The moment in the life of Moses that lingers most with me comes at the end, when he sees the Promised Land but is not allowed to enter it:

1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, [to the] top of the summit facing Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the Land: The Gilead until Dan,

2 and all [the land of] Naftali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, until the western sea,

3 and the south, and the plain, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, until Zoar.

4 And the Lord said to him, “This is the Land I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”

5 And Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there, in the land of Moab, by the mouth of the Lord.

6 And He buried him in the valley, in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Pe’or. And no person knows the place of his burial, unto this day.

7 Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eye had not dimmed, nor had he lost his [natural] freshness.

8 And the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days, and the days of weeping over the mourning for Moses came to an end.

9 And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands upon him. And the children of Israel obeyed him, and they did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

10 And there was no other prophet who arose in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,

11 as manifested by all the signs and wonders, which the Lord had sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and all his servants, and to all his land,

12 and all the strong hand, and all the great awe, which Moses performed before the eyes of all Israel. (The Jewish Bible, trans. 2022)

From the height of Mt. Nebo, the Lord shows Moses the panoramic sweep and scale of the landscape, its features connected here by the linking conjunction “and” and made specific and real through the named places.

This is Canaan, the territory that God promised he would give to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants, the geographic, theological, and symbolic center of Israel’s story, the setting and site of covenant fulfillment, national identity, and divine presence (Genesis 12, 18; Exodus 3). It’s the destination that Moses has been working to reach for forty years, the “good and spacious land,” “a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:8).

Liberator and lawgiver, Moses has been a great prophet in face-to-face contact with the Lord. But he’s punished severely for a failure of faith: God had told him to speak to a rock to make water flow from it, a command that Moses failed to heed, choosing instead to strike the rock with his staff. God rebuked him:

“Because you did not trust in me, to sanctify me before the eyes of the Israelites, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” (Numbers 20:12)

About the manner of Moses’s death, the narrator is stark and austere. There’s no appeal by Moses to God, no deathbed speech, or description of physical suffering, or sentimental farewell. Vision isn’t possession: Moses looks at the land from which he’s excluded.

We locate ourselves in Moses’s place, the disappointment we would feel. But it’s possible he feels none, no regret. As he gazes at the Promised Land, he might be realizing he doesn’t want to enter it after all. It could turn out less sublime than his dreams about it have been. Perhaps it’s better not to know or take part in the future. No disenchantment that way. Preserve the dream. Cling to it, die with it intact.

The conferral of authority upon Joshua happened earlier. There’s no interaction or exchange of words now between the two men. One is denied entry, while to the other it’s granted. But in a way there’s a bond between them. Moses would have found, and Joshua will find, that Canaan is not empty terrain waiting to be settled: it’s inhabited by multiple established peoples. At God’s command, the times to come will be replete with violence, war, and conquest. Moses and Joshua: who’s the more fortunate?

On the evening of April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a rally at the Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He concluded:

I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.

And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

And so I’m happy, tonight.

I’m not worried about anything.

I’m not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

Jesse Jackson said that King had a “mysterious aura around him” that night, preaching with an intensity that made grown men in the audience weep.

The next evening, at 6:01, standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, King was struck by a rifle-shot to the neck and jaw. Andrew Young could feel only a faint pulse in his friend’s body: “You’re going to heaven and leaving us in hell. How are we going to get along without you? We were barely making it with you.” “My friend, my friend,” cried Ralph Abernathy, “don’t leave us now.” At 7:05, at St. Joseph’s Hospital nearby, King was pronounced dead.

King didn’t reach the Promised Land; he died with his dream unfulfilled. What has happened in our nation in the decades since, and where are we now?

The story of Moses concludes in silence: neither God nor Moses speaks. I can imagine a different ending: God forgives Moses and urges him forward, “There it is, waiting for you, the Promised Land,” and Moses replies, “No, Lord, I prefer to die here.”

William E. Cain is Mary Jewett Gaiser Professor of English at Wellesley College, where he enjoys teaching courses on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other American writers. His recent publications include essays on Edith Wharton and Ernest Hemingway.

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