Deuteronomy 33-34

Moses blessing the tribes before he dies is the bookend of Jacob blessing his sons before he died. Some of the themes and phrasing are nearly identical.

You may recall that Jacob prefaced his blessing with this:

“Gather together so that I can tell you what will happen with you in days to come.”
‭‭Genesis‬ ‭49‬:‭1‬ ‭LEB‬‬

His blessing was prophetic. They were also his last words. When Jacob finished speaking, he pulled his feet up into the bed and breathed his last.

Deuteronomy 33 is a mirror image of this. These are the last recorded words of Moses.
When he is finished, he will drag his feet up the slopes of Mount Pisgah and breathe his last.

The parallels are intentional. And each passage shines a bit of light on the other to help us understand.

🤓 For extra credit, you might want to get 2 Bibles out. Open one to Deuteronomy 33 and the other to Genesis 49.

The immediate and glaring difference is that Moses does not jump right into a blessing for Reuben. He starts with a reminder of Who their God is and how He appeared to them at Sinai.

“Then he said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and he dawned upon them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran, and he came with myriads of holy ones, at his right hand a fiery law for them.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭33‬:‭2‬ ‭LEB‬‬

I find this fascinating. I don’t remember reading anything about Israel seeing a “myriad of holy ones” (angels) back in Exodus. Do you? Maybe only Moses saw them. I mean, one can hardly be in the presence of Yahweh without bumping into an angel or two. But the writer of Hebrews seems to have the same mental picture of angels participating in the giving of the Law:

“For the message God delivered through angels has always stood firm, and every violation of the law and every act of disobedience was punished. So what makes us think we can escape if we ignore this great salvation that was first announced by the Lord Jesus himself and then delivered to us by those who heard him speak?”
‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭2‬:‭2‬-‭3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And the first martyr, Stephen, had this to say to the chief priests:

“you who received the law by directions of angels and have not observed it!”
‭‭Acts‬ ‭7‬:‭53‬ ‭LEB‬‬

So there’s a new angle on angels for ya. 😏

📐😇🪽

But this statement about the Lord showing up “with myriads of holy ones” also makes me think of this:

“It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,’”. Jude‬ ‭1‬:‭14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This is a quote from the book of First Enoch. In case you’ve never read it in its context, here it is:

“The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect [and] righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked [and godless] are to be removed. And he took up his parable and said, ‘Enoch a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens, [which] the angels showed me, and from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is for to come. Concerning the elect I said, and took up my parable concerning them:’

The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling, And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, (even) on Mount Sinai,
[And appear from His camp]. And appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens. And all shall be smitten with fear
And the Watchers shall quake, and great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth. And the high mountains shall be shaken, and the high hills shall be made low, and shall melt like wax before the flame. And the earth shall be [wholly] rent in sunder, and all that is upon the earth shall perish, and there shall be a judgement upon all (men).

But with the righteous He will make peace. And will protect the elect, and mercy shall be upon them. And they shall all belong to God, and they shall be prospered, and they shall [all] be blessed. And He will help them all, and light shall appear unto them, and He will make peace with them.

And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of [His] holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy [all] the ungodly: And to convict all flesh of all the works [of their ungodliness] which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”

First Enoch 1:1-9

Personally, I believe that the content of the book of First Enoch existed long before it was written down (probably during the intertestamental period) and originated with the biblical man Enoch.

If that is so, then Moses may be drawing on that phrasing here of the Lord showing up with “ten thousands of holy ones” just like He appeared at Sinai with “myriads of holy ones.”

By the way, did ya notice the bit about the Watchers shaking with fear? When the Lord shows up, it’s not just mankind that’s in for it. The Rebel Watcher Angels are in for it too. But I’m getting WAY ahead of things.

Back to Deuteronomy.

Verse 5 tells us that Yahweh showing up with His host of angels was basically His coronation as King of Israel. I think the hint is that the future coming of the Lord with His host of angels will mark His coronation as King of All the Earth.

Then come the individual blessings for each tribe. I’ll summarize the similarities between Moses’ and Jacob’s blessings:

Reuben – not really a blessing. Basically just says, “Not gonna curse you, but not gonna bless ya either. Good luck, bro.”
Judah – moves from 4th place in Jacob’s blessing to (functionally) 1st place. In both blessings, Judah is the leader and warrior of Israel.
Simeon – does not get mentioned by Moses. Ouch. Was paired with Levi in Jacob’s blessing. As the second son maybe he was used to being overlooked.
Levi – not paired with Simeon this time as in Genesis. All about Levi’s new role as the priests. Praises them for putting their loyalty to Yahweh above family. Similar to Jesus saying, “He who does not love me more than father, mother, brother, and sister cannot be my disciple.”
Benjamin – moves way up from last place in Jacob’s blessing rank. Both have the idea of: “not a good plan to mess with Benjamin.”
Joseph – the golden child who can do no wrong and is blessed more than anyone else.
Zebulun – both blessings are about his safe place by the sea and maritime trade.
Issachar – gets paired with Zebulun in Moses’ blessing but the themes of having a restful place are similar.
Gad – both blessings have a militaristic flavor, with Gad coming out on top.
Dan – his metaphors are changed from a Judge and a Serpent/Adder in Genesis to a pouncing Lion in Deuteronomy. Either way – Dan is a dangerous critter.
Naphtali – both blessings are positive with the tribe having freedom and favor.
Asher – both blessings refer to fat or oil. If I were Asher, I’d be drilling for black gold or planting olive orchards.

“There is none like God, O Jeshurun, who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭33‬:‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Make a mental note of this picture of Yahweh as the Rider in the Heavens. It’s going to come up again. It’s important.

Jeshurun is a nickname for Israel. It means “upright.” The few remaining verses overflow with lovely blessings on Israel as a whole and how fortunate they are to be blessed by God Most High.

And there we have it. It’s time now to say goodbye to our good friend, Moses. He goes up Mount Nebo to the peak of Pisgah (one final trek up a mountain) and supernaturally sees ALL of the promised land from that spot. Moses isn’t just at a scenic overlook. There’s something more happening here. I know the text says that “his eye was undimmed” but nobody can see something 128 miles away. That’s the distance from Nebo to Dan. Moses isn’t just leaning on his stick, looking out over the land from a mountain peak. I strongly suspect that he is carried in the spirit out over the whole land and gets an aerial view as his soul is departing.

⛰️

Side Note…

This is what verse 4 in the hymn Sweet Hour of Prayer is about.

Sweet hour of prayer! sweet hour of prayer!
May I thy consolation share,
Till, from Mount Pisgah’s lofty height,
I view my home and take my flight.
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise
To seize the everlasting prize,
And shout, while passing through the air,
“Farewell, farewell, sweet hour of prayer!”

Now you know.

I can hardly sing that verse.

Gets me every time.

Ever heard those stories of people on their deathbed seeing things that no one in the room can see? And they even describe or respond to what they’re seeing? I suspect it was like that for Moses. How else would the person who wrote this down know that Moses saw these things?

Which reminds me… Side Note #2…

These final verses of Deuteronomy are clearly by an editorial hand. My best guesses are: Joshua, Eleazar, Ithamar, or Phinehas. This does not diminish its inspiration to point this out. Sometimes Christians get really uncomfortable when a scholar points out that there were anonymous editors involved in the creation of the Bible. Moses is not chronicling his own death and what happened after. Someone else wrote this down. No other alternative makes sense. We don’t know for certain who wrote several books of the Bible. Does that make them less inspired? No- because they meet the criteria for scripture.

THE MYSTERY OF MOSES’ DEATH

“So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭34‬:‭5‬-‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬

God Himself buried Moses.

That is amazing! And there is some kind of strange mystery here. And it involves Michael the Archangel.

“But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” Jude‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There has been a lot of scholarly (and not-so-scholarly) ink spilled over this mystery. Why did God bury Moses? Why would Michael need to rebuke Satan about the body of Moses? Did Satan want the body? If so, why? Two possible ideas (among many speculations) stand out to me:

Satan had a claim on Moses’ body because he was a murder (he killed an Egyptian).
Satan had a claim on Moses’ body because he died on his turf, not Yahweh’s.
- Moses died outside the land of Yahweh. His soul goes to Sheol and his body falls under the jurisdiction of one of the sons of God that we talked about yesterday who has by this time long-since rebelled and is now on Team Satan. Perhaps a “Prince of Moab?” Just a guess.
Why would he want the body? Speculations include, but are not limited to: A) reanimating Moses’ body in a fake resurrection to hijack the leadership of Israel, B) to create a shrine or holy relics for Israel to venerate (idolatry), or C) to simply assert some kind of authority and flaunt his lordship over death.

There are claims from 3 early church fathers that Jude was quoting from a work called “The Assumption of Moses” but this is not conclusive. Here is a solid, but mercifully short article on that.

I don’t know why God buried Moses and kept his burial place a secret. Maybe it was because he had been in such close proximity to God. (I mean, he’s the only person besides Jesus whose face glowed with divine glory). But maybe it was simpler than any of that. Maybe it was because God was Moses’ friend. And as his friend, God knew that Moses wouldn’t have wanted a lot of fuss at his funeral. Whatever the reason, it’s a temporary mystery. Moses’ body will be resurrected one day and it won’t be a problem anymore.

There was never again a prophet like Moses. It’s important to understand how respected Moses was (and is!) to Israel. It’s kinda hard to grasp what a big deal he is.

Maybe some Chuck Norris jokes will help…

🤔 What?! Chuck Norris? What does Chuck Norris have to do with anything?

😎 Trust the process.