Deuteronomy 34

Vert 1. joiND Moses went up. Having thus dcdaTed his affectionate concern for the happiness of every one of them, he took his leave of the elders and all the people, and went up whither God had commanded him, (xxxii; 49, &c.): From the plains ofMoab.] In which was their last station before they entered into Canaan, Numb, xxxiii. 48— L 50. where God delivered several commands to themj Numb; xxxv. 1. xxx vi. 13. and where Moses spake to them what w r e read in this book, Dcut. i. 5. Unto the mountain ofNebb.] Which was thie highest part. of the mountain of Abarim, as appears from Numb, xxvii. 12. compared with Deut. xxxii. 49. Near to which there was a city of the same name, (Numb, xxxii. 38. Isa. xv. 2.) To the top of Pisgah.] Which was the very top of the mountain Nebo. (See Deut. iii. 27. Numb. xxi. 20.) That is over against Jericho.] A famous city on the other side of Jordan. I see no ground to believe that the people of Israel accompanied him hither (as Josephus tells the story), with so many. tears, that Moses wept also; and having beseeehed them not to take his departure so heavily, he dismissed them together with the elders, and remained there alone.. And the Lord.] Or, as Jonathan hath it, the Word of the Lord, who had accompanied him with his blessed presence through the wilderness. Shewed him all the land of Gilead unto Dan.] God hatt often promised him that he should see the good land promised to their fathers, though not be permitted to enter into it, (Numb, xxvi* 12. Deut; iii. 27.) And now fulfils his word, and gives him a full prospect of it; bidding him first look northwards, through the whole land of Gilead (which comprehends all that was given to the two tribes and half on this side Jordan, where they now were) to the land of Naphtali, which was in the upper Galilee, beyond the sea of Gennesaret, as far as to the utmost northern border, which was then called Laish, and afterwards Dan, (Josh, xix.47. Judg. xviii. 28.) and in latter times Cesarsea Philippi. The mention of Dan, which was not the name of this place till after that tribe had conquered Laish, in the time of the judges* shews, that this was not written at the same time with the rest of this book, no more than what we read’wf ^^^^i [chap. XXXIV. (ver. 5, G. 10.) of his death and burial, &c. (unless \vc suppose Moses to have given an account of his own death and burial by tho spirit of prophecy, which is not probable), but it is most likely by Samuel, who wns a prophet, and wrote by Divine authority what he found in the records which were left by Joshua and others who succeeded him; who gave an account of Moses’s leaving the world, and of all that was done after, till the end of the time of the judges. that Hornius was imposed upon by somebody in this narration, there being no such authors known among tho Jews as R. Jakum, or Jacornus ben Gad, who, he saith, confuted this talc.

Deuteronomy 34:2

And all Naphtali, and the laud ofEphrahn, and Manasseh.*. Having seen the northern parts, he bade him turn his eyes towards the midland country, where Ephraim and Manasseh were situated. And all the land of Judak.] Which lay southerly. Unto the utmost sea.] By which some understand the Salt Sea, which lay on the south border of the land of Judah, (Numb, xxxiv. 3.) But then there will be no mention of the western part of Canaan, which lay upon the Mediterranean or Midland Sea, which is hereby meant.

Deuteronomy 34:3

And the south. And after he had seen the south, which the tribes of Judah and Simeon inhabited, he bade him take a view of the eastern parts of the country, as it here follows. And the plain of the valley of Jericho,] All the region about Jordan, especially the lovely plain of Jericho; which is very much celebrated by other authors, and lay in the tr be of Benjamin. The city of palm-trees.] Which is often mentioned in Scripture; sometimes without, and sometimes with the name of Jericho, (Judg. i, 1G. iii. 13. 2 Chron. xxviii. 15.) which was so called, because a multitude of palm-trees grew about it> as Strabo (as well as Josephus) testifies in his Geograph. lib. xvi. p. 763. where he describes this plain, as IlcSiov tdtckhj 7r£pttxo/nvov opuvy Tivi, &c. as encompassed about with mountains, after the manner of a theatre, abounding -with palm-trees, and other garden-trees mixed with them, for the space of a hundred stadia. And there was also, he observes, r O rov )3aX<rajuov Uaoadei<roQ f the paradise of balsam; which is a rare aromatic plant, like to the turpentine-tree, whose juice is of great virtue and value, &c. From which odoriferous plant growing here, some think this city had the name of Jericho, signifying sweet-smelling. So R. Judas, in the Gemara of Beracoth, where he mentions this tree as growing about Jericho, and thence derives its name from the Hebrew word reach, which signifies a sweet smell. This is more probable than the conjecture of D. Cbytraeus, who imagines Jericho to come from Jerec, which signifies the moon; and in their German language, be thinks, might be called Luncburgh., Unto Zoar.] Which lay in the entrance of the Salt Sea.

Deuteronomy 34:4

And the Lord said unto him. After he had shewed him the land, the Word of the Lord (as the Jerusalem Targum hath it) spake these words to him which follow. And God having been wont to speak to Moses out of the cloud of glory, Josephus conceives that now he was encompassed with it, and from thence heard this voice; which the Jows fancy was so loud, that the people heard it into the camp. Thus at our Saviour’s transfiguration upon the holy mount, a glorious cloud overshadowed him and his three apostles, who heard the voice say to them, This is my beloved Son, &c. The Samaritans, as. Ilottingcr.relates in his Smegma Oriontale, cap. 8. p. 456. tell the story thus: That Joshua, Eleazar the priest, and all the elders’ accompanying hira to the mount, fell into such a passion, when they were to take their leave, that they could not be parted from him. Whereupon the pillar of fire came down, which separated them from Moses, so that they saw him no more. This is the land which Istcare unto Abraham, unto Isadt, and tin to Jacob, saijing, I will give it unto thy seed.] Gen. xii. 7. xiii. 15. xv. 18, &c. I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes.’] Which the Lord strengthened, it is likely, with a greater vigour than usual, that he might tako a larger prospect, than otherwise he could have done, of this country. Or, as some of the Jews understand it, he laid a map of it before his eyes, wherein every part of it was exactly described. But that might have been done in the plains of Moab, without going up into a mountain; therefore the other is more reasonable, that he strengthened his Yisive faculty with a greater power, to sec the whole country in its length and breadth, &c. And therefore some of the rabbins have been so wise as to put both together, as J. Bened. Carpzovins observes out of several of them, (upon Schickard’s JusRegium, cap. 5. Theor. 1G. p. 285.) who thus speak: " God shewed him the whole land, as in a garden plot, forty miles in breadth, and as many in length; and gave his eyes such a power of contemplating the whole land, from the beginning to the end, that he saw hills and dales, what was open, and what was enclosed, remote or nigh, at one view." But thou shalt not go over thither.] This he had often said to him: and now mentions it,. that he might die in a comfortable sense, that he had been as good as his word to* him, and consequently carry this belief along with him into the other world, that he would make good the oath which he swarc to their fathers, of bringing them into Canaan, and there fulfil all that he had foretold.

Deuteronomy 34:5

So Moses, the servant of the Lord. So God himself calls him after his death, in the next book, Josh. i. 2. 7. as the most eminent minister of his, that he had hitherto employed in Israel. But the observation of R. Bechai is not well founded, that he is not called the servant of the Lord till -after he was dead, and then admitted unto the nearest familiarity with the Divine Majesty: for though these very words are not used, yet the Lord calls him my servant Moses, which is the same thing, Numb. xii. 7. Died in the land of Moab.] For this country was still so called, because it anciently belonged to the Moabites, (see Numb. xxi. 2C.) from whom Sihon had taken it, as Israel now had taken it from him: so that he really died in the land of Israel. According to the word of the Lord.] The Jerusalem Targum expounds this very soberly, According to the sentence of tlte decree of the Lord; that is, as the Lord had determined and declared he should, xxxii. 49, 50. And so this phrase is commonly used in this very book, xvii. 6. 10, 11. as well as in other places of the Pentateuch, Numb. ix. 20. xiii. 3, &c. which will warrant this interpretation, That Moses did not die of any disease, nor was worn out with age, but merely because God, the supreme governor of all things, so ordered it. But some of the Jews, not satisfied with this, have far-fetched conceits concerning the death of Moses from these words: for because it is said he died, al pi, at the mouth (as the words are literally in the Hebrew) of the Lord, Maimonidcs himself saith, that their wise men WW ft wf ^^* CHAP. XXXIV.] UPON DEUTERONOMY. T-5I think (and he seems of their opinion), that it signifies the Lord drew his soul out of his body with a kiss. And thus died Aaron and Miriam, but none besides them. Of Aaron indeed it is expressly said he died, al pi, of the Lord, but it is not said of Miriam; and yet they will have her to have had the same favour; that is, they died, saith he, of too much love, from the pleasure they had in the thoughts of God; which apprehension of God, conjunct with the highest love to him, he thinks is called kissing, (Cant. i. 2.) ** Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth," (More Nevochim, par. iii. cap. 51.) But this is not the meaning of the phrase, though, no doubt, Moses departed this life in a most delectaWe sense and taste of the Divine love, having no unwillingness to die, nor being surprised with death; for he knew the time, and the place, and the manner of it: and as he did not die of any disease (as was said before), or of old age, or by external force, but only by the will and pleasure of God, who took his soul out of his body; so he did not part with it against his will, nor with any fear, but, with a placid mind and composed spirit, committed himself to God, in whose embraces (as we may speak) he expired: and this it is likely the ancient Jews meant, when they said, his soul departed with a kiss. As to the time of his death, the Scripture doth not mention the year, the month, and the day; but the Jews commonly place it in the last month of the fortieth year after their coming out of Egypt, called Adar, and the seventh day of that month. Thus they say, in Seder Olam Rabba, cap. 10. and in their Calendar which they now follow; and so Patricides, in Hottinger’s Smegma Orientale, p. 457. But onr great primate of Ireland in his Annals observes, that it agrees better with the following history, to place his death in the first day of that month; and Torniellus makes the same computation, that it must be either in the latter end of the eleventh month, or in the beginning of the twelfth. Ver. G. And lie buried himJ\ This refers to. the words foregoing; viz. the Lord, who commanded his angels to bury him. So Epiphanius, Ivtrafylauav ol Ayye\ot, &c. Haercs. ix. p. 28. and see p. GOO. Though in the Scripture active words are very often used passively, and the meaning may be only that he was buried, yet there is this to bo said for the other sense, that thereupon it is thought, that the-contest arose between Michael the archangel and the devil (as St. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Procopius Gazseus, and others take it), who would not have had him buried, but opposed it, that he might administer an occasion to the Jews to commit idolatry; though we never find that the Jews were given to the worship of relics, as our most learned Usher observes in his Annals. (Sec there.) In a valley in the land ofMoab, over against Beth-Peor.’] This valley was in the land of Sihon, king of the Amorites, (iv. 46.) who had taken it from the Moabites, as I noted before, and was now possessed by the Israelites. And Beth-Peor was a part of the possession of Reuben, (Josh, xiii. 20.) which was a place where the temple of Peor anciently stood; from whence it had its name: for this idol is not only called Baal-Pcor, but simply Peor; (Josh. xxii. 17.) and as Beth-Baal is the temple of Baal, so Beth-Peor is the temple of Peor, as L Gor. Vossius observes, de Orig.et Progr. Idol. lib. ii. cap. 7. * Now by all these circumstances of his burial, it appears how frivolous that opinion of the Jews is, mentioned in Jalkut, out of Siphri, that Moses did not really die, but was translated into heaven, where he stands and ministers before God; which conceit Josephus himself follows, lib. iv. Antiq. cap. 8. where he saith, that he having dismissed the elders, who went with him to Mount Abarim, and then conversing awhile with Eleazar and Joshua, while he embraced them, vtyovg alvi$iov virlp ahrov gtclvtog, a cloud on a sudden coming upon him, he was snatched out of their sight into a certain valley: which is not only beside, but contrary to the Scripture, which saith he died, and was buried in the valley. And yet some of the ancient fathers, particularly St. Ambrose and St. Hilary, have followed this opinion, that when Moses is said to die, it doth not signify the separation of his soul from his body, but his translation to a better life. See Sixtus Scncnsis, in bis Bibliotheca, lib. v. Annot. 61. where he observes, this is not only against Scripture, but against the sense of almost all ecclesiastical writers. But<no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. J These words, unto this day, shew that this passage was not written by Moses, as Josephus and Philo imagine, who say ho wrote this by the spirit of prophecy. (See ver. 1.) The reason why his body was concealed most think to have been, lest in future times it should become an object of their worship. So R. Levi ben Gersom:’ Future generations, perhaps, might have made a god of him, because of the fame of his miracles: for do we not see how some of the Israelites erred, in the brazen serpent which Moses made?" And the heresy of the Melchiscdekians shews this was no vain fear, (as Hermannus Witsius observes, lib. i. Miscell. cap. 17.) if Epiphanius may be believed, who saith, that in Arabia Petraea, Sea to Stoaiifieta Scov vopiZovm, &c. they thought him to be God, because of his wonders he wrought, and worshipped his image. What would they have done, if they had had his very body? which he did not desire to be carried into Canaan, and buried among his ancestors, as Joseph ordered concerning his bones: for he understood, it is likely, the mind of God to be, that, as he should not go over Jordan while he was alive, so his body should not be carried over when he.was dead; which R. Chama thinks might have proved dangerous, because in the time of their distress (especially at the captivity of the land) the children of Israel might have been prone to run to his sepulchre, and beg him with tears to pray for them, whose prayers had been so prevalent for them in his lifetime: for such a piece “of superstition, it seems, crept in among them in latter ages; of which see Wagenseil uponthe Gemara of Sota, cap. 1, sect. 52. annot. 2. But though no man knew where Moses was buried wheu this was written, yet some Maronite shepherds, wc are told, have pretonded lately (1G55) to find out his tomb, with this inscription in Hebrew, Moses, the servant of tJie Lord. A great stir was made about it, as the same Witsius observes, out of Hornius’sHistoriaEcclesiastica. But a learned Jew, he saith, so confuted the story, shewingit was another Moses whose tomb they found, that the report presently vanished; and the learned Wagcnseil makes some probable guesses, that it was the tomb of Moses Maimonides. (Sec Annot. 6. in Gemara Sota, cap. 3. sect. 51.) But Bartoloccius, in his late Bibliotheca Rabbinica, torn. iii. p. 928, &c. hath made, it very, probable/

Deuteronomy 34:7

And teas a hundred and twenty years old when he died J. A third part of which time, wanting one month, he had been employed in the government of Israel, as Josephus observes in the conclusion of his fourth book of Antiquities. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated.] That is, he had all the vigour of youth remaining, there being not so much as a wrinkle in his checks: so some of the ancients interpret the last clause: others, he had not lost so much as a tooth out of his mouth. (See Bochartus, in his Hierozoicon, par. i. lib. ii. cap. 45. p. 506.) Both Onkclos and the Jerusalem Targum refer it to the splendour of his countenance, which continued to the last. From hence it was that the heathen, who were not wholly unacquainted with this story, but had not a perfect knowledge of it, imagined that Moses was troubled to die, when he was so vigorous; for TrebclliusPollio, in the life of Claudius, saith, that tho most learned mathematicians were wont to say, that no man lived beyond a hundred and twenty years: for though Moses lived a hundred and fivc-and-twenty years (so he mistakes), being " Dei, ut Judseorum libri loquantur, familiaris/’ a man familiar ivitJi God, as the books of the Jews tell us; yet ho complaining that " juvenis interact,” he died when he was young, they say he was told by an uncertain God, that no man should ever live longer. This mistake arose from their misinterpretation of those words, Gen. vi. 3. " Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years:" forHuetius well observes, that this incertuf Deus was the true God, the creator of heaven and earth; whom St. Paul saith they called also the unknown God, Dcmonstr. Evang. propos. 4. cap. 1. n. 57. And I cannot ljut add, that this passage out of Trebellius was taken notice of above a hundred years ago, by a learned man I have often mentioned, David Chytroeus, to shew that these sacred books were not unknown to the heathen, and that they had a reverence for them. Vcr. 8. And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.] The time of mourning for thd dead was longer or shorter, according to the dignity of the person. And the Jews have a tradition which distinguishes between the days of weeping and mourning; the former of which n^ver exceeded a month, which was the time they wept for Moses; the latter never lasted more than a year, as they gather from the example of the greatest doctor they ever had, It. Judah, who composed the Mischna; for whoni they mourned twelve months. (See Schickard, in his Jus Regium, cap. G. Theor. 19. and upon Gen. 1. 3. 10. Numb. x.x. 29.) So the days of weeping and mourning for 3Ioses were ended.] They lamented him completely thirty days, and no longer. By which it seems, that weeping and mourning (whatsoever difference was between them) were anciently of the same length, though the Jews, in the forenamed tradition, are pleased to make the one last much longer than the other. Now by this, and what follows in the book of Joshua, wo may certainly know tho truth of what I said (on vcr. 5.) concerning the day on which Moses died; for if we add unto these thirty days, which followed immediately upon it, the three days wherein the spies lay hid in the mountain, (Josh. ii. 22.) and allow three or four days more for their going and coming back, and then add the three days they lay by Jordan before they passed over, (Josh. iii. 2.) they make just a month and ten days, from the first day of the last month, when I supposed Moses died, unto the day they got safe over Jordan, which was the tenth day of the first month; whereas, if we reckon as the Jews do, that Moses died on the seventh day of the last month, it would have been the seventeenth day of the first month before they got over Jordan. I observe also, that, though the Talmudists generally make him to have died on the seventh day of Adar, yet there have been some who placed it on the first; for the Mcdrasch Kabbah, telling the story of Hainan’s casting lots to find the best time to do execution on the Jews, saith he pitched upon the month Adar, because it had been unlucky to the Jews, by the death of their master Moses therein. But he did not consider, saith that Medrasch, that as Moses died on the first day of this month, so he ivas born on the same first day. Vcr. 9. And Joshua the son ofNitn was full of the spirit of wisdom.] To take the government upon him, and ma-* nagc it prudently, as soon as Moses left them; which was necessary to be mentioned, that it might not be, thought they wanted a head to conduct them, as their neighbours possibly might imagine, when tho. news came of Moses’s death; for, as the Samaritans tell the story, (in Hottinger’s Smegma Oricntale, p. 462.)- when they heard the lamentations which the whole congregation made for Moses, they began to rejoice, and gather their forces together to set upon the Israelites, as wanting a leader: but they soon found themselves mistaken, Joshua having taken the charge of them, and being endued with his spirit. For Moses had laid his hands upon him.] Whereby ha committed to him the supreme authority after his departure, and implored the Spirit of God to qualify him for it; for power to exeeuto any office among the Jews w T as given by laying t)ri of hands, whereby they were ordained and appointed to it. And this Was a rite of prayer also, as many have observed, for the obtaining the gifts of the Spirit, which were necessary for the discharge of that office. And, though no words of prayer be mentioned, yet the very lay*, ing 07i of hands denotes’ it, as our learned Dr. Outram observes from this very place, and. from 1 Tim. v. 22. lib. U de Sacrif. cap. 15. n. 8.’ Of Moses’s laying on hands upon Joshua, w r e read Numb, xxvii. 18, &c.. And he was solemnly also, a little before Moses’s death, presented unto God, by his own command, xxxi. 14, &c. of this book. And the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did. as. the Lord commanded Moses.] Obeyed him as their, supreme governor, according to God’s command, delivered to Moses, Numb, xxvii. 20. Deut. xxxi. 23. (See Josh. i. 1Q, 17, &c.). Vcr. 10. And there rose not a prophet since in Israel like, to Moscsl.] This is a plain demonstration, that the promise God makes by Moses, that he would raise up, " a Prophet like to him," (Deut. xviii. 15. 19, &c.) was not fulfilled either in Joshua or in Samuel (who it is likely wrote this chapter, as I said before), and the best of the Jews confess, shall not be fulfilled till Messiah come. Thus the author of Sephir Ikkarim, lib. iii. cap. 20. “It cannqj be, but