Today we begin Deuteronomy Chapter 31.
For the Complete Jewish Bible, click here.
For the King James version, click here.
“And Moses went and spake these words unto all Israel. And he said unto them, I am an hundred and twenty years old this day; I can no more go out and come in: also the Lord hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan.”-Deuteronomy 31:1-2
Alrighty!
Today we finally exit the 4-chapter section of mystery and intrigue in the Torah and now enter into the final 4 chapters of Deuteronomy.
This is the final stretch folks!
These last 4 chapters are essentially an epilogue to the entire Torah and deal with the leadership transition from Moses to Joshua.
And of course, we will also be focusing on Moses’ last days on earth.
In the opening verses of this chapter, he announces that his time will soon be coming to an end and that Joshua will next become the new God-ordained leader of all of Israel after Moses passes away on top of Mount Nebo in Moab.
Let’s take a look at a couple of interesting points.
First, notice Moses says he has now reached the advanced age of 120 years old and because of this he can no longer…
…”go out and come in”.
A lot of Bible translators make the mistake of translating this to mean that Moses is now tired and feeble and is having difficulty getting around at this final stage of his life.
As I said before, the phrase to “go out and come in” is a purely military term.
It is simply referring to an army preparing for war, going out and fighting and then coming back…hopefully victorious.
Moses is NOT saying he is too old or lacking in physical capacity to fight a battle here.
No, he’s saying that because HASHEM has banned him from crossing over the Jordan River into the Promised Land, his time was up and now the new leader Joshua would be the one leading the Israelites across the Jordan River into Canaan.
Next, let’s talk about Moses’ being 120 years old.
The first thing is…
…isn’t it amazing that Moses reached the age of 120 years minus becoming infirm or feeble?
In those days, due to disease and war, the average life span was only around 30 years.
However, we also have records from other ancient Middle Eastern societies that show it was not unusual for some gentiles to live to be up to 110 or even up to 140 years old.
But the fact that Moses lived to be EXACTLY 120 years and the Scripture goes out of its way to point this out is fascinating because of this verse back from the Book of Genesis:
ADONAI said,
“My Spirit will not live in human beings forever,
for they too are flesh;
therefore their life span is to be 120 years.”
-Genesis 6:3
In other words, Moses lived up to the ideal and God-ordained life span!
He was a blessed man indeed even if he wouldn’t be entering into the Promised Land.
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