God Buries Moses

BY Rebecca Faires

Text: Deuteronomy 32:48-52, Deuteronomy 33:1-29, Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Driving in the van, we talked about prosaic adult things in the front, while the children rattled around in the back. I was telling my husband about a memory-building chart I’d seen in college, and they were playing “touched you last.” But later that morning, sitting next to my journal-obsessed nine-year-old, I looked over and saw a transcript of our conversation and a rendering of the chart I’d described.

Simultaneously surprised, delighted, and a little alarmed, I remembered how important we are to her. Right now, she is interested in everything we say and do. Objects, places, and ideas all hold special significance for my daughter if she hears that I love them.

It’s a weighty thing to be so adored by someone, to be so intimately and lovingly observed. God invited Moses into intimacy. When Moses was born, “he was beautiful in God’s sight” (Acts 7:20). God knew and watched Moses from the beginning, and He called Moses into a close and special journey with Him. Unlike my daughter, God wasn’t simply eavesdropping on Moses; He was giving Moses the unimaginable gift of His loving attention.

God’s attention seems so unfathomable to me. Why would the Almighty bother to attend to my nail-biting hesitations, or even my wedding day? His is a love so big, we cannot even fathom it.

God loves His people so much that He actually invites us into a relationship with Him. There are few places in history where we have such a beautiful record of God’s tender and patient encounters with men. From the day of his birth, Moses enjoyed God’s special favor and blessing, and this close relationship between God and Moses continued to Moses’ final day.

Because of his sin at the waters of Meribah, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land (Numbers 20:11). But even in the midst of this heartbreaking judgment, God showed favor to Moses and allowed him a glimpse of His promised home for Israel.

God’s favor doesn’t look like what we’d expect it to. The blessing of God isn’t limited by our ideas of good living. When I pray for His blessing and favor, in my heart, I’m often just asking for things to go my way. But the glory of God’s blessing is not circumstantial at all—the blessing is intimacy with God Himself.

Moses’ life was a whirlwind of disappointments and triumphs, but regardless of what was going on in the tents and on the desert plain, God was with him. The final scene of Moses’ life is private and tender: God buries him in a secret place. He was God’s man.

May we long for this kind of intimacy with God. May “He who spoke to Moses” be our ever-present help in trouble, the shield that protects us. For “indeed He loves His people” (Deuteronomy 33:3), and he is our dwelling place, let us desire nothing more than to draw near to Him and see His face (Deuteronomy 33:27).