And Moses the servant of Jehovah died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Jehovah.
Moses died on a mountain outside the promised land, and the record of it is short and calm. Two questions press on the reader. Why did God keep His servant out of the land? And why does Scripture still call him the servant of the LORD?
His death was the settled outcome of one failure at the waters of Meribah.
Here Moses seems to fail at the very points where he had once been strongest. He speaks "rashly with his lips." He fails to honour the Lord as holy in the eyes of the people — that Lord whose glory was so dear to his heart. So he disqualifies himself from planting the people in their inheritance, when they were right on its borders. Moses is not at that moment in fellowship with the mind and ways of the Lord. He has failed in his mission and he must forfeit his leadership.
The sin was small. The loss was not.
Let us remember that it was a small thing, one rash word, that cost Moses Canaan. And let us remember, too, that the New Testament presses the control of the tongue on us more than almost anything else. "By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Seeking to exalt ourselves is rebellion against God.
Underneath the personal failure lies a reason built into Moses' office.
Look at this loved and honoured man in his official role. It was plainly not his part to bring the people of Israel into the promised land. The wilderness was his sphere of action. It was not for him to lead the people across the river of death into their appointed inheritance. His ministry belonged to man's responsibility under law and to the government of God. So it could never bring the people into the enjoyment of the promise.
The man who did lead them in carried a name that says why.
Moses' disobedience was not the deepest reason he did not enter the land. He was the lawgiver, and law cannot bring the people of God into their inheritance. Joshua led them into the land of promise. His name in Hebrew is the same as the Greek name Jesus — Jehovah Saviour. He speaks of the grace that is in Christ Jesus, in contrast to law.
The verse does not call him "Moses the excluded." It calls him "Moses the servant of the LORD." That title survived his failure, and later Scripture says more.
Moses failed so that he was not allowed to enter Canaan. Yet isn't it wonderful that centuries later the testimony of the Spirit about the man is "faithful in all His house"? Such is the reckoning of grace.
The God who kept him out of Canaan dug his grave.
If the solemn decree of the throne at Meribah awes our spirit, the matchless grace on the top of Pisgah thrills our heart. God's government kept Moses out of Canaan. God'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 that dug Moses' grave is only outshone by the grace that filled the grave of Christ?
One writer takes up who recorded Moses' death, and why the grave stayed unknown.
There is no need at all to take Deuteronomy 34 as written by Moses before his death. Others followed, inspired like him. But as to the contents: God buried the dead lawgiver, and Jude tells us what no one had revealed until then. Satan would have turned a willing people to idolise him dead, whom they had fought against while he lived. No one knows the place of his burial to this day.
The story does not end at the grave in Moab.
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 one who led Israel into the land, but Moses, the one to whom this was denied.
- The word that shut him out. One rash sentence at Meribah cost Moses the land. God's discipline of His servants is real, and it often starts with the tongue.
- The word that could not bring in. The failure was also official. The lawgiver's ministry belonged to the wilderness. Only Joshua, whose name means Saviour, could lead the people in.
- The word that still honoured him. He dies as "servant of the LORD." Centuries later the Spirit still calls him faithful. That is the reckoning of grace.
- The hand that buried him. God's government kept him out of Canaan; God's grace dug his grave in Moab. The place stayed secret, so no one could idolise the man.
- The mountain that answered Pisgah. Moses never entered Canaan, yet God later brought him out in glory with Christ. Exclusion was not the last word.
And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor; and no man knows his sepulchre to this day.
Deuteronomy ends with a burial that no one attended. Israel's leader is laid in a valley in Moab, at a place God never revealed. Two questions press on every reader: why did God bury him personally, and why did He hide the grave?
Moses died alone on the mountain. The verse never names who buried him. The same "he" who told him to climb laid him in the ground. One writer shows how far this is from an ordinary funeral:
But did he die the death of all men? Did Moses die as a fool dies? No, it was the Lord Himself who put him to sleep; the dead may bury the dead, but the Lord buried Moses... He showed His care in another way, but He cared for the body of Moses as much as He had cared for the body of Enoch. They were to be equally children of the resurrection... The Lord Himself buried that body with the sure and certain purpose of raising it to glory.
A known tomb would have drawn crowds. One writer gives a reason for hiding it, and marks it as his own thought rather than something Scripture states:
Well, I suppose it was so that it should not become an object of superstition to the Jews, like the bronze serpent. We do not find that in the word, it is just my own mind about it. The Jews might have made pilgrimages to it. The Lord buried him, and "no man," etc.
The irony is sharp: the people who fought Moses while he lived would have worshipped him once he died.
As soon as he was dead, the same devil that stirred them up against Moses when he was alive — oh, what would he not have given for that dead body! The dead body would have been made a relic... So we can easily understand why it was that the Lord buried the body Himself.
Something happened at this grave before the burial, and only the New Testament records it:
Before the Lord buried him, there was this contention between Michael the archangel and the devil about Moses' dead body. Even if God allowed Satan to know the place, He stepped in so that Michael should guard that grave and block every effort of the devil to get hold of that dead body. So we have the two facts: what Jude tells us here, and the account in Deuteronomy 34 of the Lord burying Moses — which He never did for any other man.
That is where the record stops. Another writer warns against guessing past it:
We know absolutely nothing about how Michael reasoned with the devil about the body of Moses. Guesses have been endless, especially about the mysterious statement in Deuteronomy 34:6. But it is one of God's secrets, and no one can get inside it.
Moses died outside the land he had led Israel toward. One writer names the reason:
It was the government of God that, with stern decision, kept Moses out of the Promised land, much as he longed to enter it. He spoke rashly with his lips. He failed to glorify God in front of the people at the waters of Meribah.
Yet God's government was not the whole story:
But, as we have said, Moses was the subject of grace, as well as of government; and truly that grace shines with special brightness on the top of Pisgah. There God let His honoured servant stand in his Master's presence and, with clear eye, look out over the land of promise... and see it, not just as land Israel held, but as land God gave.
One writer sees a picture in the fact that God buried him:
Moses was the instrument through whom the law was given, and the Lord buried him. No doubt this hints that one day the Lord would put away the law, with its curse, as we learn in the New Testament.
The hidden valley is not the end of the story:
It is the Lord who buries Moses, and after a time He brings him out (as we have seen) in the glory of the Lord Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. We find there, not Joshua, the one who led Israel into the land, but Moses, the one to whom this was denied.
- Buried by God — the dead may bury the dead, but the Lord Himself laid Moses in the valley.
- Hidden by God — an unknown grave means no shrine, no pilgrimage, no relic to worship.
- Contested by Satan — Michael disputed with the devil over the body, and what happened beyond that stays God's secret.
- Governed by God — one rash word kept Moses out of the land; God's love does not cancel His government.
- Raised by God — the Lord who buried him brought him out again in glory on the mount of transfiguration.
And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.
Moses dies at a hundred and twenty. The record pauses to note something unexpected: his sight and his strength had not failed at all. So why did a man in that condition die, and why does Scripture record it?
Nothing in Moses was wearing out. His death was an act of God at a moment God had fixed.
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 of faithful devotion to God, in the face of almost every kind of opposition! Yet he was a man with the same sinful tendencies as we have. He is a striking proof that God will give the grace and strength needed to carry out any responsibility He may put on any believer.
His body had not failed, yet he was still shut out of the land. The man who gave Israel the law came under that law himself.
The great plea for God is finished. The life-work of Moses is over. Nothing is left but for him to bear witness, in his death, to the unbending justice of the law he had mediated and spoken for. He must come under its severity himself. By being shut out of the promised land he shows that "by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight."
Moses had told Israel he could no longer go out and come in. That sounds like a failing old man. How does it fit with this verse?
There he stood, a hundred and twenty years old, a witness to the grace of his God. His eye was still the eye of youth, for it knew no dimness. And his frame was not bowed down by old age; there was no sign of feebleness about him (34:7). The words "I am no longer able to go out and come in" are not in conflict with the statement about his physical condition. He knew that he had to die because the Lord had told him so.
Moses is the author of Psalm 90, the psalm that measures a human life at seventy years, eighty at the outside. He outlived that limit by forty years.
Moses wrote Psalm 90. It tells us: "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away" (v. 10). But God made Moses himself a striking exception!
Undimmed eyes are more than good health. One writer contrasts Moses with Eli.
Think of the closing days of Eli, by way of contrast. There was no open vision then, and of Eli himself we read that his eyes were dim. The sad end of his life is one of departed glory. Turning back to Moses, we suggest there is a link between Deuteronomy 34:7 and Hebrews 11:27. In both verses we have what is equivalent to vision and vitality! In the pathway of faith these two features are complementary. It was the "seeing him who is invisible" which made Moses endure. He had seen the glory of Egypt and tasted its pleasures. But faith's vision laid hold of Him who is outside all sight and sense, and so Moses refused, chose, valued and endured!
The people who had followed him for forty years never watched him fade.
Never before nor since had a man died as Moses died. He was a hundred and twenty years old, but his eye was not dimmed nor his natural force reduced. When the time came for him to go, God would not let the people see any decline of strength in him. He had led them with such patience and faithfulness.
Another writer traces the whole shape of that life to its close.
He died, not as a withered and feeble old man, but in all the freshness and vigour of matured manhood… The life of Moses fell into three important, clearly marked periods of forty years each. He spent forty years in the house of Pharaoh; forty years at the back of the desert; and forty years in the wilderness… Trace him from the river's edge, where he lay a helpless baby, to the top of Pisgah. There he stood with his Lord and gazed with undimmed sight on the fair inheritance of the Israel of God.
- Strength given. God gave Moses the strength his task needed. He does the same for any responsibility He gives a believer.
- Strength kept. No disease, no decay, no fading in front of the people — God protected His servant's testimony to the last day.
- Strength no shield. Vigour did not buy him entrance to the land; the lawgiver came under the law's own justice and stayed outside.
- Sight behind the strength. Moses endured by seeing Him who is invisible. In faith's path, vision and vitality go together.
- Strength that outlives the psalm. Moses wrote that a life runs seventy years; God made him the exception, then took him at the hour He had named.
And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; and the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
Moses is dead, and a whole nation stands weeping on the far side of the Jordan, in sight of a land their leader never entered. Two questions arise: why a full month of grief, and why did that grief have to stop?
Israel had no body to bury, yet they stopped for a month. One commentator notes that the pause was not wasted time. God was preparing the people before He sent them to fight.
Though they could not attend his funeral, the children of Israel mourned for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days (v.8). Nothing suggests that Israel thought Moses might just be lost on the mountain. They sent out no search party, as the sons of the prophets did when God took Elijah up (2 Kings 2:15-18). Israel did not rush ahead 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 people mourned in the open, not at a tomb, because God Himself had buried Moses. One writer points to the danger God was avoiding.
But Israel could have no burial service for him. Instead, God buried Moses Himself, with no one watching — an honour given to no one else. Not even Satan knew his burying place. Jude 9 tells us that Michael the archangel and the devil disputed over the body of Moses, and Michael settled it with wise words: "The Lord rebuke you." If Satan had known where Moses' body lay, 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, must not be worshiped.
Was all this weeping a failure of faith? Writing about Abraham's grief at Sarah's death, one commentator draws a line between sorrow and hopelessness.
Faith does not set aside natural affection. So we read, "Abraham went in to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her" (v. 2). Faith knows well that our loved ones who die in the Lord will rise again, and that for them death is gain. Even so, we are right to mourn and feel their loss. Our sure hope of resurrection tells us, as the apostle reminds us, that our sorrow is not the sorrow of those who have no hope. But there is no word to say we are not to sorrow. No one could know the power of resurrection like the One who is Himself the resurrection and the life. Yet He wept at the grave of Lazarus.
Moses died outside the land because of his own fault. One writer argues that this discipline took nothing from God's love for him — and spared him sights that would have grieved him.
God could not overlook the fault of Moses without weakening the authority of law. There was real righteousness in the ways of God. But this did not in the smallest degree hinder the perfectness of His love to Moses. It was part of His government to chasten his fault: His grace to Moses remained entire. Suppose Moses had entered the land — which God's ways did not allow. What grief it would have been for him to see the unfaithfulness of His people! They slighted His law. They only half conquered the enemy. They were ready to turn back to sin and idolatry even in that land.
The man they mourned was never the one appointed to bring them into the land.
Look at this beloved and honoured man in his official role. It is very plain that it was not his job to lead Israel into the promised land. The wilderness was his sphere of action. He was not the one to lead the people across the river of death into their destined inheritance. His ministry had to do with man's responsibility under law and the government of God. So it never could lead the people into the enjoyment of the promise.
God had already prepared the next leader. So the weeping could end without the work stopping.
However, God had prepared Joshua as a successor to Moses, He gave him a spirit of wisdom for the service he was now to take up... Whatever service needs to be done, only the person God prepares for it will be able to do it.
- Ended, not endless. The weeping was long — a full month — but they were days, and days end. God gave grief room, then gave it a limit.
- Ended by God's care. They had no grave to weep over. God buried Moses Himself, so a loved leader could never become an object of worship.
- Ended without hurry. The pause was not delay. God wanted Israel in calm submission to Him before He sent them against their enemies.
- Ended with love intact. God kept Moses out of the land, chastening his fault, yet God's grace toward him remained entire.
- Ended so the march could start. The wilderness was Moses' sphere. The inheritance was Joshua's. Only the person God prepares for a service can do it.
And Joshua the son of Nun was 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 Jehovah had commanded Moses.
Moses has died, and the leadership of a whole nation passes to Joshua. This verse says where Joshua's wisdom came from, how Moses marked him out, and why Israel followed him.
The wisdom here is not general cleverness. It is fitness for one job: taking Moses' place.
God had prepared Joshua to succeed Moses. He gave him a spirit of wisdom for the service he was now to take up. That service was plainly different from the service of Moses, yet Moses stood in full fellowship with him. Moses had laid his hands on Joshua, and the act identified him with Joshua as the new leader of Israel (v.9). Whatever service needs to be done, only the person God prepares for it will be able to do it.
Joshua was not empty until Moses touched him. The Spirit was already in him. One writer places Joshua among other men whom the Spirit equipped for a set task, starting with the builder of Israel's tent of worship.
The Spirit now showed His activity and power in several new ways. Bezaleel is an example of a man filled with the Spirit of God — in wisdom, understanding and knowledge — for the work he was given to do in building the tabernacle (Ex. 31:3; 35:31). The Holy Spirit was in Joshua (Num. 27:18). Moses laid his hands on him, and so he was full of the spirit of wisdom (Deut. 34:9). The Spirit rested on the elders, to fit them for their duties among the people.
One writer follows the Hebrew word for "lay" into its other uses.
The Hebrew word for "lay" is the same as in Deut. 34:9, where Moses laid his hands on Joshua. It is the same in Num. 8:10, where the Israelites laid their hands on the Levites. In each case it expressed fellowship or identity for special service.
But the hands of Moses did not create the ability. They pointed to what God had already done.
Working beside Israel's leader had certainly fitted Joshua to carry on the work Moses laid down. Moses might well have chosen Joshua as his successor himself. But the point is that he did not. He left the choice entirely to God. He knew that human hands cannot give wisdom and power for such a responsibility. They must come from God alone, in whom all power is.
The fullness in this verse came at the end of long training. God matched it with a word spoken straight to Joshua.
Joshua's faith was fully answered. Now he is "full of the spirit of wisdom," prepared by all these years of discipline. Moses laid hands on him and ordained him. But the Lord also commissioned him in person and encouraged him for this high and honourable mission. The Lord's word to Joshua now was that every place the sole of his foot trod on, He had given to him.
One writer reads the handover as a picture. Moses dies; Joshua leads the people into the land.
Moses is dead, and Joshua takes his place. That is, both men picture Christ — the one who died and the one who lives… Here it is Christ leading the people into the land now, in Spirit. It is the power of the Spirit of God, who answers to Christ's glory. So He enables Christians today to take hold of their place in heaven, where He is, and to know it.
Israel obeyed Joshua, and what he commanded was still what the Lord had commanded Moses. The nation had lost its greatest leader.
It has been well said that God buries His servants and carries on His work — the servants may be great, but they are not indispensable. So we can take courage.
- Prepared — God fitted Joshua for a job unlike Moses' job. Only the person God prepares for a work can do it.
- Filled — the Spirit was in Joshua before Moses ever touched him, as with Bezalel for the tent of worship and the elders for their duties.
- Identified — the same Hebrew word appears when Israel laid hands on the Levites. The act showed fellowship and identity for special service. It did not hand over ability.
- Commissioned — Moses ordained Joshua, and the Lord Himself commissioned and encouraged him.
- Continued — Moses dies, Joshua leads, Israel obeys. What Joshua commands is still what the Lord commanded Moses. God buries His servants and carries on His work.
And there arose no prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom Jehovah had known face to face;
Deuteronomy closes with a verdict on the man who wrote it. No one in Israel ever matched Moses, because the LORD never dealt with anyone else in that way. That raises two questions. Who could write such an epitaph? And would anyone ever fill the gap it describes?
The verse looks back over Israel's later history, so it need not have come from Moses himself. That is no threat to the book being his own. Inspiration did not end with him.
There is no need at all to take Deuteronomy 34 as written by Moses before his death. Others followed who were inspired as he was. The testimony to the blessed man of God, as in Numbers 12:3, better suits the successor to whom it was given by God.
The verse does not praise Moses for what he did. It names the way God dealt with him, and that is what set him apart from the other prophets.
Moses was a picture of our Lord as our prophet, or the prophet of heavenly things (see Deuteronomy 18:15; Deuteronomy 34:10). He stood apart from the ordinary prophets. God speaks to them by visions and dreams, but to Moses "face to face," or openly. Moses had access to all God's house. His place was in the Most Holy Place, as well as in the courts of the tabernacle.
This closeness was not his from the start. It came after Israel broke the covenant at Sinai by worshipping the golden calf.
Israel sinned at the foot of Mount Sinai. That sin broke the covenant and forfeited the blessing. It put Moses back into that same heavenly position. There Moses meets Him, and meets Him in a new way, "face to face, as a man speaks to his friend." This had not been so before.
Prophets kept coming after him. So what did Israel lose when he died?
For centuries the authority exercised in Israel was of that same kind, but its power declined. Those who held it were far weaker in faithfulness and in force.
Moses had promised that God would raise up a prophet like himself, and the people must listen to Him (Deuteronomy 18:15). Verse 10 explains what that likeness means, so it points past every prophet who came after.
Moses, the lawgiver, made one special prediction. Both Peter (Acts 3:22-23) and Stephen (Acts 7:37) quote it. It foretells the coming of a Prophet like him, to whom they were to listen. Deuteronomy 34:10 explains that likeness. Its fulfilment waited for the coming of Christ. For fifteen centuries no prophet in Israel, however great, ever thought of claiming that distinction for himself — to be known by God face to face. The mediator of the old covenant and the Mediator of the new are the only ones of whom that has been true.
Moses stands above every prophet in Israel. But one comparison is left to make.
True, he was "faithful in all God's house." But set him beside the Son of God, and the glory of the man is completely eclipsed. Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. But Christ is faithful over God's house as a Son, and we are His house. So the greatness of Moses vanishes before the infinite glory of the person of the Son of God.
- Written after — the chapter is an inspired postscript. The tribute fits a successor better than Moses himself.
- Known, not just used — what set Moses apart was God's way with him. Other prophets got visions and dreams. Moses got open speech.
- Given in ruin — that nearness came after the golden calf, when Israel had forfeited everything. God's answer to the collapse was friendship with Moses.
- Never repeated — prophets followed for centuries, but the authority declined. No one else ever claimed that God knew him face to face.
- Filled in Christ — the promised Prophet like Moses is the Mediator of the new covenant. Beside Him, Moses is a servant in the house and Christ is the Son over it.