Deuteronomy 34:1-12 Commentary

A Sunday Too Soon

Looking at this reading and the liturgical calendar, I can’t help lamenting that the text has come just one Sunday too early.  November 1 is celebrated, in many church traditions, as All Saints Day — an opportunity to remember our ancestors in faith. Certainly, this story of Moses on the cusp of the Promised Land, denied entrance but permitted a sneak preview, preparing for his death and, in fact, dying, is a text that reminds us to celebrate how God’s people have “come this far by faith” and to give thanks “for all the saints, who from their labors rest.”

Perhaps, though, this week and next are an excellent opportunity to follow one train of thought across two Sundays. With Deuteronomy 34, we reflect on the life of those who have gone before. Next Sunday, with the story of Joshua picking up the mantle and leading God’s people into the Promised Land, we reflect on the way the gifts of our forefathers and foremothers in faith live on in and through us. Especially for many Protestants who don’t have a canonization process, leading to saint certification, we honor the saints who have gone before and dare to claim that all those who live by faith are also considered saints, in life as well as in death.  By the grace of Christ, we are God’s holy ones too. 

Hope Fulfilled?

The geography outlined in the first three verses piqued my curiosity and was gratified to see a few YouTube videos that show the view from Mount Nebo and consider the mixed feelings Moses would have felt on that mountaintop, with the reminder that everything Moses can see is part of God’s promise to God’s people. God tells Moses, “This is the land that I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” What an amazing sense of hope fulfilled, of God’s goodness and faithfulness, an opportunity to reflect on everything that has brought Moses to this mountaintop — from a basket in the Nile to a murderous miscalculation in his impetuous youth, hiding out in the wilderness and returning to Pharaoh’s palace (the marble floors he would have run, the pillars he would have hidden behind in childhood games), leading the people out of Egypt, the panic discoing to wonder on the bank of the Red Sea, every experience of God’s glory, and every whining Israelite who wants to tell him how to do his job.  All of it propelling him up the mountain to survey his people’s future. Robert Alter adds, “The action of ascent, however, also signals the trajectory of Moses’s life: he is born in the Nile Valley, first encounters God in the burning bush on a mountain, returns from his mission in Egypt to that same mountain to receive the law there, and now dies on a mountain top.” Because, of course, God doesn’t just claim to fulfill that ancient promise to Abraham.  God also adds, “I have shown it to you with your own eyes; however, you will not cross over into it.” Bittersweet hardly seems an adequate description of Moses’ experience drinking in the vista.  

Suspicious Circumstances

I remember being told in Sunday School that Moses wrote the five books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and then I remember, a few years later when I first encountered this text, which casts some reasonable doubt on that attribution of authorship.  How did Moses write about his own death and beyond?!  

In fact, there are a few mysterious components of this narrative, beyond authorship.  The first is the assertion, in verse 7, that Moses’ eyesight and vigor were not impaired by his 120 years of age.  This seems to indicate he did not simply die of old age or geriatric illness. The CEB Study Bible suggests this is a reminder that “Moses’ continued strength and vigor highlight that his death was the result of sin, rather than old age.” Robert Alter contributes a further complication by commenting on the fact that Moses died “according to the Lord’s command,” which he argues “ the literal sense of this idiom, repeatedly used elsewhere in the Torah, is ‘by the mouth of the Lord,’ i.e. by divine decree.”  Further, “the use of ‘mouth’ encouraged the Midrash to imagine here a ‘death by a kiss’, the ultimate favor granted to the righteous leader.” 

Then, of course, comes the strange manner of Moses’ burial, which is indicated with a passive voice.  So either Moses buried himself or else it is a Divine passive and God buries Moses.  In either case, the undertaker isn’t talking and made no memorial marker.  This is a safeguard of sorts so that Moses’ burial site would not become a pilgrimage site, eclipsing all the important sites of God’s redemptive action on behalf of Israel. 

But here Robert Alter helps out with my initial consternation with this passage.  He writes, “The phrase ‘to this day’ is a giveaway of the temporal perspective from which this concluding chapter of the Torah was written. Both the rabbis of the Talmud and the medieval Hebrew commentators were perplexed about the authorship of the story of the death of Moses.” I confess to being pleased to be in such illustrious, albeit perplexed, company. “One opinion was that Joshua wrote this chapter; another, more poignant one, was that God dictated it and Moses wrote it down, weeping. But the phrase, ‘to this day’ is regularly used in biblical narrative to signal a present moment shared by the writer and his audience that is many generations removed from the time of the reported events.”

Illustration

Consider an opportunity over the next two weeks to invite testimonies from your congregation. This week, focus on the senior saints and those who may be able reflect on what it means to be coming near to the end of life.  What does it feel like to look backward and to look forward, knowing there are milestones they may not reach. This is, of course, tender work and requires pastoral skill to open the conversation, to invite and shepherd this kind of testimony. But we don’t talk about death and dying enough in many churches. It would be a kindness to younger generations to learn what we cannot yet know.

Similarly, looking ahead to next week, are there members of your congregation who have stepped into a new business role after someone has retired, someone who has recently lost parents and find themselves as the new matriarch or patriarch of their family. What does it look like to step into a legacy? What are the gifts and challenges of this season of life, vocation and ministry?