Deut 34.1-12 tells us about the death of Moses, probably written by Joshua. Given the nature of Israel and how the nation came to be out of a land of idolatry, it was possible that the children of Israel would have “deified” him. They may have turned his burial into some kind of idolatrous worship center. His death and burial is a picture of Yeshua, which we will touch on later. Another aspect of the life of Moses is what price is paid with true leadership.
Moses had a life of loneliness. The higher one rises in leadership, the lonelier it becomes. Moses had few peers. Now Aaron was gone, Joshua has been commissioned by him, and even his wife and sons are gone. People can expect, as they rise in true leadership, that the peer structure will get smaller and smaller. You will discover that the only one there is the Yehovah. It is probably fitting that when it comes the time to die, he is alone with the Lord, like it started, on a mountain alone with the Lord.
Moses still speaks today and he teaches us about the Messiah. He gives us instruction in the Torah and guidance. He tells us about the name of God (Yehovah), his character and qualities. He teaches us about the redemption and faith. He instructs us about the plan of God. Yeshua links himself with Moses by saying, “If you believed Moses, you would have believed in me (John 5.39-47).” God used him to teach us about Yeshua.
That should be the goal of anyone who walks with the Lord, to see Yeshua. On the reverse side of that, anyone who thinks he can know God and believe in Yeshua without understanding Moses is deceived. If we follow Yeshua, we must know Moses and his basic instruction to us. According to the rabbis, Moses wrote Psalms 90 through 100.
v 1…Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo (prophet), to the top of Pisgah (the specific name for a series of mountain ranges in the high places of Moab, the highest point was Nebo), which is opposite Jericho (on the other side of the Jordan). And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan;
v 2…and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah as far asa the western sea (Mediterranean),
v 3…and the Negev (south) and the plain in the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar (near the Dead Sea-Gen 19.22).
v 4…Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.”
v 5…So Moses the servant of God died there in the land of Moab (seed of the father), according to the word of the Lord (even in death Moses is still the servant of the Lord, obeying his command).
v 6…And he (God) buried him in the valley in the land of Moab (in some depression on the Pisgah range; Moses took care of the bones of Joseph, and God took care of him), opposite Beth-peor, but no man knows his burial place to this day (after the first century, no one knows the burial place of Yeshua either; this is a picture of how the law of Moses cannot bring a person into the promised land, only another Joshua, Yeshua, can bring him across death, Jordan meaning the “descender” into the Olam Haba).
v 7…Although Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eye was not dim, nor his vigor abated (meaning Moses did not die from natural causes (the Torah is as potent today as it was then and has not been done away with).
v 8…So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end (the Targum Jonathan says the eighth of Nisan, then prepared to march on the ninth, crossed over the Jordan on the tenth and on the sixteenth the manna stopped).
v 9…Now Joshua the son of Nun (he represents the risen Yeshua, the captain of the Lord’s armies, leading his people into the promised land) was filled with the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him (Num 27.18); and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.
v 10…Since then no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses (until Yeshua), whom the Lord knew face to face (was familiar with in conversation; an idiom for Yom Kippur-Num 12.6-8),
v 11…for all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land,
v 12…and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.
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