HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-12.-The death and burial of Moses. We have in this concluding chapter the remarkable account of the death and bmial of Moses. He had, as we have seen, blessed the tribes; he had laid his hands on Joshua (ver. 9), and thus ordained him, so to speak, to tho leadership; he had given his manuscripts to th'l priests to be deposited in the ark; and now all that remains for him to do is to take the course God indicated to the u:ountain-top, sec tho promised land, and die. It has suggested some noble sermons, to which we would at once refer beforo proceeding with a few observations suggested by the history. 1 • l. LET US NOTICE THE VIEW OF CANAAN AND OF LIFE FROM THE M0UNTAL.'<-T0P. It is evident we think that Moses went up the mountain without an escort. He was going up 1'0 hold high communion with God, as he had done on Siani. Mountain-tops 1 Cf. Bersier's • Sermons,' tom. ii. p. 125, B very fine sermo? on 'La Terr": Promil!e ; ' Ker's • Sermons,' p. 153, o sermon equallf fine on_ 'The Bunal of Moses: ~ts Lessons and Suo-o-estions • ' nnd Hull's • Sermons, Srd senes, p. 119, a very suggestive though short di~~ourse o~ ' The Death of Moses.' THE DUOK OF DEUT~RONOMY.
nre farnu1itr pl:1rcs for communion with God in the rl\se or busy men like Moses nnd our SaYiour (cL Luke ix. 28). It was a sublime solitude, filled with the presence of God. Sooner or later, God draws his ~ervantR upwat~s out of the bustle of lifo to have sp<"Cial communion with hiru and finish their course with joy. Mo~es, moreovrr, had an undimmed eye at this time, and his natural force was in no wise abated. His outlook was consequently clear. The land of promise lay out before him in all its attrnctiveness, Rnd he could have wished to cross the Jordan and ~ee it, and the goodly mountain, Lebanon. Ilut the view of it, clear and glorious, is all that in the present life he is to receive. Now, it is sometimes insinuated that saintly, self-denying men, whose lives accordiug to worldly notions ha,·e been incomplete and unsuccessful, are unable to form a proper jndgrnent about their careers, and must regret them. But as a rule, God gives in life's last hours the "undimmed eye," and his servants are enabled to see life's relations clearly, and the land of promise under the sunset glow. 'l'hey regret \heir incomplete liYes as little as Moses did his from the mountain-top. Jonathan Edwards notices, in his 'Notes on the Bible,' that "God ordered that Aaron and Moses should go up to the tops of mountains to die, to signify that the death of godly men is but an entrance into a heavenly state;" and Baumgarten has made a similar remark regarding the death of Aaron. "The circumstance that it was expressly fixed that Aaron should die upon a mountain, and so upon a place which throngb its very nature points to heaven, the seat of Jehovah, throws into the darkness or his death a ray (Strahl) of hope." 1 The mountain-tops to these great brothers were indeed the gate of heaven, whence clear views of life and ·of· the hereafter were obtained. JI. THE CinCUMSTA!-."TIALS OF THE DEATH OF MOSES ARE UNIQUE IN THEIR SIMPLE MAJESTY. It has been said that the presence of Moses ou the mount of Transfiguration m!.lst have suggested a contrast between his death on the top of Pisgah and our Lord's approaching death amid the mocking crowds at J erusalem.2 And what a contrast there is between the two departures! In the one case, the servant of God dies amid the solemn grandeur of the hills, with the sunset glow around him-dies, as some Jewish doctors say, "of the kiss of the Eternal;" in the other case, our Lord dies amid the ribaldry and scoffing of overcrowded Jerusalem. There may have been an element of sadness in Moses dying on the threshold of the promised land; but there was an element of glory in the death-bed among the mountains. !II. GOD IN HIS LOVE NOT ONLY TOOK CHARGE OF TIIE DYING BUT ALSO OF TIIE DEAD. He died with God; and God buried him. No wonder the poetess calls it "the grandest funeral that ever passed on earth."
"And bad he not high honour?-- The I.till-side for his pall ; To lie in state, while angel_s wait With stars for tapers tall; And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plnmea, Over his bier to wave; And God's own hand, in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave I"
This disposal of the body, as well as of the departed spirit, was surely a significant Rct on the part of God. He took the matter as completely out of Jhe hands of Israel, as in the Resurrection our Lord's body was taken out of the keepmg of the Homan guard. Was it not to indicate that the body as well as the soul is to share in the redeeming care of God and so far an earnest of the resurrection ? IV. 'fHE 'PRIVACY OF THE TOMB 18 ALSO INSTRUCTIVE. Manifestly all Israel saw ':as the retire1mnt of MosP.s to the mount; for the rest, his death and his Divine but?al, they were dependent upon faith-they believed him when he told them he was gomg away by death, and tLat they need make no preparations for him, as God would bury him. Bad it not been for his prophetic notice, they might have concluded be was 1 Quoted in Kah1e's 'Eschatologie,' note p. 48. 1 Of. Godet eur • L'Evangile de Saint Luc,' eh, ix. 80-32. on. XXXIV, 1-12.] THE 1300K OF DEUTERONOMY. 5,3
trnnslatccl, H wns a matter of faith entirely, and no searchin" could brin" it within tho rnngo of sight. The prirncy of tho tomb compelled the7n to take tlrn funera.l nnd burial on trust, 'l'ho m_ourning and weeping for a month arose really from faith; Mosos was not-God took him; but they hau only Moses' word for it that he was to die with God, and ho buried by him. ' And God's dealing with our dead must remain still a matter of faith to us thotwh of fruition unto them. Wo believe tho very dust of the saints is dear to God' but ; 0 have to put their remains in a coffin, and deposit them amid common clay. W~ believe their spirits aro in his safe keeping, but they send no messages and make no sign. If sense is the measuro of our knowledge, then assuredly we may put Christian hope into tho realm of beautiful dreams, of which there is as little sensible evidence as of Moses' tomb. Ilut there aro " foundations e,f faith "as strong as those of sense and si "h t.. 1 In such assurance, we believe that God took charge of Moses, body and soul, and "'wi.U tako as real and as faithful charge of us.-R. M. E.