He buried him, but no man knoweth of his sepulchre.
The burial of Moses
I. God will have no one, living or dead, to stand between His creatures and Himself.
II. God wishes men to see something more left of His servants than the outward shrine.
III. God takes the honour of His servants into His own keeping.
IV. God would teach men that he has a relation to His servants which extends beyond their death.
V. God would teach men from the very first that His regard is not confined to any chosen soil.
VI. The seeming failure in a true life may have at last a complete compensation. (John Ker, D. D.)
Divine burial
The same God that, by the hands of His angels, carried up the soul of Moses to his glory, doth also, by the hand of His angels, carry his body down into the valley of Moab to his sepulchre. Those hands which had taken the law from Him, those eyes that had seen His presence, those lips that had conferred so oft with Him, that face that did so shine with the beams of His glory, may not be neglected when the soul is gone. He that took charge of his birth, and preservation in the reeds, takes charge of his carriage out of the world. The care of God ceaseth not over His own, either in death, or after it. How justly do we take care of the comely burials of our friends, when God Himself gives us this example! (Bp. Joseph Hall.)
The burial of Moses
Never had any man a more wonderful burial. No human hands assisted at it. It was not left for the winds to cover with the dust of the mountain the stalwart form of the eagle-eyed leader; nor for the dew and the rain to moisten it; nor for the sunshine to waste and bleach it. It was not left unburied. Moses died, according to the word of the Lord, and He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab. (Alexander R. Thompson, D. D.)
So the days of weeping and mourning for Moses wore ended.
The worker removed-the work continued
And when these days were ended, straightway the career of Joshua opens, the tide of things rolls forward, and the march of events sweeps on. And is this the end of it all so far as Moses is concerned? We cannot think it. In some churchyards we see the broken column, and that we always understand as the emblem of a broken life. Where are the lives which are not broken? And over what graves shall the broken column not be raised? “Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there,” etc. That life falls; but the thread of its conjunction with the eternal purpose is not broken; that does not fall with the life. The streamlet fails, but the mighty river rolls on. Moses dies, and is buried, but Joshua takes up the staff and stretches forth the hand. What is the life of Moses, or any other life? It is safe with God, if in purpose, at least, and intention and drift it be lived in Him and for Him--safe with God while its mortal courses are running, and safe with Him when they are stayed. But while they are running He works by them, and when they are stayed He works without them, and by other lives. And it is when the soul of the man is in harmony with this fact, and governs itself by it, as the soul of Moses was in harmony with it--it is then that the true life will be lived, and no shadow of fear will rest upon the future. But indeed it is a great thing of which we speak, this harmony of mind with the purpose of God. It is the highest life of man. It is the fruit of long patience and much strife, and the triumph of the grace of the Almighty Spirit within the human soul. (D. Wright, M. A.)
Joshua. .. was full of the spirit of wisdom.--
Joshua and Moses
We have here a very honourable encomium both of Moses and Joshua; each has his praise, and should have. It is ungrateful so to magnify our living friends as to forget the merits of those that are gone, to whose memories there is a debt of honour due. All the respects must not be paid to the rising sun; and on the other hand, it is unjust so to cry up the merits of those that are gone, as to despise the benefit we have in those that survive and succeed them. Let God be glorified in both as here.
1. Joshua is praised as a man admirably well qualified for the work to which he was called.
(1) God fitted him for it. Herein he was a type of Christ, in whom are hid the treasures of wisdom.
(2) Moses by the Divine appointment had ordained him to it; he had laid his hands upon him, so substituting him to be his successor, and praying to God to qualify him for the service to which He had called him. And this comes in as a reason why God gave him a more than ordinary spirit of wisdom, because his designation to the government was God’s own act; and those whom God employs, He will in some measure make fit for the employment. When the bodily presence of Christ withdrew from His Church, He prayed the Father to send another Comforter; and obtained what He prayed for.
(3) The people cheerfully owned him, and submitted to him. An interest in the affections of the people is a great advantage, and a great encouragement to those that are called to public trusts of what kind soever. It was also a great mercy to the people, that when Moses was dead they were not as sheep having no shepherd. Moses is praised (verses 10, 11, 12), and with good reason.
(1) He was indeed a very great man upon two accounts among others--
(a) His intimacy with the God of nature; God knew him face to face, and so he knew God (Numbers 12:8). He saw more of the glory of God than any (at least) of the Old Testament saints ever did; he had more free and frequent access to God; and was spoken to, not in dreams and visions and slumberings on the bed, but when he was awake, and standing before the cherubims.
(b) His interest and power in the kingdom of nature. He was greater than any other of the prophets of the Old Testament; though they were men of great interest in heaven, and great influence upon earth, yet they were none of them to be compared with this great man; none of them either evidenced or executed a commission from heaven so as Moses did. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)