“At that time I pleaded with the Lord: ‘Sovereign Lord, you have begun to show to your servant your greatness and your strong hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? Let me go over and see the good land beyond the Jordan—that fine hill country and Lebanon.’ But because of you the Lord was angry with me and would not listen to me. ‘That is enough,’ the Lord said. ‘Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.‘”-Deuteronomy 3:23-26
From verse 26, Moses passionately begs God that if it be at all possible to somehow reverse the harsh decision He had made earlier concerning Him not being able to enter into the Promised Land.
Remember Moses was judged right along with the 1st generation of Exodus who were barred from entering Canaan.
In the midst of this harsh judgement however, God had been kind to Moses.
He had allowed Moses to lead Israel in the conquering of the Trans-Jordan region.
And He would also allow him to see the Chosen Land from a distance.
Yet when it came to the matter of actually entering into the Promised Land, God’s answer was a firm NO.
I can really feel Moses’ pain here.
I can see him trying hard to find some reason why he should be pardoned from this tough sentence.
Referring to the general leadership, Moses keeps going on about how it was the people of Israel that provoked him and caused him to sin in such a rash way that it resulted in him being barred from the Promised Land.
Unfortunately, HASHEM would not change His mind.
He even goes so far as to tell Moses “Never speak to Me about this matter again“.
The bottom line was that those who sinned in the Wilderness were going to die in the wilderness.
And nobody was going to be exempt from that decision, including God’s chosen earthly mediator to Israel, Moses.
This is important to understand.
Even though Moses had been given a special dispensation and even though he had been assigned the highest position by HASHEM Himself, Moses would still have to pay for his own sin.
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