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DEUTERONOMY 33–34; PSALMS 52–53

Week 11, Day 3

Like the patriarchs before him, Moses pronounced blessings as he died. In his case, however, he was blessing not simply his own descendants but an entire nation, tribe by tribe.

What a beautiful way to die! But if we are to die with a blessing on our lips, we’ll have to get in practice early. Ordinarily we are, in our old age and in our dying, what we have been in earlier years, only written larger.

One could say that Moses spent the first two thirds of his life preparing to lead Israel—first through formal education in the courts of Egypt and then in a character seminar on the back side of the desert—and the last third of his life providing that leadership. The days of leadership were anything but tranquil, and at times Moses was impatient with the people. But he never ceased to love them and to plead for them. Now, ready to die, he reminds them what a fortunate people they are:

“Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you,

a people saved by the LORD” (33:29).

Moses was not a perfect man. At times he fell into self-pity, and he wasn’t above blaming Israel for his problems. He became impatient to a point that he lost his opportunity to enter the land of promise. Yet there was no one like him. He saw the Lord and did God’s will (34:10).

PRAYER: I’m not expecting to be a Moses, dear Lord, but I want to be true to you in my place, in my time; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Why would Moses bless the tribes individually instead of simply blessing the nation as a whole?