and die on the mountain whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy peoples, as Aaron thy brother died on mount Hor, and was gathered unto his peoples;
The song of Moses is finished. On that same day God tells him where he will die — on a mountain, in sight of the land he may not enter, as his brother Aaron died on Mount Hor. The words are short and final. Yet commentators find in them both the sternness of God's government and a surprising kindness.
The command comes to Israel's own leader, and it is not softened. One writer hears in it a warning about how God rules His servants:
How solemn and soul-subduing is the government of God! Surely it ought to make the heart tremble at the very thought of disobedience. Moses was an eminent servant, yet God judged him for speaking rashly with his lips. What then will be the end of those who live from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year like this? They neglect the plainest commandments of God, deliberately and as a settled habit, and they reject His authority outright, by their own will.
Scripture does not quietly drop the reason for this death sentence. A writer contrasts how people write biographies with how God writes them:
We see here the way in which the Lord is able to tell of the sins of the saints — to record the failures of the saints. Let one man write the life of another, and he tries to hide the failures. Why? Because he wants to exalt the man. Let the Holy Spirit write the life of a saint, and He records the sins and failures of that saint. Why? Because He exalts the grace of God. It is a blessed thing too, beloved, when we can use even our failures to exalt the grace of God.
One writer sees more here than one man's misstep. Moses gave the law, and his exclusion pictures what law can and cannot do:
Moses is in his own person an example of the condemning power of the law. He can only see from a distance what he is forbidden to own. And if it shuts out Moses, whom will it not shut out? So for the true blessing we must go beyond law. We must go beyond the old covenant to the new, and beyond every earlier way God has dealt with people, to the one in which Israel really enters her inheritance.
God points Moses to his brother's death as the pattern for his own:
We also have a witness to the heavenly glory of Aaron, Moses' companion. He dies as a priest on the top of the hill, the earthly people below him, knowing him only as a priest in the high places.
Meribah is where Moses spoke rashly; Pisgah is the height where he died. One writer sets the two side by side:
Truly, if the solemn decree of the throne at Meribah overawes the spirit, the matchless grace on the top of Pisgah thrills the heart. The Lord's government kept Moses out of Canaan. The Lord's grace dug a grave for Moses in the plains of Moab. Was there ever such a burial? May we not say that the grace which dug the grave of Moses is only outshone by the grace that filled the grave of Christ?
Being gathered to his people was not the end of Moses. One writer follows him up the mountain and into the grave:
There was to be nothing in this world for Moses but the wilderness and a sight of Canaan. The earth was to be no Canaan to him. His foot was never to tread a land flowing with milk and honey. "Die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people," said the Lord to him. And Moses did so. He went up from the plain of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, and died there. But did he die the death of all men? No — it was the Lord Himself who put him to sleep. The dead may bury the dead, but the Lord buried Moses. The earth does not own the body of Moses to this day. Like others it has returned dust to dust, but the Lord Himself buried it with the sure and certain purpose of raising it in glory. In Moses He has given to all who may be called to sleep in Jesus a sure pledge that their bodies are not forgotten in the grave.
The same writer sees the mountain as a picture of where Moses was really being taken:
The earth had now stopped owning Moses, Israel knew him no more, the wilderness was all behind him, and the Lord alone is his company on the hill overlooking the land of promise. On high with the Lord, Moses looks down on the earthly inheritance.
- Cause — One rash word at Meribah cost Moses the land. God does not bend His government for favourites. Scripture keeps the record of the failure on purpose.
- Limit — Moses gave the law, and the law shut him out. Law lets a man see the inheritance from a distance. It never brings him in.
- Gift — Government kept him out of Canaan; grace brought him up Pisgah and dug his grave. Both are God, and neither cancels the other.
- Company — He dies as Aaron died, alone on a height with the Lord, the people below him — the earth no longer claiming him.
- Result — "Gathered to your people" is not an ending. The Lord Himself put Moses to sleep and buried him, with the sure purpose of raising that body in glory.
because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye hallowed me not in the midst of the children of Israel.
Moses has just finished his song, and that same day God tells him to climb Mount Nebo and die there. This verse gives the reason: at the waters of Meribah-kadesh he broke faith with God and did not treat God as holy before the people.
Older translations put the first charge as "you trespassed against me." That word covers a whole class of sins: sins that rob someone of what belongs to them.
A trespass offering assumed that someone had wronged the Lord or his neighbour. The Old Testament gives several examples. A wife who was unfaithful to her husband was guilty of a trespass against him, because she robbed him of his rights. Aaron and Moses were guilty of this same sin at Meribah-Kadesh, when they did not sanctify the Lord among the people of Israel.
The second charge points back to the rock in the wilderness. One word in what Moses said there carries the whole failure.
God told him to "speak" to the rock, but he struck the rock, and in his anger struck it twice. What is more, he was so jealous for his authority that for the moment he forgot his own place as a servant. "Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?" Where was the honour due to God in his saying "WE"? No one was as meek as Moses, but here he failed and did not sanctify God in the people's eyes. His own place and authority filled his mind; there was no room at that moment for the thought of grace... God would be sanctified according to His grace, not then by judgment. So Moses could not enter the land... The people were certainly the occasion, but the trespass was Moses and Aaron's own.
The water still came. That fact tells us something about whose character was actually on display that day.
Moses and Aaron did not sanctify Him. They gave up grace to defend their injured authority. If this had been God's feeling, they would have drawn no water out of the rock. The LORD was sanctified. But He was sanctified in maintaining His own word and His own grace, despite the failure of Moses and Aaron. That failure brought immediate reproof on them both, and the sharp chastening of dying outside the land of Canaan — the land to which grace was leading the people.
A single hasty moment ended forty years of service. Commentators locate the weight of it in how well Moses knew God.
For Moses it became a sin that led to death. God resents nothing more than a serious misrepresentation of Himself by someone who ought to have known Him well. Moses and Aaron were so near to God. They had entered into the grace of the LORD, Moses above all. That is exactly why their total failure now became the occasion for setting Moses aside as a vessel that had done its work. He was not fit to lead them into the land.
Dying outside Canaan said nothing about where Moses would spend eternity.
No one can question that Moses was eternally saved by grace. The testimony of God and the scene on the holy mountain prove it. Yet because he trespassed against the Lord at Meribah-Kadesh, God did not let him enter the land. He died in the wilderness under the government of God.
Moses' own failure was not the only reason he stayed out. He was the lawgiver.
It was a deep sorrow for Moses to be shut out of the land, as we see from the times he brings it up with Israel. But set his failure aside. Israel could never enter the land under the lawgiver, as though they could win the inheritance by their own efforts.
The sentence took his mission. It did not touch his closeness to God — and the end of the story is not Nebo.
God chastened his service and mission, but he loses nothing of his personal nearness to the Lord. He even gains, for the Lord Himself shows him the land.
It is the Lord who buries Moses. After a time He brings him out in the glory of the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. We find there not Joshua, the man who led Israel into the land, but Moses, the man God kept out of it.
- The charge: a trespass robs someone of what is theirs. Moses robbed God of the honour due to Him before the people.
- The failure: told to speak, he struck the rock and said "we". God was acting in grace; Moses fell back on judgment.
- The cost: the closer the servant, the more it costs to misrepresent God. The man who knew His grace best misrepresented it worst.
- The limit: God's discipline touched his service and his life on earth, not his eternal salvation. Moses lost the land, never the Lord.
- The end: the Lord buried him, then brought him back on the mount of transfiguration — the man shut out of the land now stands in the glory of Christ.
For thou shalt see the land before [thee]; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.
God's last word to Moses is a permission and a refusal at once. He may look at the land, but he may not enter it. Why is a servant so honoured shut out? And why does God let him see what he cannot have?
The reason reaches back to Meribah, where God gave Israel water from the rock. One writer explains what the two leaders did wrong there:
Moses and Aaron did not treat Him as holy, but gave up grace to defend their injured authority. Had this been God's feeling, they would have fetched no water out of the rock. Yet the Lord was treated as holy. He was holding to His own word and His own grace, despite the failure of Moses and Aaron. That failure brought immediate reproof on them. It also brought the sharp chastening of dying outside the land — Canaan, the land where grace was leading the people.
If hasty words cost a servant like this the inheritance, the warning reaches everyone:
How solemn and subduing to the soul is the government of God! Surely it ought to make the heart tremble at the very thought of disobedience. Some live from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year in deliberate and habitual neglect of the plainest commandments of God. They reject His authority in a positive, self-willed way. If God judged an outstanding servant like Moses for speaking rashly with his lips, what will be their end?
Losing Canaan did not mean losing God. Two different things must be kept apart:
A difficulty may arise here for some. They have not learned to tell two things apart: God's government of His people on earth, and their eternal salvation and glory to come… Moses was eternally saved by grace, and there can be no question about it. The testimony of God proves it, and so does the scene on the holy mountain. Yet, for his trespass against the Lord at Meribah-Kadesh, God did not allow him to enter the land. He died in the wilderness under the government of God.
Moses' own failure is not the whole explanation:
Yet God told him he would see the land without entering it (v.52). There is a deeper reason than Moses' disobedience for his not entering the land. He was the lawgiver, and law cannot bring the people of God into their inheritance. Joshua was the leader into the land of promise. His name in Hebrew is the same as the Greek name Jesus — Jehovah Savior. So he speaks of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, in contrast to law.
God did not take back His sentence. Yet the refusal had a purpose, and it came with a gift:
There is no change of mind with One who never speaks in haste, and who cannot unsay what He has said. Moses is refused for the sake of the people, who must learn God's ways in him. But God grants him Pisgah, for there is no breach between holiness and love. He shall see the land, with God.
The God who shut him out still took him up a mountain to look:
Look at the case of Moses. He spoke rashly with his lips at the waters of Meribah. What was the result? The Lord's governmental decree barred his entrance into the promised land. But note this. The decree of the throne kept him out of Canaan. Yet the boundless grace of God brought him up to Pisgah. There he saw the land — not as Israel's own hand took it, but as the Lord had given it by covenant. And what then? The Lord buried His dear servant! What grace shines in this!
The very fact that the failure is written down serves the same end:
We see here the way the Lord is able to tell of the sins of saints — to record the failures of saints. Let one man tell the life of another, and he tries to hide the failures. Why? Because he wants to exalt the man. Let the Holy Spirit write the life of a saint, and He records that saint's sins and failures. Why? Because He exalts the grace of God.
Moses never entered the land he longed for. But look at the company he keeps later:
You know what his great desire was? To go into the land of promise… Poor Moses! I think he was heart-broken because he was not allowed to go into the land. If he had gone into the land then, he would have gone in very poor company. Where do we see him in this night scene? He is in good company — the best of company. He is in the company of the Son of God.
- Cause — At Meribah, Moses did not treat God as holy. He gave up grace to defend his own authority, and it cost him Canaan.
- Discipline — God's government reaches His servants now. It cost Moses the land. It never touched his eternal salvation.
- Limit — Law cannot bring God's people into their inheritance. The lawgiver stayed out, and Joshua led them in.
- Grace — The God who kept him out carried him up Pisgah to see the land as covenant had given it. Then God buried him Himself.
- Reversal — Kept out of Canaan, Moses is later seen beside the Son of God. He received far more than he lost.