ode ; Law; Passoveu; Plague; Sinai; Wander- ings; Wilderness.
4. Moses's Death. — In exact conformity with liis life is the account of his end. The book of Deuteronomy describes, and is, the long, last farewell of the prophet to his people. It took place on the first day of the elev- enth month of the fortieth year of the wanderings, in the plains of Moab (Deut. i, 3, 5), in the palm-groves of Abila (Josephus, Ant. iv, 8, 1). See Abel-Siiittlm. He is described as 120 years of age, but with his sight and his freshness of strength unabated (Deut. xxxiv, 7). The address from ch. i to ch. xxx contains the recapit- ulation of the law. Joshua was then appointed his suc- cessor. The law was written out, and ordered to be de- posited in the ark (ch. xxxi). The song and the bless- ing of the tribes conclude the farewell (ch. xxxii, xxxiii).
Then came the mysterious close. As if to carry out to the last the idea that the prophet was to live not for himself, but for his people, he is told that he is to see the good land beyond the Jordan, but not to possess it himself. The sin for which this penalty was imposed on the prophet is difficult to ascertain clearly. It was because he and Aaron rebelled against Jehovah, and "believed him not to sanctify him," in the murmurings at Kadesh (Numb, xx, 12; xxvii, 14; Deut. xxxii, 51), or, as it is expressed in the Psalms (cvi, 33), because he spoke unadvisedly with his lips. It seems to have been a feeling of distrust. " Can we (not, as often rendered, can we) bring water out of the cliff?" (Numb, xx, 10; Sept. /(>) i^u£,ofitr, "surely we cannot"). The Talmudic tradition, characteristically, makes the sin to be that he called the chosen people by the opprobious name of " rebels." He ascends a mountain in the range which rises above the Jordan valley. Its name is specified so particularly that it must have been well known in an- cient times, though, owing to the difficulty of exploring the eastern side of the Jordan, the exact location has until recently been unidentified. See Nebo. Hence it is called by the specific name of the Pisgah (q. v.). It was one of those summits apparently dedicated to dif- ferent divinities (Numb, xxiii, 14). Here Moses took his stand, and surveyed the four great masses of Pales- tine west of the Jordan — so far as it could be discerned from that height. The vie^v has passed into a proverb for all nations. In two remarkable respects it illustrates the office and character of I\Ioses. First, it was a view, in its full extent, to be imagined rather than actually seen. The foregroimd alone could be clearly discern- ed : its distance had to be supplied by what was be- yond, though suggested by what was within, the actual prospect of the seer. Secondly, it is the likeness of the great discoverer pointing out what he himself will never reach. To English readers this has been made familiar by the application of this passage to lord Ba- con, originally in the noble poem of Cowley, and then drawn out at length by lord jMacaulay.
"So Moses, the servant of Jehovah, died there in the land of ]\Ioab, according to the word of Jeliovah, and he buried him in a 'ravine' in the land of Moab, 'before' Beth-peor — but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. . . . And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days" (Deut. xxxiv, 5-8), This is all that is said in the sacred record. Jewish, Arabian, and Christian traditions have labored to fill up the detail. "Amid the tears of the people — the women beating their breasts, and the children giving way to un- controlled wailing— he withdrew. At a certain point in his ascent he made a sign to the weeping multitude' to advance no farther, taking with him only the elders, the high-priest Eliezar, and the general Joshua, At the top of the mountain he dismissed the elders— and then, as he was embracing Eliezar and Joshua, and still speak- ing to them, a cloud suddenly stood over him, and he vanished in a deep valley. He ^vrote the account of his own death [so also Philo, V. M. iii, 39] in the sacred books, fearing lest he should be deified" (Josephus, A nt. iv, 8,48), "He died in the last month of the Jewish
MOSES
682
MOSES
year" — in the Arabic traditions, the 7th of Adar (Jala- laddin, p. 388). After his death he is called "MelkT' (Clem. Alex. Ulrom. i, p. 343).
Tlie grave of Closes, though studiously concealed in the sacred narrative, in a manner which seems to point a warning against the excessive veneration of all sacred tombs (see .jude i)), andtliough never acknowh^dged by the .Jews, is shown by the Mussulmans on the iceM (and therefore the wrong) side of the Jordan, between the Dead Sea and St. Saba (Stanley, ,S'. and P. p. 302). There is some reason, however, to conclude from the appearance of Moses with Elijah on the Mount of Trans- figuration (Luke ix, 30, 31) that he was honored with an anticipatory resurrection. See Bauer, //ebr. Gesch. i, 337 sq.; J. A. Schmid, De Morte M. (Helmst. 1703); Abbt, Ob Gott Moses berjrubm (Hal. 1757) ; J. G. Drasde, De morte ac sepultura ^fosis (Viteb. 1784) ; liecherches sur la sepulture de Mo'ise, in the liibl. raisonn, xxxi, 243 sq.; Donauer, De cor pore Mosis (Ratisb. 1C82); Hech, De Mosis corpore (Jen. 1G53) ; Reusmann, Moses resuscitatus ((iotting. 1747); Kohling, Moses' Abschied (Jena, 18G7) ; J. J.Milller, De morte Mosis (Jena, 1710); Kathlef, De corpore Mosis (Ilann. 1733); Zeibich, Von dem Grabe Mosis (Gera, 1758); Hej-den, De Mosis re- surrectione (Hal. 1723) ; Dansville Revieic, Sept. 18G1.