The Book of Deuteronomy

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Moses climbed from the plains of Moab up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, and there "the LORD shewed him all the land," from Gilead in the north to the Mediterranean in the west, down to the plain of Jericho and the palm city. God said, "This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob... I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither." Because of the failure at the waters of Meribah long before, Moses would see the promise but not set foot in it. Yet God graciously let His servant look upon the whole inheritance he had led the people toward for forty years.

Gospel Focus

There is something tender in God letting Moses see the land, even though he could not enter it. Moses, the great man of the law, could bring the people to the very border of the promise but could not bring them in; that would be the work of Joshua, whose name is Jesus. It is the picture drawn all through this book: the law leads us up to the edge of the inheritance, but it takes the Saviour to bring us in. And there is a wider comfort here for every believer. Like the patriarchs, who "saw them afar off" and embraced the promises though they died in faith without receiving them, we too may see much that we do not fully enter in this life. But what we glimpse from our Pisgah, God has sworn to give. The promise did not fail because Moses did not enter; it stood sure, and Israel possessed it. What God has sworn, He gives, even if we see it now only from a distance.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The account of Moses' death is quiet and dignified: "So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD." He was a hundred and twenty years old, yet "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Remarkably, God Himself buried him: "he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab... but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." No shrine, no tomb to be venerated, only a hidden grave known to God alone. Israel wept for Moses thirty days on the plains of Moab, mourning the passing of the greatest leader they had known.

One question naturally arises at the close of the Law: if Moses wrote these five books, who wrote of his own death and burial? Scripture does not say, and faithful readers have answered in more than one way. Some hold that God showed Moses his end beforehand and he wrote it prophetically, as he wrote so much else "according to the word of the LORD." More simply, Joshua -- his Spirit-filled successor, named in this very chapter -- or another inspired hand added this closing account, a fitting epitaph appended to the master's work, as a faithful scribe might finish and seal a completed book. Either way, these words are the inspired word of God, "given by inspiration" (2 Timothy 3:16). The greatness of the Law does not hang on Moses penning the last syllable of his own obituary, but on the God who moved men to write; the same Spirit who guided Moses' pen guided the hand that laid down this reverent farewell.

Gospel Focus

The title given Moses at his death is the highest honor: "the servant of the LORD." Not king, not conqueror, but servant, faithful to the end. And that God Himself buried him, in a grave no one could find, kept Israel from ever turning his tomb into a place of worship; the honor belonged to God, not to the man. Yet the story of Moses did not end at that grave. Centuries later, on the mount of Transfiguration, "there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him" (Matthew 17:3). Moses, who was not allowed to enter the earthly Canaan, stood at last in the Promised Land, in the very land, speaking with Christ. The servant who saw the promise only from afar was brought in, in God's own time and way, to something far better than the earthly inheritance. Death was not the end for God's servant, and it is not the end for us. What we are denied here, God may grant in a greater form hereafter. Serve God faithfully to the end, and trust that the grave is not the last word for those who are His.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

The book ends with a fitting epitaph: "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face." No one matched him in the signs and wonders God sent him to do in Egypt, nor in the closeness of his walk with God, who spoke with him as a man speaks to his friend. Moses stood alone among the prophets of the old covenant, the lawgiver, the deliverer, the mediator through whom God gave His covenant to Israel. With this tribute, the five books of Moses come to their close.

Gospel Focus

No prophet in Israel ever rose to the stature of Moses, and the words "there arose not a prophet... like unto Moses" hang over the rest of the Old Testament like an unfinished promise. For Moses himself had foretold that God would one day raise up "a Prophet from the midst of thee... like unto me," and none of the later prophets filled that place. The Prophet like Moses, and greater, came at last in Jesus Christ. Hebrews draws the very comparison: "Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant... But Christ as a son over his own house" (Hebrews 3:5-6). Moses was the faithful servant; Jesus is the faithful Son. Moses gave the law; Jesus gives grace and truth. Moses could bring Israel to the border; Jesus brings His people all the way home. And so the Torah ends looking forward, its greatest figure pointing beyond himself to One still to come. The law and the servant have done their work; now our eyes turn to the Son over His house, whose house we are if we hold fast our hope in Him.