■^ To Moses, so far as we know, the charm of that view — pro- nounced by the few modern travellers who have seen it to be unequalled of its kind — lay in the assurance that this was the land promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed, the inheritance — with all its varied features of rock and pasture, and forest and desert — for the sake of which he had borne so many years of toil and danger, in the midst of which the fortunes of his people would be unfolded worthily of that great beginning. To us, as we place ourselves by his side, the view swells into colossal proportions as we think how the proud city of palm-trees is to fall before the hosts of Israel ; how the spear of Joshua is to be planted on height after height of those hostile mountains ; what series of events, wonderful beyond any that had been witnessed in Egypt or in Sinai, would in after ages
92 THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF MOSES
be enacted on the narrow crest of Bethlehem, in the deep basin of the Galilean lake, beneath the walls of "Jebus which is Jerusalem." ^
As Moses looked upon the scene that met his eyes, he thought, " This is the promised land. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob saw it before me. They were but pilgrims in it. I have worked for it ; I have come to the edge of it ; I may not enter into it." And as he lay there in the deep silence, his first thought was, no doubt, regret. "Why, having done all I could have done, may I not see the end ? Would that I could go with my people and share their glory and their conquest ! Does God do right to take me away now ? I have borne the burden and heat of the day ; why should I not taste of the grapes of Eshcol ? "
^ It is the lot of all epoch-making men, of all great constructive and reforming geniuses, whether in the Church or in the world, that they should toil at a task, the full issues of which will not be known until their heads are laid low in the dust. But if, on the one hand, that seems hard, on the other hand there is the com- pensation of " the vision of the future and all the wonder that shall be " which is granted many a time to the faithful worker ere he closes his eyes. But it is not the fate of epoch-making and great men only ; it is the law for our little lives. If these are worth anything, they are constructed on a scale too large to bring out all their results here and now. It is easy for a man to secure immediate consequences of an earthly kind ; easy enough for him to make certain that he shall have the fruit of his toil. But quick returns mean small profits ; and an unfinished life that succeeds in nothing may be far better than a completed one that has realised all its shabby purposes and accomplished all its petty desires.2
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it: This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it. That low man goes on adding one to one,
His hundred's soon hit: This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit. That, has the world here — should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
* A. P. Stanley. ' A. Maclaren.
DEUTERONOMY xxxiv. 5. 6 93
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed Seeking shall find Him.^
What is the meaning, then, of unfulfilled purposes in life ? It is evident that Moses felt this as one of the saddest aspects of his departure. The earnest prayer that the Divine sentence should be recalled, and that he should lead his people into their own land, shows how keenly this thought pressed upon him. The answer to that prayer — the permission to behold the land he might not enter — shows this still more powerfully, for it exhibits God's sympathy with the sorrow that filled his heart. And, indeed, if we reflect on his circumstances at that time, we shall find that they must all have brought before him the mysterious fact that the grand purpose of his life was never to be realized. One thought had given meaning to his history for eighty years — the thought of guiding the nation into the land promised to his forefathers. That must have cheered him through many a desolate day in the wilderness, and it must have helped him to be calm when the people's murmurings grew loud. The difficulties of their progress, and the apparent disappoint- ment of their hopes would react on him in new power. For difficulties have two effects on men. On the man of feeble purpose they act with a withering might that renders him undecided and desponding ; on the man of strong faith and powerful purpose they act like the rocks that, by limiting the space of a torrent, give it greater force — they nerve him to stronger effort, and brace him for more strenuous toil ; and every difficulty must thus have inspired the one aim of Moses with fuller energy. His feelings towards the people, too, would exert on that purpose a higher and a holier power. Their welfare had become part of his life. His sympathy with their weakness, their ignorance, their sorrow, must have kindled into burning ardour the desire to bring them to their home. But on the very verge of its accomplishment — on the very border of the land, with its hills in sight — that purpose must be surrendered and he must die.