The Death of Moses

The Death of Moses

When the saga of Moses comes to an end with the prophet's death, the

narrative voice in Deuteronomy 34:9-11 states: "Since then no prophet has

risen in Israel like Moses whom the LORD knew face to face." Were the

prophets that came after Moses equal to his stature? In determining the

answer to this question, by researching this topic I will discuss and look

at the entirety of Moses' life as recorded in the Scripture. There are

certainly many unique aspects of Moses' life that were not duplicated

in the lives of any of the subsequent prophets.

For example, Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince. There is noting in the Bible to indicate that he knew of his Israelite heritage until

adulthood. True, his own mother was recruited by the Egyptian princess to

nurse him through infancy, but there is little to suggest that Moses

would have retained any memory or inclination of his heritage from this

period (Neufeld, 1993). Yet, despite his acculturation as an Egyptian, he

was able to not only accept, but rejoice in his relationship to the

Israelite slaves of Egypt. This is certainly a unique characteristic of

Moses' life that was not duplicated.

Furthermore, no other prophet, save Moses, had the experience of

meeting God "face to face" as Moses did on Mt. Sinai with the burning bush.

However, the Bible does clearly indicate that other prophets "spoke" to

God and received guidance in their own way. As this suggests, it is

also possible to argue that there were prophets after Moses equal to him

in their relationship to God. This stance is supported, somewhat, in the

biblical verses that describe how Moses felt on this topic of shared

responsibility for leading the people.

These verses describe how two men in the Hebrew camp, Eldad and Medad,

felt that the spirit of God came upon them and they began to prophesize

within the camp. A young man ran and told Moses what these two men were

doing. Joshua, son of Nun and minister to Moses reacted quickly and

implored Moses to forbid the men from doing this. However, Moses said to

him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were

prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them." After which,

Moses and the elders of Israel