Chapter 43—The Death of Moses
This chapter is based on
Deuteronomy 31
to 34.
In all dealings of God with His people, there is, mingled with His
love and mercy, the most striking evidence of His strict and impartial
justice. The great Ruler of nations had declared that Moses was not
to lead Israel into the goodly land, and the earnest pleading of God’s
servant could not secure a reversing of His sentence. Yet he had
faithfully sought to prepare the congregation to enter the promised
inheritance. At the divine command, Moses and Joshua repaired to
the tabernacle, while the pillar of cloud came and stood over the door.
Here the people were solemnly committed to the charge of Joshua.
The work of Moses as leader of Israel was ended.
Still he forgot himself in his interest for his people. In the presence
of the multitude Moses, in the name of God, addressed to his successor
these words of holy cheer: “Be strong and of a good courage: for thou
shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I sware unto them:
and I will be with thee.” He then turned to the elders and officers of the
people, giving them a solemn charge to obey faithfully the instructions
he had communicated to them from God.
As the people gazed upon the aged man so soon to be taken from
them, they recalled with new appreciation his parental tenderness, his
wise counsels, and his untiring labors. They bitterly remembered that
their own perversity had provoked Moses to the sin for which he must
die.
God would lead them to feel that they were not to make the life
of their future leader as trying as they had made that of Moses. God
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speaks to His people in blessings bestowed, and when these are not
appreciated, He speaks to them in blessings removed.
That very day there came to Moses the command, “Get thee up ...
unto Mount Nebo, ... and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto
the children of Israel for a possession: and die in the mount whither
thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people.” Moses was now to
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