So Moses Died: Mortality and Memory in the Christian Life – Deuteronomy 34

I want to invite you to turn with me to Exodus in order then to go further in the story of Moses to Deuteronomy chapter 34. So, we began with a reading from Exodus. Now we go from Exodus to Deuteronomy 34 and we will share the entirety of Deuteronomy 34 together.

“Then 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 Dan,  all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.  And the Lord said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” 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 the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. And the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.

And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. So the people of Israel obeyed him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses. And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”

Let’s pray.

Father, in a very special way this day looking to this text, we thank you for giving us this, your word. We thank you for this precious passage even as we are reminded that we have it only because you have given it to us. Father, you gave it to us in Torah, in Deuteronomy. Father, you’ve given it to us in Pentateuch, in Old Testament. You have given it to us this day in the reading of voice and the hearing of ears. Father, we pray that you’ll open our hearts to see all you have given us in this gift. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.

From time to time as a preacher, you get to do things and this is one of those occasions when I get to do something, I get to share with you a biblical text that I must just tell you upfront has for my lifetime captivated me. Now, you have as a preacher warring temptations with a text like this. The first is preach it and the second is don’t. Every once in a while there’s a passage of scripture that just kind of stays with you and rests with you, and it can seem at times like it’s just kind of like a private encouragement from the Lord, a private instruction from the Lord, but all of it is meant to be preached and my joy today is to preach this text which has lived with me for so long and it just seemed right to turn to this text today.

Deuteronomy chapter 34 is not only the conclusion of the book of Deuteronomy, it is the conclusion of the Pentateuch. It does bring with a thundering, thud, climatically and with a death, the end of the life of Moses and the closing of this massively important chapter, formative chapter, identity giving chapter in the life of God’s covenant people, Israel. The text is so clear just in terms of its power because at this point Israel is known as the children of Israel, the people of Israel, but they’re also known certainly to themselves as the people of Moses and the children of Moses. Moses looms so large over the landscape that it had to be hard for Israel to imagine how they would live and how they would survive after Moses. You know the formula: ‘The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying,’ and then Moses. Moses is the one through whom the Lord gives the law. Moses is the one through whom the Lord reveals the way of escape. Moses is the one through whom the Lord pastors shepherds Israel, both in terms of encouragement and in terms of correction. Moses was the one figure, staff in his hand, that Israel knew it must follow.

Now in this passage, we have reference to the transfer of that role from one man to another, from Moses to Joshua. Joshua is not Moses. He does not loom over the Old Testament in any sense, such as Moses looms over the Old Testament. There is no place where the children of Israel are also referred to as the children of Joshua, but Joshua is the mighty man raised up by God and recognized and appointed by Moses to lead the children of Israel where Moses will not go. And this passage helps us to understand the grace and mercy of God and the fact that the people who had followed Moses, now do follow Joshua. It’s wonderful, but this is about the death of Moses. I want us to see three scenes in this passage. The passage lays out, if you’re looking for points, you need to look at a Pauline passage. This isn’t about points, this is scenes. Scene number one: the Lord God Almighty calls Moses to mount Nebo. Verse 34, chapter one. Let’s make it verse one. Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top EPIs, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him all the land.

Alright, there’s a lot behind this. There are decades behind this. Behind this is the exodus from captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt. Behind this is 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and now they are in Moab. Moab is so close to the land of promise. Moab is so close to Canaan, it’s so close to Canaan that from Pisgah, from Mount Nebo, you can see it all. They’re on the brink of entering into the land of promise. This is the promise that had been given as we know to the fathers of old. This is the promise that was given to Israel. This is the promise that saw them through the desert. This is the promise that gave them hope in Egypt, back to Genesis. Just look back to Genesis chapter 12: “Now, the Lord said to Abram, go from your country, in your kindred in your father’s house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you’ll be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

You notice the parallel there, I’m sure the Lord said to Abram, I’m going to give you a land that I will show you. The Lord God called Moses up to the Mount, Mount Nebo there Pisgah, and he said, I am now going to show you all the land it was promised to the fathers. How’s he describe it? And the Lord showed him all the land. And listen to these names. These names are to land on us like promise we can now see: “Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.”

Here’s what’s fascinating: that’s not what the people currently living there call these places. This is an astounding promise as the God’s pointing to land. And remember who’s in Canaan, Canaanites and the Lord says, this is your land. This is the land that I promised to the fathers, to Isaac and to Jacob. This is the land that I showed Abraham. Now I’m showing you, and we’re even naming it.

It’s an incredible scene. By the way. You don’t have to be very high to be on the top of a mountain in this part of the world. You can go to Mount Nebo right now it’s an elevation of something like 2,000 feet above the plane. So you’re not standing on Mount Rushmore. You’re certainly not standing on Mount Everest. You are standing on a high hill. But if you’re standing there, it looks like you are on a mountain. And in that sense it is. It’s perspective. This is how the Lord shows Moses the land as he showed Abram the land. Now he shows it to Moses, but then of course it shifts greatly. You see the Lord’s own declaration in verse four: “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to your offspring. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” This is a part of the story that it reaches our heart, right? I think we immediately just have to put ourselves in the place of Moses or imagine that we’re there. Moses gets to see what a blessing this is. What an incredible thing it is. As the Lord showed to Abraham, the land of promise, he now shows to Moses the land of promise so long after, but even as the Lord had promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob, this would be their land. It was a promise, far, far off.

Now it’s a promise that right before them, a language that’s picked up in the New Testament as well. This promise is now close. It’s so close that Moses can see it with his eyes, which as we shall see are undimmed. But as much as he can see it, that’s all he’s going to know of it. He gets to see the promise, but he does not get to possess the promise. He does not get to lead the children of Israel into the land of promise. And we know why. Turn back just a couple of pages to chapter 32. It’s tempting to begin at verse 48, but I want us to begin in verse 44, just two chapters back.

“Moses came and recited all the words of this song and the hearing of the people, he and Joshua, the son of none. And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to Israel, he said to them, take to your heart all the words by which I’m warning you today that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. For it is no empty word for you but your very life. And by this word, you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess.” This is Moses getting the children of Israel ready to go over the land. It’s not “we will go.” It is “you will go” and as you go, obey this law, which is your life.

Then look at the very next verse, verse 48: “That very day the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel. For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.’”

So we feel a sense of loss for Moses because what is implicit in chapter 34 is explicit in chapter 32. God says to Moses, you are not going to go into the land because you did not treat me as holy. And of course this takes us back to the striking of the rock. Moses was instructed there in this situation of Israel’s greatest need and God’s provision, he was told to speak to the rock. But frustrated with God’s people and implicit in that text, frustrated with God for giving him this people, Moses in his frustration does not speak to the rock, but with his staff, he strikes the rock. Now I can remember as a young boy reading this text and knowing the story and thinking this seems like such a small thing. I mean sort of like my father saying, ‘set this thing here.’ There’s something already there, so I set it very close. ‘Not good enough. You shall not enter the land of the living room.’ It has seemed like such an overreaction. But here in Deuteronomy 32, it is explained why this is the exercise of God’s righteous and just judgment. It is because in that situation, this was not just Moses improvising as if he had any right to improvise. He did not. It is Moses losing his temper and in anger not doing what the Lord had commanded him to do, and here’s what’s important, in the sight of the people.

And thus he robbed God of his holiness in that situation and this is the punishment that the Lord put upon him. And you’ll notice the Lord did not remove him from leadership. He continued to be the Moses of the Exodus. He continued to be the Moses who led the children of Israel in the wilderness. He continued to be Moses the prophet to whom the Lord spoke, and through whom the Lord spoke. He continued to be Moses, so much so that the children of Israel are referred to as the children of Moses; so much so that in the time of Jesus, they will say ‘we are Moses’s children.’ But Moses got to see it. He does not get to enter it.

So this first scene of our concern is a demonstration about the grace and the mercy of God and the judgment of God. The mercy of God is when Moses gets to see it. In the judgment of God, Moses does not get to lead the children of Israel to possess it. That’s the first scene.

It takes chapter 32 and chapter 34 to understand how this is happening on this day. The Lord called Moses up to the mountain, he called Moses up to the mountain to see, but most emphatically, he called Moses up to the mountain to die. Back in chapter 32, frankly, the language is pretty brutal. “Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho and view the land of Canaan, which I’m giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people.”

This is one of the strangest commands. I mean, if I’m just being honest, imagine the Lord speaking to Moses saying, ‘Okay, it’s time. It’s time. Go up the mountain, climb to the top of Mount Nebo. I’m going to show you the land that I have promised to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and it’s the land that will be possessed by your children. And die there. You’re going to get to see it. But Moses, this is the last thing you’re going to see.”

Now, what is this telling us? Look at chapter 34: 5. “So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord.” He died there. He did exactly what the Lord told him to do. The Lord, the Lord took Moses. The Maker of heaven and earth, the God who had spoken to Moses in that burning bush, the God Moses met, first as a voice with a bush that burned and was not consumed and the God that Moses later saw face to face. This God calls Moses up to the mountain, shows him all the land of Promise, names it, and then says, ‘okay, die.’ The language in chapter 32 and the language in chapter 34, tell us, ‘so Moses died in accordance with the word.’ He died according to the word of the Lord.

Now I know this is the text that raises a question. Moses will refer to the Pentateuch, his own writing. We refer just as Israel refers to these books as the books of Moses. Here we have an account of Moses dying and we are told there were no witnesses. Joshua is not relating this to us because he saw this happen. There is no one–Aaron is dead. There is no one here with Moses. Moses is alone on the mountain. And so it’s not wrong, it’s not disobedient, it’s not insubordination to ask the question, ‘Then how do we know this?’ And it would seem that the most natural, biblical God-honoring answer is the same God who killed Moses on the mountain made sure we know exactly about it. Someone by God’s own sovereign act wrote the final chapter because God wrote it and gave it to us. And here it is.

So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there and the Lord just two chapters before just interspersed by that long poem in him. The Lord had just simply said, “and die there.” So Moses knew when he went up the mountain that he was walking for the last time up a mountain. He knew for the last time he would get to see anything and the last thing that he would see would be the land of the promise and then he would die there. He’s also buried there. Verse six tells us, “and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor. But no one knows the place of his burial to this day.” Who buried Moses? God did. God took Moses. God caused Moses to die there.

Okay, just recall, this is something that anthropologists will say is a longstanding human taboo. Taboo, that means if you’re just speaking in a secular term as an anthropologist, you’re going to, say, looking culture by culture, ‘here is something that has a universal sign understood in virtually every culture: a body abandoned is a body of shame. A body abandoned is a body of shame.’ Even people who do not have the Torah, even people who are not the people of the covenant, they do not leave dead bodies, dead human bodies, without making a statement of desecration and isolation and rejection and shame. But don’t go to Nebo looking for the body of Moses: you’re not going to find it, and it would appear they tried. Good luck, you’re not going to find it because there is buried and buried. We bury you: strange things can happen. God buries you, brother or sister, you stay buried. This is another sign of respect. We just need to understand this. This is not just a tiny little incidental thing in order that we would know what happened to the body of Moses. This is God’s love and respect for Moses. He takes him home and he buries Moses at Mount Nebo and nobody knows where that is. They cannot find it. No one knows the place of his burial to this day. The day that this text was scribally recorded, yes. And the day that we are sharing it together right now, yes.

Alright. We’re also told that his eye was undimmed and his vigor unabated. So here’s the other thing. Moses did not die of a long process of physical decay. Moses did not die after having lingered from some kind of medical emergency or heart attack or stroke or you go down the list. He was not wasting away. No. At 120 years of age, Moses is as healthy as a young man. Again, God’s gift. This is God’s prophet. The Lord gave Moses this strength. He did not melt away. He didn’t wilt away. He didn’t wither away. He was taken. He died on the mountain according to Scripture. And God buried him and he hasn’t been found to this day.

Deathbed scenes are a focus of unusual attention. I think we can understand that we’re very interested in how people die and who might be a witness to this. At Genesis chapter 47, this is very important to Israel; look at verse 29. “And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, ‘If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burying place.’ He answered, ‘I will do as you have said.’ And he said, ‘Swear to me’; and he swore to him. Then Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed.”

Look at Genesis chapter 50, beginning of verse 22: “So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own. And Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’ Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.’ So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”

You also have the second deathbed scene of Jacob found in chapter 29. I just wanted to direct us to these passages in order to think about the moment when someone dies. And both for Jacob and for Joseph these were moments of great transition and promise. It was a part of Israel’s story. It was important that there be those there present, who were witnesses to the death. There is a swearing, a promise, an oath that is a part of this. But for Moses, no one’s there. No one is a witness in terms of the bones of Joseph, they take them with them on the exodus. The bones of Moses, they’re still on Mount Nebo.

In the reformation, the deathbed scene of Martin Luther, the reformer, became a matter of enormous concern. In medieval Germany, what happened at a deathbed was revelatory of eternal destiny. It was believed that someone who was a Christian who had what was called a good death and passed peacefully that such an individual was going to heaven. It was also believed that if there were a believer and death came as an enormous struggle and it was one horrifying gasp after another that that was a sign that God was displeased with this believer. Martin Luther himself knew that his deathbed scene would be a final trial of the reformation for him. Now, he knew this because he had been close to death before and all the chatter in the speculation had already begun. Because the Catholics were saying, ‘he’s going to have a bad, bad death because he defied Rome. He made himself an enemy of the church and of the Pope. This is going to go very badly.’ Luther himself was concerned about it, not so much because of the circumstances of his death. For him, he was very concerned about it, for the circumstances of his death, for the future of the reformation. He had reason to be concerned. As soon as he died, Catholic propagandists began to claim that he had repented and recanted of the entire reformation on his deathbed. Okay? The Protestants knew that that was going to be tried. So what did they do? They made sure it was impossible that Luther would die alone, probably would’ve done that anyway. But in this situation, they wanted to make certain that there was no one who’s going to be able credibly to claim that Luther had renounced the reformation on his deathbed, which is what propagandists for the other side had been arguing for years.

By the way, Mary and I have been several times in the very room where Luther died. It’s right there in Eisleben, in Germany, and it’s the same little town where Luther was born. So if you go there and you should go there, if you have the opportunity, if you go there, you can go to one house, which is called—get this, in typical German style, beautiful poetic language: Luther’s birth house. Alright? And then the matching house which you can walk to very quickly is—get it beautiful German poetry: Luther’s death house. And then you go there and you realize here’s this bed. On this bed the reformer died. His sons were present with him and there were others. And they brought the report that he had passed peacefully. So much was at stake there. So much was at stake. In other words, even those who were concerned with politics in Germany, not just theology in Germany, not just church and state in Germany, those who were concerned with social cohesion and politics in Germany, they wanted to know how exactly did Luther die? What does that look like?

And this is a far greater than Martin Luther. This is Moses. This is salvation history, not just church history. And this is all we know of the death of Moses because there was no one surrounding the bed. There was no bed. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, the people of Israel then wept and mourned for 30 days. The commanded period of mourning. They are doing exactly what they’re called upon to do. I mean, there are questions behind this text. Who gave them the announcement? How did they know that Moses had died? Almost assuredly Moses had told someone because of chapter 32, that the Lord had called him to Mount Nebo. And at Mount Nebo he would die. The children of Israel simply accept the fact that Moses is dead and they do exactly what they’re called upon to do. They wept for Moses, in the plains of Moab, 30 days. And then as is the pattern, then “the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.” And you look at that and you say, well, all right, we’re talking about this mourning for Moses. After all, is there going to be a passage this brief? Is it just going to be a sentence that short? And the answer is yes, because here’s the prescribed mourning and Israel wept for Moses. But Israel has to move, and be led by Joshua. And that’s what the next passage tells us. And Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom. For what? Moses had laid his hands on him. So the scene has to shift. You can’t stay in Moab mourning for Moses. That is not the storyline. That is not the promise. That is not the obedience. You have to mourn and Moab for 30 days and then the mourning is over. Joshua’s got to lead the children of Israel into the land of promise, and it’s going to happen very fast. And Deuteronomy closes very quickly.

The third scene is the tribute to Moses as the days of mourning for Moses have ended. Just look at this. So the people of Israel obeyed him, that is Joshua, and that is the Lord of commanded Moses. And then look at verses 10-12. “And there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and the wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land,  and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”

So much here. I am exhilarated by this language. I mean because God’s giving us this language. This is not some kind of epitaph that you find in Arlington National Cemetery. This is not some kind of William Wordsworth poetry after the death of a great. This is the declaration of God, the creator of heaven and earth. The Lord God of Israel, who had captured Israel, rescuing it from enslavement to Pharaoh in Egypt. This is the Lord who had spoken through the pillar of fire and through the cloud. This is the Lord who spoke to Moses through the fire and saw the children of Israel through the desert and now at the brink of the land of promise. This declaration about Moses, “there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses.” How was he described? “Whom the Lord knew face to face.” And you go back to the call of Moses, he dared not look. But now he is described as the man who saw God because God spoke to him face to face. And you know how that happens, what that means? “None like him for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to do.” Signs and wonders. Staff turned into a snake. All the signs and wonders, all the plagues that came against Pharaoh and Egypt. Here they’re a part of the testimony of the greatness of God as mediated through the prophet and the leader who was Moses and there has no one been like him. There has been none like him. That has arisen since in Israel. Moses was the figure who, humanly speaking, was used of God to save his people out of bondage to Pharaoh in Egypt and to get them right to the brink of the promised land.

I love by the way, the absolutely clear construction of this text. “None like him for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and all his land.” These were signs and wonders that were not just done so Pharaoh can see them. No. Brothers and sisters, they were done to Pharaoh. These signs and wonders were done, not just so he could observe them and learn from them, they were done to him. Signs and wonders done to him.

And then, “all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” Mysterium tremendum. Terror. What Terror? It’s the holiness of God. These were deeds that revealed the holiness of God. Some of them were in their effect, including for instance, the plague, just to remember, of the firstborn sons. There were other miracles that God wrought through Moses. But some of them involved no death but rather rescue. But all of them were signs of terrors in the sense that they revealed nothing other than the holiness and the power of God.

Well, alright. You know, we are living in a time in which no one knows exactly what to do with heroes. We can’t live without them, but we’re in a day of just incredible suspicion. This hermeneutics of suspicion is attached to everything and that includes our heroes. And the problem with our heroes is the closer you look, the more problems you find. It’s true of the founders of the United States of America. It’s true of the founders of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It’s true of the kings and queens who changed history in the Middle Ages. It’s true of Caesars and emperors, but horrifyingly, it’s true of Moses. I mean, we can only celebrate him so far because he did die on this mountain by the judgment of God and didn’t even get to lead the children of Israel into the land of promise, which appeared to be what he was destined to do. Moses brought his people to the brink of the land of promise. Well, time’s running out but you know where we’re going here. There has not arisen a prophet sense in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. Moses can’t save us.

Salvation comes only by one who is infinitely greater than Moses. A second Moses, who will save his people from their sin. One who not only was spoken to by God face to face, but God in human flesh. Moses left the children of Israel in God’s hands, yes, but on the wrong side of the river, Jordan. He got to see it. He didn’t get to take the children home. We desperately need a savior who doesn’t merely take us to the brink of the land of promise, but takes us all the way home. Moses is a type of Christ. He’s not Christ. What the law was powerless to do Christ did. He, like Moses, died and was buried, but the Lord raised him from the dead. The Lord’s given him a name above every name, the name of Jesus. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. We are instructed by and inspired by, and we are pointed to Christ by Deuteronomy Chapter 34. But we do not read this text as the children of Israel mourning Moses, we have to read this text as the children of Jesus, exalting in Christ. All the difference in the world is that we must have a savior who can take us all the way home, and we do.

Let’s pray.

Father, we’re just so thankful for all you have given us in every word of scripture. Father, thank you for this Deuteronomy chapter 34. Thank you for giving Israel and thank you for giving us the knowledge about the death of Moses. And Father, thank you for pointing us from Moses to Christ by whom we are saved, by whom we draw every breath. And in his name we pray. Amen.