Moses on the Mountain

An old man climbs a mountain, alone. Below him, a whole nation watches him go. He does not look back. He is going up to see a land he has walked toward for forty years. And he will not come down again.

Israel is camped on the plains of Moab, on the east side of the Jordan River, across from Jericho. The long wilderness years are over. The generation that left Egypt has passed away, and their children are ready to go in. Moses has spent his last days teaching them, reminding them of everything God has done, and setting God’s law before them one more time. Now he is a hundred and twenty years old. And God has told him plainly: you will see the land, but you will not cross over. Years before, at a place called Meribah, Moses had struck the rock in anger instead of speaking to it as God commanded, and God had said that he would not lead the people into the land. Moses had pleaded. God’s answer had not changed.

So before he goes, Moses calls Joshua and stands him up in front of everyone. Joshua has been at his side since the battle with Amalek, since the mountain where the law was given, since the day the spies came back. Moses lays his hands on him. And he says words for Joshua, and for all of them, to hold on to. “The Lord, he is the one who goes before you. He will be with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. Do not be afraid, and do not be dismayed.” Then Moses blesses the tribes of Israel, one by one, like a father saying goodbye to his children.

Then he climbs. Up from the plains, up the slopes of Mount Nebo, to the top of the peak called Pisgah. The wind pulls at his cloak. And when he reaches the top, God shows him the land. All of it. North to Gilead and as far as Dan. The hills of Naphtali. The land of Ephraim and Manasseh. All of Judah, rolling west toward the sea. The dry south country. And right below him, the green valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, all the way down to Zoar. And God says, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, when I said, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes. But you will not cross over there.”

And there, the Bible says, Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had said. God himself buried him, in a valley in Moab, and to this day no one knows where his grave is. He was a hundred and twenty years old. His eyes were not dim. His strength had not left him. Down on the plains, the people of Israel wept for Moses for thirty days. Then the weeping ended. And Joshua, the Bible says, was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him, and the people listened to him.

The book of Deuteronomy ends with a kind of farewell. Since then, it says, there has never been a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. No one else did such signs and wonders in Egypt. No one else showed such mighty power in the sight of all Israel. He never set foot in the promised land. But the people he had carried all those years were standing at its border, ready to go in. And many centuries later, the Gospels tell us, Moses would appear on another mountain, speaking with Jesus, inside the land at last.

Mount Nebo still stands in modern Jordan, a ridge rising above the plains near the northern end of the Dead Sea. From its top, on a clear day, you look down on the Jordan Valley and the oasis of Jericho, with the hills of Judah beyond. But the far western sea lies out of sight behind those hills, and Dan is a long way north. Commentators have long noticed this, and many read the view Moses received as more than ordinary eyesight: God showing him the whole land that his people would inherit.

The death of Moses is told in Deuteronomy, chapter thirty-four. He served God faithfully to the end, and he handed the work on to someone else. So here is something to think about. What good work might you begin that someone else will finish, and can you be content with that?