Lecture VIII: Kadesh and Pisgah (part 2)

by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.      

2.   The intermingling of the narratives of the Book     
of Numbers, the Book of  Deuteronomy, the      
Book of Joshua; the rise of new names,      
Eleazar, Phineas, Jair; indicate that we are approach-      
ing the confines of another generation, and another      
stage of the history.  But the main interest still     
hangs round Moses, and round the heights of Pisgah.       
We need not here discuss the vexed question of the        
precise time when the Book of Deuteronomy         
assumed its present form.  It is enough to        
feel that it represents to us the long farewell of the       
Prophet and Lawgiver, as he stood amongst the groves       
of Abel Shittim, and recapitulated the course of his       
career and of his legislation.  Parts, at least, have       
every appearance of belonging to that stage of the       
history and to no other; when they were still beyond        
the Jordan, when the institutions of the conquest and     
the monarchy were still undeveloped.  And, if the      
features of the earlier law are from time to time     
transfigured with a softer and a more spiritual light,      
this change, whilst it may have received some touches     
from the later spirit of the great Prophetic age, yet     
is also in close harmony — it may be, dramatic har-      
mony — with the soothing and widening process which      
belongs to the old age, not merely of every nation,     
but of every individual.  Deuteronomy has been some-      
times said to be to the earlier books of the Law, as the     
Fourth Gospel to the earlier Three.  The comparison      
may hold good in regard no less to the actual advance      
in the character of Moses the Lawgiver and Moses      
the expiring Prophet, and the character of the Son     
of Thunder and the aged Evangelist.        
   In this last representation of Moses, one feature is     
brought out more forcibly than ever before.  The      
poetic utterances, regarded as an indispensable accom-      
paniment of the prophetic gift, now come forth in     
full strength; the vox cycnea of the departing seer.         
   Two of these, at least in their general conception,     
belong exclusively to this epoch, the Eve of      
the Conquest: the Song of battle and of warn-     
ing by which Joshua was to be cheered, and the      
Blessing, it might almost be said the war-cry, of the      
several tribes.  In some minute points, also, we seem      
to trace the feeling of this particular crisis of the his-      
tory.  The name by which, in the Song of Moses, the      
God of Israel is called, must, in the first instance,     
have been suggested by the Desert-wanderings, —     
"The Rock."  Nine times in the course of this single      
Hymn is repeated this most expressive figure, taken      
from the granite crags of Sinai, and carried thence,     
through psalms and hymns of all nations, like one of     
the huge fragments which it represents, to regions as     
remote in aspect as in distance, from its original birth-     
place.  If "The Rock" carries us back to the desert,     
the pastoral riches to which the Song refers confine      
us to the eastern bank of the Jordan.  "The butter     
of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and       
rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the      
fat of kidneys of wheat."  It would be too bold to          
say that these words could not have occurred to any-    
one in Western Palestine; but they are so far more      
appropriate to the Eastern downs and forests, that      
we may fairly see in them a stamp of that peculiar      
locality.        
   The third hymn, which, by its title, belongs to this      
period, is of far more universal interest.        
"The Prayer of Moses the man of God"      
which contrasts the fleeting generations of man with      
the mountains at whose feet they wandered, and the     
eternity of Him who existed "before ever those       
mountains were brought forth," has become the fune-     
ral hymn of the world, and is evidently intended to     
be treated as the funeral hymn of the Prophet him-     
self.  The most recent criticism, whilst hesitating to       
receive it as actually the composition of Moses, re-        
joices to see in it his spirit throughout.  "The Psalm       
has something in it unusually arresting, solemn, and       
sinking deep into the depths of the Divinity.  Moses     
might well have been seized by these awful thoughts        
at the close of his wanderings, and the author, who-       
ever he be, is clearly a man grow gray with vast        
experience, who here takes his stand at the end of      
his earthly course."         
   The end was at last come.  It might still have          
seemed that a triumphant close was in store      
for the aged Prophet.  "His eye was not dim        
nor his natural force abated."  He had led his people       
to victory against the Amorite kings; he might still be       
expected to lead them over into the land of Canaan.       
But so it was not to be.  From the desert plains of      
Moab he went up to the same lofty range whence      
Balaam had looked over the same prospect.  The        
same, but seen with eyes how different!  The view      
of Balaam has been long forgotten; but the view of      
Moses had become the proverbial view of all time.     
It was the peak dedicated to Nebo on which he stood.       
He lifted up his eyes westward, and northward, and      
southward, and eastward."  Beneath him lay the      
tents of Israel ready for the march; and "over against"      
them, distinctly visible in its grove of palm-trees, the       
stately Jericho, key of the Land of Promise.  Beyond      
was spread out the whole range of mountains of       
Palestine, in its fourfold masses; "all Gilead," with      
Hermon and Lebanon in the east and north; the hills      
of Galilee, overhanging the Lake of Gennesareth; the         
wide opening where lay the plain of Esdraelon, the      
future battle-field of the nations; the rounded summits     
of Ebal and Gerizim; immediately in front of him the        
hills of Judæa, and, amidst them, seen distinctly through      
the rents in their rocky walls, Bethlehem on its nar-      
row ridge, and the invincible fortress of Jebus.  To       
him, so far as we know, the charm of that view —        
pronounced by the few modern travellers who have      
seen it to be unequalled of its kind — lay in the as-      
surance that this was the land promised to Abraham,       
to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed, the inheri-       
tance — with all its varied features of rock and pas-       
ture, and forest and desert — for the sake of which he       
had borne so many years of toil and danger, in the      
midst of which the fortunes of his people would be       
unfolded worthily of that great beginning.  To us, as          
we place ourselves by his side, the view swells into      
colossal proportions, as we think how the proud city      
of palm-trees is to fall before the hosts of Israel; how       
the spear of Joshua is to be planted on height after        
height of those hostile mountains; what series of     
events, wonderful beyond any that had been witnessed      
in Egypt or in Sinai, would in after-ages be enacted      
on the narrow crest of Bethlehem, in the deep basin      
of the Galilean lake, beneath the walls of "Jebus,             
which is Jerusalem."        
   All this he saw.  He "saw it with his eyes, but he     
was not to go over thither."  It was his last view.       
From that height he came down no more.  Jewish,     
Mussulman, and Christian traditions crowd in to fill     
up the blank.  "Amidst the tears of the people, the      
women beating their breasts and the children giv-     
ing way to uncontrolled wailing, he withdrew.  At        
a certain point in his ascent he made a sign to the     
weeping multitude to advance no further, taking       
with him only the elders, the high priest Eliezer,      
and the general Joshua.  At the top of the moun-     
tain he dismissed the elders, and then, as he was      
embracing Eliezer and Joshua, and still speaking to      
them, a cloud suddenly stood over him, and he van-      
ished in a deep valley."  So spoke the tradition as      
preserved in the language, here unusually pathetic,      
of Josephus.  Other wilder stories told of the Divine      
kiss which drew forth his expiring spirit; others of      
the "Ascension of Moses" amidst the contention of      
good and evil spirits over his body.  The Mussul-      
mans, regardless of the actual scene of his death, have      
raised to him a tomb on the western side of the Jor-      
dan, frequented by thousands of Mussulman devotees.      
But the silence of the Sacred narrative refuses to be     
broken.  "In" that strange land, "the land of Moab,      
Moses the servant of the Lord died according to       
the word of the Lord."  "He buried him in 'a ra-      
vine' in the land of Moab, over against the idol     
temple of Peor."  Apart from his countrymen, hon-     
ored by no funeral obsequies, visited by no grateful     
pilgrimages, "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto       
this day."         
   Two impressive truths are involved in this repre-       
sentation of the death of Moses, truths which hardly     
occur again with equal force in the history till we       
meet them again in the end of Him, of whom, in     
the New Testament, Moses is so often made the illus-     
tration and likeness.  First, the mystery, the          
uncertainty, which overhangs the burial-place       
of the greatest character of the Jewish Church, is a      
sample of the general feeling with which these local       
sanctuaries were regarded.  Doubtless, as in the case      
of the Patriarchal sepulchres at Hebron, and the      
royal sepulchres at Jerusalem, the national instinct of     
reverence for the tombs of the illustrious dead, often       
asserted its own rights.  But, as if to show that this      
is a secondary and not a primary element of relig-      
ious sentiment, when we come to the highest cases      
of all, the grave on Mount Nebo, the grave on Gol-      
gotha, the darkness closes upon the sacred spot: "no      
man knoweth of his sepulchre until this day."         
   Secondly, the scene on Pisgah is at once the fitting         
end of the life of Moses, and the exemplifica-      
tion of a general law.  In one sense it might       
seem mournful, incomplete, disappointing; but in an-         
other and higher sense, how fully in accordance with       
his whole career, how truly the crowning point of his      
life!         
   The personal characteristics of the Prophet are too      
faintly drawn to admit of any fuller delineation.  But     
one feature is indisputably marked out.  No modern         
word seems exactly to correspond to that which our     
translators have rendered "the meekest of men," —       
but which rather expresses "enduring,"  "afflicted,"      
"heedless of self."  This at any rate is the trait most       
strongly impressed on all his actions from first to      
last.  So in Egypt he threw himself into the thank-      
less cause of his oppressed brethren; at his earliest      
call he prayed that Aaron might be the leader in-      
stead of himself; at Sinai he besought that his name      
might be blotted out if only his people might be       
spared; in the desert, he wished that not only he,     
but all the Lord's people might prophesy.  He found-       
ed no dynasty; his own sons were left in deep ob-       
scurity; his successor was taken from the rival tribe      
of Ephraim.  He himself receives for once the regal      
title "the King in Jeshurun;" but the title dies      
with him.  It is as the highest type and concentra-     
tion of his endurance and self- abnegation, that the       
last view from Pisgah receives its chief instruction.           
   To labor and not see the end of our labors; to       
sow and not to reap; to be removed from this earthly      
scene before our work has been appreciated, and when      
it will be carried on not by ourselves, but by others,       
—is a law so common in the highest characters of        
history, that none can be said to be altogether ex-      
empt from its operation.  It is true in intellectual        
matters as well as in spiritual; and one of the finest      
applications of any passage in the Mosaic history, is      
that made by Cowley, and extended by Lord Macau-     
ley to the great English philosopher, who—      

        "Did on the very border stand      
         Of the blessed Promised Land;       
         And from the mountain's to of his exalted wit      
         Saw it himself, and show'd us it;      
         But life did never to one man allow      
         Time to discover worlds and conquer too."            

   "In the first book of the Novum Organum we see     
the great Lawgiver looking round from his lonely      
elevation on an infinite expanse; behind him a wil-      
derness of dreary sands and bitter waters, in which      
successive generations have sojourned, always mov-       
ing, yet never advancing, reaping no harvest and        
building no abiding city: before him a goodly land,     
a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and      
honey.  While the multitude below saw only the        
flat sterile desert in which they had so long wan-      
dered, bounded on every side by a near horizon, or      
diversified only by some deceitful mirage, he was        
gazing from a far higher stand, on a far lovelier      
country, following with his eye the long course of        
fertilizing rivers, through ample pastures, and under          
the bridges of great capitals, measuring the dis-       
tances of marts and barns, and portioning out all       
these wealthy regions from Dan to Beersheba."          
   The imagery thus nobly used to describe the prom-       
ise and the self-denial of intellectual labor, is still        
more true of the many reformers, martyrs, and mis-      
sionaries, John Huss, Tyndale, Francis Xavier, How-      
ard, who, in all times of the Church, have died on       
the threshold of their reward, in hope, not in posses-      
ion.  Events have moved too slow, and the genera-       
tion passes away which should have supported the     
saint or the chief; or events have moved too fast,      
and the rising generation has superseded the want      
of a leader; or a word has been spoken unadvisedly       
with his lips, and his prospects are suddenly over-      
cast; or he is struck by decay of power, or by sud-     
den, untimely death; again and again the Moses of      
the Church, of the commonwealth, lingers there, "dies     
there in the land of Moab, and goes not over to      
possess that good land;" and Canaan is won, not by      
the first and greatest of the nation, but by his sub-      
ordinate minister and successor, Joshua the son of       
Nun.              

from The History of the Jewish Church, Vol. I : Abraham to Samuel,
Lecture VIII: Kadesh and Pisgah.
by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster
Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1879, pp. 218-226