Although Moses’ work was done, “his eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished” (Deut 34:7).
The Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo,…view the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel as a possession; and die on the mountain which you ascend, and be gathered to your people” (Deut 32:49-50). Abarim was the name of the range, Nebo the mountain, and Pisgah the overlook that gave the best view. Climbing up from the plains of Moab to the heights of Pisgah, almost 1900 feet (573 m) above sea level, Moses surveyed the land. “And the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the South, and the plain of the Valley of Jericho…Then the Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there’” (34:1-4). There Moses died, and God looked after his funeral. It’s 150 miles (240 km) from Pisgah to the snow-capped Mt Hermon at the foot of which is the city of Dan. Before Israel’s industrialization, one could stand on the Frank Mountain near Bethlehem (about the same latitude as Pisgah) and see Hermon. But Moses saw further than that! He wrote, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear” (18:15). Did he imagine standing with the Lord Jesus in the land, speaking of “His decease [Gk, exodos] which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem” (Lk 9:31)? God gave him his request after all, not with murmuring Israel, but with His own Son! By the way, believers have the same prospect: “when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints” (2 Thess 1:10).