Introduction

‘This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death’ (Deuteronomy 33:1)

This month we start a new series in Deuteronomy chapter 33.   We’ll be looking at the last words of Moses to the Israelites and what they teach us as Churches and Christians today.

When I left the Church where I had my first Pastorate I finished my last leaflet to the community with a goodbye.  I wrote what would be considered the usual thing you say.  I said it has been a privilege to serve them as a community and I would miss meeting and talking to them, particularly on the street where I used to do open-air work with the poster board and free literature.  But I then ended with the thing I wanted to say most of all.  ‘Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near’ (Isaiah 55:6).  Last words are important, and I did not want to waste mine to people I was unlikely to see again.  In Deuteronomy chapter 33 we find Moses in a similar situation.  These are the last recorded words of Moses in Scripture.  So he chooses them carefully so he can encourage the people for the work ahead of them as they go into the Promised Land, but also with warnings concerning their future in the land.  That being the case, these are very important words!

Moses addresses the Israelites in two capacities.  Firstly, he addresses them as the Lord’s Prophet.  Verse 1 refers to Moses as: ‘the man of God’ for this very reason.  Moses had literally been the voice of God to the people, in that he had conveyed the Lord’s Word to them and acted as an intercessor for them all the days of their wilderness wanderings (see 5:23-27). But he conveys his last words to them by looking back and summarising the Lord’s attitude in the past, particularly when they were at Mount Sinai, before looking forward to when they settle the land.

Secondly, he addresses them in his pastoral role.  Just as a good Pastor would make the effort to get to know his congregations strengths and weaknesses, so he might pastor them effectively, Moses shows he has a good knowledge of the people he has led as he highlights their particular strengths and weaknesses.  This has similarities to the way Jacob addresses his sons in Genesis 49 just before his death.  So, in this sense; Moses is also addressing them in a fatherly role.  Meredith Kline comments that: ‘in the ancient Near East a dying father’s final blessings spoken to his sons were an irrevocable legal testament, acceptable as decisive evidence in court disputes.’[1]  So this stresses the importance with which the Israelites would have regarded these last words of Moses.

It’s worth noting that all commentators stress that there are difficulties with this chapter due to translation issues and the poetic nature of the text.  But we will try and unravel these as we work through it over the next few months.

[1] Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King, The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy: Studies and Commentary (Eugene WIPF and Stock Publishers, 1963) 44.