Let me go over, I pray thee, and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.
After forty years of leading Israel, Moses stands at the Jordan and asks God for one thing: to cross over and see the good land. God says no — and His answer, with what He gives instead, has made this verse a quiet school for everyone whose prayer comes back with a "no".
Two and a half tribes had already settled on the near side of the river. Moses wanted something else.
It is very affecting to find this eminent servant of God urging a request which could not be granted. He longed to see that good land beyond Jordan. The portion chosen by the two and a half tribes could not satisfy his heart. He desired to plant his foot upon the proper inheritance of the Israel of God. But it was not to be. He had spoken rashly with his lips at the waters of Meribah, and the solemn, unchangeable ruling of God's government forbade him to cross the Jordan.
Commentators give two reasons for the refusal. One is moral. The other belongs to God's wider plan for His people.
There was a double reason, no doubt, why His servant Moses should not cross the Jordan and enter the land of Canaan. In the order of God's dealings, the law could never bring the people of God, such as they were, into the rest of God. That work belonged to Joshua, the picture of Christ in resurrection. And the moral reason, of course, everyone knows: "he spoke rashly with his lips."
Moses adds that God was angry with him "because of you". That phrase puts part of the weight on the people listening.
They not only failed, through unbelief, to enter in themselves, but they were the cause of his exclusion, much as he longed to see "that good hill country and Lebanon."
God does not reverse His word. But He does not leave His servant with nothing, either.
But there is no going back with One who never speaks in haste, and who cannot mend what He speaks. He refuses Moses for the sake of the people, who must learn God's ways in him. Yet He grants him Pisgah, for there is no split between holiness and love. And he shall see the land, with God.
God did not grant this prayer in Moses' lifetime. He answered it centuries later, on higher ground — on the mountain where Jesus was transfigured.
It is a comfort to see that God's discipline of His saints holds not only wisdom but also an element of grace. God spared Moses many a heartbreak that Joshua must have suffered because of the failures of the people. And many centuries later Moses was in the land for a brief moment, with Elijah. From the top of Pisgah he saw the land filled with the degraded Amorites. On the Mount of Transfiguration he saw not the land but the glory of the One who will at last fill it with millennial blessedness.
This is not just Moses' story.
He got a far better thing than his heart could have imagined or his lips could have asked for. And it is just the same principle with God and His people now.
Moses is the one reporting this refusal, out loud, to the whole nation. He could have left it out.
Does this lower Moses in our estimation? The very reverse; it raises him immensely. It is morally lovely to hear his confession. See how humbly he bows his head to God's governmental dealings. Notice how unselfishly he acts toward the man who was to succeed him in his high office. There was not a trace of jealousy or envy; no display of wounded pride.
His answer to the "no" was not collapse. He prayed for the very people who had cost him the land.
He did not give way under God's discipline when he failed to get his wish. He rose above his circumstances and carried God's chosen people on his heart. His final request was for them — that they might enjoy the good of that land which God had called them to inherit.
- Desire. Moses wanted the true inheritance beyond the Jordan. The land east of it satisfied two and a half tribes, but not him.
- Refusal. Two reasons stand behind it. His own rash words at Meribah were one. The other was that the law could never bring God's people into God's rest; that work waited for Joshua.
- Grace. God's government kept him out of Canaan. Grace carried him up Pisgah to see the land in God's own company. Holiness and love were never at odds.
- Reach. The "no" was not the last word. Centuries later Moses stood in that land, on the Mount of Transfiguration. He was taken up not with the scenery but with Christ.
- Result. Moses told the whole nation of the refusal. He handed his office to his successor without envy. His last prayers went to the people who had cost him the land.
But Jehovah was wroth with me on your account, and did not hear me; and Jehovah said to me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter!
God tells Moses to stop asking. Moses had asked to cross the Jordan and see the land. The refusal has two roots: Moses' own failure, and what the people had provoked.
Moses tells the people that the anger fell on him on their account:
Notice the words, "for your sakes." The congregation needed this reminder. Moses was the Lord's beloved and honoured servant, and because of them he never crossed the Jordan or set foot on the land of Canaan. True, "he spoke rashly with his lips," but "they provoked his spirit" to do so. This ought to have cut them to the heart. Through unbelief they failed to enter in themselves, and they were also the cause of his exclusion.
Yet the blame does not move away from Moses. Another writer traces the failure to its source:
God told him to speak to the rock, but he struck it, and struck it twice in anger. He even forgot his own place as servant, asking whether he and Aaron must bring water out of the rock. Where was the honour due to God in that "we"? He mourned over this exclusion to his last days. "I must die in this land." Did he fully judge his own failure as the righteous reason why he should not pass the Jordan? … But God lays it on him and Aaron, "Because you broke faith with me." The people were no doubt the occasion, but the trespass was their own.
Moses is not the only servant of God told no. One writer sets him beside Paul:
The Lord denies the prayer of His saint. The Lord may deny the prayers of His saints, or He may answer them in a way we little expect. It was so with Paul's thorn in the flesh… "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'" The thorn was needed! God may let, and sometimes does let, the consequences of the sin of a saint hang over him all the time he is here. … What graciousness there is in this "Enough from you"! Here is all God's restoring mercy. It was wiser, better and more for God's glory that Moses' prayer should go unanswered. Yet the Lord's reply is tender, just as His word to Paul was: "My grace is sufficient for you."
Another writer hears the firm side of the same words:
Moses pleads with deep feeling. He had tasted the first of the glorious victories to come, and now he asks to enter the land. God's answer is solemn, and it reminds him that His chastening does not bend: "Do not speak to me of this matter again."
Commentators also point to a reason larger than one man's mistake:
Their inheritance could never come by the law. So Moses, the mediator of the legal system, could not lead the people over Jordan — quite apart from his own personal failure. It was impossible in the very pattern of things. When he pleaded to go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, the Lord replied, "Enough from you; do not speak to me of this matter again." Joshua — Israel's saviour in this sense — was the chosen vessel to accomplish God's purpose.
The refusal came with a gift: a view from a mountain top.
How did God do a better thing for him than giving him what he asked? He took him up to the top of Pisgah instead of letting him go into the land. But do you not remember the New Testament? When the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses appeared there with Him. There he stood in the land. He saw it in the company of Christ in glory. Was that not far better than crossing the Jordan in Israel's days? He said not one word about it now; he could only speak about Christ. He got a far better thing than his heart could have imagined or his lips asked for.
He could have left this out when he spoke to the people. He did not.
He held a high position. He was the called, trusted and beloved servant of the Lord, the leader of the congregation, whose rod had made the land of Egypt tremble. Even so, he was not ashamed to stand before the whole assembly of his brothers and confess his mistake. He owned that he had said what he ought not, and that he had pressed hard for something the Lord could not grant.
- Cause. The people provoked Moses at the rock, but the failure charged against him was his own. The occasion was theirs; the trespass was his.
- Closure. God's "Enough from you" ends the pleading. It is firm, and it is tender — the same word Paul heard: "My grace is sufficient for you."
- Consequence. God may let the effect of a sin hang over one of His own for the rest of life on earth, as Paul carried his thorn.
- Compensation. God refused him the Jordan and gave him Pisgah. Later He gave him the Mount of Transfiguration, where he stood in the land with Christ in glory and spoke only of Him.
- Confession. The man who lost most by this story is the one who told it in full, out loud, to the people it exposed.
Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up thine eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and behold it with thine eyes; for thou shalt not go over this Jordan.
Moses had prayed to cross the Jordan and see the good land. God refused, then sent him up Pisgah to look at the land he would never enter.
Moses wanted more than a view. He wanted to stand on the land itself, and one hasty word had cost him that.
It is very moving to find this eminent servant of God pressing a request that could not be granted. He longed to see that good land beyond the Jordan. He wanted to set his foot on the true inheritance of the Israel of God. But it was not to be. He had spoken rashly with his lips at the waters of Meribah, and by the solemn and unchangeable decision of God's government he was barred from crossing the Jordan.
Moses' own failure was not the whole story. The law itself could never finish the journey.
There was no doubt a double reason why His servant Moses should not cross the Jordan and enter the land of Canaan. As a matter of God's dealings, the law could never bring the people of God, such as they were, into the rest of God; that was left for Joshua, the picture of Christ in resurrection, to do. And the moral reason everyone knows: "he spoke rashly with his lips."
Moses' words here echo a prayer in the New Testament.
"I pleaded with the Lord": almost the same words the apostle uses in the letter to the Corinthians. But his earnest prayer was not granted. The only answer was, "Do not speak to me of this matter again."
So should a believer ever stop asking for something?
No fixed rule can be laid down about such a matter. In some cases we are made to feel that our request, for some wise reason, will not be granted, and that we are not free to go on asking. Cases like this may be rare, but they certainly happen. Moses, when he prayed to be allowed to enter Canaan, was forbidden to repeat the request.
Moses took the sentence without arguing. What followed was not punishment but a gift.
"Whoever humbles himself will be exalted." How true this was of Moses! He humbled himself under the mighty hand of God. He accepted the holy discipline laid on him by God's government. He did not utter one word of complaint when his request was refused. He bows to it all, and so in due time he was exalted. If government kept him out of Canaan, grace brought him to the top of Pisgah. From there, in company with his Lord, he was allowed to see that good land in all its beauty — to see it, not as inherited by Israel, but as given by God.
Being kept out also spared Moses a sorrow.
It was part of His government to discipline his fault; His grace towards Moses remained whole. Suppose it had been possible, in keeping with God's ways, for Moses to enter the land — and it was not. What grief it would have been for him to see the unfaithfulness of the people, their contempt for His law, their half-finished conquest of the enemy, their readiness to turn back to sin and idolatry even in that land! Can that be compared with the blessing of looking down on it from beside the Lord?
Losing his office could easily have made Moses bitter toward the man who replaced him.
It is morally lovely to hear his confession; to see how meekly he bows his head to God's governmental dealings; to notice how unselfishly he acts towards the man who was to succeed him in his high office. There was not a trace of jealousy or envy, no display of wounded pride.
The command to look in every direction was itself a mercy — and it was not the last one.
In this beautiful way the grace of God rose above His stern government. His government could not allow Moses to enter the land, but His grace let him see all of it — which he would not have done by entering, and which no Israelite who entered ever saw. More than this, in the New Testament (Matt. 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.
- Cause. A rash word at Meribah closed the Jordan to Moses. God's government runs its course even with His most honoured servant.
- Closure. "Do not speak to me of this matter again" marks the rare case where a believer is told to stop praying. The refusal itself was the answer.
- Grace. The same hand that barred the river led him up the mountain; government kept him out, grace took him higher.
- Sight. From Pisgah he saw the land as God gave it, not as Israel would hold it. That view spared him the sight of their failure inside it.
- Result. He bowed without complaint and showed no envy toward his successor. In the end he stood in that land at the Transfiguration, taken up not with the view but with Christ.