Deuteronomy 34
Big idea: Moses climbs Nebo alone and God shows him the whole land — Gilead to Dan, Naphtali, Ephraim, Manasseh, all Judah to the Western Sea, the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, to Zoar. This is the land I swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over. So Moses the servant of Yahweh died there, and God buried him in a valley, and no man knows where his tomb is to this day. He was a hundred and twenty, and his eye was not dim nor his strength gone. Israel wept thirty days. Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom, and the people listened to him. And the Torah's last words are an epitaph: there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face.
Deuteronomy ends with Moses buried and Joshua leading. The book of Joshua opens the next morning, at the river.
34:1–8 — No man knows where his tomb is
Moses climbs a mountain to look at a country he cannot enter. God shows him the whole of it by name, north to south, and then repeats the sentence from 3:27 — you have seen it, and you shall not go over. He dies there, and the strangest detail in the chapter is that God buries him, in a valley nobody has ever located.
1 Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. Yahweh showed him all the land of Gilead to Dan, 2 and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, to the Western Sea, 3 and the south, and the Plain of the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, to Zoar. 4 Yahweh said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.” 5 So Moses the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to Yahweh’s word. 6 He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor, but no man knows where his tomb is to this day. 7 Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his strength gone. 8 The children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the days of weeping in the mourning for Moses were ended.
34:9–12 — Whom Yahweh knew face to face
Four verses to close the Torah, and they do two things. Joshua is confirmed — full of the spirit of wisdom, and the people listen. And then an epitaph written by someone looking back across a long gap: SINCE THEN there has not arisen a prophet like Moses, which is the verse 18:15's promise of a prophet like him has to be read against.
9 Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him. The children of Israel listened to him, and did as Yahweh commanded Moses. 10 Since then, there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom Yahweh knew face to face, 11 in all the signs and the wonders which Yahweh sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, 12 and in all the mighty hand, and in all the awesome deeds, which Moses did in the sight of all Israel.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).