Deuteronomy 34:1, How Did Moses Die?

Posted on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 in Bible Commentary | 0 comments

So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD.

//When the Children of Israel reached the promised land, God wouldn’t let Moses enter. Moses, perhaps the greatest of man in the Jewish religion, had made a mistake. He let either his anger or his pride get the best of him (depending upon how you interpret the passage) and, instead of politely requesting that a rock bring forth water as God had instructed him to do, he whacked the poor rock with a stick.

So, Moses dies an ignominious death outside the promised land. Or so our Bible would have us believe.

The literal wording of today’s verse reads a little differently. It says Moses died “by the mouth of Yahweh” (Yahweh is God’s holy name). This was quite naturally translated into “according to the word of the Lord,” but the more literal reading gave way to a Jewish tradition that Moses, their greatest hero, died not as a lonely outsider, but by a divine kiss.

Much better, don’t you think? Who wouldn’t want to end their life with a divine kiss?

Maybe we all die that way. Who can say.