Deuteronomy 31
Moses is now 120 years old, he seems to have matured quite well since he first appeared in Exodus, after 4 decades of leading the fledgling nation Moses is ready to die.
Moses successor Joshua is here given the duty of leading Israel and is told twice to be strong and courageous as he is given the responsibility.
Moses instructs that the law be read to all the people every 7th year so that they will not forget what their obligations are.
Moses and Joshua meet at the tent of meeting with God, during the meeting, God tells Moses he is about to die, Joshua should be strong and courageous, but the people of Israel will anger God by turning from his law, worshipping other gods,
Deuteronomy 32
God inspired Moses to write a song about God and his relationship with his chosen people.
It is worth a read, I'm not going to comment further - read it.
Read it as poetry if you will after all that is how it was meant
Deuteronomy 33
If you cast your mind back to the end of the book of Genesis - Jacob (The original Israel) gave his verdict and blessing on his sons.
Now Moses does the same - it is interestingly slightly more positive now than it was some 400 years earlier!
The blessings can be summarised as follows (read it if you want the full story)
Reuben - let him live and never let his people be few
Judah - Let God listen to the cry of Judah who defends his own cause
Levi - God has given Levi the holy office of priest - his teachings are blessed and he does not hold his relatives as more important than God.
Benjamin - Can rest loved by God who is his shield
Joseph - Is blessed with the best land that can be found and blessed by God
Zebulun - Blessed in his going out
Issachar - in his tents
Gad - Lives like a lion
Dan - like a lions cub
Naphtali - Full of Gods blessing and abounding with the favour of God
Asher - Good, solid architecture
Deuteronomy 34
Moses finally dies - in the land of Moab, he never actually crossed the border into the promised land.
God buried Moses himself, and Joshua takes over as leader.
Some critics of the Bible will point to verses 10 and 11 - if Moses wrote these books of the Bible, don't you think that the last bit is rather taking the biscuit?
I suspect that a later scribe put these 2 verses at the end of these 5 books of the Bible to round things off nicely
Having reached the end of the law, we move on to the promised land.
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