“There has never arisen another prophet in Israel like Moses - one whom the LORD knew face to face.” (Deuteronomy 34:10)
So read the concluding verses of the book of Deuteronomy, bringing to a close the saga of one of the Bible’s greatest heroes.
I know that all of us want to be more like Jesus, but I can tell you that, as a younger man especially, being more like Moses would have done me just fine.
Moses is an awesome figure. No doubt my perception has been influenced by Charlton Heston’s immortal portrayal in the Hollywood classic, “The Ten Commandments”. Even so, however you look at Moses, he was a giant of a man.
Moses parted the red sea. He brought the plagues upon Egypt. He challenged kings and he spoke with God ‘as a man speaks to his friend’. He is an awesome figure.
And, we’re told here, that not only was he was an awesome figure in his youth, but he remained an astonishing specimen of humanity in his old age! Indeed, the writer says that at age 120, Moses’ eyes had not dimmed (ie. he didn’t need glasses) and that his ‘vigour had not abated’.
That’s my translation. The original Hebrew word for vigour, ‘lahor’, actually means that, at 120, Moses was … well … still quite capable of fathering children!
Oh, to be like Moses - to have that sort of vitality and health! I’m only half his age and, as much as I hate to admit it, my eyes are deteriorating rapidly!
Moses is an awesome figure. He was also a very human figure. He gets angry - so angry in fact that he beats one Egyptian slave-driver to death. He gets depressed too, and his confidence fails him to the point where he has to plead with God to let Aaron speak on his behalf, as he just doesn’t feel capable of dialoguing directly with Pharaoh.
And he sins! Indeed, we’re told that he commits a very grievous sin (recorded in Numbers 20) when he makes out as if it is he and Aaron who are responsible for magically producing water from a rock to satisfy the thirst of the people.
That sad event is indeed the backdrop to this death scene here in Deuteronomy 34, as Moses’ death at this point in the Biblical drama is a part of God’s judgement on him, as he is dying before realising his dream, to reach the Promised Land!
In Deuteronomy chapter 34, the people of Israel are on the edge of seeing all their dreams fulfilled . They are on the border of the Promised Land, and they are lined up and ready to move in. But Moses has not been invited to join them. Why not? Apparently because of that grievous event that happened years earlier!
It’s an odd point for Moses’ story to end. Moreover it’s an odd spot for the book of Deuteronomy to end. For the end of the book of Deuteronomy is sort of like the end of the first part of the great Biblical trilogy, and it ends with everything unresolved!
I’d like to suggest to you that the Bible as a whole is like a sort of trilogy.
Part 3 of the trilogy is the one we are most familiar with - the story of Jesus and the Apostles, as presented in the New Testament.
Parts 1 and 2 of the trilogy are found in our Old Testament, with part one covering the first five books of the Bible - Genesis to Deuteronomy - and Part 2, the rest.
The technical name for these first five books of the Bible is the ‘Pentateuch’ (from the Greek word for ‘five’) though Jews refer to this collection as ‘the law’ or ‘Torah’.
Whatever we call them, it has long been recognised that these five books form a sort of unified whole, and it is likely that these five books were originally published together as the first edition of the Bible!
In the second book of Kings, chapter 22, there is recorded a story of how Hilkiah the high priest ‘found the book of the law’ in the temple, and presumably the book he finds is this collection - that which we now call ‘the Torah’ or ‘the Pentateuch’. It is this collection of the first five books - the Bible in its first installment.
Now, once we understand this though, does it not seem all the more odd, that the book of Deuteronomy should conclude here, one step short of the Promised Land?
The river has not been crossed. The promised land has not been entered, and Moses is dead. What an odd place to end a Biblical book, let alone the Bible as a whole, even if it is only in its first edition! Why didn’t the writer include the happy ending to this saga?
Imagine a detective novel that concluded with, “so inspector as you can see, the only man who could have done this is sitting right over there. So with that, inspector Clueso pointed his finger at … THE END”
You can’t do that, can you? You can’t write a story that finishes with everything left in the air!
Now I can’t remember how Cecil B. De Mille ended “the Ten Commandments”. I tried to do some research on the NET, but I didn’t actually go as far as hiring out the movie to watch it again just to check on the ending.
Even so, I am pretty certain that there is no way that Hollywood could make a movie about the movement of a people out of slavery and into the promised land which ended with the people still hanging about in the desert and Moses dead! And yet this is exactly what the writers of the Biblical drama have done.
Why didn’t the author of Deuteronomy add one more chapter, outlining the crossing of the river into the Promised Land. Or why didn’t the compilers of the Pentateuch make it a Hexateuch, adding a sixth book - the book of Joshua, which must have been circulating at the time - telling the story of Israel’s occupation of Canaan?
No. The first part of the great Biblical trilogy ends right here, where everything is still left unresolved. The Promised Land is just ahead, but no one has entered!
I presume that this is not accidental. Indeed, I presume that it was crafted deliberately this way, and I believe it is crafted this way because it is true to our experience.
It is true enough that our forefathers in faith did walk in to that promised land, and they did establish a viable community there, but it is equally clear, I think, that their life in Canaan never quite lived up to the vision that Moses had for them.
Life in the Promised Land never quite lived up to what was promised.
If you are familiar with the original vision, not just that given to Moses, but that given to Abraham, where the borders of the Promised Land are mapped out quite specifically many generations earlier, you may know already that the people of Israel never quite made it to those borders. Not at any point in their history did they ever reach the dimensions of the Promised Land that was originally promised to them!
And it’s not just an issue of quantity of course, but of quality. The idea that the people would found a truly just community, where they would live in genuine harmony with their creator and with one another, never quite seemed to be realised.
And so the writer of Deuteronomy, and the compilers of the first edition of the Bible, end their story not with the reality of daily life in Canaan, but with the vision of Moses, looking out from the mountain-top, envisaging what the Promised Land should be and still could be, rather than what it was!
For that was where the readers of this first edition of the Bible found themselves - in the Promised Land, but still a long way short of the promises. And so rather than give up, the conclusion of this first edition of the Bible encourages them to continue to look forward to what still can be and should be and will be!
I said that the Pentateuch is like part 1 of the Biblical trilogy. I guess if you look at it this way, you might not expect everything to be resolved in part 1, but the curious thing about the Biblical trilogy is that Part 2 ends on much the same unresolved note as part 1, and even at the end of Part 3, things still haven’t really come together!
If Part 1 ends with Moses on the mountain-top, looking forward, Part 2 ends with the prophets looking for some God-appointed representative who will bring it all together. In Part 3, He comes, and is killed, and rises, and the New Testament ends with the book of Revelation, where there are still wars and pain everywhere, and where we are still looking forward to the new world coming, just around the corner!
In a sense, you could end each of the major chapters of the Bible with that great question that you get from your children every time you take them on a long trip:
“Are we there yet?” “No”
“Are we there yet?” “No”
“Are we there yet?” “No”
“Are we there yet?” No, not yet, but we can see the destination ahead!
What does the writer of the letter to the Hebrews say? “No, we do not yet see all of creation in proper subjection to God, but we see Jesus!” (Hebrews 2:10).
We are not there yet, but we have been to the mountain-top and we have seen it.
We are not there yet, but we know what it will be like. We have a sure sense of where we are going. We know enough about our destination to know that it is going to be worth the wait. We have been to the mountain-top. We have seen the promised land! But we are not there yet.
We glimpse the Promised Land every time we enter into that sense of harmony with God and with one another that we find in prayer, in song, in the Eucharist.
We get a taste of it here, in our fellowship - a sense of what it is like to be part of a community where it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, educated or uneducated, straight or gay, male or female. As we build the Christian community, we glimpse with increasing clarity the new world coming.
In every miracle that takes place, in every act of love and sacrifice that is shown to those in need … I see it in our Youth Centre. I hear it in our choir. I can even taste it in the coffee we share together after worship. It’s a glimpse, a note, a foretaste of that true community - the new world coming. No, we are not there yet, but we have been to the mountain-top. We have seen the promised land.
Moses was a great guy - a leader of a nation, a worker of miracles, a friend of Kings and of God. We might not be like him in a lot of respects, but we can join him on the mountain-top, because we have inherited his vision - for a community of people truly at peace with their God, with their world and with one another.
I’ve heard that at the opening of Disneyland, many years ago now, one of the Disney executives expressed his disappointment that the man behind it all - Walt Disney - had not lived to see the opening. One of Disney’s old friends turned to him and said, “Oh, he saw it alright! That’s why it’s here!”
Help us to see it, Lord!
When politicians and drug barons and media moguls seem to rule this world, lift us up to the mountain-top, so that we might see the new world coming.
When our friends and family disappoint us, when we’ve disappointed ourselves and when our dreams have been shattered, set us up there alongside Moses, with a vision of that new day dawning.
When we’re out of work, out of health and out of luck, when we feel betrayed, beaten and empty, lift us up, Lord! Lift us up to the mountain-top so that we might see the promised land!
No, we’re not there yet, but with Moses and the prophets and with all those who have gone before us in the faith, we have been to the mountain-top. We have seen the promised land! And so we pray with assurance, "Thy Kingdom Come!"
