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Deuteronomium 34

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1 Toen ging Mozes op, uit de vlakke velden van Moab, naar den berg Nebo, op de hoogten van Pisga, welke recht tegenover Jericho is; en de HEERE wees hem dat ganse land, Gilead tot Dan toe;

2 En het ganse Nafthali, en het land van Efraim en Manasse, en het ganse land van Juda, tot aan de achterste zee;

3 En het Zuiden, en het effen veld der vallei van Jericho, de palmstad, tot Zoar toe.

4 En de HEERE zeide tot hem: Dit is het land, dat Ik Abraham, Izak en Jakob gezworen heb, zeggende: Aan uw zaad zal Ik het geven! Ik heb het u met uw ogen doen zien, maar gij zult daarheen niet overgaan.

5 Alzo stierf Mozes, de knecht des HEEREN, aldaar in het land van Moab, naar des HEEREN mond.

6 En Hij begroef hem in een dal, in het land van Moab, tegenover Beth-Peor; en niemand heeft zijn graf geweten, tot op dezen dag.

7 Mozes nu was honderd en twintig jaren oud, als hij stierf; zijn oog was niet donker geworden, en zijn kracht was niet vergaan.

8 En de kinderen Israels beweenden Mozes, in de vlakke velden van Moab, dertig dagen; en de dagen des wenens, van den rouw over Mozes, werden voleindigd.

9 Jozua nu, de zoon van Nun, was vol van den Geest der wijsheid; want Mozes had zijn handen op hem gelegd; zo hoorden de kinderen Israels naar hem, en deden gelijk als de HEERE Mozes geboden had.

10 En er stond geen profeet meer op in Israel, gelijk Mozes, dien de HEERE gekend had, van aangezicht tot aangezicht,

11 In al de tekenen en de wonderen, waartoe hem de HEERE gezonden heeft, om die in Egypteland te doen aan Farao, en aan al zijn knechten, en aan al zijn land;

12 En in al die sterke hand, en in al die grote verschrikking, die Mozes gedaan heeft voor de ogen van gans Israel.

   

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Moses

  

At the inmost level, the story of Moses -- like all of the Bible -- is about the Lord and his spiritual development during his human life as Jesus. Moses's role represents establishing forms of worship and to make the people obedient. As such, his primary representation is "the Law of God," the rules God gave the people of Israel to follow in order to represent spiritual things. This can be interpreted narrowly as the Ten Commandments, more broadly as the books of Moses, or most broadly as the entire Bible. Fittingly, his spiritual meaning is complex and important, and evolves throughout the course of his life. To understand it, it helps to understand the meaning of the events in which he was involved. At a more basic level, Moses's story deals with the establishment of the third church to serve as a container of knowledge of the Lord. The first such church -- the Most Ancient Church, represented by Adam and centered on love of the Lord -- had fallen prey to human pride and was destroyed. The second -- the Ancient Church, represented by Noah and the generations that followed him -- was centered on love of the neighbor, wisdom from the Lord and knowledge of the correspondences between natural and spiritual things. It fell prey to the pride of intelligence, however -- represented by the Tower of Babel -- and at the time of Moses was in scattered pockets that were sliding into idolatry. On an external level, of course, Moses led the people of Israel out of Egypt through 40 years in the wilderness to the border of the homeland God had promised them. Along the way, he established and codified their religious system, and oversaw the creation of its most holy objects. Those rules and the forms of worship they created were given as containers for deeper ideas about the Lord, deeper truth, and at some points -- especially when he was first leading his people away from Egypt, a time before the rules had been written down -- Moses takes on the deeper representation of Divine Truth itself, truth from the Lord. At other times -- especially after Mount Sinai -- he has a less exalted meaning, representing the people of Israel themselves due to his position as their leader. Through Moses the Lord established a third church, one more external than its predecessors but one that could preserve knowledge of the Lord and could, through worship that represented spiritual things, make it possible for the Bible to be written and passed to future generations.