of His goodness and support to His people, as from the top of Pisgah. There was a strange symbolical

aptness even in the ascent of the mount, 4,500 feet up, which is "rapid" but "not rugged."  57

Standing on the highest crest, the prospect would, indeed, seem almost unbounded. Eastwards, stretching

into Arabia, rolls a boundless plain - one waving ocean of corn and grass. As the eye turns southwards, it

ranges over the land of Moab, till it rests on the sharp outlines of Mounts Hor and Seir, and the rosy granite

peaks of Arabia. To the west the land descends, terrace by terrace, to the Dead Sea, the western outline of

which can be traced in its full extent. Deep below lies that sea, "like a long strip of molten metal, with the sun

mirrored on its surface, waving and undulating in its further edge, unseen in its eastern limits, as though

poured from some d eep cavern beneath." Beyond it would appear the ridge of Hebron, and then as the eye

traveled northwards, successively the sites of Bethlehem and of Jerusalem. The holy city itself would be

within range of view - Mount Moriah, the Mount of Olives; on the one side of it the gap in the hills leading

to Jericho, while on the other side, the rounded heights of Benjamin would be clearly visible. Turning

northwards, the eye follows the winding course of Jordan from Jericho, the city of palm-trees, up the stream.

Looking across it, it rests on the rounded top of Mount Gerizim, beyond which the plain of Esdraelon opens,

and the shoulder of Carmel appears. That blue haze in the distance is the line of "the utmost sea." Still

farther northwards rise the outlines of Tabor, Gilboa, the top of snow-clad Hermort, and the highest range of

Lebanon. In front are the dark forests of Ajalon, Mount Gilead, then the land of Bashan and Bozrah.

"And Jehovah shewed Moses all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and

Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the Negeb, and the plain of the valley of

Jericho, the city of palm-trees, unto Zoar" (Deuteronomy 34:1-3).

Such was the prospect which, from that mountain -top, spread before Moses. And when he had satiated his

eyes upon it, he descended into that valley apart to lay him down to rest. Into the mysterious silence of that

death and burial at the hands of Jehovah we dare not penetrate. Jewish tradition, rendering the expressio n

(Deuteronomy 34:5) literally, has it that "Moses the servant of Jehovah died there... at the mouth of

Jehovah," or, as they put it, by the kiss of the Lord. But from the brief saying of Scripture (Jude 9) may we

not infer that although Moses also received in death the wages of sin, yet his body passed not through

corruption, however much "the devil," contending as for his lawful prey, "disputed" for its possession, but

was raised up to be with Elijah the first to welcome the Lord in His glory? For "men bury a body that it may

pass into corruption. If Jehovah, therefore, would not suffer the body of Moses to be buried by men, it is

but natural to seek for the reason in the fact that He did not intend to leave him to corruption."  58

But "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom Jehovah knew face to face, in all the

signs and the wonders, which Jehovah sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his

servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses showed in

the sight of all Israel" (Deuteronomy 34:10-12).

"and Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to

be spoken after; but Christ as a Son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the

confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end" (Hebrews 3:5, 6).