Entry 6: The Death of Moses
At the beginning of the year, I decided to read the Bible from cover to cover. There have always been chapters of the Bible I avoided, afraid that I wouldn’t be able to comprehend and understand their meaning and believing that the passages I was comfortable in would be enough. So I stuck to the gospels, to Paul’s writing, and the occasional Old Testament Psalms and Proverbs. But what I came to realize, was that God had more for me. In 1 Corinthians 3:2 Paul writes, “I fed you with milk, not solid food, because you were not yet ready for it.” The milk, for me, was the gospel. The basics of my faith and the foundations of Christianity. But as I sought to grow in my faith, I needed more, I needed solid food, to build upon that foundation. So I found a good, simple Bible plan, and I started reading.
What I’ve read about in the Old Testament, is beyond my wildest dreams. There’s incredible miracles and interventions by God, beautiful creation and mass destruction, death and life, detailed history and hidden meaning. There is pages upon pages of God’s law and glory, crazy stories of faith and even immense prophecy. It hasn’t always been easy to read. Sometimes a passage will leave me with troubling questions I can’t find answers to, or I’ll get bogged down by the sheer amount of laws, details, and records. There are moments of sheer humanity, as well as moments of the immensely divine. And safe to say, in only 3 months, God has begun to open my eyes to the beauty of his word, and the eternal nature of his love.
But as I’ve read, there has been no other passage that impacted me as strongly as the one I’m about to share with you. It begins in Deuteronomy 34, titled “The Death of Moses”. Now, this passage takes place 40 years after Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt, with which this journey extended from the book of Exodus all the way to Deuteronomy. The Israelites have a renewed covenant with God, and He is now preparing them to enter the promised land. But Moses’s story takes a different turn. The passage reads:
“Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and 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 into it.”
And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over. Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.
Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”
In this passage, Moses died, looking at the land he would never enter. And at first, I thought this seemed cruel of God, to show Moses what he will never have, what his whole life had led up to, and then to take it away in death. But then I read it again, and I realized that God was not showing Moses cruelty, but compassion. God wasn’t taking away Moses’s purpose but revealing it to him. And Moses knew this. Moses knew that the promised land was not about the blessings, or the security, or the prosperity. Moses knew that the promised land wasn’t a place, or a destination, or a specific time, or something that can be “achieved”. Moses knew that the promised land was worthless, without the one who promises it.
God is the promised land. God is the blessing, God is the security, God is the prosperity. Moses didn’t want what God could give him, he just wanted God. And if that was the case, then that moment on Mount Nebo must’ve been the most beautiful moment of Moses’s life. To look back on a life of turmoil, and hardship, and leadership, and confusion, and fear, and wandering, and reconciliation, and to find that God was there the whole time. That in every moment of agony or every moment of joy, God’s steadfast and unending love continually pursued him. As Moses looked over the plains of Moab and the top of Pigsah and all of the land that would be given to Israel, He saw the face of God. And Moses died on that mountain, being the one whom “the LORD knew face to face”. And that was enough.
Since then, there has been no man like Moses, nor will there ever be. But what I love so much about this passage, is that it’s not just about a man who died thousands of years ago recounting his encounter with God. This story, this moment, God has given it to us too. Because by Jesus’s death, God gave himself to us, so that we may know Him, just as Moses did. And we know this, because God tells us so.
Hebrews 11:24 talks about Moses’s life, and it says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the application of blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.” and Hebrews 11:13 says, “All these people [including Moses] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth…Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”
As I seek to live a life for God, this passage will always stick with me, and I can only hope it impacts you as much as it did for me. Do you have faith in God’s promises for you? Do you trust in his steadfast provision, even in hardship? And are you willing to believe, that even if it may not be what you excepted, that God has something greater in store for you?
