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Pentecost Season · Proper 25 · Year A

Deuteronomy 34:1-12

The Death of Moses

Moses Viewing the Promised Land, Frederic Edwin Church
Moses Viewing the Promised Land, Frederic Edwin Church, 1846private collection
An early Church, with the prophet very small on a summit and the land opening out below him in the hazy distance.I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.Frederic Edwin ChurchThe leading American landscape painter of his generation (1826-1900), who travelled to South America and the Arctic for his subjects and exhibited single canvases as ticketed events.private collectionIn private hands, which is why it is seen in reproduction far more often than in the flesh.private collection

Overview & Insights

“The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land I promised… I have let you see it with your eyes.’” (Deuteronomy 34:4)

The Last Mountain: The Blessing and Death of Moses · The speeches have been made, the sermon has been preached, the song has been sung. All that remains is for Moses to bid farewell and leave the stage, which he does in typical fashion (typical of him, and typical in another sense of his great successor), by climbing a mountain. Just before the final ascent, however, comes his parting blessing on the tribes of Israel. There is something beautiful in the fact that after all the dark chapters of curses, challenge, warning, and melancholic prediction, these last words are so rich in warmth, hope, and comfort. More than beautiful, it is the abiding theological truth of Deuteronomy, this monumental exposition of covenantal realities, that its final words acclaim the God who eternally loves God’s people and a people eternally saved by their God (33:27–29).

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Commentary

Background & Word Study

The Church Fathers

Questions preachers ask

How does Moses die?

From Mount Nebo, Moses views the promised land he will not enter, and dies there; God buries him, and “no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses” (Deuteronomy 34). The Torah ends on the threshold of the promise.

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