Teach me to live that I may diead The grave as little as my bed
had seemed terrible in their irony to one who dreaded nothing so much as his bed. Eelief had not come to him until he was well on in manhood. Strolling one evening in a country churchyard, his eyes were arrested by the words on a gravestone " Underneath
78 GOD WHO IS OUR HOME
are the Everlasting Arms," and in a flash of inspiration he saw his safety. That very night, as the solid platform of the earth was falling away from him, "he rested on the promise" — for so he described his mental attitude — and he affirmed that since that time he had always at his command a sense of physical comfort and safety upon which he could sleep as on a pillow.^
The embers of the day are red
Beyond the murky hill.
The kitchen smokes: the bed
In the darkling house is spread:
The great sky darkens overhead,
And the great woods are shrill.
So far have I been led,
Lord, by Thy will:
So far I have followed. Lord, and wondered still.
The breeze from the embalmed land
Blows sudden toward the shore.
And claps my cottage door.
I hear the signal. Lord — I understand.
The night at Thy command
Comes. I will eat and sleep and will not question more.^
1 The Spectator, July 2, 1910.
' R. L. Stevenson, Songs of Travel.
The Death and Burial of Moses.
19
Literature.
Banks (L. A.), On the Trail of Moses, 277.
Beaumont (J. A.), Walking Circumspectly, 131.
Brooke (S. A.), J%e Old Testament and Modern Life, 157.
Banks (W.), The Church on tJie Moor, 94.
Davies (J.), The Kingdom without Observation, 187.
Hull (E. L.), Sermons preached at King's Lynn, iii. 119.
Ker (J.), Sermons, i. 153.
Kingsley (C), The Gospel of the Pentateuch, 238.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Deuteronomy-1 Samuel, 77.
„ The Unchanging Christ, 181.
Meyer (F. B.), Moses, the Servant of God, 185. Minifie (W. C), The Mask Torn Off, 135. Myres (W. M.), Fragments that Remain, 42. Parkturst (C. H.), A Little Lower than the Angels, 174. Pearse (M. G.), Moses : his Life and its Lessons, 279. Kendall (G. H.), Charterhouse Sermons, 24. Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxiii. (1887), No.
1966. Woodford (J. R.), Sermons, Old Testament Series, 27. Christian World Pulpit, xx. 3 (Scott) ; xxxiii. 138 (Mackennal) ; Ixiii
326 (Lefroy). Churchman's Pulpit : Sunday after Ascension Day : ix. 12 (Jannings),
14 (Myres), 16 (Danks), 18 (Bradley), 20 (Goodwin). Preacher's Magazine, v. (1894) 257 (Pearse). 20th Centv/ry Pastor, xxi. 145.
The Death and Burial of Moses.
So Moses the senrant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab over against Beth-peor : but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.— Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6.
The more carefully we study the Old Testament, the more we shall be convinced that it contains a development of truth, not merely by spoken revelations, but through events and incidents divinely arranged, and made the subjects of thought to those ancient believers, under the teaching of God's Spirit. These in- cidents are planted like seeds in the popular heart, and grow up slowly into leaf and flower in recognized doctrines. This was Christ's own method of instruction in His miracles and parables, and we may expect to find it in the Divine history throughout. No one can close the Old Testament and open the New without seeing that, during the interval, immense progress had been made in the unfolding of religious truth. The expectation of a Eedeemer and a redemption had become clear and concentrated, and the belief in an eternal life, and in the resurrection, was held by many. There is, we believe, no satisfactory way of accounting for this but by the work of God's own Spirit, in the heart of thoughtful men, using for His instrument the revelation which had already been given. Let us take the account of the death and burial of Moses, and seek to show how it was fitted to be such a source of fruitful reflection to the Old Testament Church.
The text is in three parts —
I. The death of Moses was at God's command : " So Moses died according to the word of the Lord."
II. His death took place before Israel entered the land of promise : " Moses died there in the land of Moab."
DEUT.-ESTH. — 6
82 THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES
III. He was buried by God and his sepulchre is unknown: "He buried him in the valley, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre."
Death at the Command of God.
"So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord." The Hebrew is " according to the mouth of Jehovah " ; the meaning is " according to the command of Jehovah." The same expression is translated in the case of Aaron's death " at the commandment of the Lord " (Num. xxxiii. 38).
^ Mouth in the sense of command is a common Hebrew idiom ; nevertheless the Jews understood it here literally, and from the paraphrase in the Targum arose the Eabbinic legend that Moses died by the kiss of God.