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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Numbers 27:12 - 27:12
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The Death of Moses Foretold. - After these instructions concerning the division of the land, the Lord announced to Moses his approaching end. From the mountains of Abarim he was to see the land which the Israelites would receive, and then like Aaron to be gathered to his people, because like him he also had sinned at the water of strife at Kadesh. This announcement was made, “that he might go forward to his death with the fullest consciousness, and might set his house in order, that is to say, might finish as much as he could while still alive, and provide as much as possible what would make up after his death for the absence of his own person, upon which the whole house of Israel was now so dependent” (Baumgarten). The fulfilment of this announcement is described in Deu 32:48-52. The particular spot upon the mountains of Abarim from which Moses saw the land of Canaan, is also minutely described there. It was Mount Nebo, upon which he also died. The mountains of Abarim (cf. Num 33:47) are the mountain range forming the Moabitish table-land, which slope off into the steppes of Moab. It is upon this range, the northern portion of which opposite to Jericho bore the name of Pisgah, that we are to look for Mount Nebo, which is sometimes described as one of the mountains of Abarim (Deu 32:49), and at other times as the top of Pisgah (Deu 3:27; Deu 34:1; see at Num 21:20). Nebo is not to be identified with Jebel Attarus, but to be sought for much farther to the north, since, according to Eusebius (s. v. Ἀβαρείμ), it was opposite to Jericho, between Livias, which was in the valley of the Jordan nearly opposite to Jericho, and Heshbon; consequently very near to the point which is marked as the “Heights of Nebo” on Van de Velde's map. The prospect from the heights of Nebo must have been a very extensive one. According to Burckhardt (Syr. ii. pp. 106-7), “even the city of Heshbon (Hhuzban) itself stood upon so commanding an eminence, that the view extended at least thirty English miles in all directions, and towards the south probably as far as sixty miles.” On the expression, “gathered unto thy people,” see at Gen 25:8, and on Aaron's death see Num 20:28. מְרֹיתֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר: “as ye transgressed My commandment.” By the double use of כַּאֲשֶׁר (quomodo, “as”), the death of Aaron, and also that of Moses, are placed in a definite relation to the sin of these two heads of Israel. As they both sinned at Kadesh against the commandment of the Lord, so they were both of them to die without entering the land of Canaan. On the sin, see at Num 20:12-13, and on the desert of Zin, at Num 13:21.