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"And Jehovah shewed Moses all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the
land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the
Negeb, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar"
(Deuteronomy 34:1-3).
Such was the prospect which, from that mountain-top, spread before Moses. And when
he had satiated his eyes upon it, he descended into that valley apart to lay him down to
rest. Into the mysterious silence of that death and burial at the hands of Jehovah we dare
not penetrate. Jewish tradition, rendering the expression (Deuteronomy 34:5) literally,
has it that "Moses the servant of Jehovah died there... at the mouth of Jehovah," or, as
they put it, by the kiss of the Lord. But from the brief saying of Scripture (Jude 9) may
we not infer that although Moses also received in death the wages of sin, yet his body
passed not through corruption, however much "the devil," contending as for his lawful
prey, "disputed" for its possession, but was raised up to be with Elijah the first to
welcome the Lord in His glory? For "men bury a body that it may pass into corruption.
If Jehovah, therefore, would not suffer the body of Moses to be buried by men, it is but
natural to seek for the reason in the fact that He did not intend to leave him to
corruption."^58
But "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom Jehovah knew face
to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which Jehovah sent him to do in the land of
Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand,
and in all the great terror which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel" (Deuteronomy
34:10-12).
"and Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those
things which were to be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over His own house; whose
house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the
end" (Hebrews 3:5, 6).
(^)