead to Dan.
2 And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, to the western [Mediterranean] sea.
3 And the South (the Negeb) and the Plain, that is, the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.
4 And the Lord said to him, This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.
5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord,
6 And He buried him in the valley of the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows where his tomb is to this day.

7 Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural forces abated. [But cf. Deu. 31:2]

8 And the Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

COMMENT 34:18

MOUNT NEBO, TO THE TOP OF PISGAH (Deu. 34:1)See Deu. 3:27, (notes), Deu. 32:49. Pisgah and Nebo are usually synonymously, though we understand Pisgah to be the peak or summit. Much of the land, of course, was only seen as mountain tops from this point. He could also see:

THE HINDER SEA (Deu. 34:2)that is, the Mediterranean, doubtless seen as only a shroud of glimmering blue in the distant west.

AND JEHOVAH SHOWED HIM ALL THE LAND (Deu. 34:1)One Can only begin to imagine the emotion and feeling that must have seized the very soul of Moses at this hour. He had himself many times written of this land of milk and honey. Yet, so far as we know, this was his only view of it. He was still well enough to take in all the view, for his eye was not dim (Deu. 34:7).

Moses has taken this journey up the mountain knowing just when and where he should die. His death, as his life, was in obedience to Gods word and will. It is not easy for us to enter into his feelings then. God called him up to a mountain top, and rolled away all the mists that might have covered that fair land, and there it all lay outspread. He saw its smiling green meadows at his feet, between which the Jordan swiftly flowed, and to the right his eye glanced along the valleys and woods, and bright waving corn [grain] fields that stretched away into the dim distance, where rose the purple, snow-crowned hills of Lebanon. To his left he saw the mountains swelling, like mighty billows of the sea, all struck into stillness . . . (Gray and Adams). How much of the future did God reveal to Moses now? We can only imagine. This great nation was soon to cover the land he viewed. Across the Dead Sea and high on the distant Judean hills was the great city of David to be establishedand become Jerusalem, the site of the temple and the center of Jehovah worship for a thousand years. Someday outside its walls on a nearby hill, a mere speck on the landscape, a cross shall one day stand, and the Son of God shall die to save the world.
But the mind of Moses must surely have gone back for a moment, too, His entire life had, in a definite sense, led to this very point. His mission was not completea mission that had really begun with his birth.

His life in Pharaohs palace, the forty years in Midian, the contest with Pharaoh, the crossing of the Red Sea, the defeat of the Amalakites, the giving of the Law, rebellion of Israel, and setting up of the tabernacle at Sinai, the ill-fated report of the spies and consequent years of wandering, the endless, continual, incessant murmurings of his own countrymenthen the victories over the Sihon, Og, and the east side tribes. And now, what would become of this vast people encamped below him? Like Daniel (Dan. 7:15; Dan. 7:28), his own inspired prophecies doubtless troubled his own mind. He had been moved by the Holy Spirit (2Pe. 1:21) as he spoke, but what did these words mean? What would the future of this people be? What would happen to them? Surely Moses must have passed from this life with such questions still lingering in his mind.

THOU SHALT NOT GO OVER THITHER (Deu. 34:4)It was to be the job of Joshua, a type of the risen Savior, to lead Israel to the Promised Landnot him who represented the law. God had forbidden Moses entrance into that land because His servant had failed to sanctify Him in the eyes of the children of Israel (See Num. 20:12, Cf. Deu. 1:37 [notes] Deu. 3:23-29, Deu. 32:50-51).

AND HE BURIED HIM IN THE VALLEY (Deu. 34:6)In Deu. 32:50 Moses is commanded to go up into the mount, die, and be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people. The latter phrase normally infers a burial (Gen. 35:29; Gen. 49:29; Gen. 49:33). But the translators, (whether the A.V. of 1611 or the modern versions) uniformly translate the passage and he [that is, God] buried him in the valley. The marginal reading, he was buried seems highly improbable not only from a standpoint of linguistic scholarship, but also from the additional statement of fact: the whereabouts of his burying place was not known. Surely it would have been known had Moses been buried by the Israelites! A monument or memorial of permanence would most certainly have been erected at his grave! We suspect it might have been a sore temptation as a shrine or object of worship. So God himself took care of Moses, and the temptation to defy their leader was averted.

HIS EYE WAS NOT DIM, NOR HIS NATURAL FORCE ABATED (Deu. 34:7)The phrase I can no more go out and come in of Deu. 31:2 should, in view of this statement, be understood in the light of Moses realization that God was now about to take him. He was not yet spent, physically, but his time was up, for his service as leader of Israel through the wilderness and to the promised land was completed. But how often we have seen men taken in death before their time. Someone has said Death cannot come to him untimely who is fit to die, and so it was with Moses. His work was done, he had fought the good fight, and the crown of life awaited him.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Moses goes up to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, and God shows him the whole extent of the land which he promised to give to the descendants of Abraham, 14. There Moses died, and was so privately buried by the Lord that his sepulchre was never discovered, 5, 6. His age and strength of constitution, 7. The people weep for him thirty days, 8. Joshua being filled with the spirit of wisdom, the Israelites hearken to him, as the Lord commanded them, P. The character of Moses as a prophet, and as a worker of the most extraordinary miracles, both in the sight of the Egyptians, and the people of Israel; conclusion of the Pentateuch, 1012.

QUESTIONS, LESSON TWENTY-FOUR (Deu. 32:48 to Deu. 34:12)

(Deu. 32:44-52)

1.

From what vantage point is Moses told to view the Promised Land? How much of it could he see?

2.

What reason is given in this lesson for Moses not entering into Canaan? How does this correspond to previous statements about this matter (as in Numbers 20, Deu. 1:37; Deu. 3:23 ff.)?

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

3.

Jehovahs presence is said to have been seen in Sinai, Seir, and Paran (Deu. 33:2). Give at least one incident in each area which would show this.

4.

Where are all his saints (Deu. 33:3)? What did Jesus teach about this?

5.

Who or what is Jeshurun? Who is his (its) king?

6.

What was to happen to Reubens population? Any reason for this?

7.

How would Judah rank as a political and military power in Israel?

8.

What tribe had the Thummim and Urim? What purpose did it serve?

9.

How is this tribes fidelity toward God described and what incident is alluded to in the description?

10.

Joseph (Manasseh and Ephraim) are likened to what animals horns? What is he doing with them?

11.

Population-wise, Manasseh was to have __________, while Ephraim was to have ____________.

12.

What does Zebuluns going out indicate? How is this confirmed by geography and history?

13.

Seas and sand would be valuable to Zebulun and Issachar, How?

14.

(Give one possible answer) On what mountain were they to call the people to sacrifice?

15.

How did Gad provide (choose) the first part for himself?

16.

From where would Dan (the lions whelp) leap forth? How is this to be understood?

17.

How would Naphtali possess the west and the south?

18.

Asher would dip his foot in oil, and have doorbolts of iron and brass. Explain the implications of this prophecy,

19.

Upon what other nation(s) would an obedient Israel be dependent?

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

20.

In view of the fact that no one can see God, who is invisible, how do you explain the declaration that Moses spoke with God face to face? What does this phrase mean?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

XXXIV.
DEATH OF MOSES.

(1) Pisgah.See Num. 21:20. The word seems to mean a height.

(1, 2) The Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali . . . unto the utmost seathat is, He showed him all the land which was to be given to these several tribes. Whether He then showed it to him under the names which are given here or not is a question we cannot answer. Many deeply interesting queries suggest themselves here. Did Moses go up alone? or did Joshua accompany him? Who wrote these particulars of what was shown to him, and how were the particulars known? I am disposed to believe that as Elijah and Elisha still went on and talked, until that chariot of fire appeared which parted them both asunder, so it was with Moses and Joshuathat Moses minister attended him until Jehovah withdrew him from his sight. But it speaks well for Joshuas characterin fact, it is altogether characteristic of the manthat in this record of the death of the great lawgiver he should have concealed himself and every other figure from sight except Jehovah and His servant Moses. Rashi, in his comment on this scene, says that the Lord showed Moses not only the land, but what should happen therein, in every part. But of this we know nothing. We know that the spectacle was complete. Probably the eye that was not dim was enabled to see farther than human eye ever saw from such a height before. The utmost sea is full fifty miles away from that spot.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES, Deu 34:1-8.

Jehovah had said unto Moses, Behold, thy days approach that thou must die. Deu 31:14. Joshua was summoned to the tabernacle with Moses, and formally appointed his successor. The official life of the great leader and lawgiver closes. Another is to lead the people to their further victories; another is to cause them to possess the land. Moses completes the writing of the law and passes it to the Levites to be put within the ark of the covenant. Then the people assemble to hear the words of that matchless song of history, instruction, and warning, which forms so fitting a close to his ministry. On that same day Jehovah said to him, “Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo, and die in the mount.” Deu 32:49-50. He gives his farewell to the tribes, closing with the blessing, “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord!” Deu 33:29.

Moses leaves the camp, he ascends the mountain and looks over the goodly land which is to be the future home of his people. The writer of this supplementary chapter gives no details of the parting with the elders, with his successor, Joshua, nor with the people he had so long directed and so long loved. His farewell had been given in the blessing upon the tribes. Josephus, however, furnishes an account which does not seem improbable. “Amid the tears of the people, the women beating their breasts, and the children giving way to uncontrolled wailing, he withdrew. At a certain point in his ascent he made a sign to the weeping multitude to advance no further, taking with him only the elders, the high-priest, Eliezer, and the general, Joshua. At the top of the mountain he dismissed the elders, and then, as he was embracing Eliezer and Joshua, and still speaking to them, a cloud suddenly stood over him, and he vanished in a deep valley.”

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1. The plains of Moab That level tract north of the Dead Sea and east of the Jordan. Here the tribes were encamped preparing for the crossing of the Jordan and the conquest of the Promised Land.

Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah Pisgah was a range of the mountain system east of the Dead Sea and Jordan; Nebo one of the summits of this range. Recent travelers have found the ruins of a place bearing the name Nebbeh.

And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan That is, the whole extent of the land east of the Jordan which Israel was to possess. Dan is not the place mentioned in Jdg 18:29, but the Dan in the north of Perea, the place to which Abraham pursued the confederate kings. Gen 14:14.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Chapter 34 The Death of Moses.

The book closes with a record of the death of its main source. As has been mentioned previously Moses is unlikely to have recorded it himself. That would have been put into the hand of an experienced scribe. In so far as it is there the impression gathered throughout the Pentateuch is that that was probably Joshua. But what we do have are the words of Moses, with occasional background material put in by the scribe. Here in this final chapter the scribe completes his work.

Analysis using the words of the scribe:

a And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to mount Nebo, to the top of the Pisgah, that is over against Jericho, and Yahweh showed him all the land of Gilead, to Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, to the hinder sea, and the South, and the Plain of the valley of Jericho the city of palm-trees, to Zoar (Deu 34:1-3).

b And Yahweh said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your seed.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there” (Deu 34:4).

c So Moses the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahweh, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor (Deu 34:5-6 a).

c But no man knows of his sepulchre to this day (Deu 34:6 b).

b And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated (Deu 34:7).

a And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days. So the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended (Deu 34:8).

Note that in ‘a’ that Moses goes up and sees the whole land. How his faithful heart must have exalted. He had brought his people to the very verge of this glorious land which he now saw before him. And in the parallel Israel mourn for his loss, as well they might. In ‘b’ he sees the promised land, promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (they had not taken possession of it either, but they had fulfilled their part just as Moses had) and he could die content. And in the parallel Moses died, his task complete, and he was one hundred and twenty years old (he had lived a long life through three generations). And he could see the land clearly for his eyes were not dimmed. And Yahweh had rewarded his faithfulness by allowing him to retain his strength. In ‘c’ Yahweh buried him, and in the parallel no one knew where.

Deu 34:1-3

‘ And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to mount Nebo, to the top of the Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And Yahweh showed him all the land of Gilead, to Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, to the hinder sea, and the South, and the Plain of the valley of Jericho the city of palm-trees, to Zoar.’

Having fulfilled his final responsibilities Moses went up to the high cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea (the Pisgah), to Mount Nebo, a high point in the Pisgah. And from there he surveyed the land on the other side of Jordan as far as the eye could see. We must not take the descriptions too literally. The point is to bring out that he surveyed ‘the whole land’, north towards Gilead, north west towards Dan and Naphtali, west towards Ephraim, Manasseh and Judah, and south towards ‘the South’ and Zoar. The reference to Dan may represent an updating by a later scribe. Dan became the northernmost point of Israel as in ‘from Dan to Beersheba’. But it may be another Dan as in Gen 14:14.

Deu 34:4

‘ And Yahweh said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your (thy) seed.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” ’

The surveying of the land was probably intended to represent ownership. On behalf of his people Moses was permitted this first indication of ownership. It was the land which Yahweh had sworn to the patriarchs that He would give them, now it will be possessed, but not by Moses except by faith (Deu 3:27; Deu 4:21-22; Deu 32:52). It was for the children of the patriarchs, for Israel.

Deu 34:5

‘ So Moses the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahweh.’

And there in that mountain Moses died, just as Yahweh had stated must happen, for he was never seen again. ‘The Servant of Yahweh’ was a title of great honour. It represented one who was directly associated with Yahweh in His purposes, and through whom Yahweh carried out His will on earth, and who was faithful to the end. Joshua would later also be called the Servant of Yahweh at his death (Jos 24:29; Jdg 2:8).

Deu 34:6

‘ And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor. But no man knows of his sepulchre to this day.’

This probably simply means that although they went up and searched everywhere they never found his body. ‘Yahweh had buried him’. Thus no one knew where he was buried. Just as he had mysteriously appeared from God, from the wilderness, so he had equally mysteriously returned to God, and no one knew how. He had come from God and now he was in God’s hands. It may be that God did not want any attempt to be made to take Moses’ body with them into the land along with Joseph’s bones. His exclusion would ever be a warning against presumption.

Deu 34:7

‘ And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.’

He died in full health. The very fact that he had been able to climb the mountain alone and look across the Jordan was proof enough of this. He could still see well and move about with confidence. There may also be the suggestion that he was still sexually active. Today he would have been described as ‘a wonderful man for his age’. And that he certainly was, in more ways than one. The one hundred and twenty years covers three generations, which was the main intent of the number (compare Deu 31:2).

Deu 34:8

‘ And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days. So the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.’

The thirty days appears to have been the prescribed period of mourning for a leader in Israel (Num 20:29). There can be little doubt that the mourning was genuine. They had not always loved him in life, but he had been their mainstay and their inspiration, their great deliverer, and their constant contact with Yahweh. However, they knew that once the mourning was over they had to move on. Death was no stranger to them and they had been warned in advance that this one was coming.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Deu 34:1-8 The Death of Moses Deu 34:1-8 gives the account of the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord. Note that the Lord had been making references to Moses’ death on a number of occasions.

Num 20:12, “And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them .”

Num 27:12-14, “And the LORD said unto Moses, Get thee up into this mount Abarim, and see the land which I have given unto the children of Israel. And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people , as Aaron thy brother was gathered. For ye rebelled against my commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes: that is the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Num 31:2, “Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people .”

It is most likely that Moses went up to the mountain of Nebo to see the Promised Land accompanied with elders, even Joshua; for we have a record of the words that God spoke to him on this occasion. Or, these words could have been recorded when Moses returned to the camp before departing alone to an unknown valley where he gave up the ghost and was buried by the Lord.

Deu 34:5 So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

Deu 34:5 “Moses the servant of the LORD” – Comments – I woke up this morning with the phrase “Moses, a servant of the Lord” being quickened to my heart. As I examined how this phrase was used in the Holy Scriptures, I realized that Moses could have carried many titles and accolades. He was well educated in the schools of Egypt. He was an author and a great leader; however, his greatest lay in the power of God that worked in his life as a faithful servant of the Lord. The greatest men of God are recognized as servants and not necessarily as leaders. Thus, the most honorable title that could ever be given to a man would be “a servant of God.” This title is used often in the Old Testament and even into the New Testament.

Jos 1:1, “Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying,”

Heb 3:5, “And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant , for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after;”

Rev 15:3, “And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God , and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.”

Later that day, I attended an event hosted by the President of Uganda. At this function, each speaker followed protocol by recognizing the President, Vice President and each office down. With each recognition came titles. I sat by a Catholic bishop who gave me the list of titles used in the Ugandan society, which he explained was an influence from the British colonialism. The President, his wife, and the Vice President were to be addressed as “Your Excellency.” The members of the Cabinet and Parliament were to be addressed as “Honorable Minister.” The mayor of the city was to be addressed as “Your Worship.” The judges were to be addressed as “Your Lordship.” Pastors are called “Reverend” or “Pastor.” Some of the highest ranking religious leaders would be called “Your Grace.” The titles went on, with man making every effort to find favor with one another. Later, the President walked by and I shook hands with him and I called him “Your Excellence” in proper protocol. But the greatest title still remains with Moses, who was called “a servant of the Lord.” (December 18, 2003)

Deu 34:7  And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.

Deu 34:7 Comments – Deu 34:7 tells us that Moses had good eyesight and a strong physical body at the age of one hundred and twenty years. We know that a person’s strength and eyesight are the two most apparent outward evidences of the aging process. However, Moses was not the only one who did not show his age. Note the strength of Caleb in Jos 14:11.

Jos 14:11, “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in.”

Deu 34:10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

Deu 34:10 “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses” – Comments – Deu 34:10 appears to reflect back across Israel’s history over a long expanse of time. This suggests that the epilogue to this book was composed later, perhaps as late as the time of Ezra when the Old Testament canon was edited into its final form. Sailhamer believes this epilogue is a later composition, written when the period of the Old Testament prophets had ceased. [38] He also suggests this verse reflects back to Deu 18:15, “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;” He notes that this statement excludes Joshua, Moses successor, from fulfilling this particular prophetic role. This means that the Jews still looked forward to the coming of this prophet, which means Deu 18:15 predicts the coming of the Messiah.

[38] John H. Sailhamer, Introduction to Old Testament Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, c1995), 247-8.

“whom the LORD knew face to face” – Comments – God originally intended to talk with man face to face. However, the Fall in the Garden hindered this method and caused God to seek other ways to speak to sinful men. He would speak to them through the prophets, the priests, and the kings. He also spoke to men through dreams and visions.

Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

Moses Dies and is Buried by God

v. 1. And Moses went up from the Plains of Moab, where the children of Israel were still encamped, unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is, to its very summit, that is over against Jericho. Cf Deu 32:48-51. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, on the eastern side of Jordan, unto Dan, a town in Northern Perea,

v. 2. and all Naphtali, later the land of Galilee, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, in the approximate center of Canaan, and all the land of Judah, directly opposite his station, unto the utmost sea, the Mediterranean Sea,

v. 3. and the south, the plains beyond the Dead Sea, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, for these grew in the lowlands of Jericho, unto Zoar, at the extreme southern end of the Dead Sea. This viewing of the entire country was a “proof of his generally unimpaired strength of vision, which the soaring flight of faith rendered more penetrating. ”

v. 4. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed, Gen 12:7; Gen 15:18; Gen 28:13; I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, it was a last favor which the Lord granted to His faithful servant, but thou shalt not go over thither.

v. 5. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, namely, on Mount Nebo, according to the word of the Lord, Deu 32:50.

v. 6. And he, the Lord, buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor, in some mountain valley not far from Nebo; but no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day, its exact location was not revealed. From the letter of Jude,

v. 9. we know that the archangel Michael contended with the devil for the body of Moses. Thus God, through His angel, saved the body of Moses from the last consequence of death under the control of Satan, from corruption. The body of Moses was taken to heaven after his burial and there changed to a spiritual body. Thus it was possible for Moses to appear with Elijah at the transfiguration of Christ. This fact gives us a strong guarantee for the final fulfillment of our hope, of the resurrection of the body.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION

DEATH, BURIAL, AND ENCOMIUM OF MOSES.

After blessing the people, Moses, in obedience to the Divine command, ascended Mount Nebo, the highest peak of the Pisgah range, and thence surveyed the whole land of Canaan, from north to south, and from east to west, as well as the district on the east of the Jordan, not included in Canaan proper.

Deu 34:1

Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah; rather, unto Mount Nebo, the summit of Pisgah. Gilead unto Dan. Not Dan Laish, near the central source of the Jordan, which was not in Gilead, but another Dan in Northern Perea, the site of which has not yet been discovered (cf. Gen 14:14).

Deu 34:2-4

Unto the utmost sea; rather, the hinder sea, viz. the Mediterranean (cf. Deu 11:24). The south; the Negeb, the pasture-land in the south, towards the Arabian desert. The plain of the valley of Jericho; the extensive plain through which the Jordan flows, extending from Jericho to Zoar, at the south end of the Dead Sea. This wide prospect could not be surveyed by any ordinary power of vision; so that Moses must for the occasion have had his power of vision miraculously increased. There is no ground for supposing that he saw the scene in an ecstatic vision, and not with his bodily eyes.

Deu 34:5

According to the word of the Lord; literally, at the mouth of the Lord. The rabbins interpret this, “by a kiss of the Lord”; i.e. as Maimonides explains it (‘More Nevoch.,’ 3:51), Moses “died in a moment of holiest joy in the knowledge and love of God.” The phrase, however, simply means “by or according to the command of” (cf. Gen 45:21; Exo 17:1; Le Exo 24:12; Num 3:16, etc.).

Deu 34:6

The valley in which God is supposed to have buried Moses was probably some depression on the Pisgah range, upon or close by Nebo. The rabbins say that Moses was buried by retiring into a cavern, where he died and where his body remained. It is probable that, like Enoch and Elijah, he was transferred to the invisible world without seeing corruption. Hence his appearance along with Elijah in bodily form on the Mount of the Transfiguration; and hence also, perhaps, the tradition of the contest for the body of Moses between Michael and Satan (Jud 1:9). If the body of Moses was actually buried, the concealment of his grave so that no man knew of it may be justly regarded as “the first instance on record of the providential obliteration, so remarkably exemplified afterwards in the gospel history, of the ‘ holy places’ of Palestine; the providential safeguard against their elevation to a sanctity which might endanger the real holiness of the history and religion which they served to commemorate” (Stanley). The reverence which the Jews paid to graves shows that there was no small danger of their coming under a superstitious regard to that of Moses had it been known.

Deu 34:7

Though Moses had reached the age of a hundred and twenty years, his eye had not become dim, nor were the juices of his body dried. Natural force. The word so rendered () occurs only here; but it is doubtless the subst. connected with the adj. moist, fresh (cf. Gen 30:37; Num 6:3), and properly means moisture, freshness. It is used here of the natural juices of the body.

Deu 34:8

The people mourned for Moses thirty days, as they did for Aaron (Num 20:29).

Deu 34:10

(Cf. Exo 33:11.) Whom the Lord knew. “For the Lord was revealed to him face to face” (Onkelos). The knowledge here referred to was not merely that cognizance which God as the Omniscient has of all men, but that special knowledge by which men, being known of God, are made to know him (cf. 1Co 8:3). The statement in this verse could only have been inserted some time after the death of Moses, and after the people had had manifestations of God’s presence with them, both by communications from him through the prophets and by the successes which he had given them over their enemies. But it is not necessary to suppose that a long period during which a lengthened succession of prophets had arisen had elapsed. “Moses was the founder and mediator of the old covenant. As long as this covenant was to last, no prophet could arise in Israel like unto Moses. There is but One who is worthy of greater honor than Moses, namely, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, who is placed as a Son over all the house of God, in which Moses was found faithful as a servant (comp. Heb 3:2-6 with Num 12:7), Jesus Christ, the Founder and Mediator of the new and everlasting covenant” (Keil).

HOMILETICS

Deu 34:1-9

The last journey.

(For other aspects of the death of Moses, see Homily on Deu 32:48-52.) We have come at last to the closing scene. It is evidently recorded by other hands; for “Dan” (Deu 34:2) did not exist by that name till a much later period (see Judy. Deu 18:1, 27-29). Deu 34:10-12 indicate, moreover, a period later still; very possibly, it may have been as far on as the time of Ezra when those verses were added. And whoever will make use of the formula,”early authorship, late editorship,” as applicable to the Book of Deuteronomy, will have in his hands a key which will enable him to unlock many of the intricacies with which unbelieving writers seek to worry us. In all probability there was an ample supply of men in the later schools of the prophets who would be quite equal to editorial work; and most assuredly, Ezra would not be lacking in fitness for such service. It is altogether gratuitous and unnecessary to attempt to lower the value of the book in the eyes of others on account of the manifest touches of a later age. The revision of an ancient book, freeing it from archaisms, and, as we should say, “posting it up to date,” would increase, not diminish its value.

By whomsoever written, this closing chapter is a fitting appendix to the words of the lawgiver himself. For homiletic use it is exceedingly suggestive.

I. MOSES HAS TO TAKE A REMARKABLE JOURNEY.

“The Lord showed him all the land.” The vision was in part physical, but that which faith beheld in the glorious future which was assured to the people of God, was by far the most precious part of the sightincomparably so. Thus the Lord was merciful to Moses, in that, though his joy in death was checked by the sense of his own defect and failures, he would, on the other hand, be borne up by the thought that God never had failed, and never would. The future, from which he was cut off, would assuredly develop gloriously under the care and grace of Israel’s covenant God. Even so, when God’s heroes sink in death, they know that, though they die, God’s Church will live on, and that the promised inheritance will yet be theirs. And many, many a believer has had a vision, in death, akin to that of Stephen, and, though appalled at his own shortcomings, has been borne up by a sight of Jesus, as “mighty to save,” and as the Captain of salvation, who will bring the Church onward to the fullness of redemption.

III. WHEN THESE DEATH–SCENES ARE WITNESSED THE SOUL WILL BE ABSOLUTELY ALONE WITH GOD. Moses lay himself down to die, without any attendant by his side. However many there might have been around, between himself and God no one could possibly come. He must die alone; so must we. Alone must we pass through “death’s iron gate,” save as we can use the words in Psa 23:4. There is but One whose real presence can comfort us then.

IV. THE BODIES OF GOD‘S SAINTS ARE NOT OVERLOOKED BY HIM. (Psa 23:6.) “The Lord buried him,” says the editor, “and no man knoweth of his sepulcher unto this day.” Some have assigned it as a reason for the concealment of the body of Moses, “that his tomb might not become the occasion of idolatry or superstition.” Others, rejecting this as inconsistent with the known fact that in the eye of the Hebrews every dead body was unclean, have sought for a reason by comparing Jud 1:9 with Mat 17:1-27. They deem it not improbable that there might be some change in the body of Moses in death, which would account for his appearing in the Transfiguration scene with another, who was taken up to heaven without dying, and also for the mysterious conflict over the body, of which Jude informs us. This may have been, but we can go no further than the text takes us by the hand. It suffices to know that God oared for Moses’ body as well as for him. The body of believers is now the temple of the Holy Ghost. Christ is “the Savior of the body.” The Spirit who dwells in us will quicken the mortal body at the resurrection.

V. THE WORK WHICH MOSES HAS DONE IS ONE WHICH WILL FIND NO PARALLEL TO IT. (Jud 1:10.) (See next Homily.) Every worker for God has his own distinctive work, which only he can do.

VI. GOD HAS ALREADY RAISED UP ONE TO CARRY ON THE WORK OF MOSES, SO THAT IT WILL NOT FALL TO PIECES WREN HE DIES. (Jud 1:9.) Joshua is ready. So that there are no chasms in the service.

VII. THE INCOMPLETENESS OF MOSES‘ WORK IS NOT ONLY A HISTORICAL BUT A SYMBOLIC FACT. It is not a lawgiver alone who can had the Church on to Canaan, but a JoshuaJesus, a Savior. “The Law was given by Moses, but [the] grace and [the] truth came by Jesus Christ.” Moses had propounded truth in his legislative precept and teachings. He had taught God’s grace in the institutions of sacrifice, and in the ordinances of worship, prayer, and praise. But the truth he disclosed, the grace he declared, were brought in by another, long ages after, for whose work he was intended to prepare the way. “The Law was a child-guide until Christ.” Happy are they whose life-work is in harmony with the plan of him who seeth the end from the beginning! Happy they, whether in more prominent or more obscure positions, who are in their Lord’s own appointed way workers together with him!

Deu 34:10-12

The distinctive greatness of Moses.

These closing verses do not touch upon the character of Moses, but upon his unique position as a prophet. “There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses,” etc. (Deu 34:10). This does not exactly ascribe inferiority, but rather dissimilarity to all who had followed, up to the date of this editorial postscript. “Nothing can have two beginnings;” and in this lies the one and sufficient reason why Moses could not be followed in the after ages by any one who took a like position with his own. Purposely avoiding any outline of the character of Moses, we propose to enumerate a few of those features in which the work of Moses was altogether unique, and ever must so remain.

I. MOSES WAS THE FIRST TO DISCLOSE THE GLORIOUS NATURE OF GOD AND HIS GRACIOUS RELATIONSHIPS TO OUR RACE, AS THE CORNER–STONE OF A GREAT COMMONWEALTH.

II. HE WAS THE FIRST TO PROCLAIM, BY HIS SACRIFICIAL INSTITUTES AND TEACHINGS, THE ONE PRINCIPLE THAT “WITHOUT SHEDDING OF BLOOD IS NO REMISSION.” Sacrifice was adopted in other nations as a human expedient for appeasing Divine wrath; Moses declares it to be a Divine appointment for the acknowledgment of human sin and of the Divine holiness.

III. HE WAS THE FIRST TO PROCLAIM THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES AND THE TRUE BASIS OF THE NOBLEST HUMAN ETHICS “BE YE HOLY; FOR I AM HOLY.”

IV. HE WAS THE FIRST TO REQUIRE OF A PEOPLE LOVE TO GOD AS THE SPRING OF ALL OBEDIENCE, AND TO ASSIGN AS THE REASON FOR THEIR LOVE THE CARE OF GOD TO THEM. (Deu 5:6; Deu 6:1-25 :50)

V. HE WAS THE FIRST, YEA, THE ONLY ONE IN ALL HISTORY, TO DEMAND OF A TYRANT THE LIBERATION OF AN OPPRESSED PEOPLE, AND TO FORM THEM INTO A NEW COMMONWEALTH, WITH THE AVOWED AIM AND PURPOSE OF PLANTING IN THE WORLD A NEW RELIGIOUS FAITH AND LIFE. (Deu 7:1-11; Deu 9:1-6.)

VI. HE WAS THE FIRST WHO MADE PROVISION FOR THE EDUCATION OF A WHOLE PEOPLE IN THE THINGS OF GOD; WITH VIRTUE AND PIETY FOR ITS LESSONS, AND THE HOME FOR ITS TRAINING–SCHOOL. (Deu 31:12, Deu 31:13; Deu 6:1-9; Deu 10:12-22; Deu 11:18-21.)

VII. HE WAS THE FIRST WHO AIMED AT EDUCATING A PEOPLE TO SELF–GOVERNMENT. They were to choose their own officers, judges, and magistrates, according to principles of righteousness. And (as we have shown in loc.) even the government of Jehovah was not forced upon them. Their consent was asked again and again; and their solemn, loud “Amen” was required, confirming the sentence of God as if it were their own. Thus from the first the people were made “workers together with God.”

Others might follow on in all these respects, but no one else ever could be like Moses in starting all this new national life, thought, and virtue, in organized form. And yet how much more than one like Moses do we need for a world’s regeneration and a Church’s education! “If there had been a Law given which should have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the Law.” But “what the Law could not do,” God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Moses can give rules. Only the Lord the Spirit can give life. A Greater than Moses has come, and has created by his power a new commonwealth, whose is in the heavens. In this “new Jerusalem, which cometh down from God out of heaven,” lo! “all things are made Dew.”

Deu 34:10

Face to face; or, the secret of power.

“Whom the Lord knew face to face.” Such is the remarkable expression used with regard to Moses. This certainly implies that there was in his case unwonted closeness of fellowship with God. There are expressions not dissimilar in Num 12:7, Num 12:8, but yet we must make allowance for the prevalence of the vividness of Eastern imagery, and not press the literalness of the words too closely. In fact, we are guarded against that by the words in Exo 33:20.

To what extent Moses saw any manifested form, it is not likely we shall ever in this state of being, be able to tell. It is the duty of thoughtful men to penetrate beneath the archaisms and Orientalisms of the ancient text, and to seize the permanent truth which underlies them. The thought which we here detect as that which is under the surface is thisthat Moses had very close communion with God.
Every spirit which yearns after God may hold communion with God. And inasmuch as “every man’s life is a plan of God,” God may make that fellowship serve any purposes he has for the man to fulfill. By such communion there may be:

(1) an inner life of devotion and an outer life of godliness to be nurtured and sustained; or there may be

(2) a spur and a pressure applied to high and holy service in one specific direction, this is the case where men are borne along to the fulfillment of a special mission; or there may be

(3) some new truth or clearer light which God wills to impart to and through the soul so communing with him.

Now, there is a specific term for each of these three effects of communion with God. When it simply subserves the life of holiness which all may lead, we call it religion; when it is made tributary to a special form of service, we call it inspiration; when it is made the means of causing new truth to appeal’, we call it revelation.

The latter has been realized by those fewextremely fewof the human race by whom God has unfolded new truth. The medial one has been experienced by the more numerous souls who have been borne along as by a special outside force to the fulfillment of a great mission. The first-named is the common privilege of all God-fearing souls.
Moses was one of the very few who enjoyed the privilege of “seeing the Unseen One” for all three purposes; and the four following sentences will sum up his life:

I. By the power of RELIGION he lived the life of the saint.

II. By that of INSPIRATION he discharged the functions of leader, administrator, and recorder.

III. By that of REVELATION he had the visions of the seer.

IV. COMMUNION WITH GOD was the secret of all: “face to face.”

To those who understand communion with God, either of the three will be regarded as in the highest degree reasonable, intelligible, and credible. Those who do not know what it is to pour out the soul unto God, may indeed accept all three in a formal manner, but they can go no further. And if such formal believers should chance to be subject to the fierce storms of modern criticism, there is no telling but they may come to deny them all; yea, they may come to think that religion, inspiration, and revelation are swept clean away; and all because they understand nothing of man’s highest privilegeCommunion with God!

HOMILIES BY R.M. EDGAR

Deu 34:1-12

The death and burial of Moses.

We have in this concluding chapter the remarkable account of the death and burial of Moses. He had, as we have seen, blessed the tribes; he had laid his hands on Joshua (verse 9), and thus ordained him, so to speak, to the leadership; he had given his manuscripts to the priests to be deposited in the ark; and now all that remains for him to do is to take the course God indicated to the mountain-top, see the Promised Land, and die. It has suggested some noble sermons, to which we would at once refer before proceeding with a few observations suggested by the history.

I. LET US NOTICE THE VIEW OF CANAAN AND OF LIFE FROM THE MOUNTAIN–TOP. It is evident, we think, that Moses went up the mountain without an escort. He was going up to hold high communion with God, as he had done on Sinai. Mountain-tops are favorite places for communion with God in the case of busy men like Moses and our Savior (cf. Luk 9:28). It was a sublime solitude, filled with the presence of God. Sooner or later, God draws his servants upwards out of the bustle of life to have special communion with him and finish their course with joy. Moses, moreover, had an undimmed eye at this time, and his natural force was in no wise abated. His outlook was consequently clear. The land of promise lay out before him in all its attractiveness, and he could have wished to cross the Jordan and see it, and the goodly mountain, Lebanon. But the view of it, clear and glorious, is all that in the present life he is to receive. Now, it is sometimes insinuated that saintly, self-denying men, whose lives according to worldly notions have been incomplete and unsuccessful, are unable to form a proper judgment about their careers, and must regret them. But as a rule, God gives in life’s last hours the “undimmed eye,” and his servants are enabled to see life’s relations clearly, and the land of promise under the sunset glow. They regret their incomplete lives as little as Moses did his from the mountain-top.

Jonathan Edwards notices, in his ‘Notes on the Bible,’ that “God ordered that Aaron and Moses should go up to the tops of mountains to die, to signify that the death of godly men is but an entrance into a heavenly state;” and Baumgarten has made a similar remark regarding the death of Aaron. “The circumstance that it was expressly fixed that Aaron should die upon a mountain, and so upon a place which through its very nature points to heaven, the seat of Jehovah, throws into the darkness of his death a ray (Strahl) of hope.” The mountain-tops to these great brothers were indeed the gate of heaven, whence clear views of life and of the hereafter were obtained.

II. THE CIRCUMSTANTIALS OF THE DEATH OF MOSES ARE UNIQUE IN THEIR SIMPLE MAJESTY. It has been said that the presence of Moses on the mount of Transfiguration must have suggested a contrast between his death on the top of Pisgah and our Lord’s approaching death amid the mocking crowds at Jerusalem. And what a contrast there is between the two departures! In the one case, the servant of God dies amid the solemn grandeur of the hills, with the sunset glow around himdies, as some Jewish doctors say, “of the kiss of the Eternal;” in the other case, our Lord dies amid the ribaldry and scoffing of overcrowded Jerusalem. There may have been an clement of sadness in Moses dying on the threshold of the Promised Land; but there was an element of glory in the death-bed among the mountains.

III. GOD IN HIS LOVE NOT ONLY TOOK CHARGE OF THE DYING BUT ALSO OF THE DEAD.

He died with God; and God buried him. No wonder the poetess calls it “the grandest funeral that ever passed on earth.”

“And had he not high honor?

The hill-side for his pall;

To lie in state, while angels wait

With stars for tapers tall;

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave;

And God’s own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave!”

This disposal of the body, as well as of the departed spirit, was surely a significant act on the part of God. He took the matter as completely out of the hands of Israel, as in the Resurrection our Lord’s body was taken out of the keeping of the Roman guard. Was it not to indicate that the body as well as the soul is to share in the redeeming care of God, and so far an earnest of the resurrection?

IV. THE PRIVACY OF THE TOMB IS ALSO INSTRUCTIVE. Manifestly all Israel saw was the retirement of Moses to the mount; for the rest, his death and his Divine burial, they were dependent upon faiththey believed him when he told them he was going away by death, and that they need make no preparations for him, as God would bury him. Had it not been for his prophetic notice, they might have concluded he was translated. It was a matter of faith entirely, and no searching could bring it within the range of sight. The privacy of the tomb compelled them to take the funeral and burial on trust. The mourning and weeping for a month arose really from faith; Moses was notGod took him; but they had only Moses’ word for it that he was to die with God, and be buried by him.

And God’s dealing with our dead must remain still a matter of faith to us, though of fruition unto them. We believe the very dust of the saints is dear to God, but we have to put their remains in a coffin, and deposit them amid common clay. We believe their spirits are in his safekeeping, but they send no messages and make no sign. If sense is the measure of our knowledge, then assuredly we may put Christian hope into the realm of beautiful dreams, of which there is as little sensible evidence as of Moses’ tomb. But there are “foundations of faith” as strong as those of sense and sight. In such assurance, we believe that God took charge of Moses, body and soul, and will take as real and as faithful charge of us.R.M.E.

HOMILIES BY D. DAVIES

Deu 34:1-8

The calm sunset of an eventful day.

A man’s death is in keeping with a man’s life. You cannot have a tropical sunset in an arctic zone. It is vain to live the life of the voluptuous, and desire “the death of the righteous.” Enoch’s death corresponded with Enoch’s life. The spirit of Elijah was characterized by heavenly fire: he ruled men with burning words of truth; it was, therefore, meet that he should depart as a king, “in a chariot of flame.” Our Lord’s whole life was a crucifixionsublime self-sacrifice; it was fitting, then, that he should die upon a cross. Moses was transcendently great; in native grandeur he towered like a mountain above his brethren. To be in the society of God was his delight; hence there was a propriety that he should die alone, and upon the mount with God.

I. THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN HAS MANY GRACIOUS MITIGATIONS. It is not un-mingled sorrow. The evil in it is reduced to an infinitesimal point. It is a passing cloud, while the sun in its strength shines on the other side, and often penetrates the thin vapor. It is not the valley of humiliation, but the mount of communion. Visions denied to us before are vouchsafed to us now. God is nearer to us than ever yet; and though earthly friends cannot accompany us along the mystic path, strong angels are at our side to bear us on their wings to the glory-land.

“The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged above the common walks of life;
Almost upon the very verge of heaven.”

II. DEATH OFTEN REVEALS TO US WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE ATTAINED. In the hour of dissolution, Moses saw what he might have enjoyed if he had neglected no opportunity in the past. That faulty past is irrecoverable. We may obtain pardon the most ample and complete; but we cannot regain lost ground. Well for us if, on our deathbeds, we have only one fault to bemoan; and yet one fault may entail immeasurable loss. When we stand face to face with death, we shall see the value of life as we have never seen it yet; we shall lament our negligence’s as we have never lamented them before. What illustrious characters we might have acquired! What conquests of good we might have won! What service for God we might have wrought! Alas! some well-meant purpose still remains immature!

III. DEATH TO A GOOD MAN IS NEEDFUL FOR FULL POSSESSION. The land which God had sworn to give to Abraham and his seed, Moses was permitted to see, and in part to possess. Yet, had he gone over Jordan and endured the fatigues of battle and dwelt in the land, his soul would not have been satisfied therewith. As his powers of soul matured and ripened, he would have desired a better inheritance than Canaan could yield. The old yearning would have come back again, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory.” The soul yearns for knowledge which earth does not permit. We long to pass the barriers of darkness and tread the plains of everlasting light. Impatiently the spirit beats against the bars of this fleshly cage, and longs to find her proper wings. We must pass through the dark gateway of death ere the soul can enter upon the full “inheritance of the saints.”

IV. THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN IS IN PART THE PROCESS OF NATURAL LAW, IN PART THE PENALTY OF MORAL LAW. So far as man partakes of animal life, so far he is under the law, which rules animal natures. In every animal species we discern the stages of birth, growth, maturity, decay, death. But man is endowed with regal powers, which give him, in some measure, dominion over his animal nature. Yet, as a fact, men die before their physical powers have decayed. In earlier ages of human history, human life reached to centuries, while now barely to four score years. Moses was called to die, but “his eye was not dim, nor had his natural force abated.” In his case we are authoritatively informed that his premature decease was due to guilt. The moral conduct of men does operate, then, in modifying the laws of nature. There is an unseen lawa law of Godwhich interlaces the laws and forces of the visible world, just as the system of nerves interlaces and animates the muscles of human flesh. The time and the mode of the believer’s death are not the outcome of natural law; they are fixed by the wisdom and the kindness of our personal God.

V. THE LIFELESS BODIES OF THE SAINTS ARE THE ESPECIAL CARE OF GOD. “God buried him in a valley in the land of Moab.” There is a secrecy and a mystery about Moses’ burial, which it would be profanity to attempt to penetrate. On a later page of Scripture we read that, respecting this body of Moses, Michael had a serious dispute with the devil. We feel bound to connect this mysterious disposal of Moses’ lifeless body with the appearance of the same glorified body on the Mount of Transfiguration. But the point which concerns us at present is this; God has manifested in various ways his tender regard for the mortal remains of his servants. The elementary particles may dissolve, but the personal organization shall survive. “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” Yet, by the conserving power of Deity, it is a body still, though fitted more completely in the future as a vehicle for perception, intercourse, motion, and free activity. We can be well content to entrust every interest we have in life with him “who counts the very hairs of our head.”

VI. THE DEATH OF A GOOD MAN IS AN OCCASION FOR EXTENSIVE SORROW. “The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.” Although he had often severely censured them, exposed faithfully their faults, and denounced their vices, they knew they had lost a genuine friend. Never would they look upon their noble leader’s face again. His fatherly interest in them could never be replaced. Not till he was gone did they learn what a fount of blessing he had been. Had this coming event been steadily kept before them, they would have treated him with more generous esteem, and would have rendered to his counsels a more loyal respect. Now they lash themselves with just remorse. A good man’s departure leaves a great vacancy in the Church and in the social circle. Shall we be thus missed when death hath laid us low?

Yet the days of mourning even for a good man must cease. There are sterner duties in life demanding unceasing care, and our sorrow for the departed ought to qualify us for future service.D.

Deu 34:9

Posthumous influence.

Although dead, Moses still ruled. His spirit reappeared in his successor. The principles of Moses had been planted in the nature of Joshua: these had flourished and come to maturity. The memory of Moses was still a mighty power in Israel, and they “did,” all through the days of Joshua, “as the Lord commanded Moses.” The legislator had molded and trained the warrior. Moses was promoted to higher honor, because Joshua was better qualified for this new workthe realization of Israel’s destiny.

I. NOTE THE HIGH QUALIFICATION OF JOSHUA. He was “full of the spirit of wisdom.” This is a rare gift. By nature he had been endowed with strength and fearless courage, so that he had been military lieutenant to Moses all through the desert. He was illustrious also for diligence and fidelity in a long career of service. Among the spies dispatched to Canaan, he (in company with Caleb) had been “faithful among the faithless found.” Now to courage and unbending loyalty there was added another endowment, and this in amplest measure: he was “filled with the spirit of wisdom.” “To him that hath, it shall be given.”

II. OBSERVE THE METHOD BY WHICH THIS WISDOM WAS ACQUIRED. “Moses had laid his hands upon him.” We need not limit our thoughts to a solitary act, even though it might be a solemn and religious act. We may rather think of the plastic, formative influence which Moses had exerted over the growing character of this young man. It is astonishing what immense power God has entrusted to our hands for fashioning and embellishing the spiritual nature of men. By a wise employment of spiritual energy, we can direct into right channels the lives of many; by implanting right principles into youth, and by awakening into vigorous activity the latent forces of character, we may elevate a citywe may influence the destinies of the world.

III. MARK THE BENEFICIAL EFFECT. “The children of Israel hearkened unto him.” Moses influenced for good his servant Joshua. Joshua influenced for good the nation of Israel. The twelve tribes felt the force of Joshua’s character, and yielded to the wisdom which he displayed. They were a different people as the consequence of Joshua’s leadership. He touched, through Israel, the fortunes of the world. The high example of Joshua provoked the imitation of the tribes. His combined wisdom and energy led them on to triumph. By virtue of his superlative wisdom he became, in God’s hands, a Savior, and remains, in name and office, the type of the world’s Redeemer.D.

Deu 34:10-12

Communion with God the secret of real power.

Leaving out of view our Lord Jesus Christ, there is no man who has left so deeply the impress of his character upon the world as the Jewish legislator. By no man have so many and such mighty works been achieved. By no man has such wise legislation been devised for the government of human society. By no man has a great national emancipation been so skillfully and successfully executed. At the time of our Lord, Moses still wielded a mighty scepter among the Jewish nation; and from that day to this, the influence of Moses has been powerfully felt. The history of the Western world would have been very different from what it is, if Moses had found an early grave among the rushes of the Nile. The secret of it ishe was a “man of God.”

I. COMMUNION WITH GOD IS THE HIGHEST ADVANTAGE MAN CAN ENJOY. The friendship of a wise and great man is an inestimable boon. To be in the society of a good man for an hour leaves a purifying and an elevating stimulus behind. We feel better and nobler for the contact. And if the friendly influence of a good man can find its way to intellect and conscience and feeling, how much more can the influence and energy of God! There is no doubt that God can find access to the nature he has made, and can enrich it with all good. The question is whether, considering our great demerit, Will he? This question also is completely answered by himself. He invites us to the closest friendshipwelcomes us to fullest intimacy. The words of Jesus Christ suffice to allay all doubt, “If any man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” We may not have visions of God precisely after the form and fashion that Moses had: these were adapted to a particular state of human development; but we may have contact with God as closecommunion as sweet and tender, as ever Moses enjoyed. “The fellowship of the Holy Ghost” is our special privilege. To us “the Spirit of truth” is given. And “truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

II. COMMUNION WITH GOD PRODUCES REAL GREATNESS OF CHARACTER. As a result of the intimacy between God and Moses, we read, there “arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses.” Intercourse with God purifies every feeling, elevates every aspiration, energizes every sterling principle, ennobles the whole man. The creative influence of the Almighty renews our innermost life. In the presence of God we become ashamed of our meanness and pride and folly. We see and feel how noble it is possible to become. We confess into his fatherly ear our sin: we resolve to do better in the future. The assurance of his sympathy and aid encourages us. We grow up into his image; we gradually find that this is our proper destiny”to be conformed to the image of his Son.”

III. COMMUNION WITH GOD GIVES US POWER OVER NATURE AND OVER MEN. It is admitted by scientists that the human will is the greatest force known, save the power of God. Now, fellowship with God strengthens that will. To his chosen friends, God conveys new power. On man was originally bestowed complete dominion over nature; and this prerogative is to be restored through the man Christ Jesus. Thus the prodigies wrought by Moses are declared to be signssymbols of greater things yet to be achieved. Our Lord has taught us that true faith can overturn the mountains. The possessor of faith is predicted to outstrip even Christ in mighty deeds.D.

HOMILIES BY J. ORR

Deu 34:1-4

Moses’ vision.

The end of Moses, viewing the land to which he had so long and so painfully been leading the people, yet not permitted to enter it-dying on the threshold of the accomplishment of all his hopes, and leaving Canaan to be won by his subordinate minister, Joshua,has often been likened to the common fate of the highest characters in history, “removed from this earthly scene before their work has been appreciated, and when it will be carried on, not by themselves, but by others.” Often, also, it has been likened to the visions of the “land beyond the flood” received through faith by dying Christians. They, however, see a land into which they are soon to enter; Moses looked on one from which he was debarred. This vision was-

I. A COMPENSATION FOR A GREAT LOSS. Not permitted to enter Canaan, Moses was yet permitted to see it. His eyes were strengthened to take in the vision of its goodliness from north to south, from east to west. How his spirit must have feasted on the widespread prospect! This compensation, we remember, was won from God by prayer (Deu 3:23 -39). We cannot always gain reversal of our punishment of loss; no, though we seek it carefully, with tears (Heb 12:17). But, while the losses remain, they may be sanctified to us, and, in answer to prayer, gracious compensations and mitigations granted.

II. A PERFECTING OF HOLY RESIGNATION. Then, no doubt, while looking on that good land, and feeling that he could not enter it, would Moses have his last struggle, and conquer his last lingering wish to have it otherwise than as God willed. We know how sore the struggle in his mind had been, how earnestly he had wrestled with God to have the sentence reversed (Deu 3:23-29). But it was not to be, and Moses must learn to say, as the Greater than Moses said long after, “Not my will, but thine be done!” (Luk 22:42). Who doubts but that the sacrifice was made? that Moses was brought to the point of perfect acquiescence before he died? And that in truth was a greater compensation than the other. The achieving so great a spiritual victory was well worth the surrender of the land. That victory, too, would take the sting of the trial away. The worst part of a trialnearly all that is bitter in itis past, when we are brought to the point of embracing the Divine will in it.

III. A TRANSITION TO A HIGHER HOPE. Is it possible to think that Moses, in laying down his life on that mountain summit, believed that he was laying it down forever? Could he believe, after all the relations of friendship which had subsisted between him and Jehovah, in view of that land of promise from which he was debarred, and at this very moment of his greatest spiritual triumph,that his death ended all? that there was no hereafter? that there was no compensation beyond? We may rather believe that, in this very perfecting of his soul in its holy acquiescence in the Divine will, there would spring up in his mind a holier hopea trust and assurance that all he now surrendered would be made up to him in some better form in heaven. What we part with on earth for Christ’s sake are our ultimate gains.J.O.

Deu 34:5, Deu 34:6

Moses’ death and burial.

Lessons from it

I. GOD WILL HAVE NO ONE, LIVING OR DEAD, TO STAND BETWEEN HIS CREATURES AND HIMSELF. “He dies apart, and is buried in secret, where his grave can be dishonored by no pilgrimage, and where no false veneration can rear altars to his memory.”

II. GOD WISHES MEN TO SEE SOMETHING MORE LEFT OF HIS SERVANTS THAN THE OUTWARD SHRINE. They had the life and words of Moses, which his shrine might have obscured. It was expedient that even Jesus should go away, that his spiritual presence and the spiritual significance of his work might be fully realized (Joh 16:7).

III. GOD TAKES THE HONOR OF HIS SERVANTS INTO HIS OWN KEEPING.

IV. GOD WOULD TEACH MEN THAT HE HAS A RELATION TO HIS SERVANTS WHICH EXTENDS BEYOND DEATH. “Can the Maker put so disproportionate an estimate upon his own handiwork, as carefully to store up the casket and throw away the precious jewel which it held?”

V. GOD WOULD TEACH MEN THAT HIS REGARD IS NOT CONFINED TO ANY CHOSEN SOIL. “In a valley in the land of Moab.” We have one more lesson from the New Testament

VI. THAT THE SEEMING FAILURE IN A TRUE LIFE MAY AT LAST HAVE A COMPLETE COMPENSATION. Moses did at last, with Elias, tread the soil of Palestine, and there see “the King in his beauty” (Mat 17:3). (Dr. John Ker.)J.O.

Deu 34:10-12

The greatness of Moses.

It was a greatness entirely unique. “There arose not a prophet,” etc. (Deu 34:10). His greatness lay largely in character. As a manin respect of qualities of characterMoses was one of the greatest men who have ever lived; perhaps, all things taken together, the greatest next to Christ. But so entirely is Moses the man lost in his relation to God as instrument of his will and work, that his greatness in the former respect is not in these verses even referred to. Moses is overshadowed by the God of Moses, whose power he wielded, and in whose Name alone he wrought. This greatness of Moses arose

I. FROM THE RELATION OF PECULIAR INTIMACY HE HELD TO GOD. “There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” (Deu 34:10). In this greatness Moses stood alone till there arose that greater Prophet, whose advent he had predicted (Deu 18:18).

II. FROM THE GREATNESS OF HIS WORK. (Deu 34:11.) He was sent to Egypt to deliver Israel. In this also a type of Christ.

III. IN THE POWER OF GOD PUT FORTH THROUGH HIM. (Deu 34:11, Deu 34:12.) True greatness therefore lies:

(1) in power of near approach to God;

(2) in great work done for God; and

(3) in spiritual power exerted through God acting m and with us.J.O.

Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Ver. 1-3. And Moses went up from the plains of Moab, &c. As soon as he had taken this solemn leave of his nation, Moses, according to the divine appointment, ch. Deu 32:49 retired privately to the top of mount Nebo called Pisgah, from whence God enabled him to take a distinct and particular prospect of the land of Canaan. The mention of Dan in the first verse, and the account of Moses’s death and burial, and of some particulars which happened after he had left the world, from the fifth verse to the end, shew, that this chapter was not written by Moses. It was probably added either by Samuel, Ezra, or some other of the prophets who succeeded him. It is said, that Moses went up from the plains of Moab, because this was their last station before they entered into Canaan. Dan was the utmost northern border of Canaan, situated at the rise of Jordan, and, at the time of this event, called Laish. The utmost sea, in the second verse, means the Mediterranean sea. The city of palm trees, ver. 3 means the city of Jericho, so called from the multitude of palm trees which grew about it, as Strabo, Pliny, and Josephus, testify.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES

Deu 34:1-12

1And Moses went up from the plains [steppes] of Moab, unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho: and the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Daniel , 2 And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost [hindermost] sea, 3And the south [south land, Negeb], and the plain [circuit] of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar. 4And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. 5So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according 6to the word [mouth, command] of the Lord. And he [they, one] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre1 7[burial, interment] unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim [extinguished, weak-sighted], nor his natural force [freshness] abated. 8And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days: so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended. 9And Joshua the son of Nun was full of [filled with] the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the Lord commanded Moses. 10And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 11In all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land; 12And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Deu 34:1-4. The plains of Moab.

Deu 34:1as throughout in the book of Numbers is the locality in which the Israelites encamped after the victory over the Amorites. The transaction with Balaam occurred there, and this is the plain referred to in Deu 1:1 sq. That part of the Arabah lying contiguous to the northern side and end of the Dead Sea, and eastwards, is the Arboth Moab. Through the reception of this formula, usual in the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy is finally organically connected with it. Comp. besides upon Deu 32:49; Deu 3:27; Deu 3:17. (The remarkable and strong desire of the dwellers in the desert for burial upon mountain heights is certainly primitive, says Consul Dr. Wetzstein in his Travels in Hauran and Trachonitis, Berlin, 1860, p. 26, in reference to the mountain sepulchres. An Arabic poem introduces the dying Sheikh as saying, Bury me not under the vine which would overshadow me, but upon a mountain, so that my eye can see you. Then pass by my grave and call your names, and my bones shall be quickened when they hear you call.) The emphatic details in the following description of the view, rest upon the knowledge of the writer of the wide prospect which presents itself there. All the land is, because especially grateful to Moses, at first Gilead (the East-Jordan land) unto Dannot Dan-Laish or Leschem, but as Gen 14:14, the neighboring Dan Jaan (2Sa 24:6). Comp. Hengstenberg, Beitrage III. p. 194. Looking around from the north to the south, the West-Jordan land is described Deu 34:2 in a way similar to the later Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. Comp. Deu 11:24. The naming of the districts, as they afterwards were assigned the different tribes, points to Joshua as the writer. Lastly, in Deu 34:3, the eye rests upon the warmer South, with which comp. Deu 1:7. is the circuit more closely defined through the following clause, the low plain of Jericho, thus the Jordan valley. How well the eye could repose here! A feeling of the same kind lies at the basis of the proverb: See Naples and die. The description of Jericho as the city of palm trees (the high, erect) brings this out more fully still. Sepp: At the time of the crusades the oasis of Jericho rose again into a garden of Palestine; now a wretched sight, where balsam-trees once waved, and stately palms swayed their crowns. Of the renowned palm-groves, whence the name palm city is derived, only one stunted tree remains to-day. Josephus asserts that the district is correctly called an earthly paradise. Ritter, XV. p. 500. , Gen 19:22; Gen 13:10; Gen 14:2, at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. The description which the writer could thus give from his knowledge of the outlook from Nebo, he completes by an application in Deu 34:4 of the passage Num 27:12 sq.: And see the land which I gave to the children of Israel (comp. Deu 32:49) for the present case. Comp. further Gen 12:7; Deu 1:37. With thine eyes excludes as the testimony Deu 34:7, also every esctatic vision, still more any magical influence (Mat 4:8; Luk 4:5), but also, it seems clear, any miraculously elevated power of bodily vision for the purpose (Baumgarten, Keil). It was even a proof of his generally unimpaired strength of vision, which the soaring flight of winged faith rendered more penetrating.

2. Deu 34:5-8. After this introduction there follows now the death and burial of Moses, and the mourning for him. His death occurs upon Nebo, after this survey of the land granted to him in the room of an actual passage into it. Deu 34:5. here, in Deu 33:1, . Essentially of the same import, although here the contrast to what is human could not be emphasized, since Moses dies even as all men must die. On the contrary, the emphasis rests upon , who sanctifies himself in his servant, when his servant failed to sanctify him at the proper place. If Deu 33:1 brings out more fully the official prophetic activity of Moses, so his official regal or theocratic activity is prominent here. In the land of Moabi.e., not in the promised land. (Deu 17:11; Deu 1:26) does not mean that Moses died at the mouth, kiss of the Lord. [It means unquestionably that the death of Moses took place, not as a result of exhausted vital powers, but at the command of Goda command which came as a fruit of his sin, and as a punishment for it.A. G.] Deu 34:6. may be generally they, one, buried him; thus the Sept., De Wette, Ewald, Knobel, and others. The connection here does not require an altogether peculiar kind of burial (Kurtz), in the sense that Jehovah Himself must have buried him; the necessities of the case are met, if the burial was so secretly cared for by trusted, appointed ones, that the place where Moses was buried should be concealed from every one. But in the New Testament (Jude, Deu 34:9) we have an intimation of mysterious and super-earthly forces or agencies in reference to the body of Moses (comp. further Mat 17:3; Mar 9:4; Luk 9:30). This may be only a fittting regard for the Jewish tradition, which Jude assumes in those whom he addressed, in the interest of the controversy he was then carrying on with his opponents. But the Jewish tradition does not conform itself precisely to the letter of the Apostle (comp. upon that passage), and the connection here appears on the whole, from the foregoing Deu 34:4, to be in favor of regarding Jehovah as the subject. Ziegler: Jude, Deu 34:9, intimates that God was not directly Himself, but indirectly, namely, through the Archangel Michael, who represents the Jewish people, the one who buried the body of Moses. We may comp. upon this Dan 10:13; Dan 12:1 (Rev 12:7). may signify primarily to bring together, collect, in agreement with Deu 32:50; but this supposition is not of such force that we should render: and Jehovah gathered him with his associates there in the valley; for although may signify burial (Jer 22:19), thus here; and no one knows how it occurred with his burialwhether he was really altogether buried; still the reference to the grave (Gen 35:20) is more obvious. Therenot merely with (, to compress; thus, valley, literally ravine, defile, , is equivalent to, in some certain depression, hollow place,so that it is not necessary to refer to Deu 3:29; Deu 4:46, but rather to Num 21:20, a high valley near the summit of Nebo (Hengstenberg, Hist. of Balaam), as Keil holds), but still so that the locality should be made prominent,he was buried. Moses did not return from his so frequently repeated, and by Joshua declared, solitary death-journey to Nebo. They are no mere empty repetitions but designed and preparatory. His grave was not to be disclosed, so that there remains for the pious consciousness no other supposition than that of a peculiar divine arrangement in regard to the body of Moses (comp. Doct. and Eth. remarks), which a divine illumination raised to certain knowledge and conviction in the writer. We may observe that the case of Enoch, in his indeed peculiar manner of departure, was still ever received by Israel from Gen 5:24. (Aben Ezra explains according to Exo 5:19 : he buried himself, i.e. went into a cave and died there).In the land of Moab, as in Deu 34:5. as in Deu 3:14. Since Moses, according to Deu 34:7, upon which Deu 34:1-4 rest, could have lived longer, so his death appears as a punishment, and the view of his grave and burial given above is confirmed. This view is to be maintained, as his grave and burial testify that he is truly dead. According to Jewish computation in the year of the world 2533, and B. C. 1458. Comp. further Deu 31:2. Aaron died somewhat older, Num 33:39. Moses did not die as Isaac, Gen 27:1.Natural force, margin: moisture (freshness), mental and bodily soundness, full, vital energy. As the honoring of Moses, on the part of God, as to his death, so also the mourning, Deu 34:8, on the part of the people, corresponds to this divine preservation and blessing.Thirty days, as with Aaron (Num 20:29), as with Jacob (after the forty days for the embalming were closed), Gen 1:3. In other cases seven days merely, Gen 1:10 sq.; 1Sa 31:13. The distinguishing feature here is the full celebration of this mourning ( and , the two together for the sake of strength and emphasis), as this same people, Exo 32:1, had, instead of mourning for the absence of Moses, danced around the calf. Deuteronomy with the close of the time of mourning embraces a period of two months. Comp. Introd., p. 11.

3. Deu 34:9-12. Form the close of the supplement of Deuteronomy by Joshua, and give the point of union for the subsequent development of Israel and its characteristics, with the peculiar personality and official character of Moses (Introd., p. 4). Deu 34:9. Joshua personally, the Spirit of wisdom in its fulness really (, the power to perceive the nature in and through the appearances, , Delitzsch, Isa 11:2); the latter bestowed upon the former officially by the laying on of the hands, still customary in the New Testament (Schultz). Comp. Act 6:6; Act 8:17; 2Ti 1:6, and thus the next subsequent time of Israel, comp. Num 27:18 sq., is introduced.[ is used in varied applications in the Scriptures, from the lowest exercises of wisdom to its highest, when it becomes equivalent to piety. Here perhaps it is the practical wisdom, that which was necessary to his office as the leader of the peopleA. G.]The obedience of Israel legitimates the succession of Joshua as a matter of fact; but Moses ever remains the first. The wisdom of Joshua reveals itself still further, and therefore the wisdom of the author and writer of these supplements of Deuteronomy, in Deu 34:10, when the peculiar, fundamental character of the appearance of Moses for all subsequent time is at the very first distinctly recognized and stated. (That Joshua should already make this remark is explained upon the ground that he had from his stand-point an insight into the course of the history of Israel. Baumgarten.) Comp. Deu 18:15 sq.; Exo 33:11; Num 12:8.[The words do not necessarily imply that a long series of prophets had risen up since Moses. They are plainly prophetic, grounded upon special insight into the future, upon the passages referred to, and upon the known position of Moses as the founder of the Old Covenant.A. G.]It is especially the personal nearness and the confidential, conversational manner of Jehovah with Moses which are alluded to (Baumgarten: who knew him, Jehovah (?)), while Joshua, e.g. is dependent upon the high-priestly office (Num 27:21). Upon this rests the clear and all comprehensive revelation (V. Gerlach), which fell to the lot of Moses. Comp. Doct. and Eth. upon chap, 32; from this arises also, Deu 34:11-12, the wonderful and mighty agency of Moses, of which all Israel is the witness. , etc., must be taken in connection with . Deu 34:12. Mighty hand is equivalent to power shown and experienced, Deu 4:34; Deu 6:22; Deu 7:19; Deu 11:3; Deu 26:8; Deu 29:1-2.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The look of Moses over Canaan reminds us of Gen 13:14-15. Still, how different the end of Moses, and that of Abraham! Abraham died in a good old age, old and full of years; Moses dies under a divine judicial sentence, and it is remarkable, says Auberlen (Contributions to Christian Knowledge, p. 74), that while the word faith never occurs expressly in the Pentateuch in reference to Moses, his unbelief as such is charged upon him, Num 20:12. There was nothing ever expressly blamed in Abraham; in the time of the law, God reproves and punishes sins more sharply. Thus the law-giver must experience the killing strength of the strict divine law. The man of promise and of faith receives a pleasant, peaceful departure out of this life; but there lies upon the death of the man of the law, somewhat of the curse of the law, something unatoned which calls so much the louder for the reconciliation in the New Covenant, for redemption from sin and death, Rom 4:15; Rom 3:20; 2Co 3:6.

2. As Christ, the Mediator of the New Covenant, leaves His disciples before they were made partakers of the promise of the Holy Spirit, and were endowed with strength from on high for the new life, so Moses, the Mediator of the Old Covenant, must take his departure before the people in possession of the promised land saw the word of God fulfilled, and even were filled with it. V. Gerlach.

3. Moses saw the Holy Land from afar, as the saints of the Old Testament all the promises, Heb 11:13; he saw it as the shadow and outline of the true Canaan (Heb 11:16), into which he should immediately pass without having seen it beforehand. Richter.

4. The vision of the promised land is on one side indeed a favor; but then it was likewise added: and thither thou shalt not come, and thus there is contained in it on the other side also the full severity of the sentence against Moses. So also the preservation of the vital strength of Moses is, on one hand, a proof of special grace, and on the other presents this Moses as a transgressor likewise, who has cast away his life, and was led to death in the midst of his days. That Moses, the servant of Jehovah, must suffer this sore death, is a fearful triumph of the power of death, at which all human nature must grow faint and despair. But Israel could not endure this victory of death over its head and its leader, and would fall into doubt past recovery, whether his redemption and his law could work, secure, even the least enduring salvation, if no ray of light should fall upon this power of death over Moses, and this consoling ray streams forth from the burial of Moses. Because some have failed to look into the whole depth of the death of Moses, they have failed also rightly to understand his burial. Baumgarten.

5. Wonderful in his childhood and in his whole life, so also now in his death. The man whom the Lord had so known heretofore that no prophet should arise henceforth like him in Israel, was after his whole manifestation so hidden in God that even his body was not buried by any human hand. His appearance is like the lightning-flash, which breaks forth suddenly from the darkness, shows a shining path before the people for a moment, and then immediately vanishes, even as to its material substance, to a place which no one can find. Ziegler. Josephus relates that Moses, after he had embraced Joshua and Eleazar for the last time, while he was still speaking to them, was suddenly borne away by a cloud into a valley, and so vanished from their sight. It is interesting also in reference to his character as a legislator, in which he stands related to Moses, that even Calvins grave cannot be found.

6. The reason usually given since the time of Augustine why the burial of Moses was held and kept so secret is not as Ziegler formulates it: probably for this reason, that thereby his body and grave should be kept from being regarded as relies of the dead, thus for the sake of the distant future, and before that future, to debar any possible superstition or idolatrous reverence for his grave. Schultz says correctly: The Israelites were never inclined to human idolatry. But if he actually stood in so clear a relation to God as the history in the Pentateuch represents, he could not so fall under the power of death and corruption that nothing of that earlier distinction should remain. It was not necessary for the sake of Israel that they should look upon that face laid in death which had once so shone from communion with God, that he had to put a veil upon it, as Jerome has already remarked. Comp. Kurtz, Geshich. II., pp. 526 sq., who urges against the reason above mentioned the fact that every one knew where the grave of Abraham was, and then asserts that the burial of Moses was intended to place him in the same category with Enoch and Elijah, not indeed as to an exemption from death, but most probably from corruption; the form of existence in the life beyond was similar to theirs; the way to it for him was different from that for them; but still not in a condition of absolute perfection and glorification of which Christ must be the first-fruits (1Co 15:20; 1Co 15:23), although not either in the condition of the dark Sheol-life, etc.

7. The wonderful burial of Moses has also its decided prophetic element with reference to the burial of Christ; the discourse, however, cannot relate to the resurrection, as to this a veil lies upon the Old Covenant generally. The fact that Jehovah notwithstanding Satans protest (remarks Kurtz, Geshich. II., p. 529 sq.), exempts the body of Moses from the general doom of the sinful human race, becomes a type and example of future endlessly greater and more glorious things. That the founder of the Old Covenant must die on account of sin is a testimony to the truth, that he is not the true mediator, and that the covenant introduced by him is not complete; that it, although founded, needs still a completion through a second Mediator, who lives forevermore. The death of Moses was not like the death of the first Adam which issued in corruption; but neither was it like the death of the second Adam which issues in the resurrection; it was rather a middle form of death between the two, as Moses himself and his office occupied a middle position between the first and the second Adam, between the head of the sinful, dying humanity and the head of the humanity redeemed from sin and death. Since the death of Moses was indeed a real death, but still as to its natural progress restrained, and his condition therefore an imperfect one, still in suspense, which demands and awaits a completion, it becomes itself a prophecy of this completion. And if Moses who was entrusted with the whole house of God could not still bring the organization of the house of God to its absolute perfection, and therefore received the promise of a second prophet and mediator, so we are justified also in regarding his peculiar, unique death and burial as a memorable type of the death and burial of this future prophet like unto Moses.

8. Compare the seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. In this at the same time personal and universal historical Pauline deduction, we have stated the ground of that strife between Satan and Michael about the body of Moses. The fact that the law through the sin already existing before it, becomes an incitement, a cause and temptation to wider sin; that through it sin is first truly set in its full light, first becomes strong, living, even more and more powerful and exceedingly sinful; this is the ground for the apparent claim of right on the part of Satan to the body of Moses, which claim was so apparent and plausible, that Michael did not bring against him a railing accusation, etc. But the fact that the law, notwithstanding its working evil, through the corrupted state of the human conscience, through which it could even become an instrument in the hands of Satan, is holy, just, and good, and as it was given by God originally, tended only to life,this was the ground of the real and legal claim on the part of Michael to the body of Moses. [When the Israel of God goes into the spiritual Canaan, under the command and leading of Jesus, the divine Joshua, then the law which is as it were the body of Moses, is buried; for we are become dead to the law, by the body of Christ, that we should be joined to another, Jesus,even to Him who is raised from the dead, (Rom 7:1-4), and it is God only who can bury the body of Moses, because it is only God in Christ who could abolish its ordinances, and reclaim it from its curse (Rom 8:3; Gal 3:13; Col 2:14; Col 2:17; Heb 9:9-11; Heb 10:1-9); and now that it is buried, let no one seek to revive it as the Judaizers did, (Gal 4:9-11; Gal 5:4). Wordsworth.A. G.].

9. The peculiar preservation (Schultz upon Deu 34:7) of those who live more than others in the Lord, appears in another form; the outward eye is closed in order that the inward may see the more clearly; then arises a new world, and an inward life-energy unfolds itself, which is not less wonderful than the outward. But still for those whose mission concerns pre-eminently external things, Moses remains their permanent type. Homer, on the other hand, is always represented as blind.

10. The personality of Moses at its beginning and close appears to be typical for the later prophetic order; at least in the first relation the calling of Jeremiah (Deu 1:6, comp. Exo 3:11), appears to be connected with that of Moses, and in the last we are reminded of the wonderful end of Elijah. Elisha as Joshua.

11. [There is but One who is worthy of greater honor than Moses, namely, the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, who is placed as a Son over all the house of God, in which Moses was found faithful as a servant (comp. Heb 3:2-6 with Num 12:7), Jesus Christ, the founder and Mediator of the New and Everlasting Covenant. Keil. Whom God not only knew face to face as He knew Moses, but who is in the bosom of the Father, (Joh 1:18), and in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom (Col 2:3), and all the fulness of the Godhead (Col 2:9), Wordsworth.A. G.].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Deu 34:1 sq. Starke: Pious Christians do not fear death, but look forward to it; and go to meet it with peace, Luk 2:29; Php 1:23; Gen 49:33. Cramer: Whoever will die blessed should refresh his faith in the ascension of Christ, and his hope that believers leaving the world follow him. The God of peace has brought again from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, etc., Heb 13:20.Starke: Faithful servants of God, who have borne great labor and care in their office, must often leave the world before they enjoy the fruits of their toil.God does not permit His children to leave the world without consolation, but gives them a foretaste of future glory, Luk 2:29-30; Act 7:55-56. Berl. Bib.: God leads men inwardly also to a mountain, and shows them the throne of eternity, and as then the sweet drops of the heavenly Jerusalem fall upon their hearts, so they look into the promised land.But Satan also imitates God, and stands upon the heights, Matthew 4.

Deu 34:4. Starke: With God there is no respect of persons, He punishes whoever sins, the high as well as the lowly.

Deu 34:5. Be faithful unto death, Rev 2:10.If the faithfulness of the Lord to us is our beginning and progress, our goal is our faithfulness to the Lord.Starke: The truest glory, and the most honorable title in death: a faithful servant of the Lord.Whether any one is faithful can first be said at the end.Consider their conversation, end, Heb 13:7.A good end places the crown upon a good life.The last journey of Moses: may our end be that of this righteous one.Florey: The death of Moses a testimony, how the divine grace reveals itself to the faithful servants of God, even in their departure: 1) because the faithful servants of God have their departure in serene strength; 2) because they enjoy communion with God until their very end; 3) because they may in this life already have a view of the land of promise; 4) because they are blessed of the Lord with believing successors. Berl. Bib.: In the opinion of the Jews he died at the end of our February.But the glory of the first covenant must cease, and it cannot bring ns to blessedness.

Deu 34:6. We should not confound, as it concerns the guarding against possible idolatry, Moses with Mohammed.Richter: In the Ante-type, Christ, the angels also were active. Lange: At death the soul journeys upwards, but the body must come to the earth, the deep valley of its true humiliation. Cramer: Christ has buried Moses and silenced the curse of the law, (1Ti 1:15; Rom 6:14; Rom 8:1), therefore we do not fear in death.Starke: The care of God for His own does not cease, neither in death nor after it. Deu 34:7.Zinzendorf: In the world it occurs truly, that one grows so old that he is unable to do anything, and if he has been a great man some seventy years, still in his last days passes into oblivion. On the other hand, our verse is a testimony which is in part unique, that we do not come into rest, and obtain permission in weariness to lay aside our work before all His counsel has come to pass. Lange: The strength of Moses, even until his death, represents that his economy should remain in its full strength until the death of Christ. Until that occurred the disciples of Christ were bound by it, Luk 17:14. Deu 34:8. Berlb. Bib.: It is sad to separate from godly persons and guidance, especially if we through their service have seen and known much of the glory and power of God. Deu 34:9. Wurth. Bib.: Upon whom God imposes an office, him He qualifies with the necessary gifts for its duties. Richter: The cheerful obedience of Israel is confirmed through the book of Joshua. Moses brought the people to this, that it was obedient to Joshua; thus the law brings us to Christ, and remains our rule, if we will follow the true Joshua. Deu 34:10 sq. Starke: Pious, excellent people, may be held in honorable remembrance in funeral discourses, monumental inscriptions, and the like, Psa 112:6. Auberlen: The relation of the promise to the law, impresses itself even upon their representatives. But with this is connected the fact that the work of Moses is altogether different from that of Abraham. The one receives, the other gives. Naturally Moses gave only to the people what he had received from God; but his essential work is to introduce what he had received to the people; he is the mediator between God and the people (Gal 3:20). Abraham, on the other hand, has only to receive in faith what God offered him, and to preserve it; he had to mediate for no one besides his family, and especially the children of the promise (Gen 18:19), but this even in no essential respect different from that in which every father of a family, and even Moses himself must care for the religious instruction of his own. Thus Abrahams calling in relation to God is entirely closed in faith; here also lie the difficulties, temptations, and thorns of his path; he is exclusively the religious hero. In Moses on the contrary, his relation to the people grows out of, and rests upon his relation to God; faith in him is, so to speak, a presupposition, under which he has a great work to do, love to exercise, since the liberation and leading of the people was given into his hands. From religious roots there grew up for him mighty moral labors. The difficulties in his pathway lay therefore in relation to the people, in this, that he had ever anew to bear and overcome the murmuring and obstinacy of the children of Israel. God made faith much easier to him than to Abraham. While God appears to Abraham only now and then, and after long intervals, Moses has constantly the divine presence a presence which is a revelation, in the pillar of cloud and fire, and was honored also with much oftener repeated, more lengthy, and more condescending, special revelations, etc. While still further Abraham in the revelations of God, was accustomed only to receive words from him, words of promise, which offer to him no present good, but point him to a most indefinite future, Moses saw in Egypt and the desert, the great deeds of God, his faith was strengthened by these mighty wonders, which have somewhat not only directly convincing, but overpowering in themselves. Moreover Moses himself is endowed with miraculous strength, and could thus feel the Divine strength present in his own person, (Exo 4:1 sq.), which was not the case with Abraham, since he did not have to deal with an unbelieving people. Lastly, Moses was prepared for his task with all the means of human science and culture (Act 7:22) while Abraham was a simple shepherd, and his wisdom doubtless purely the divine. Thus Moses has fulfilled his calling entirely, with the same faithfulness that Abraham manifested in his, although he has not attained the same measure with him in the life of faith. He is so good a shepherd (comp. Joh 10:11), that he not only, when Jehovah offered him, to make him as it were a new Abraham, declined the offer (Exo 32:11) but will suffer himself to be blotted out from the book of life, for an atonement for the sins of his people, (Deu 34:32). While he thus in self-denying love mediates for the people with God, he does not on the other hand grow weary in bearing their obstinacy and complaints. As therefore Abraham was renowned for the special charism of faith, so Moses was for that of patience (Num 12:3). Compare the connection of faith and patience, Rev 13:10. As therefore Abraham as the father of believers surpassed all his successors, in faith, so Moses is glorified, in the fact, that henceforth no prophet should arise in Israel like unto him, i.e., among all those who might have the same task with him, namely, to bring the word of God to the people, and to be through that word a leader and shepherd for it. Moses was, as in respect to time, so also in fact, as in the commencement of his calling, so in his faithfulness to it afterwards, the first and most prominent. Thus we recognize with a holy admiration how God adjusts so fitly their callings to His chosen, and measures to them with the same fitness the burdens and duties, the helps and alleviations. He is truly a God to whom one may safely entrust himself. But He will never permit heavy labors, temptations, and crushing sorrows, to fail any one of His servants; they all bear the cross, and must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

Footnotes:

[1][Deu 34:6. The A. V. is preferable to that suggested by Schroeder. It is the place of burial, not the fact, which is unknown.A. G.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS

Here is related to us, the account of Moses’ death. To whose pen we are indebted for the relation of it, under the HOLY GHOST, is not said. The LORD gives his servant a view of the promised land: to which is added, the account of his death and burial, the mourning of Israel for Moses, and the appointment of Joshua as his successor.

Deu 34:1

Moses’ ascension to the top of Pisgah, for the purpose of seeing the holy land, opens to our contemplation a very interesting subject. Do not all believers in JESUS, truly behold with an eye of faith, that upper brighter world, of which this Canaan was a type? what is it to see the land that is very far off, when once the eye of the soul hath seen the king in his beauty, but to see GOD’S covenant love in JESUS, his grace, his salvation, his sure promises, as yea and Amen, and firmly made over to the soul, in the blood and righteousness of a Redeemer? Reader, if the LORD gives to you, and to me, that firm and well-founded assurance in JESUS, of an interest in him, so that we die as we have lived, upon those sure principles; is not this to ascend, like Moses the top of Pisgah, and by faith, behold the glory that shall be revealed.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

The Death of Moses

Deu 34:1-12

‘Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah’ (v. 1). There were other Old Testament death-scenes transacted on the mountains. It was on Mount Gilboa that Saul leaned upon his spear and slew himself. And it was on the summit of Hor that Aaron died. It was near the top of Pisgah that Balaam said, ‘Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his’. Compare these two. Very near the place where Balaam was Moses died. Yet what a difference! There are many, says Matthew Henry, who desire to die the death of the righteous, but do not endeavour to live the life of the righteous.

According to the word of the Lord (v. 5) literally, according to the mouth of the Lord; whence grew the popular belief that God kissed Moses and he died.

Life’s Unfinished Tasks

Deu 34:4

Moses, after so many years of toil and suffering, stands at the border of the Promised Land, but is not allowed to cross that border. One sin kept him out. Very few of us are allowed to finish the work to which we have set our hand, and we are called from our work just when the reward of completed labour is almost within our reach.

I. These words come to the thinker, to the man who seeks an answer to the questions of the reason, to him who would read the riddle of the painful earth. What do our greatest scientists know of matter? What matter is in itself they cannot tell. Or the thinker may ask what is space? What is time? Again we ask, Is there a Divine and Sovereign Will in the universe? Is there some far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves? These are but a few of the questions thinkers have been discussing for nearly three thousand years. To every thinker, who struggles to reach the region of metaphysical or scientific certitude, there come the words that came of old to Moses.

II. But these words come not only to the man of thought, but also to the man of action the reformer, the statesman, the philanthropist, the inventor, the artist. Livingstone devoted thirty years of his life to Africa, and travelled thirty thousand African miles, that he might not only bring to that dark Continent the blessings of the Christian religion, but also that he might open it up to legitimate traffic, but he died before his task was done. It is said of Opie, that great painter, that despairing of reaching his ideal of artistic perfection, he one day flung down his brushes and cried, ‘I never, never shall be a painter’. Why, we ask, are men snatched away thus prematurely? It is something to have seen the land as Moses did, even from afar. Saint Columba, ere he died, had a vision of the fame and the influence of the little island of Iona. Those who have lived like Moses and Saint Columba died assured that their labours were not in vain.

III. These words also come to the saint. The Christian is one who is always looking forward to an ideal, to complete conformity to the image of Christ, to moral likeness to God in a human being. But that ideal the true Christian knows he has never attained.

T. B. McCorkindale, Christian World Pulpit, vol. LXXIV. p. 75.

Illustration. Max Mller, the great German philologist, while a young student in Paris, conceived the ambition of being enrolled amongst the members of the French Academy. He received that coveted honour and many another besides, for he was made a member of almost every learned society in Europe. When his youthful ambition was realized, he entered in one of his letters the words so full of pathos, coming from the pen of a man whose life was singularly fortunate: ‘The dream of the reality was better than the reality of the dream’.

References. XXXIV. 4. J. M. Neale, Readings for the Aged (3rd Series), p. 9; Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. i. p. 160. Bishop Woodford, Sermons, p. 27.

A Death in the Desert

Deu 34:5-6

The lessons of that death may best be learned if we bring them into contrast with another death and another grave those of the Leader of the New Covenant.

I. The Penalty of Transgression. A little sin done by a loftily endowed and inspired man ceases to be small. The smallest sin has in it the seeds of mortal consequences; and the loftiest saint does not escape the law of retribution. Turn to the other death His death was ‘the wages of sin’ too, and yet it proclaims ‘the gift of God,’ which is ‘eternal life’.

II. The Withdrawal, by a Hard Fate, of the Worker on the very Eve of the Completion of his Work. It is the lot of all epoch-making men that they should toil at a task the full issues of which will not be known until their heads are laid low in the dust.

III. The Lesson of the Solitude and Mystery of Death. Moses in that solitude had the supporting presence of God. There is a drearier desolation, and Jesus Christ proved it when He cried ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’

IV. The Uselessness of a Dead Leader to a Generation with New Conflicts. Moses did his work and was laid aside. Christ, and Christ alone, can never be antiquated.

A. Maclaren, The Freeman, 4 May, 1888.

References. XXXIV. 5, 6. J. W. Boulding, Sermons, p. 1. J. E. Walker, The Death of Aaron, and the Hidden Grave of Moses, No. 12. C. Kingsley, The Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 222.

The Significance of the Burial of Moses

Deu 34:6

I. I have often put to myself the question: Suppose this fragment of the Bible had been lost, should we drop any flower from the garland of revelation? I think we should. I think there is one thing revealed here which is quite unique and which is planted here alone; I mean the fact that there is such a thing as burial by God.

II. Some of the deepest distresses of bereavement come from the denial of funeral rites. Where the body is buried in the mine, where the body is engulfed in the sea, where the body is stretched on the battlefield indistinguishable amid the mutilated slain, there is a deeper tone added to the heart’s knell. It is a note which Christianity has rather increased than diminished, for the doctrine of resurrection has consecrated the body and made its very dust dear. To such a state of mind what comfort this passage brings! Here is an explorer lost in the mountain snow. His friends know he is dead; and it adds to their pain that no human lips have consecrated his dust. And to them there comes this voice: Ye that weep for the dead, ye that lament the burial rites denied, know ye not that there are graves which are consecrated by God alone! Where the prayer is breathed not, where the Book is opened not, where the wreath is planted not, where the human tear is shed not, there may be a burial of unsullied solemnity a burial by the hand of your Father. There are consecrated graves where priest never stood, where mourners never knelt, where tear never fell. There are spots hallowed by your Father which to you are barren ground. God’s acre is larger than the churchyard. Out on yon bleak hillside He wrapped your friend to rest in a mantle of spotless snow. Is not that bleak hillside God’s acre evermore? Is it not as holy to you as if you had brought sweet spices to the tomb? It has no chant but the winds, no book but the solemn silence, no bell but some wild bird’s note, no wreath but the wreath of snow; yet there is no more sacred spot in all the diocese of God.

G. Matheson, Messages of Hope, p. 50.

Deu 34:6

Prof. Harper thinks that the fact that the grave of Moses is unknown is indicative of truth: ‘Though it would be absurd to say that wherever we have the graves of great men pointed out, there we have a mythical story, it is nevertheless true that in the case of every name or character which has come largely under the influence of the myth-making spirit, the grave has been made much of. The Arabian imagination here seems to be typical of the Semitic imagination; and in all Moslem lands the graves of the prophets and saints of the Old Testament are pointed out, even, or perhaps we should say especially, if they be eighty feet long. Though a well-authenticated tomb of Moses, therefore, would have been a proof of his real existence and life among men, the absence of any is a stronger proof of the sobriety and truth of the narrative.’

References. XXXIV. 6. H. J. Buxton, God’s Heroes, p. 52. Bishop Goodwin, Cambridge Lent Sermons, p. 253. XXXIV. 10. J. H. Jellett, The Elder Son, p. 77. XXXIV. 10-12. W. M. Taylor. Moses the Lawgiver, p. 451.

Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

Nile and Nebo

Deu 34

It is a long way from the Nile to Nebo a long way, not in mere distance geographical, but in experience, in trial, in work, in suffering in all that goes to make up the sum total of the mystery of human life. It is well for us to have opposite points, that we may sometimes look at the one and at the other, at the beginning and at the intermediate end: and so measure off life in great sections, and consider it well, as if it were an entirety between the two points. Thus we set up judgment-seats, and form exact moral estimates of what we are and what we have done; and thus we hasten on to the day of audit and final and irrevocable settlement. If Moses could have seen the whole at one view, could he have lived? No man can see God and live: can any man see his own life, in all the minuteness of its detail, in every throb of pain, in every streak of blood, in every strife of battle, and go through it? Would not the sight kill him? Would it not become a burden which he could not sustain, from which he would shrink in utmost terror and despair, saying, I cannot undertake it; let me die, and not live? Thus God is the supreme mystery. But there are mysteries under his being which help to illustrate its profoundness and its majesty. We ourselves are mysteries, and life is an invisible wonder, and is dealt out to us a moment at a time, for who of us could be entrusted with a whole week together? Our breath is in our nostrils; the little light that is in our eye is but a flash upon the surface, and may pass in a moment. Our life is but a vapour which cometh for a little time, and then passeth away. The vision is shown little by little just one circumstance at a time; and we cannot take up the next loop along with the present loop: we must knit patiently, tediously, a loop at a time, taking up all the allotted thread until our portion of work is completed. Let us study our own life in the light of this suggestion. Let any man who has lived not merely existed any man who has had to struggle for life, to fight for bread, to scheme with all cunning-ness of thought that he might maintain his foothold upon the land, compare the first point of his recollection with his present position, and then say whether he would like to do all the battling over again, and endure all the suffering once more; or say whether it would be possible to live the whole life in one day’s agony. This is God’s way of educating us. This is the way against which we chafe and kick, as men might kick against pricks: so we bruise ourselves, and let our life ooze out in blood, instead of accepting the method, saying, We brought nothing into this world, nor did we ask to come into it: but loyally, with fulness of homage, we submit to thy way in the world, reading all its books one by one, gathering up what little store of wisdom it may hold; and at the end, not now, we can pronounce our opinion upon it. Every man who has lived a varied, eventful, struggling life is himself a miracle. Let him soberly think over the case where he began, where he has for the moment ended; let him compare the Nile with the Nebo, and say whose handiwork is displayed in all the figure of life who drew that geometry, who coloured that picture, who brought all those innumerable lines into focus and final meaning. The individual lines appear to be simple enough, little and short enough to have sometimes next to nothing in them; then they become related, mutually attached and reciprocal in influence and in colour. Behold how the miracle expands and brightens, until standing before it we say, Surely this is God’s handiwork; all this looks like what we behold in wondrous nature; there is unity here, shape, meaning; presently we shall hear voices in this temple, and own our life-sanctuary to be the house of God.

Could we see life as a whole, would it be worth living? No man can answer that question, because having lived it we answer it with our experience, not with our imagination. Still, the question is not without keenest interest. Could we see the whole, is life worth living? It is often a weary experience, a keen disappointment, a reaping with blunt sickles in fields that grow nothing but darkness; the morning brings its hope, and night never fails to come with its disappointment; in the morning good resolutions nerve the little strength, and at night the good resolutions are brought home dead angels, white and cold. We must not answer from our imagination, from our momentary passions and affections, from individual instances, saying, Yes: to have seen that one face was worth living a life of agony; to have felt that one little gentle touch was worth all the sorrow that could be crushed into seventy years. That is an emotional or imaginative, not a philosophical answer. The question is, Could we see life as a whole, all its days and nights of joy and sorrow, life and death, anguish and gladness, mountain and vale, light and gloom is it worth living? What does it all come to? To die on the softest bed, what is it but to have a luxury in which there is no enjoyment? To die amid all pomp and circumstance, what is it but to see the perfection of irony? Thus we talk outside the Bible. To open the Bible for our answer is not our immediate purpose. We are speaking now of life in itself, by itself, and without any of those religious influences and ministries which constitute what is known as supernatural action. Begin your life upon the earth, study it within the lines of the earth, and finish it at the grave, so that the last dig of your spurs into the steed of your life shall make that steed leap into the tomb the goal! the winning post! Is it worth doing? Occasional joys say, Yes; great disappointments say, No. A noisy controversy goes on within the mind and heart: now we say it is worth living, and now we declare in another tone that life is not worth living; and thus we are of no certain opinion for two days together, so quickly do tears follow laughter. Read the fourth verse:

“And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.” ( Deu 34:4 )

Is this mocking the man? Is this God’s providence, to show a man what he might have had, and then assure him that he shall not have it to dangle food before the eyes of hunger, and then throw it away, so that the hand of need cannot follow it? Is it God’s way to lift a man up to some Pisgah whence he can see heaven, and then cast him down into hell? Is it not cruel refinement? Is this not unworthy of a God of care and compassion and love? Everything depends upon the tone of the reading. The verse might be so read as to involve a charge of mockery against God. The man whose heart is wrong could so read this verse as to turn it into an impeachment against God’s considerateness of human feeling. There is a barbarous as well as a civilised mode of reading; there is a reading that misses the whole emphasis, that by a cold monotony levels the hills rather than raises the valleys. Some words are not to be read aloud, because the meaning is not in the letters but in the tone. By looking long at the words and allowing the heart to utter them, we may get some hint of their spiritual music; but to hear our words read by those who do not understand us is to suffer the worst of pain. The iron voice, or the hireling voice, the heartless voice, the grinding, crushing voice how it slays all things! How it will not allow anything to live that has in it one touch of beauty or one hint of immortality! Who can utter the words of the Lord? Reading the words, “Thus saith the Lord,” we might well pause there for ever, and say, What he said he must repeat, for it does not lie within the compass of the human voice to reproduce the music of God. Moses was to see that the promise had been fulfilled. He was to be ranked with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in that it was unworthy of him to go into so little a land, so mean a home; enough for the scholars who were behind him, enough for those who were still reading and half-blind, who could scarcely discriminate between the right hand and the left schoolhouse enough for them; but as for Moses after Sinai, after forty days’ communion upon the mountain, after the shining face, after all the experience that made him what he was his next movement must be to the eternal Canaan, the better land, the Jerusalem which is above. Moses understood the speech; Moses did not reproach the providence of God. His very acceptance of it was the noblest human confirmation of its beneficence that could possibly be supplied. Where Moses was content we need not chafe.

“And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” ( Deu 34:7 ).

Then why did he die? He might have been of use still. If his faculties had all exhausted themselves, it was time for him to lie down, and he was not called upon to work his jaded powers when they complained of weariness and sighed for the rest of the grave; but his eye was as bright as ever, and his natural physical force as complete as ever. From a physical point of view he needed not to die. Nor did he die. The word “die” in relation to Moses is used conveniently, momentarily, as the best word that could indicate a passing incident. Men in the condition of Moses do not die: they are raised, they are translated, or transferred, they ascend; they do not die in the. common and general sense in which that term is accepted. Moses was not killed by work. It is said by some that work never kills any man. What authority they have for speaking so we cannot tell. It is certain, however, that the greatest workers have been amongst the longest livers. Those who have done most have lived most, and sometimes even in natural terms they lived longest. Not always. Herein we must not meddle; there is no calendar by which these things can be fixed, or upon which certainties can be built or speculation affirmed. Moses was not dismissed for inefficiency; he was still the greatest prophet in Israel. It was the king who died when Moses died. Joshua was a child to him, and Joshua would have been the first to say so. Not a man in all Israel dare stand before him, saying, “I could wear thy mantle.” When it came to real issue and test of strength, to penetration of insight and reach of judgment, and solidity of character, all men stood in the plain to admire this mountainous man. He was not, therefore, unable to work; he was not inefficient in the service he rendered; he was abler on the day of his death than he had ever been on any day of his life. Then why did he die? He did not die, he ascended. Searchers upon the mountains, diggers in the valleys, said to one another, as they searched and dug in vain, “He is not here: for he is risen.” God knows when men ought to die. Do not intermeddle with God. Sometimes the work is completed in our early years. A short day have some lives, but a crowded one; within very limited hours they speak words which can never be forgotten, or sing songs the world will never willingly let die. Thus God keeps us in patient uncertainty, whether we shall perish upon the Nile, or pass away upon mount Nebo, or be found with death set upon the face as a period put to a process of sleep. All this God keeps in uncertainty. We cannot open these doors of mystery. In the midst of life we are in death. No world is so near to us as the world eternal. We speak of making the most of the present: what is the present and the near? It is the eternal, it is the heavenly, it is the divine. It is our mistake to suppose that earth is nearer than heaven. Eternity crowds out time, and presses into interstices which time could never fill. All our days are in God’s hands. There is an appointed time to man upon the earth. “One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet…. Another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.” Forecast we do, and add up the whole multitude of figures, and publish arithmetical results with prodigal hands, but we cannot tell when the dart will strike. We have surrounded the mystery with calculated probabilities, but the mystery itself is a door that cannot be opened.

Were there no mitigations in the close of the life of Moses? Was all wrought out according to some process of iron necessity? Was it merely a walk up the mountain and a falling down dead, and a being covered with an anonymous sod? There were mitigations in the case, which are open to the eye of ordinary attention. Moses died in God’s company:

” the Lord shewed him all the land” ( Deu 34:1 ).

” the Lord said unto him” ( Deu 34:4 ).

“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord” ( Deu 34:5 ).

“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, on the mouth of the Lord.”

“And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor” ( Deu 34:6 ).

These are figurative expressions. We do not know the meaning of them and yet we know it well. The text could be so degraded as to present great difficulties to the untutored and unsubdued imagination; but to the fancy that has been chastened by suffering, the picture is full of tenderness. God has buried much in his time; he has been the great grave-digger, he has filled up the tombs of the ages and written the epitaphs of aeons. How he buried Moses we can never know; but having buried him, God knew where he was. The grave was as a footprint to the Almighty: the tomb was as a chosen garden of God. It warms the poor heart, and cheers the dreariness of the spirit to think that God knows where every grave is away out on the sea, down in the green waters, hidden among the marine rocks that human eye may never look upon; in ground blessed by the priest, in land unblessed by any human voice; the great grave loaded with marble and almost resonant with pompous eloquence and eulogium: and the nameless grave, where the beggar who might have been a prince is laid, where the silent poet rots, according to the flesh. God knows every grave the little child’s few inches of sod, and the old man’s last resting-place, and the sweet mother’s, without whom the world would have been a waste. It is enough. These regions are not in our keeping, except in some cases as to their surfaces. The key is in heaven, and as to the time when the door will open, we know not; enough to know where the key is, and to know that it cannot be lost.

“…no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day” ( Deu 34:6 ).

There are unknown graves; there are places that are sacred only to God, because God only knows them. We cannot tell upon what ground we are treading; we do not know who is buried just under our feet. The earth has been a long time in building, bold men and wise men say thousands upon thousands of ages and incalculable periods. What little singing birds were buried just under our feet we cannot tell; or what majestic beasts, or what hints of nobler life, or what men, women, and children, what prophets, sages, martyrs we cannot tell. The house of the living is built upon the house of the dead. The whole world is sacred. We ought to hush our voices in the presence of its historic majesty, and call it the House of God.

Were we to finish here our perusal of the life of Moses, we should feel the incompleteness of the story. It has been full of event: it has kindled into heroic interest here and there, and again and oftentimes; but this cannot be the end. If we had courage enough to turn over the page, we should find that there is more to be read. What we lack in positive instruction, we find realised in positive instinct, in real and indisputable intuition. We do not possess all our riches in the letter. Writing can only go to a certain point; at its best it is but a make-believe, a help by the way, a hint to be going on with. We still have our instincts, intuitions; our mental impulses, convictions, inspirations. We cannot tell anything about them; we feel it is with them as it is with the wind: we hear the sound thereof, but we know not whence it cometh or whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit that has the spirit-eye, the spirit-genius, the prophetic faculty, the seer’s agonising gaze. We are not to be bound by letters, and chapters, and verses; we cannot end here. As Moses went up, so must we, and on a later day we must hear more about this man. We are bound to do so by the very covenant of God, for he cannot have made man in his own image and likeness merely for the purpose of burying him in an unknown grave.

Great was Moses!

“And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face” ( Deu 34:10 ).

He was unique; he stands alone; no man can go near him. And yet he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than Moses!

Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

(See the Deuteronomy Book Comments for Introductory content and Homiletic suggestions).

XVI

THE CHARACTER AND GREATNESS OF MOSES

Deu 34:1-12

Deu 34 consists of the following parts:

1. The vision of the Promised Land accorded to Moses from the summit of Pisgah; his eyes enabled him to see all the land that God originally promised to Abraham.

2. The unique death and burial of Moses. No other man in human history died this way or was buried this way. He was not sick, though one hundred and twenty years old, his eye not dim, his strength unabated. He died not from any natural causes. In Geikie’s Hours with the Bible there are several very touching legends, mythical of course, concerning the death of Aaron and Moses, and the one concerning Moses is that after he was stretched out on the place where God told him to lie down, Jehovah called to the soul to come out of the body, but the soul would not come. He spake to the soul again, but the soul would not leave the body. Then God leaned over and kissed him and the soul went up to heaven on the wings of that kiss. It was God who buried him, and no man was ever able to find the place, the reason of which is obvious, viz.: the Israelites would have deified the sepulchre of Moses; would have made pilgrimages to it and made it a shrine of worship. The New Testament gives us an additional particular concerning the body of Moses, that you do not find anywhere in the Old Testament, concerning a contest over that body between the Devil and Michael. The interpretation of that remarkable New Testament passage we must reserve until we come to study the book in which it is given.

The next thing set forth in this chapter is the mourning for thirty days, then after a reference to Joshua comes this encomium which is our text: “There hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, in all the signs and wonders, which Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all the mighty hand, and in all the great terror, which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel.” That places Moses in a unique position. Special stress is laid upon his miracle-working power. In fact, in teaching the Bible I do not so much discuss miracles when I come to them in the life of Christ as I discuss them in the life of Moses. The miracles by Moses constitute the first great group and are surpassed in wonder by no miracles ever wrought on the face of the earth by anybody, Christ and the apostles not excepted. In studying the Bible this is the place to study miracles as they are set forth in the life of Moses.

Now from the text, “There hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses,” I want to discuss his character and his greatness. In our studies in Exodus we considered the materials for the life of Moses; biblical, Jewish, Mohammedan, heathen, modern, archaeological, and legendary.

We found the biblical material gathered mainly from the Pentateuch, but somewhat from the other Old Testament books, and somewhat from the New Testament references, to be really the only reliable historical material, except that the results of modern archaeological research, fairly interpreted, confirm the Mosaic history. This is one of the most important contributions of archaeology. For quite a while it was claimed that the Mosaic period was a period of ignorance, that the people could neither read nor write, but what a revelation archaeology has flashed upon that false contention, showing that it was an intensely literary period, and demonstrating that Moses made no such mistakes as the higher critics a long time ago were accustomed to attribute to him. So that with this amount of material it is not difficult to construct a connected history of this, the greatest man from Adam to the New Testament time. No other man in all that vast period of time has left such an impress on the human race. The most illustrious heroes of antiquity in profane stories are, when compared to Moses, as the stars in the solar system to the sun.

He was the youngest child of Arnram and Jochebed, of the tribe of Levi. His sister Miriam and his brother Aaron became illustrious through association with him. He was born during the period of Egyptian bondage during the oppression of the Israelites under the dynasty that “knew not Joseph.” We find a gracious providence protecting his infancy, and your attention in studying Exodus was called to the following elements of preparation, which account for his greatness. I have been compelled on suitable occasions to remark that only prepared men ever accomplished great things. The elements of his preparation were as follows:

1. The faith of his parents trained his early years so effectually that he never in the marvellous vicissitudes of after life forgot that he was a child of Abraham and bore on his body the mark of the covenant which isolated him from all other nations.

2. His training in the Egyptian court. This is a very great element of his preparation for his life work, for according to Stephen he became learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds. So far, therefore, as this court training and opportunity could afford, he was an expert in literature, war, agriculture, legislation, jurisprudence, medicine, organization, and comparative religions.

3. The third element of his preparation consisted of the crisis that came in his life when forty years old, through a revelation that was made to him by Jehovah that he was destined to deliver his people from bondage. The fact of such a revelation is evident form Stephen’s speech in Act 7:23-25 . The entrance into his heart of a desire to visit his brethren and to defend them from oppression, and the supposition on his part that they would know that God by his hand was giving deliverance to Israel, all abundantly show that God had appeared unto him and commissioned him. It was this revelation that necessitated the great life decision recorded in Heb 11:24-26 : “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked unto the recompense of reward.” But as faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, there must have been a revelation to him which, coupled with his training in the promises and prophecies vouchsafed to his fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, impelled him to the decisive step which he took. Revelation touching both time and eternity is the basis of his faith. He made no mistake in his call to be a deliverer, nor in the choice following the call. But he did make a mistake in not leaving it to God to determine the time of the deliverance and its method for accomplishment. When he was forty years old, he presumptuously and rashly “butted in,” as one might say, Pharaoh not ready, not sufficiently prepared, his people not ready and Canaan not ready to be occupied. In rashness and presumption he struck too soon. So we find the next element of his preparation:

4. Forty years of retirement and meditation in Midian. Forty years more of preparation were needed all around. The meekness and patience of subsequent years could not fruit from his prosperity in Egypt. “Tribulation worketh patience, patience experience, and experience hope.” There must be in preparation for great things a time for meditation and reflection, when the mind turns over and assimilates the knowledge acquired. Christ was retired until thirty, John the Baptist until thirty and Paul for three years in Arabia. We are so busy in modern times and want to rush out so speedily into life that we are not willing to take time to reflect or meditate. Moses needed a greater knowledge of that Sinaitic peninsula to be the scene of another forty years of activity. In the quiet pastoral life in Midian it is very probable that Moses wrote first the book of Job. When we come to that book, I think I can give you an unanswerable argument in proof that Moses was its author and that it was the first book of the Bible written, and that it was suggested by the undeserved affliction of his people over in Egypt. Job’s case was another burning bush case. And it is almost certain, indeed it is morally certain, that he wrote the book of Genesis in that period of retirement, because when we commence to read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, there is always a presupposition that the people are familiar with the facts of Genesis.

5. The last element of his preparation comes with the miracle of the burning bush and all the attendant history.

Now, as we have just finished our study of the Pentateuch written by Moses, let us fix our minds upon the forces from which character resulted and the elements of his greatness. Character is not an accident. Character cannot be improvised. Character is a result, a crystallization of preceding causes. We find that the great character of Moses is the result,

1. Of faithful family training. Oliver Wendell Holmes, as I have told you before, when asked when you should commence the education of a child, said, “Commence with its grandmother,” and in another instance says that “man is an omnibus in which all of his ancestors ride.” The reason why so many men of genius are never great is the lack of family training.

2. It was the result of personal faith in God and a sense of personal responsibility to God. “What a man thinks, that he is.” There can be no greater mistake than the hasty, ill-considered statement, “It makes no difference what a man believes.” His character was the result of his faith.

3. It was the result of his conviction concerning the future life. It is a slander upon the Old Testament to say that it discovers nothing of future life. To Moses’ mind the world to come was as clear as it is to your mind, and he had “respect unto the recompense of reward.” No man could deliberately turn from earthly power, position, honor, riches, pleasures, and take the position which he took of reproach and toil and poverty unless prompted by a thought of the life to come.

4. His character was the result of marvelous secular education. Our Lord has not made great learning a condition of the ministerial office, but it is a fact that the wider your range of general information, the more you are acquainted with affairs, the more your mind is disciplined in the study of the things taught in colleges and universities, certainly the greater your power will be as a preacher. Moses had a secular education ahead of any other man of his time.

5. It was the result of great personal trials and long continued discipline. Character comes out of a furnace and no man can lay any very loud claims to character who has not been tried. He does not know what he will be when he passes through the fire.

6. It was the result of long continued service and labor. Moses was a worker, and the man who works develops character. How can an idle person have character?

7. It was the result of profound meditation and reflection. We may know a lot, just keep on knowing, knowing and knowing, but if we do not assimilate that knowledge, the mind becomes an old garret full of odds and ends and scraps, none available when needed. It is not the quantity you eat but what you digest that builds up your body, and you cannot assimilate mind food without meditation. The Duchess DeBerri once said, “If associating with the twelve apostles kept me from solitary meditative thoughts of God, and prayer, I would give up the company of the twelve apostles.”

8. His character was the result of great opportunities and high positions carefully utilized.

Now, looking at the result of such forces, what do we discover in Moses?

1. He was a man of piety. Nothing on earth can make up for the lack of personal piety. Gifts cannot do it.

2. A man of wisdom. Somebody and a schoolteacher recently asked me to give a synopsis of a lecture delivered before his school on the distinction between wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. “Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers.”

3. He was a man of decision, as is evident by the choice he made. Many a poor fellow spends his life astraddle of the fence, like Mr. Lincoln’s ox that jumped half-way over the fence and then could not butt the dogs that were baying him in front nor kick the dogs that were biting him behind.

4. He was a man of great organizing capacity, or great administrative ability.

5. A faithful man in all offices of trust. That is one of the tributes borne to him in the letter to the Hebrews.

6. He was a man of surpassing meekness and patience. He did fly off the handle one time, but some of us stay off the handle.

7. He was a man of sublime courage. And what a high quality of courage!

8. He was an intensely patriotic man: “If thou wilt not forgive their sin; blot my name out of thy book.”

9. He was an intensely unselfish man. I remember once when I was a boy being much impressed with this: A newly elected representative of Drew County, Arkansas, was approached to know if he was going to obey what his constituents would tell him to do. He said, “First, I am God’s man. I will do nothing that violates my idea of personal responsibility to God. Second, I am my nation’s man. I will do nothing that will tend to disrupt the whole country. Third,. I am my State’s man. I will do nothing for this particular county that is prejudicial to the interests of the whole State. Fourth, I am my own man. I will do nothing that will destroy my own individuality. And now, if a man who is God’s man, his Nation’s man, his State’s man, and his own man, is allowed to represent your people, I will represent you.” It made a very great impression on my mind.

Now, having such a character, in what phases did his greatness display itself?

First of all, as a historian. Common custom calls Herodotus the father of history) but what is Herodotus compared to Moses? Moses gives us the only history of a third part of the time so far allotted to this world.

He was a great legislator. All civilization to-day is bottomed on the Mosaic legislation. He was a great jurist; the principles of law and equity are better set forth by Moses than in all the publications of the chancellors of England and the Supreme Court of the United States.

He was a great poet, as we have found in considering the song of the Red Sea, the song just before he passed away, Psa 90 , written in his old age, the benediction which he pronounced upon his people, and his high thought in the book of Job, illustrative of the great problem, the undeserved afflictions of his people.

He was a great orator. Whoever can read and study Deuteronomy intelligently and then deny that Moses was a master orator) is not intelligent, if you will permit such a statement. He was a great prophet. Take the prophecies of his Levitical legislation, the types. Who can understand Christ who has not understood the paschal Lamb, the two goats on the day of atonement, the red heifer, the brazen serpent, and multitudinous others? Then the prophecy concerning Christ and his great prophecies in Deuteronomy concerning his people that have been fulfilling ever since his time, and some yet to be fulfilled. In every land on the earth today there stand living monuments to attest the accuracy of the forecasts of his prophetic mind.

He was a great mediator between God and man. God selected him to mediate, and the people selected him to mediate. In a sense, with one hand he touched divinity and with the other he touched humanity.

He was a type of Christ. He represents the people before God and represents God before the people, and in a most remarkable way. His mediation appears in his powerful intercession when the people sin; he would come to God, state the sin, then plead for its pardon.

Now let us look at his faults. Ingersoll was accustomed to speak of the mistakes of Moses. The first one that we are able to discover comes after God said to him, “You shall deliver Israel.” He rushed at it, not leaving to God to determine when and how, and started a plan of his own by killing that Egyptian, and that fault, as is usually the case, became the father of the next fault. You know when a man “butts in” prematurely and gets “sawed off,” his pride is so wounded that the next time he will “sulk in his tent.”

When God came to him at the burning bush, he was still so sore that God almost had to drag him by the hair of his head to make him try again. That was his second fault.

The third fault was neglecting to circumcise his children, and he came within an inch of losing his life by it. His wife was the cause of this, but a man must not let his wife keep him from obeying God.

The fourth sin that he committed was when he spoke ill-advisedly with his lips at Kadesh, and forgetting that the rock must be smitten but once, and forgetting that the waters flowed afterwards by petition and not by smiting, he violated God’s word and struck the rock. For 120 years he had carried this burden, like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders; he had been nagged, he had been misunderstood, slandered and misrepresented, and just then his superb patience gave away. When I look at it, I feel that I want to lift my hat to the man whose patience gave way just one time.

QUESTIONS

1. Who probably wrote Deu 34 ?

2. State the items of its contents.

3. What constitutes the death of Moses the most unique death of history?

4. Give a legend concerning his death.

5. What additional particular concerning Moses’ body found in the New Testament?

6. What his encomium in this chapter?

7. Upon what is special stress laid in the life of Moses, and why?

8. What the materials for a life of Moses?

9. What his impress on the ages, and how does he compare with the men of profane history?

10. What the circumstances of his birth and childhood, his parentage and the other members of his family?

11. What the elements of preparation for his life work?

12. What three great periods of his life?

13. What did the faith of his parents do for him?

14. Of what did his learning at the Egyptian court consist?

15. What the great crisis of his life, and what mistake did he make relative to it?

16. Why the forty years in Midian and what other Bible examples?

17. What the last element of his preparation?

18. What the forces which contributed to the formation of his character?

19. What does Oliver Wendell Holmes say of family training?

20. What the relation of his faith to his character?

21. Did Moses know of the future life? What the evidence?

22. What the importance of secular education?

23. What the importance of trials in relation to character?

24. What the relation of labor to character?

25. What the importance of meditation and reflection in relation to character?

26. What the importance of utilizing opportunities in relation to character?

27. What the resultant character?

28. In what phases did his greatness display itself?

29. What his antitype?

30. What his faults?

Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Deu 34:1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that [is] over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,

Ver. 1. And Moses went up. ] With as good a will to die, as ever he did to dine; for it was but (as that martyr said) winking a little, and he was in heaven immediately.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Deu 34:1-8

1Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Daniel , 2 and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, 3and the Negev and the plain in the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar. 4Then the LORD said to him, This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there. 5So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. 6And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no man knows his burial place to this day. 7Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated. 8So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.

Deu 34:1 the plains of Moab This is the geographical setting of the conclusion of Numbers (cf. Num 36:13), and the entire book of Deuteronomy (cf. Deu 4:44-49). It is on the eastern side of Jordan, right across from Jericho (cf. Deu 34:1).

to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah This same mountain is mentioned in Deut. (cf. Deu 3:17). It is the Hebrew term for ridge or height (BDB 612 I). It seems that Mount Nebo and Pisgah (BDB 820 cleft) refer to the very same mountain peak. God uniquely chose this location to be able to fulfill His word to Moses that He would show him the Promised Land even though Moses would not be able to enter into it. Later, in Deu 34:5, Mount Nebo will be the place of Moses’ death. Also, Jewish tradition says that Jeremiah hid the Ark of the covenant on this mountain.

And the LORD showed him all the land There are several passages which record Moses’ sin which kept him from entering the promised land (cf. Deu 3:23-28; Deu 32:48-52 and Num 27:12-14). Moses made several prayers and requests to God about this, yet he was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. Although sin always runs its course and has its consequences, the graciousness of God is seen in allowing Moses to see the Promised Land even though he could not enter it.

Deu 34:2 the western Sea This refers to the Mediterranean Sea (cf. Deu 11:24). The term western is literally the place behind (BDB 30).

Deu 34:3 the Negev This is the Hebrew word for south country (BDB 616) and it refers to the uninhabited desert land which is south of Beersheba.

the plain This refers to the depression known as the Rift Valley in which lies the Dead Sea. Jericho is at the northwest and Zoar at the southwest.

Jericho, the city of palm trees Jericho is known as the city of palms (cf. Jdg 1:16) and is one of the oldest cities in this part of the world. It was right across the Jordan River from the place where Israel camped.

Zoar The word (BDB 858) means insignificant (cf. Gen 19:20-22).

Deu 34:4 This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob This is the fulfillment of God’s promise recorded in Gen 12:7; Gen 26:3; Gen 28:13. The promise to Abraham included both land and seed. The OT emphasizes the land and children while the NT emphasizes the special child (cf. Isaiah 7-12). This ancient promise is repeated often. Here are some examples: Exo 33:1; Num 14:23; Num 32:11; Deu 1:8; Deu 6:10; Deu 9:5; Deu 30:20.

I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there Apparently the sin of publicly striking the rock instead of speaking to it(cf. Num 20:7-12) is the offense for which Moses has been judged. The people witnessed this flagrant disobedient act of Moses.

Deu 34:5 So Moses the servant of the LORD The term servant of the LORD is an honorific title given to Moses. It is given to Joshua only after his death. It was conferred upon King David. It later refers to the coming Messiah (cf. the Servant Songs of Isaiah 40-56). It may be the source of the NT Pauline phrase, slave of God. The concept of an OT servant is extremely significant. In the OT election or servanthood was to fulfill the purpose of God, not necessarily for salvation. Cyrus is called God’s anointed (cf. Isa 45:1) and Assyria is called the rod of His anger (cf. Isa 10:5). This cruel nation and pagan king fit into God’s plan but were not spiritually related to Him. The terms election and choice have a spiritual connotation only in the NT.

died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD The literal Hebrew here is by the mouth of the Lord, (BDB 804), which seems to be a metaphor for the word of God (cf. Gen 41:40; Gen 45:21; Exo 17:1; Exo 38:21; Num 3:16; Num 3:39).

However, the rabbis say that this is the kiss of God. They say that God kissed Moses on the mouth and took away his breath. This is very similar to our cultural idiom the kiss of death. If so, it is a beautiful account of the balance between the justice and mercy of God in the life of Moses.

Deu 34:6 And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab The He implies God Himself. This is much like Gen 7:16, where God closed the door to the ark. One reason for God burying Moses Himself is because God has taken away all of the ancient sites and artifacts that we might worship instead of Him. Notice that Moses was not buried on Mount Nebo itself but down in the valley. The strange NT passage in Jud 1:9 is related to this account, but how is not exactly clear. Jud 1:9 seems to quote an extra-canonical book known as The Assumption of Moses. The exact purpose for the devil wanting the body of Moses is uncertain.

but no man knows his burial place to this day This is obviously the work of a later editor. Many assert that Moses could not have written this last chapter which relates to his death. Rashi says that Joshua wrote about Moses’ death, while IV Esdras asserts that Moses wrote of his own death. I believe in Mosaic authorship of the Torah, but that does not rule out some editorial comments such as this which appear from time to time. The similarity of the Hebrew between the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua seems to imply that Joshua did have a part in writing Moses’ memoirs. However, the significant place of Ezra in rabbinical Judaism as the editor of the entire OT is also a possibility.

Deu 34:7 Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died This one hundred and twenty year span is developed in Stephen’s sermon in Act 7:23 ff into a threefold division of forty years each: (1) forty years in the educational system of Egypt; (2) forty years in the very desert into which he would later lead the children of Israel; and (3) forty years in the wilderness wandering period. D. L. Moody said, For 40 years Moses thought he was a somebody. For 40 years he thought he was a nobody. For 40 years he found out what God can do with a nobody.

his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated This seems to refer to the health of Moses, while Deu 31:2 seems to be an excuse given by Moses for why he cannot enter the Promised Land (that he was too weak and old). This is not a contradiction, but one more attempt by Moses to try to explain away his sin by either blaming the people or his age or other factors.

Deu 34:8 So the sons of Israel wept for Moses. . .thirty days This would be one lunar cycle. This same amount of time was given to the mourning of Aaron (cf. Num 20:29). Everyone of the generation who rebelled in the wilderness died there except for Joshua and Caleb.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

the LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. Compare App-4.

shewed him = caused him to see. Compare Mat 4:8. Luk 4:5.

Dan. Compare Gen 14:14. Not Jdg 18:29.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Chapter 34

Chapter thirty-four.

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is across from Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land of Gilead, clear unto Dan ( Deu 34:1 ),

From Mount Pisgah there he could see clear up to the area of Mount Hermon. Dan is right down near the base of Mount Hermon. Looking clear up to Dan, on a clear day you can get a beautiful view.

And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, (clear across the land) And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm tress, even to Zoar, (which is the bottom part of the Dead Sea area) And the LORD said unto him, This is the land which I sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, I will give it unto your seed: I will cause thee to see it with your eyes, but you will not go over. So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD ( Deu 34:2-5 ).

And He, that is God, buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-Peor, but no man knows of his sepulchre unto this day.

Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eyes were not dim, nor his natural force abated ( Deu 34:7 ).

So, a hundred and twenty-year old man; he died and God buried him.

Now we are told in the book of Jude that Satan and Michael had a dispute over the body of Moses. God buried him, but not before there was a dispute over his body. They never did find where God buried him. His sepulchre remains a mystery. But he went up to Pisgah, and there in one of the valleys he died, and God buried him after Michael and Satan had a big roar over the thing, according to Jude.

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the LORD commanded Moses. But there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, In all the signs and wonders, which the LORD sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, And in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel ( Deu 34:9-12 ).

Now this last part was probably written by Joshua. Surely Moses didn’t write the account of his own death. But Joshua no doubt took up and finished the book as he spoke of the prophet Moses in all of the history of Israel never an equal to this man, until of course Jesus who was more than a prophet, the Son of God.

Shall we stand?

Next week Judges, and we are taking eight chapters. Joshua, eight chapters. Joshua is a very exciting book as they begin to conquer the land that God had given them. We’ll take it in eight, going through Joshua.

Father, we thank you now for the opportunity of studying Your Word again tonight and may Your Holy Spirit hide now Thy truth within our hearts that we would not sin against You. Lord, help us to learn that You have set before us life and death, blessing and curse and it is ours to choose. And may we choose that life that You have given to us in Jesus Christ, confessing Him now as Lord, believing Lord that you rose Him from the dead. We thank You that we have that life and that salvation tonight. Thank You, Lord for Your everlasting arms. Thank You, Lord for the stirring of the nest when You are trying to teach us to grow. May we learn those lessons and may we grow into that full maturity in Christ Jesus our Lord. In His name we pray. “

Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Here in all likelihood we have the writing of another hand. The section contains the story of the death of Moses, the equipment of Joshua for his work, with a last tender reference to the great leader and lawgiver.

The passing of Moses was full of beauty. As we have seen, his exclusion from the land towards which his face had so long been set was in fact a punishment. Yet how wonderfully it was tempered with mercy.

His force had not weakened. Everything ended in full strength. He went up to die and Jehovah gave him a vision of the land and buried him in the valley.

The last words are almost of the nature of a wail of sorrow. “And there hath not arisen a prophet . . . like unto Moses.”

Notwithstanding this, a promise already had been made by God to Moses and uttered by him in his second discourse, “I will raise thee up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee.” Long centuries elapsed and at last that Prophet came, and in His coming was greater than Moses.

Thus ends the last Book of the Pentateuch. The nation created for regeneration among the nations is seen standing on the margin of the possession of their land. The highways of the biblical revelation have led us thus far. The great story will now move on through the history of this people to the coming of the promised One.

Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

the Great Leaders Exodus

Deu 34:1-12

What inimitable beauty in this closing scene! The majestic withdrawal of the illustrious Lawgiver in view of the assembled nation! The panorama that greeted his undimmed gaze! The Lords showing of it to him! The kiss, according to the ancient tradition, in which his spirit passed rapturously to its reward! The burial of his body with proper honor, Jud 1:9! Well might the people weep!

There is dispensational truth here also. Moses represented Gods Law, which never shows signs of age; but it cannot lead the soul into the rest of God, nor give victory over our spiritual foes. For the world and each soul Moses must give place to Joshua-that is, Jesus.

Be ours that face to face fellowship, that doing of His will, those divine credentials of the mighty hand, of deeds wrought in God! Psa 90:16-17.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

Deu 34:1-8

The death of Moses is a twofold parable:-

I. Of the unrealised hopes of human life, the frequent disappointments, the unfulfilled purposes, which so often characterise it, and which to the affections and to the philosophy of life are so mysterious and painful.

Mark the conditions under which death came to Moses. (1) He died while as yet his physical strength was undiminished. “His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” (2) Moses died while as yet there seemed a great work for him to do-the Jordan to be passed, Jericho to be conquered, the Canaanites driven out, the tribes led to their inheritance, the social, legislative, and religious organisation of the people to be completed. (3) Moses died just when bright prospects of realisation filled his eye; when all the hope of his life was about to be fulfilled, the cup was dashed from his lips, just as it was lifted that he might drink.

We learn from this: (1) Success is not the chief nobility of life. (2) The chief blessedness of life is capability of service. (3) It is a blessed thing to die when the work has been so far done that it justifies the worker, demonstrates his character, vindicates his nobleness, for then he is not ashamed to leave it for completion. (4) The formal denial of our hopes may be the means of perfecting pur character. (5) If in our service we have sinned against right methods and tempers of service, it is well that God’s disapproval of our sin should be manifested. (6) The prohibition comes with gracious mitigations. Even though a sentence of death, everything that gives death a sting is extracted. (a) What greater grace can be wrought in a man than acquiescence in such a mandate? There is no blessedness like the blessedness of submitting ourselves to the wiser will of the heavenly Father, even though it be to drink a Gethsemane cup or to die upon a bitter cross. (b) Moses is permitted to prepare for his departure. (c) He is permitted to see his successor. (7) God honoured His faithful servant by Himself preparing his sepulchre. (8) God fulfilled His promises and the hopes of His servant in a deeper and higher way than he anticipated.

II. The second parable is of the visions which may inspire human life, its unrealised hopes notwithstanding. To men who live greatly God gives visions through this very idealism of life which are a glorious inspiration and strength, visions of a great faith and of a bright hope, of rest though they toil, of triumph while they fight, of heavenly perfection and blessedness, the failures and disappointments of earthly life notwithstanding. All men have visions, even the meanest and the worst; but there are no visions of life so great and inspiring as those of religious faith.

H. Allon, The Vision of God, p. 207.

References: Deu 34:2.-Parker, vol. ii., p. 287. Deu 34:5, Deu 34:7.-H. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 107.

Deu 34:1

We belong to two worlds. Neither the one nor the other completes our life. It is the action and reaction of their influences, the intermingling of their currents, which ministers to our vital progress. Man is strongly beset by the temptation to divide himself, and give himself part to one, part to the other, world; to let the daily round, the common task, have the share which they claim of his time and energy, in dull submission to the inevitable, and then to live what he calls his life in another-it may be a higher, but, alas! it tends terribly to become a lower-world. It is the daily round which makes life, and God will have us live. Therefore He keeps us there. The daily, hourly repetition of heavenly acts and efforts is training us for the life of heaven.

I. To Moses was entrusted the noblest, but at the same time the weariest, life-task ever committed to the hand of man. The burden of his people he bore through life; never for one instant was he permitted to lay it down. And to him were visions vouchsafed of Diviner brightness than meaner men could look upon. For him, as for many a faithful pilgrim, the brightest and most blessed vision was the last, from the last mountain summit which lies on the hither side of the river of death.

II. The visions cluster most thickly around death, because those who know what it is to live must die to realise their dreams. Like Moses, they may see the land, but they must die to inherit it,-die with the vision before their spirits, which fades for the moment as they die, but when they pass it is heaven.

J. Baldwin Brown, The Soul’s Exodus and Pilgrimage, p. 334.

References: Deu 34:1.-Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 274. Deu 34:1-5.-E. Bersier, Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 1. Deu 34:1-7. -H. Batchelor, The Incarnation of God, p. 193. Deu 34:1-8.-H. Allon, The Vision of God, p. 225 (see also Sunday Magazine, 1875, p. 486). Deu 34:1-12.-W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 434. Deu 34:4.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 293; J. M. Neale, Sermons in Sackville College, vol. i., p. 160; Bishop Woodford, Sermons on Subjects from the Old Testament, p. 27; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. x., p. 339; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 447; Deu 34:5.-A. Scott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 3.

Deu 34:5-6

The great feature of the record contained in the words before us is the incompleteness of the life of Moses. He died before the people entered the land. This fact suggests two truths: (1) the meaning of unfulfilled purposes in life, and (2) the encouragement to men who die with their earthly purposes unattained. Moses died with his life’s purpose apparently unfulfilled. It is evident that he felt this as one of the saddest aspects of his departure. One thought had given meaning to his history for eighty years-the thought of guiding the nation into the land promised to his forefathers. Why must Moses see his own hope fade and vanish, and feel that life had no reward? What was the meaning of his death at that time?

I. The great purpose of the life of Moses was not permitted to be carried out because of his sin. One act of rebellion in striking the rock had prevented its accomplishment. If we ask why that single and apparently trifling act of disobedience unfitted him to lead the people into the land, while men far more rebellious and with less temptation afterwards became their rulers, it is scarcely possible to find an adequate reply. It may be that God would show how one act may darken the whole of man’s earthly hopes, how the subtle influence of one act of disobedience-because in disobedience lies the germ of all sin-may pervade with its gloom the whole of a man’s history, and cause his holiest efforts to fail just when they seemed about to succeed.

II. But we want to know more than that. We must ask whether life is really so incomplete as it seems. Is it so profound a failure? The history before us gives the answer. The purpose that Moses might not carry out was to be accomplished by Joshua, his successor. His life therefore had not failed, for his labour had inspired a man who had caught his spirit and was to finish the work he had begun. We see here the universal law that there is a spiritual connection between men. Age is joined by bonds of influence to age. Man is thus bound for ever to future generations.

III. But the question comes, Is that the only manner in which life’s highest purposes find their fulfilment? To that the history before us gives no reply, but by looking at the question in the light of Christianity we may confidently answer the inquiry. Christ redeemed all life; He glorified it all: therefore we may believe that no earnest efforts of this life are ever for the man himself really unfulfilled; all great aims are realised in the end.

E. L. Hull, Sermons, 3rd series, p. 119.

References: Deu 34:5, Deu 34:6.-C. Kingsley, The Gospel of the Pentateuch, p. 222; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 274. Deu 34:5-7.-J. Hamilton, Works, vol. v., p. 313.

Deu 34:6

We shall take the account of the death and burial of Moses, and seek to show how it was fitted to be a source of fruitful reflection to the Old Testament Church.

I. God will have no one, living or dead, to stand between His creatures and Himself. The first great lesson which the Jewish people were to be taught was the supremacy of the one true God. It was the lifelong work of Moses to fix this truth of God’s sovereignty on the people’s minds. And yet what he had done for them made it not unlikely that their reverence for him might prove their snare, and that they might be tempted to give him the place he desired to secure for God. Moses died apart, and was buried in secret, where his grave could be dishonoured by no pilgrimage and where no false veneration could rear altars to his memory. And this first lesson did not fail. The nation worshipped many strange deities, but it never gave the place of God to His prophets.

II. God wishes men to see something more left of His servants than the outward shrine. In the history of the greatest and best, the tomb is often remembered and the life forgotten. It is an easier thing to revere the dust than to follow the example. God takes away the grave of Moses that the people may have before them, in full and undisturbed relief, the man himself. The sepulchre of the greater Prophet than Moses is equally unknown. God has made the march of armies and the desolation of centuries do for the sepulchre of Christ what His own hand did for the grave of Moses.

III. God takes the honour of His servants into His own keeping. “The Lord buried him.” There is a higher honour conferred upon him than if all Israel had met to weep and lament, or the world assembled to his obsequies.

IV. God would teach men that He has a relation to His servants which extends beyond their death. The great truths of life and immortality must surely have begun to stir in the hearts of thoughtful men when they knew this, that “the Lord had buried him.”

V. God would teach men from the very first that His regard is not confined to any chosen soil. The death of Christ has consecrated the soil of the world. Wherever men kneel with a pure heart they find God’s mercy-seat, and wherever they are buried they are in holy ground.

VI. The seeming failure in a true life may at last have a complete compensation.

J. Ker. Sermons, p. 153.

References: Deu 34:6.-Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Cambridge Lent Sermons, 1864, p. 253. Deu 34:7.-G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 58. Deu 34:9.-S. A. Brooke, The Unity of God and Man, p. 110. Deu 34:10.-J. H. Jellett, The Elder Son, and Other Sermons, p. 77. Deu 34:10-12.-W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 451. Deut 34-Parker, vol. iv., p. 400; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. ii., p. 289.

Fuente: The Sermon Bible

4. The Death of Moses

CHAPTER 34

1. The death and burial of Moses (Deu 34:1-7)

2. The mourning of the people (Deu 34:8)

3. The conclusion of the book (Deu 34:9-12)

This chapter was not written by Moses, but is an addition by another chosen instrument.

The home-going of this great man of God is beyond description. What a scene it must have been when he ascended Nebo to the top of Pisgah! And the Lord met him there and showed him the land and said: This is the land, which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. What vision it must have been! What peace and joy must have filled the heart of the servant of God! Then he died. Jewish tradition has woven many stories around this event. One, however, is so beautiful that we must mention it. At Gods command Moses crossed his hands over his breast and closed his eyes; and God took away his soul with a kiss. Then heaven and earth and the starry world began to weep for Moses.

And the Lord buried Moses. How and where is unrevealed. Jude informs us that Michael, the archangel, contended with the devil about the body of Moses. No doubt Satan tried to bring the buried body to light and to seduce Israel to worship the body of their departed leader. What honor Jehovah put after all upon His servant! He is the only one who was buried by the Lord, and he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord. And the beautiful testimony concerning him by the Spirit of God at the end of this book! And there arose not a prophet since in Israel whom the LORD knew face to face.

May it please God to bless this book and its many lessons to our hearts. May He grant unto us to live and walk dependent upon and obedient to His Word.

1. It has been stated Luk 23:43 is this Old Testament idiom in the New Testament, as if our Lord meant to say: Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. However, this is positively wrong. It is the argument advanced by the teachers of the soul-sleep. The same hint is made in the Companion Bible. The comma does not belong after today but after thee as we have it in the English Bible.

2. The taking off of the shoe was an ancient custom also, adopted, according to Rth 4:7, in cases of redemption and exchange, for the purpose of confirming commercial transactions. The usage arose from the fact, that when any one took possession of landed property, he did so by treading upon the soil, and asserting his right of possession by standing upon it in his shoes. In this way the taking off of the shoe and handing it to another became a symbol of the renunciation of a mans position and property.

3. Reuben (behold a son); Simeon (hearing); Levi (joined); Judah (praise). This is the order of the sons of Jacob according to their birth. It tells out the gospel. In the blessing of Moses the order is: Reuben (behold a son!); Judah (praise); Levi (joined). Simeon (hearing) is left out. When the Lord comes Israel will behold Him as the Son and will break out in praise and worship and become joined to Him. No hearing is needed then. We pass this on to our readers for consideration. We have nowhere seen this application.

Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

the mountain: Deu 32:49, Num 27:12, Num 33:47

Pisgah: or, the hill, Num 21:20, *marg.

showed him: Deu 34:4, Deu 3:27, Num 32:33-40, Eze 40:2, Rev 21:10

Dan: Gen 14:14, Jos 19:47, Jdg 18:29

Reciprocal: Exo 16:35 – the borders Num 22:1 – the children Num 23:14 – Pisgah Num 26:3 – General Deu 4:49 – under the springs Deu 11:29 – General Deu 32:52 – General 1Ki 12:29 – Dan 1Ch 5:8 – Nebo Isa 15:2 – Nebo

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A Prophet Like None Other

Deu 34:1-12

It took the death of Moses to evoke the words which serve as our title today. Ironically, that death marks the beginning of Israel’s path into the promised land. Moses had to lay down the mantle of leadership and Joshua take it up for God’s people to enter Canaan.

When the people arrived at Kadesh in Num 20:1-29 , they murmured against God and his leaders. Moses and Aaron went before God to learn what he would have them to do in response to the complaints. God told them to take the rod, assemble the people and speak to the rock.

Moses rebuked the people instead of speaking to the rock. He also struck the rock twice and left the impression that he and Aaron were solely responsible for providing water for the people ( Psa 106:33 ). The two brothers had failed to sanctify God in their actions, though he was sanctified when he swiftly punished the two leaders for their wrong deeds. Moses and Aaron acted like unbelievers when they failed to follow God’s will exactly as he had directed, so God denied them an entrance to the promised land.

Moses pleaded with God to let him go into the promised land to see the end of the works he had begun in delivering the people from Egypt. Moses told the people, “But the Lord was angry with me on your account, and would not listen to me. So the Lord said to me: ‘Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter” ( Deu 3:21-29 ). God did tell him to go up into Mount Pisgah and see the whole land the people would possess. He also told him to charge Joshua with the job of leadership and encourage him in the work he was about to begin.

In Deu 34:1-12 , Moses climbs to the top of Mount Nebo, which is also called Pisgah, in the Abarim range ( Num 33:47-48 ). There God showed him all of the land the children of Israel would inherit. Coffman says various writers say that in those times a man who purchased land would take possession of his purchase by surveying it with his eyes. If so, that would certainly make this a good ending to a great man’s life. Heb 11:23-26 seems to say Moses looked forward to a reward from God beyond what he might receive in this life. If so, he may have felt much like Paul in Php 1:23 . Certainly, he longed to enter into Canaan and finish the work he had begun with the people of Israel, but he also longed for an eternal home.

Verse 5 of Deu 34:1-12 tells us Moses died “according to the word of the Lord.” Leslie G. Thomas says this literally means “by the mouth of the Lord” and the Jewish Rabbis say the meaning is by the kiss of God. In other words, he went to sleep with the kiss of the loving Father in heaven, much like a child goes to sleep at night after the kiss of its father. Then, God took his body and buried it in a place unknown to any man. All that the text tells us is that his burial place was in the valley of Moab near Beth-peor.

Moses had led the people for forty years, from the time he was eighty until his death at the age of one hundred twenty. The text tells us his physical strength never left him nor did his eyesight grow weak. For thirty days, the children of Israel mourned their dead leader, then Joshua took up the mantel of leadership left by Moses, the one he had ministered to for so long.

It is interesting to note that Moses did one day get to enter the promised land. He was not allowed to walk through Jordan’s dry bed but he did go over it to be with Jesus on the mount of transfiguration ( Mat 17:1-5 ).

Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books

Deu 34:1. Moses went up When he knew the place of his death, he cheerfully mounted the hill to come to it. Those who are well acquainted with another world, are not afraid to leave this. When Gods servants are sent for out of the world, the summons runs, Go up and die! From the plains of Moab In which was their last station before they entered into Canaan, Num 33:48. To the top of Pisgah Which appears to have been the highest top of these mountains. And from hence God enabled him to take a particular view of the several quarters of the land of Canaan. Unto Dan To that city, which after Mosess death was called so. The mention of Dan in this verse, and the account of Mosess death and burial, and of some particulars after he had left the world, (Deu 34:5-9,) show that this chapter was not written by Moses; but probably by Samuel, Ezra, or some other of the prophets who succeeded him.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deu 34:1. Moses went up to the top of Pisgah. The Jews with general consent admit, that this chapter was written or copied into the text by Ezra, the ready scribe, a prophet and doctor of the Law.

Deu 34:4. This is the land. If Moses could see Dan Laish, and the utmost sea, the Mediterranean, he could clearly see Lebanon, for the border of Naphtali reached to the foot of that mountain; so he could at one commanding view, see nearly the whole of the promised land. Oh christian! May thine eyes see, and thine ears hear repeated those welcome words, This is the land; a better country than that which Moses saw.

Deu 34:6. No man knoweth of his sepulchre. The reason commonly assigned is, lest the Hebrews should be seduced to idolatry, which was much practised at the sepulchres of holy men. Jude affirms on tradition, that Satan contended about the body of Moses, to have his grave known, with a view to corrupt the people.

Deu 34:10. There arose not a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. For this reason Maimonides, after the elder rabbins, calls him the prince of prophets. They had visions and revelations; Moses had open visions. His work was great, and grace was equal to his day.

REFLECTIONS.

Having followed the prophet through the weary steps of life, we are now come to the closing scene. It corresponds with all the grace of former years: and the most exemplary piety which had distinguished his character through a long and laborious pilgrimage, we may consider as the foundation of his triumphant death. When called of God to emancipate the people, he renounced the pleasures of the Egyptian court. Forgetful of his princely hopes, he claimed kindred with a people poor and oppressed, and esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of reward. During his forty years of exile in Midian, poor as a shepherd, he was content and happy with his lot. Surrounded with peaceful flocks, and far from the intrigues of a court, he tasted all the charms of solitude, and an intercourse with heaven undisturbed. These habits, never failing sources of divine repose, had so possessed his soul, that it was with difficulty the God of his fathers could force him away to emancipate his people. Passing at once from the cares of a shepherd to the duties of a king, though he had to form a brutish people to all the habits of civil and religious society; though his kindness was requited with provocations and insults beyond example; yet he never forsook his charge. Israel was to him as his own bowels: he led them through the desert to the borders of the promised land. In the awful revolt, when they worshipped the calf; when Israel stood on the brink, the very brink of destruction; when God himself, all indignant with his people, tempted Moses not to pray, he redoubled all the efforts of intercession, and interposed his own life between the vengeance and the people. And when heaven signified its pleasure that he should see the land and die, all his solicitude was still for the people. He besought the Lord for a successor, and resigned his charge with a cheerfulness exceeding the reluctance with which it was assumed. He spent his remaining time wholly in divine affairs. He recited the law, and renewed the covenant. The last day he wholly spent in reciting psalms, and in shedding benedictions on all the tribes. Thus he travelled through life with equal steps, and finished his course with encreasing strength. He approached eternity like the rich sheaves of the harvest, and clusters of the vintage, full of all wisdom, and mature in every virtue.

But all these shining graces seemed to derive a lustre from the shade of a single fault; and all his elevating honours found a ballast in the sentence, not to enter the promised land. At Meribah, when the people fainted for water, the elders presented their complaints with a menacing insolence which led to an open rupture. Anger kindled anger, and the violence of the strife was little less than war. But the Lord pitying his people, bade him take his rod, and speak to the adjacent rock. The elders accompanied him, accusing him all the way of infatuation, and he in return accusing them of revolt. In this sad spirit he addressed the flinty granite, but it was deaf to his voice; he smote it with his rod, but it yielded no water. Standing thus appalled before the people, and apparently deceived in his mission, or forsaken of his God, he saw the greatness of his sin; for the Lord will not own his servants when they do his work in a wrong spirit. But though the rock had derided the stroke of Moses, yet grace, in that moment, caused the waters of repentance to flow from his heart. The man of sin was smitten within him; every vestige of indwelling corruption seemed to vanish away, and he became the meekest man on the face of the earth. On this awful occasion, had it not been for the return of grace, he had fallen a victim to the revolt. He stood alarmed before the angry elders, as the disciples before the faithless multitude, when they had tried in vain to heal the demoniac. But the same Lord who appeased their fears by healing the lad, coming to the aid of Moses, covered his soul with a cloud of compassion and grace. All renovated by the return of the divine presence, he ventured with a trembling hand to strike the rock a second time; and behold, it burst with a torrent of life on the people. But the Lord, whose grace is always guarded with justice, sentenced his servant not to enter the promised land. St. Paul also had a thorn in the flesh given him, lest he should glory in the abundance of his revelations. The apostle in vain besought the Lord thrice for its removal. Moses only once, nor even that till he approached the land, saying, Let me pass over, and behold the goodly mountain and Lebanon; yet he could not prevail for more than a mitigation, a gracious one indeed, to see the land and die.

Reader, fix your eye on this divine character. Wearied with giving a glorious finish to the duties of life, behold he sleeps secure at night. Dreams of past toils and of future hopes delight his soul. The serenity of heaven rests on his countenance, while a host of angels guard his pavilion, and await the glories of the approaching day. See, he rises with the earliest dawn, nor lingers on his couch till the orient brightness had gilded the chambers of the west. He kneels a moment to adore, and smiling bids adieu to a tent so often hallowed by the presence of God. Impatient of delay, and full of immortal hope, he steals away from the camp, leaving a thousand blessings behind. With all the agility of youth he ascends the ridge of Abarim, aiming directly at Nebo, and the summit of Pisgah. On his arrival, nature had made her arrangements for vision. The clouds had thrown a gentle curtain over the higher heavens; the sun just risen with a full beam, had bespangled all the plains, and gilded the declivities of the western hills. The whole face of nature, divested of the garb of winter, had just assumed the charms of spring. The rapid Jordan, sporting in the plains, and winding in the mountains, discovered its silver streams from Gilead to Dan; southwards he traced the swelling flood, as far as the Lake of Sodom. An infinitude of cattle just risen from their grassy couch, were fattening in the verdant meads. The timid flocks, cautiously venturing from their pens, had begun to crop the herbage of the rising grounds. Lebanon in the north, and all his neighbouring hills were crowned with cedars. All the rugged places, barren in other countries, were here adorned with the mantling vine. The fields of barley, changing to a golden hue, invited by their abundance. The walled cities, every where raising their bold towers above the surrounding gardens, gave a finish to the charms of landscape. What a contrast between Canaan, and the weary desert. What a country: delightful as the garden of the Lord! But ah, its inhabitants were not worthy. Effeminate by habit, they were yet asleep secure in their sins; nor did they dream that the vengeance, long reproached with supineness, was just at the door. Their priests, infatuated as themselves, saw not the danger, nor sounded the alarm: and their divinities were the work of their own hands. Ah, so it shall be in the latter day, when the Son of Man shall suddenly come to surprise and punish the wicked and infidel world.

But the sanctified soul of Moses ascended from the aspects of nature to the contemplation of grace. A voice saying to him, this is the land I gave to thy fathers, he traced the footsteps of Abraham, from Haran to the oak of Mamre. He beheld Moriah, where an oblation was made of Isaac, and where JEHOVAH sware to a worm. Not far distant he beheld Bethel, where Jacob, exiled with his staff in his hand, saw the vision, and received the promise; where he again built an altar and paid his vows, after returning with a patriarchs train. He saw the vale of Jabbok, in which the same patriarch, just escaped the fury of Laban, and now menaced with Esau, wrestled with God till he obtained the blessing, and till the heart of his brother was softened. He saw more:he saw the faithfulness and mercy of God displayed on the broad scale of four hundred and thirty years. He saw the goodly tents of Jacob, numerous as the sands on the briny beach, ready to receive the promise. He saw all this Canaan, the covenant inheritance, inviting them to purge its crimes with the sword, and once more to hallow it with the ark and altar of the Lord. Here the perfections of his God shone too bright for frail humanity. His soul was overpowered with vision, and his body seized with sensations never known before. Nature, vanquished with the weight of grace, implored deliverance, in language like that of Simeon: Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. His strength which had never failed before, now forsook him. His eyes which had never been dim, were now veiled with a cloud. But as the traveller, stretching his weary limbs at night on a couch, quickly passes from reflection to dream, so Moses opened his eyes, and the light shone brighter than before. He saw the Canaan, and in charms which cannot be described. Having fainted in the contemplation of God and his works, he saw the throne of JEHOVAH right before him. He saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and a crowd of holy patriarchs surrounding him with looks and greetings all divine. Leaving the body in undistinguished dust, he knew not that this was dying till he had more than passed the vale of death.

Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Deuteronomy 34

This brief chapter forms an inspired postscript to the book of Deuteronomy. We are not told who was employed as the instrument in the hand of the inspiring Spirit; but this is a matter of no moment to the devout student of holy scripture. We are fully persuaded that the postscript is as truly inspired as the book, and the book as the Pentateuch; and the Pentateuch as the whole Volume of God.

“And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top, of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar. And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed; I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither. So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”

In our studies on the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, we have had occasion to dwell upon the very solemn and, we may truly add, soul subduing fact recorded in the above quotation. It will not therefore be needful to add many words in this our closing section. We would merely remind the reader that, if he would have a full understanding of the whole subject, he must look at Moses in a twofold aspect, namely, officially and personally.

Now, looking at this beloved and honoured man in his official capacity, it is very plain that it lay not in his province to conduct the congregation of Israel into the promised land. The wilderness was his sphere of action; it pertained not to him to lead the people across the river of death, into their destined inheritance. His ministry was connected with man’s responsibility under law and the government of God, and hence it never could lead the People into the enjoyment of the promise. It was reserved for his successor to do this. Joshua, a type of the risen Saviour, was God’s appointed instrument to lead His people across the Jordan, and plant them in their divinely given inheritance.

All this is plain and deeply interesting; but we must look at Moses personally as well as officially; and here, too, we must view him in a twofold aspect, as the subject of government and the object of grace. We must never lose sight of this most important distinction. It runs all through scripture, and is strikingly illustrated in the history of many of the Lord’s beloved people and of His most eminent servants. The subject of grace and government demands the reader’s most profound attention. We have dwelt upon it again and again, in the course of our studies; but no words of ours could adequately set forth its moral importance and immense practical value. We consider it one of the weightiest and most seasonable subjects that could possibly engage the attention of the Lord’s people, at the present moment.

It was the government of God which, with stern decision, forbade the entrance of Moses into the Promised land, much as he longed to do so. He spoke unadvisedly with his lips; he failed to glorify God in the eyes of the congregation at the waters of Meribah, and for this he was forbidden to cross the Jordan and plant his foot on the promised land.

Let us deeply ponder this, beloved Christian reader. Let us see that we fully apprehend its moral force and practical application. It is surely with the greatest tenderness and delicacy that we would refer to the failure of one of the most beloved and illustrious of the Lord’s servants; but it has been recorded for our learning and solemn admonition, and therefore we are bound to give earnest heed to it. We should ever remember that we, too, though under grace, are also the subjects of divine government. We are here on this earth, in the place of solemn responsibility, under a government which cannot be trifled with. True, we are children of the Father, loved with an infinite and everlasting love – loved even as Jesus is loved. We are members of the body of Christ, loved, cherished and nourished according to all the perfect love of His heart. There is no question of responsibility here, no possibility of failure; all is divinely settled, divinely sure; but we are the subjects of divine government also. Let us never, for one moment, lose sight of this. Let us beware of one-sided and pernicious notions of grace. The very fact of our being objects of divine favour and love, children of God, members of Christ, should lead us to yield all the more reverent attention to the divine government.

To use an illustration drawn from human affairs, her Majesty’s children should, above all others, just because they are her children, respect her government; and were they, in any way, to transgress her laws, the dignity of government would be strikingly illustrated by their being made to pay the penalty. If they, because of being the queen’s children, were to be allowed to transgress with impunity the enactments of her Majesty’s government, it would be simply exposing the government to public contempt, and affording a warrant to all her subjects to do the same. And if it be thus in the case of a human government, how much more in the government of God! “You only have I known of all the families of the earth, therefore will I punish you for your iniquities.” “The time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” Solemn fact! Solemn inquiry! May we ponder them deeply.

But, as we have said, Moses was the subject of grace, as well as of government; and truly that grace shines with special lustre on the top of Pisgah. There the venerable servant of God was permitted to stand in his Master’s presence, and, with undimmed eye, survey the land of promise, in all its fair proportions. He was permitted to see it from a divine stand-point – see it, not merely as possessed by Israel, but as given by God.

And what then? He fell asleep and was gathered to his people. He died, not as a withered and feeble old man, but in all the freshness and vigour of matured manhood. “And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.” Striking testimony! Rare fact in the annals of our fallen race! The life of Moses was divided into three important and strongly marked periods of forty years each. He spent forty years in the house of Pharaoh; forty years “at the backside of the desert;” and forty years in the wilderness. Marvellous life! Eventful history! How instructive! How suggestive! How rich in its lessons from first to last! How profoundly interesting the study of such a life! To trace him from the river’s brink where he lay a helpless babe, up to the top of Pisgah where he stood, in company with his Lord, to gaze with undimmed vision upon the fair inheritance of the Israel of God; and to see him again on the mount of Transfiguration in company with his honoured fellow-servant Elias, “talking with Jesus” on the grandest theme that could possibly engage the attention of men or angels. Highly favoured man! Blessed servant! Marvellous vessel!

And then let us hearken to the divine testimony to this most beloved man Of God. “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight Of all Israel.”

May the Lord, in His infinite goodness, bless our study of the book of Deuteronomy! May its precious lessons be engraved upon the tablets of our hearts with the eternal pen of the Holy Ghost, and produce their proper result in forming our character, governing our conduct and shaping our way through this world! May we earnestly seek to tread with a humble spirit and firm step, the narrow path of obedience, till travelling days are done! C. H. M.

Fuente: Mackintosh’s Notes on the Pentateuch

Deuteronomy 34. The Death of Moses on Mount Pisgah (JE). (Deu 34:1 b Deu 34:6.)

Deu 34:1. over against: lit. in front, i.e. E. Render, the land, that is, Gilead to Dan.

Deu 34:2. hinder: render western (Deu 11:24*, cf. Deu 34:1).

Deu 34:6. mg., though permitted by the Heb., is opposed to Deu 34:6 b.

Deu 34:7. See Deu 31:2, Exo 7:7, and Num 33:39 (Aaron).

Deu 34:8. thirty days: Num 20:29* (for Aaron). The custom continues among modern Jews.

Deu 34:10. prophet, etc.: see Deu 18:15; Deu 18:18, cf. Num 12:6-8 (E).

Deu 34:10-12 implies a date long after the death of Moses.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES

(vs.1-12)

Thus Moses has given his last message to Israel, so that this chapter is necessarily penned by a different writer. Moses, fully aware that he would die on Mount Nebo, goes with calm confidence in the living God to his appointed end. Evidently he went alone, and the writer of this history therefore received his information of this occasion directly from the Lord. Ascending to the top of Pisgah, which means “survey,” he was there shown by God all the land of Gilead as far as Dan (v.1) at the extreme north of the land, all Naphtali, Ephraim and Manasseh and Judah as far as the Western Sea (the Mediterranean). These of course were the possessions that God had purposed for these tribes. The south of the land also was included and the plain of the valley of Jericho, which was much closer (v.3). Certainly all of this panoramic view would not normally be visible from that point, but God made it visible to Moses on this one occasion.

In this beautiful way the grace of God transcended His stern government. His government could not allow Moses to enter the land, but His grace enabled him to see it all, which he would not do by entering it, and which no Israelite who entered would see. More than this, in the New Testament (Mat 17:1-3) Moses is seen in the land, but with his interest not fixed on the land at all, but on the Lord Jesus, transfigured before his eyes. Marvelous blessing indeed for the deeply tried leader of Israel!

The Lord told Moses on Mount Nebo that this was the land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to their descendants, and though Moses had seen it, he would not cross over the Jordan to enter it. Thus this faithful servant of the Lord died as the Lord had told him he would (v.5). But Israel could have no burial service for him. Instead, Moses had the unique distinction of being buried by God with no observer present. Not even Satan knew his burying place, for Jud 1:9 tells us that there was a dispute between Michael the archangel and the devil concerning the body of Moses, which was settled by Michael’s wise words, “The Lord rebuke you.” If Satan had known where Moses’ body was buried, how likely it is he would have moved people to build a shrine of idolatrous worship there. But Moses, faithful man of God as he was, is not to be worshiped.

The age of Moses at his death was 120 years, yet his eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished (v.7). He did not die of disease nor of old age, but God took his life at God’s appointed time. What a life indeed of faithful devotedness to God in the face of almost every kind of opposition! Yet he was a man subject to the same sinful tendencies as we are. He is a striking proof of the fact that God will provide the necessary grace and strength for the carrying out of any responsibility that He may put upon any believer.

Though they could not attend his funeral, the children of Israel mourned for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days (v.8). No indication is given that Israel thought Moses might just be lost on the mountain, and therefore send men to search for him, as the sons of the prophets did when Elijah had been translated by God (2Ki 2:15-18). There was no precipitate action on Israel’s part to press into the land. God would have them in a state of calm submission to Him and to His working before He called them to attack their enemies. The thirty days mourning was therefore a good preparation

However, God had prepared Joshua as a successor to Moses, giving him a spirit of wisdom for the service he was now to take up in a way clearly distinct from that of Moses, yet with the full fellowship of Moses, who had laid his hands on Joshua, an expression of identification with him as the new leader of Israel (v.9). Whatever service may be necessary to be performed, only the person God prepares for it will be able to perform it.

Yet we are told that since that time there has not arisen another prophet like Moses (v.10). Are we not absolutely amazed at the tremendous accomplishments of that one man in leading over two million people through a wilderness for forty years? His nearness to God was the one secret of his endurance (Heb 11:27).

All the signs and wonders that God sent him to do in Egypt are specifically mentioned, which would include the ten plagues sent on Egypt and the passage of the Red Sea (v.11). The wilderness history also was attended by “mighty power and great terror,” such as the destruction of Korab, Dathan and Abiram (Num 16:28-35). Through all of these things Moses remained the faithful, humble servant of God, never exalting himself or glorying in his prominence. Yet throughout his life he was too greatly dishonored by Israel. Since his death, however, Israel has held him in great esteem! Such is the sad perversity of the hearts of people generally!

Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible

34:1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of {a} Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that [is] over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,

(a) Which was a part of mount Abarim, Num 27:12.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

E. Moses’ death and burial: narrative epilogue ch. 34

"A testament is of force only after the death of the testator [cf. Heb 9:16-17]. So the Deuteronomic Covenant in its testamentary aspect . . . would not become operative until after the death of Moses. Only then would Joshua succeed to the role of vicegerent of God over Israel, and only then under the leadership of Joshua could the tribes, according to the declarations of the Lord, enter into their inheritance in Canaan. It was, therefore, appropriate that the Deuteronomic treaty should close with the record of Moses’ death, which in effect notarizes the treaty. That the testamentary significance of Moses’ death is in view is evidenced by the accompanying attention given to the land of Israel’s inheritance and to Joshua’s accession to the royal mediatorship of the covenant." [Note: Kline, "Deuteronomy," p. 203.]

Moses proceeded up Mt. Nebo as God had instructed him (Deu 32:48-52) and viewed the land across the Jordan River that God had promised to give to Abraham’s descendants. What Moses saw was not all that God had promised Abraham (Deu 34:4; cf. Gen 15:18) but the part that Israel was about to enter and hopefully possess.

"It was necessary for Jesus to die before entering his rest, because he was the true Mediator who came to reconcile his sinful people unto God; Moses must die without entering the typical rest because as the OT mediator he had by official transgression disqualified himself for [sic] completing the mission which prefigured that of the sinless Son of God. Unlike Moses, who after his death was succeeded by Joshua (Deuteronomy 33 [sic 34]:9), the Messianic Mediator would succeed himself after his death because it was not possible that death should hold him." [Note: Ibid.]

"The fact . . . that the Lord buried His servant Moses [Deu 34:6], and no man knows of his sepulchre, is in perfect keeping with the relation in which Moses stood to the Lord while he was alive. . . . ’If Jehovah . . . would not suffer the body of Moses to be buried by man, it is but natural to seek for the reason in the fact that He did not intend to leave him to corruption, but, when burying it with His own hand, imparted a power to it which preserved it from corruption, and prepared the way for it to pass into the same form of existence to which Enoch and Elijah were taken, without either death or burial.’" [Note: Keil and Delitzsch, 3:515-16. Their quotation is from Kurtz.]

Another explanation for Moses’ unusual burial is simply that God chose to bury His faithful servant rather than allowing the Israelites to do so. Such a burial is a testimony to the greatness of Moses.

"Most likely the sepulchre remained hidden precisely to prevent the Israelites from taking Moses’ body with them to Canaan, thus violating the divine command to disallow Moses entry there." [Note: Merrill, Deuteronomy, p. 453.]

Another view follows.

"By the time this last chapter was written, the burial of Moses was so far in the past that the location of his grave was uncertain to the writer." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 478.]

This statement rests on the assumption that this account of Moses’ death was written long after the event. Moses was 120 years old when he died (Deu 34:7). He had begun his ministry of covenant mediator on one mountain (i.e., Sinai), and now he ended that ministry on another. The Israelites mourned for him for 30 days (Deu 34:8) as they had done for Aaron (Num 20:29). This long a period of mourning was evidently conventional for a great person, [Note: Craigie, The Book . . ., p. 405.] though the normal time of mourning a loved one was apparently seven days (Gen 50:10).

"The chapter provides the final statement regarding the Lord’s refusal to allow Moses to enter the Promised Land. It thus links up with an important theme in the Pentateuch: Moses, who lived under the Law, was not allowed to enter into God’s blessings because he failed ’to believe’ (Num 20:12). According to this chapter, Moses did not die of old age-’his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone’ (Deu 34:7). His death was punishment, just as the generation that died in the wilderness during the forty years was punished (Num 14:22-23). . . . From the perspective of the Pentateuch as a whole, Moses died young. He did not live the many centuries of the early patriarchs before the Flood. Thus at the close of the Pentateuch the life of Moses becomes the last example of the consequences of the Fall of the first man and woman. Like them, he was not allowed to enjoy the blessing of God’s good land." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 478. Cf. Merrill, Deuteronomy, pp. 453-54.]

Many students of Moses’ life have noticed similarities to Christ’s and regard him as a type of Christ. Both men were divinely chosen deliverers (Exo 3:7-10; Joh 3:16; Act 7:25). Both experienced rejection by Israel and so turned to the Gentiles (Exo 2:11-15; Act 7:23-29; Act 18:5-6; cf. Act 28:17-28). Both gained a bride during their rejection by Israel (Exo 2:16-21; Mat 12:14-21; 2Co 11:2; Eph 5:30-32). Following his period of rejection, Moses again appeared as Israel’s deliverer and was accepted, as Jesus will be (Exo 4:29-31; Rom 11:24-26; cf. Act 15:14-17). Both were prophets (Act 3:22-23), advocates (Exo 32:31-35; 1Jn 2:1-2), intercessors (Exo 17:1-6; Heb 7:25), and leaders or kings (Deu 33:4-5; Isa 55:4; Heb 2:10; Revelation 19). Moses was faithful as a servant over another’s house whereas Christ is faithful as a Son over His own house (Heb 3:5-6).

When Moses was dead, Joshua picked up the reins of leadership with the support of the Israelites (Deu 34:9). God gave him special wisdom for his responsibilities.

"What is stressed here is that Joshua was ’filled with the spirit of wisdom’ (Deu 34:9) and thus able to do the work of God. Like Joseph (Gen 41:37 [sic 38]) and Bezalel (Exo 31:3), who were filled with ’the Spirit of God,’ Joshua was able to do God’s work successfully. Thus this last chapter of the Pentateuch returns to a central theme, begun already in the first chapter of Genesis: ’and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep’ (Gen 1:2). It is the Spirit of God that is the means of doing the work of God [cf. Eze 36:26]." [Note: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p. 478.]

The final verses in the book (Deu 34:10-12) and the Pentateuch give an evaluation of Moses’ ministry. They are his literary epitaph (cf. 2Sa 23:1-7). Someone other than Moses probably added them after his death. Moses was remarkable in several respects that the writer identified. His intimate relationship with God was unique (cf. Deu 18:15-22; Num 12:6-8). The miracles God did through him in Egypt and the powerful acts he performed in the Israelites’ sight were also noteworthy. He performed many of these signs when God gave the Mosaic Covenant at Mt. Sinai.

". . . Moses was never equaled by any subsequent prophet until the coming of Jesus Christ." [Note: Schultz, p. 123. Cf. Hebrews 3:1-6.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

MOSES CHARACTER AND DEATH

IT has been often said, and it has even become a principle of the critical school, that the historical notices in the earlier documents of the Old Testament represent nothing but the ideas current at the time when they were written. Whether they depict an Abraham, a Jacob, or a Moses, all they really tell us is the kind of character which at such times was held to be heroic. In this way the value of the historic parts of Deuteronomy has been called in question, and we have been told that all we can gather from them about Moses is the kind of character which the pious, in the age of Manasseh, would feel justified in attributing to their great religious hero. But it is manifestly unfair to estimate the statements of men who write in good faith, as if they were only projecting their own desires and prejudices upon a past which is absolutely dark. It may be true that such writers might be unwilling to narrate stories concerning the great men of the past which were inconsistent with the esteem in which they were held; but it is much more certain that their narratives will represent the tradition and the current knowledge of their time regarding the heroes of their race. Unless this be true, no reliance could be placed upon anything but absolutely contemporary documents; even these would be open to suspicion, if the human mind were so lawless as to have no scruple in filling up all gaps in its knowledge by imaginations. We must protest, therefore, against the notion that what J and E and D tell us concerning the life and character of Moses must be discounted in any effort we make to represent to ourselves the life and thought of that great leader of Israel. They tell us much more than what was thought fitting for a leader of the people in the ninth and eighth and seventh centuries B.C. They tell us what was believed in those times about Moses; and much of what was believed about him must have rested upon good authority, upon entirely reliable tradition, or upon previous written narratives concerning him.

Up till recently it was held, by men as eminent even as Reuss, that writing was unknown in the days of Moses, and that for long afterwards oral tradition alone could be a source of knowledge of the past. But recent discoveries have shown that this is an entire mistake. Long before Moses writing was a common accomplishment in Canaan; and it seems almost ridiculous to suppose that the man who left his mark so indelibly upon this nation should have been ignorant of an art with which every master of a village or two was thoroughly conversant. Moreover the fact that the same root (k-t-b) occurs in every Semitic tongue with the meaning “to write,” would seem to indicate that before their separation from one another the art of writing was known to all the Semitic tribes. The new facts enormously strengthen that probability, and make the arguments advanced by those who hold the opposite view look even absurd. But if writing were known and practiced in Moses day in Canaan, it would be marvelous if many of the great events of the early days had not been recorded. It would be still more marvelous if the comparatively late writings, which alone we have at our disposal, had not embodied and absorbed much older documents.

But for still another reason the critical dictum must be held to be false. Applied in other fields and in regard to other times, this same principle would deprive us of almost every character which has been considered the glory of humanity. Zarathustra and Buddha have alike been sacrificed to this prejudice, and there are men living who say that we know so little about our Lord Jesus Christ that it is doubtful whether He ever existed. A method which produces such results must be false. The great source of progress and reform has always been some man possessed by an idea or a principle. Even in our own days, when the press and the facilities for communication have given general tendencies a power to realize themselves which they never had in the worlds history before, great men are the moving factors in all great changes. In earlier ages this was still more the case. It is an utterly unjustifiable skepticism which makes men contradict the grateful recollection of mankind, in regard to those who have raised and comforted humanity. Through all obscurities and confusions we can reach that Indian Prince for whom the sight of human misery embittered his own brilliant and enjoyable life. We refuse to give up Zarathustra, though his story is more obscure and entangled than that of almost any other great leader of mankind. Especially in a history like that of Israel, which purports to have been guided in a special manner by revelations of the will of God, the individual man filled with Gods spirit is quite indispensable. Even if mythical elements in the story could be proved, that would not shake our faith in the existence of Moses; for as Steinthal, who holds the very “advanced” opinion that solar myths have strayed into the history of Moses, wisely says, it is quite as possible to distinguish between the mythical and the historical Moses as it is to distinguish between the historical Charlemagne and the mythical. Because of the general reliability of tradition regarding great men therefore, and because also of the proofs we have that writing was common before Moses day, we need not burden ourselves with the assumption or the fear that the Deuteronomic character of Moses may be unreliable.

But in endeavoring to set forth this conception of the character of Moses, we cannot confine ourselves to what appears in this book. It is generally acknowledged that the author had at least the Yahwist and the Elohist documents in their entirety before him, and regarded them with respect, not to say reverence. Consequently we must believe that he accepted what they said of Moses as true. The only document in the Pentateuch that he may not have known in any shape was the Priest Codex, but that makes no attempt to depict the inner or outer life of Moses. All the personal life and color in the Biblical narrative belongs to the other sources. For a personal estimate, therefore, we lose little by excluding P. Only one other cause of suspicion in regard to the historical parts of Deuteronomy could arise. If it, comparatively modern as it is, contained much that was new, if it revealed aspects of character for which no authority, was quoted, and of which there was no trace m the earlier narratives, there might be reasonable doubt whether these new details were the product of imagination, But there is very little more in Deuteronomy that, there is in the historical parts of the other books, though the older narratives are repeated with a vivid and insistive pathos which almost seems to make them new.

Combining then what the Deuteronomist himself says with what the Yahwist and Elohist documents contain, we find that the claim usually made for Moses, that he was the founder of an entirely new religion, is not sustained. Again and again it is asserted that Yahweh had been the God of their fathers, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-so that Moses was simply the renewer of a higher faith which for a time had been corrupted. Some have even asserted that there had been all down the ages to Moses the memory of a primeval revelation. But if there ever was such a thing, we learn from Jos 24:2, a verse acknowledged to be from the Elohist, that that “fair beginning of a time” had been entirely eclipsed, for Terah, the father of Abraham, had served other gods beyond the flood. Abraham, therefore, rather than Moses, is regarded as the founder of the religion of Yahweh. Whether the word Yahweh {Exo 6:3} was known or not makes little difference, for all our four authorities teach that Moses work was the revival of faith in that which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had believed. But the bulk of the people would appear to have been ignorant regarding the God Of their fathers; and probably the conception which Deuteronomy shares with J and F, is that in Moses day Yahweh was the special God of a small circle, perhaps of the tribe of Levi, among whom a more spiritual conception of God than was common among their countrymen had either been retained, or had arisen anew. Probably then we ought to conceive the circumstances of Moses early life somewhat in this way. A number of Semitic tribes, more or less nearly related to each other and to Edom and Moab, had settled in Egypt as semi-agricultural nomads. At first they were tolerated; but they were now being worn down and oppressed by forced labor of the most brutal sort. Either a tribe or a clan among them had the germs of a purer conception of God, and in this tribe or clan Moses, the deliverer of his people, was born. Providentially he escaped the death which awaited all Israelite boys in those days, and grew up in the camp of the enemies of his people. By this means he received all the culture that the best of the oppressors had, while the tie to Israel was neither obscured nor weakened in his mind. At the court of Pharaoh he could not fail to acquire some notions of statecraft, and he must have seen that the first step towards anything great for his people must be their union and consolidation. But his earliest effort on their behalf showed that he had not really considered and weighed the magnitude of his task. Killing an Egyptian oppressor might conceivably have served as a signal for revolt. But in point of fact it frustrated any plans Moses might have had for the good of his people, and drove him into the wilderness. Here the germs of various thoughts which education and experience of life had deposited in his mind had time to develop and grow. According to the narrative, it was only at the end of his long sojourn in Midian that he had direct revelation from God. But amid the wide and awful solitudes of that wilderness land, as General Gordon said of himself in the kindred solitudes of the Soudan, he learned himself and God. Whatever deposits of higher faith he had received from his family, no doubt the long, silent broodings inseparable from a shepherds life had increased and vivified it. Every possible aspect of it must have been reckoned with, all its consequences explored; and his great and solitary soul, we may be sure, had many a time let down soundings into the deeps which were, as yet, dark to him. And then-for it is to souls that have yearned after Him in the travail of intellectual and spiritual longing that God gives His great and splendid revelations-Yahweh revealed Himself in the flame of the bush, and gave him the final assurance and the first impulse for his lifes work. It is a touch of reality in the narrative which can hardly be mistaken, that it represents Moses as shrinking from the responsibility which his call must lay upon him. Behind the few and simple objections in the narrative, we must picture to ourselves a whole world of thoughts and feelings into which the call of God had brought tumult and confusion. One would need to be a dry-as-dust pedant not to see here, as in the case of Isaiahs call, the triumphant issue of a long conflict and the decisive moment of a victory over self, which had had already many stages of defeat and only partial success. It is perennially true to human nature and to the Divine dealings with human nature, that help from on high comes to establish and touch to finer issues that which the true man has striven for with all his powers.

Enlightened and assured by this great revelation of God, Moses left the quiet of the desert to undertake an extraordinarily difficult task. He had to weld jealous tribes into a nation; he had to rouse men whose courage had been broken by slavery and cruelty to undertake a dangerous revolt; and he had to prepare for the march of a whole population, burdened with invalids and infants, the feeble and the old, through a country which even today tries all but the strongest. These things had to be done; and the mere fact that they were accomplished would be inexplicable, without the domination of a great personality inspired by great ideas of a religious kind. For, in antiquity, the only bond able to hold incongruous elements together in one nationality was religion. With the people whom Moses had to lead the necessity would be the same, or even greater. But the political work which must have preceded any common action likewise demanded a great personality. Though no doubt a common misery might silence jealousies and make men eager to listen to any promises of deliverance, yet many troublesome negotiations must have been carried through successfully before these sentences could have been written with truth: “And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel, and the people believed, and bowed their heads and worshipped.”

Many conjectures have been hazarded as to what the center of Moses message at this time really was. Some, like Stade, bring it down to this, that Yahweh was the God of Israel. Others add to this somewhat meager statement another equally meager, that Israel was the people of Yahweh. But unless the character of Yahweh had been previously expounded to the people, there seems little in these two declarations to excite any enthusiasm or to kindle faith. The mere fact of inducing the tribes to put all other gods aside is insufficient to account for any of the results that followed, if to Moses Yahweh had remained simply a tribal God, of the same type as the gods of the Canaanites. On the other hand, if he had risen to the conception of God as a spirit, of Yahweh as the only living God, as the inspirer and defender of moral life, or even if he had made any large approach to these conceptions, it is easy to understand how the hearts of the mass of the people were stirred and filled, even though things so high were not, by the generality, thoroughly understood or long retained. But the hearts of all the chosen, the spiritually elect, would be moved by them as the leaves are moved by the wind. These, with Moses at their head, formed a nucleus which bore the people on through all their trials and dangers, and. gradually leavened the mass to some extent with the same spirit.

Even after this had been accomplished, the main work remained to be done. We cannot agree indeed with many writers who seem to think that the whole life of the Israelite people was started anew by Moses. That would involve that every regulation for the most trivial detail of ordinary life was directly revealed, and that Moses made a tabula rasa of their minds, rubbing out all previous laws and customs, and writing a God-given constitution in their place. Obviously, that could hardly be; but still a task very different, yet almost as difficult, remained for Moses after his first success. His final aim was to make a virtually new nation out of the Hebrew tribes; and their whole constitution and habits had, consequently, to be revised from the new religious standpoint. He and the nation alike had inherited a past, and it was no part of his mission to delete that. Reforms, to be stable, must have a root in the habits and thoughts of the people whom they concern. Moses would, consequently, uproot nothing that could be spared; he would plant nothing anew which was already flourishing, and was compatible with the new and dominant ideas he had introduced. A great mass of the laws and customs of the Hebrews must have been good, and suitable to the stage of moral advancement they had reached before Moses came to them. Any measure of civilized life involves so much as that. Another great mass, while lying outside of the religious sphere, must have been at least compatible with Yahwism. All laws and customs coming under these two categories, Moses would naturally adopt as part of the legislation of the new nation, and would stamp them with his approval as being in accord with the religion of Yahweh. They would thus acquire the same authority as if they were entirely new, given for the first time by the Divinely inspired lawgiver.

But besides these two classes of laws and customs there must have been a number which were so bound up with the lower religion that they could not be adopted. They would either be obstructive of the new ideas, or they would be positively hostile to them; for on any supposition heathenism of various sorts was largely mingled with the religion of the Israelite people before their deliverance and even after it. To sift these out, and to replace them by others more in accord with the will of Yahweh as now revealed, must have been the chief work of the lawgiver. In that more or less protracted period before Israel came to Sinai, during which Moses burdened himself with judging the people personally, he must have been doing this work. His reflections in the wilderness had doubtless prepared him for it. In a mind like his, the fruitful principles received by the inspiration of the Almighty could not be merely passively held. Like St. Paul in his Arabian sojourn, we must believe that Moses in Midian would work out the results of these principles in many directions; and when he led Israel forth, he must have been clearly conscious of changes that were indispensable. But it needed close everyday contact with the life of the people to bring out all the incompatibilities, which he would have to remove. Every day unexpected complications would arise; and the people at any rate, if Moses himself be supposed to be raised by his inspiration above the needs of experience, would be able to receive the instruction they needed only in concrete examples, here a little and there a little. When they came to “seek Yahweh” in any matter which perplexed them, Moses gave them Yahwehs mind on the subject; and each decision tended to purify and render innocuous to their higher life some department of public or private affairs. Every day at that early time must have been a day of instruction how to apply the principles of the higher faith just revived. The better minds among the chiefs were thereby trained to an appreciation of the new point of view; and when Jethro suggested that the burden of this work should be divided, quite a sufficient number were found prepared to carry it on. After this it must have gone on with tenfold speed, and we may believe that when Sinai was reached the preliminaries on the human side to the great revelation had been thoroughly elaborated. The Divine presence had been with Moses day by day, judging, deciding, inspiring in all their individual concerns as well as in their common affairs. But that would only bring out more clearly the extent of the reformation that remained to be wrought: doubtless too it had revealed the dullness of heart in regard to the Divine which has always characterized the mass of men. The need for a more complete revelation, a more extended and detailed legislation on the new basis, must have been greatly felt. In the great scene at Sinai, a scene so strange and awe-inspiring that to the latest days of Israel the memory of it thrilled every Israelite heart and exalted every Israelite imagination, this need was adequately met.

In connection with it Moses rose to new heights of intimacy with the Divine. What he had already done was ratified, and in the Decalogue the great lines of moral and social life were marked out for the people. But the most remarkable thing to us, in the narrative of the circle of events which made the mountain of the law forever memorable, is the sublimity attributed to the character of Moses. From the day when he smote the Egyptian, at every glimpse we have of him we find him always advancing in power of character. The shepherd of Midian is nobler, less self-assertive, more overawed by communion with God, than the son of Pharaohs daughter, noble as he was. Again, the religious reformer, the popular leader, who needs the very insistence of God to make him lead, who speaks for God with such courageous majesty, who teaches, inspires, and manages a turbulent nation with such conspicuous patience, self-repression, and success, is greatly more impressive than the Moses of Midianite days. But it is here, at Sinai, that his rank among the leaders of men is fixed forever. To the people of that time God was above all things terrible: and when they came to the mount and found that “there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud,” they could only tremble. Their very fear made it impossible for them to understand what God desired to reveal concerning Himself. But in Moses love had cast out fear. Even to him, doubtless, the darkness was terrible, because it expressed only too well the mystery which enwrapped the end of the Divine purposes of which he alone had seen the beginnings; even his mind must have been clouded thick with doubts as to whither Yahweh was leading him and his people; yet he went boldly forth to seek God, venturing all upon that errand.

In previous perplexities the narrative represents Moses as calling instantly upon Yahweh; but now, when experience had taught him the formidable nature of his task, when difficulties had increased upon him, when his perplexities of all kinds must have been simply overwhelming, he heard the voice of Yahweh calling him to Himself. Straightway he went into solitary communion with Him; and when he passed with satisfied heart from that communion, he brought with him those immortal words of the Decalogue which, amid all changes since, have been acknowledged to be the true foundation for moral and spiritual life. He brought too a commission authorizing him to give laws and judgments to his people in accord with what he had heard and seen on the mount. However we are to understand the details of the narrative therefore, its meaning is that at this time, and under these circumstances, Moses attained his maximum of inspiration as a seer or prophet, and from that time onward stood in a more intimate relation to God than any of the prophets and saints of Israel who came after him. He had found God; and from where he stood with God he saw the paths of religious and political progress plainly marked out.

Henceforth he was competent to guide the nation he had made as he had not yet been, and with his power to help them his eagerness to do so grew. Twice during this great crisis of his life the people broke away into evil, and national death was threatened. But with passionate supplications for their pardon he threw himself down between God and them. At precisely the moment when his communion with God was most complete, he rose to the loving recklessness of desiring that if they were to be destroyed he might perish with them. Strangely enough, though the author of Deuteronomy had this before him, he does not mention it. It cannot have struck even him as the crowning point of Moses career, as it does us. Even in his day the fitness, nay, the necessity, of this self-sacrificing spirit as the fruit of deeper knowledge of God, was not yet felt; much less could it have been felt in the days of the earlier historians. There must, therefore, be reliable information here as to what Moses actually did. Such love as this was not part of the Israelite ideal at the time of our narrative, and from nothing but knowledge of the fact could it have been attributed to Moses. We may rank this enthusiasm of love, therefore, as a reliable trait in his character. But if it be so, how far must he in his highest moments have transcended his contemporaries, and even the best of his successors, in knowledge of the inmost nature of God! His thought was so far above them that it remained fruitless for many centuries. Jeremiahs life and death first prepared the way for its appreciation, but only in the character of the Servant of Yahweh in Second Isaiah is it surpassed. Now if in this deepest part of true religion Moses possessed such exceptional spiritual insight, it is vain to attempt to show that his conception of God was so low, and his aim for man so limited, as modern theorists suppose. The truth must lie rather with those who, like Dr. A. B. Davidson, see in him “a profoundly reverential ancient mind with thoughts of God so broad that mankind has added little to them. Nothing in the way of sublimity of view would be incongruous with such a character, while nothing could be more grotesque than to shut it up within the limits of the gross conceptions of the mass of the people. He was their guiding star, not their fellow, in all that concerned God, and his religious conceptions were by a whole heaven removed from theirs. The entire tragedy of his life just consisted in this, that he had to strive with a turbulent and gainsaying people, had to bear with them and train them, had to be content with scarcely, perceptible advances, where his strenuous guidance and his patient love should have kindled them to run in the way of Gods commandments. But though their progress was lamentably slow, he gave them an impulse they were never to lose. Under the inspiration of the Almighty he so fixed their fundamental ideas about God that they never henceforth could get free of his spiritual company. In all their progress afterwards they felt the impress of his mind, molding and shaping them even when they knew it not, and through them he started in the world that redemptive work of God which manifested its highest power in Jesus Christ.”

From this point onward the idea of Moses that Deuteronomy gives us is that of a great popular leader, meeting with extraordinary calmness all the crises of government, and guiding his people with unwavering steadfastness. Without power, except that which his relation to God and the choice of the people gave him, without any official title, he simply dominated the Israelites as long as he lived. And the secret of his success is plainly told us in the narrative. He would not move a single step without Divine guidance: {Exo 33:12} “And Moses said unto the Lord, See, Thou sayest unto me, Bring up this people: but Thou hast not let me know whom Thou wilt send with me.” (Exo 33:14) “And He said, Must I go in person with thee and bring thee to thy place of rest? And Moses said, If Thou dost not go with us in person, then rather lead us not away hence.” That can only mean that he laid aside self-will, that he put away personal sensitiveness, that he had learned to feel himself unsafe when vanity or self-regard asserted themselves in his decisions, that he sought continually that detachment of view which absolute devotion to the Highest always gives. It means also that he knew how dark and dull his own vision was, that clouds and darkness would always be about him, and that it would be impossible for him to choose his path, unless he knew what the Divine plan for his people was. And all that is narrated of him afterward shows that his prayer was granted. His patience under trial has been handed down to us as a marvel. Though his brother and sister rebelled against him, he won them again entirely to himself. Though a faction among the people rose against his authority under Dathan and Abiram, his power was not even shaken. Amid all the perversity and childish fickleness of Israel he kept them true to their choice of the desert, “that great and terrible wilderness,” as against Egypt with the flesh-pots. He kept alive their faith in the promise of Yahweh to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, and what was more and greater than that, their faith in Him as their Redeemer. By his intercourse with Yahweh he was upheld from falling away from his own ideals, as so many leaders of nations have done, or from despairing of them.

The complaints and perversities of the people did however force him into sin; and perhaps we may take it that the outbreak of petulance when he smote the rock was only one instance of some general decay of character on that side, or perhaps one should rather say, of some general falling away from the self-restraint which had distinguished him. It seems strange that this one failure should have been punished in him, by exclusion from the land he had so steadfastly believed in, the land which most of those who actually entered it would never have seen but for him. And it is pathetic to find him among that great company of martyrs for the public good, those who in order to serve their people have neglected their own characters. Under the stress of public work and the pressure of the stupidity and greed of those whom they have sought to guide, many leaders of men have been tempted, and have yielded to the temptation, to forget the demands of their better nature. But whatever their services to the world, such unfaithfulness does not pass unpunished. They have to bear the penalty, whosoever they be; and Moses was no more an exception than Cromwell or Savonarola was, to mention only some of the nobler examples. He had been courageous when others had faltered. He had been pre-eminently just; for in founding the judicial system of Israel he had guarded alike against the tyranny of the great and against unjust favor to the small. He had laid a firm hand upon the education of youth, determined that the best inheritance of their people, the knowledge of the laws of Yahweh and of His providences, should not be lost to them. He had cleared their religion in principle of all that was unworthy of Yahweh, and he had by resolute valor, and by uncompromising sternness to enemies, brought his great task to a successful issue. But the reward of it all, the entrance into the land he had virtually won for his people, was denied to him. It is one of the laws of the Divine government of the world, that with those to whom God specially draws near He is more rigorous than with others. Amos clearly saw and proclaimed this principle. {Amo 3:1-2} “Hear this word that Yahweh hath spoken against you, children of Israel,” he says; “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will visit upon you all your iniquities.” The pathetic picture of the aged lawgiver, judge, and prophet, beseeching God in vain that he might share in the joy which was freely bestowed upon so many less known and less worthy than he, pushes home that strenuous teaching. For his sin he died with his last earnest wish unfulfilled, and it was sadly longing eyes that deaths finger touched. We remember also that, so far as we can judge, he had no certain hope of a future life other than the shadowy existence of Hades. “Though he slay me yet will I trust him” had a much more tragic meaning for Old Testament saints than it can ever have for us, for whom Christ has brought life and immortality to light. Yet, with a so much heavier burden, and with so much less of gracious support, they played their high part. That solitary figure on the mountain-top, about to die with the fulfillment of his passionate last wish denied him by his God, must shame us into silence when we fret because our hopes have perished. All those nations which have had that figure on their horizon have been permanently enriched in nature by it. In a thousand ways it has shot forth instructions; but, above all, it has made men worthy in their own eyes; for it has been a continuous reminder that God can and ought to be served unfalteringly, even when the reward we wish is denied us, and when every other consolation is dim.

But the question may now arise, Is not this character of Moses which the author of Deuteronomy partly had before him and partly helped to elaborate, too exalted to be reliable? Can we suppose that a man in Moses day and circumstances could actually have entertained such thoughts, and have possessed such a character as we have been depicting? In essentials it would appear to be quite possible. Putting aside all distracting questions about details, and remembering that it is a mere superstition to suppose that the wants and appliances of civilization are necessary to loftiness of character and depth of thought, where is there anything in the situation of Moses which should make this view of him incredible? No doubt there was a rudeness in his surroundings which must necessarily have affected his nature; and the forms of his thinking in that early, though by no means primitive, time must have differed greatly from ours. Moreover, as an instrument for scientific inquiry and for the verification of facts, the human mind must have been greatly less effective then than it is today. But none of these things have much influence upon a mans capacity to receive a new and inspiring revelation as to God. Otherwise no child could be a Christian. As regards the rudeness of his surroundings, we must not consciously or unconsciously degrade him to the level of a modern Bedouin. Among the host he led, some doubtless were at that level; but the bulk of Israel must have been above it; and Moses himself, from his circumstances and his natural endowment, must have stood side by side with the most cultured men of his time. Whatever ignorance or error in science he may have been capable of, and however rude, according to our ideas, his manner of life, there was nothing in these to shut him out from spiritual truth. That which Professor Henry Morley has finely said of Dante must have been true, mutatis mutandis, of a man like Moses. “Dantes knowledge is the knowledge of his time,” but “if spiritual truth only came from right and perfect knowledge, this would have been a world of dead souls from the first to now, for future centuries in looking back at us will wonder at the little faulty knowledge that we think so much. But let the known be what it may, the true soul rises from it to a sense of the Divine mysteries of wisdom and love. Dantes knowledge may be full of ignorance, and so is ours. But he fills it as he can with the spirit of God.” In the East this is even more conspicuously true, even to this day. What an Israelite under similar conditions might be is seen in the prophet Amos. His external condition was of the poorest-a gatherer of sycamore fruit must have been poor even for the East-yet he knew accurately the history, not only of his own people, but of the surrounding nations, and brooded on the purpose of God in regard to his own people and the world, till he became a fit recipient of prophetic inspirations. But indeed the whole history of Christianity is a demonstration of this truth. From the first days, when “not many mighty, not many noble were being called,” when it was specially the message to listening slaves, the religion of Christ has had its greatest triumphs among the “poor of the world, rich in faith,” but in nothing else. These have not only believed it, but they have lived it, and amid the meanest and rudest surroundings, with the most limited outlook, have built up characters often of even resplendent virtue. Whatever primitiveness we may fairly ascribe, therefore, to the life and surroundings of Moses, that is no reason why we should think it incredible that he had received lofty spiritual truth from God. If he did such things for Israel as we have seen, if, as almost all admit, he actually made a nation, and planted the seeds of a religion of which Christianity is the natural complement and crown, then the view that he had a greatly higher idea of God than those about him is not only credible but necessary. If his teaching concerning Yahweh had amounted only to this, that He was the only God Israel was to worship, and that they were to be solely His people, then on such a basis nothing more than the ordinary heathen civilizations of the Semitic people could have been built. But if he had the thought of God which is embodied in the Decalogue, that could bring with it everything in the character of Moses that seems too high for those early days. The knowledge of God as a spiritual and moral being could not fail to moralize and spiritualize the man. The lofty conception of human duty, the submission to the will of God, the passionate love for his nation which made personal loss nothing to Moses, may well have been evoked by the great truth which formed his prophetic revelation.

But the narrative itself, considered merely as a history, is of such a nature as to give confidence that it rests upon some record of an actual life. Ideal sketches of great men (setting aside the products of modern fictive art) are much more uniform and superficially coherent than this character of Moses. The purpose of the writer either to exalt or to decry carries all before it, and we get from such a source pictures of character so consistent that they cannot possibly be true. Here, however, we have nothing of that kind. Rashnesses and weaknesses are narrated, and even Moses good qualities are manifested in unexpected ways in response to unexpected evils in the people. The mere fact, also, that his grave was unknown is indicative of truth. Though it would be absurd to say that wherever we have the graves of great men pointed out, there we have a mythical story, it is nevertheless true that in the case of every name or character which has come largely under the influence of the myth-making spirit, the grave has been made much of. The Arabian imagination here seems to be typical of the Semitic imagination; and in all Moslem lands the graves of the prophets and saints of the Old Testament are pointed out with great reverence, even, or perhaps we should say especially, if they be eighty feet long. Though a well-authenticated tomb of Moses, therefore, would have been a proof of his real existence and life among men, the absence of any is a stronger proof of the sobriety and truth of the narrative. That with the goal in sight, and with his great work about to come to fruition, he should have turned away into the solitude of the mountains to die, is so very unlikely to occur to the mind of the writer of an ideal life of an ideal leader, that only some tradition of this as a fact can account for it. The unexpectedness of such an end to a heros career is the strongest evidence of its truth.

The result of all the indications is that the story of Moses, as the author of Deuteronomy knew it, rests upon authentic information handed down somehow, probably in written documents, from the earliest time. Apart from the question of inspiration, therefore, we may rest upon it as reliable in all essentials. Only in him, and the revelation he received, have we an adequate cause for the great upheaval of religious feeling which shaped and characterized all the after-history of Israel.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary