or

"

desires to imprint his instructions and warnings on the minds of the people whom he is leaving. Moses, deeply anxious for his nation and impressed strongly with the feeling that after his death they would fall away from God and "utterly corrupt themselves," composed in the few days that remained to him, and recited in the ears of the congregation, two splendid psalms songs"-one a song of warning," addressed to the people collectively, and the other a "song of blessing," addressed (in the main) to the twelve tribes severally, "correspondent and supplementary to each other,"1 setting before the people "Life and "Death "-the glorious future which awaited them if they would be faithful to God and set themselves earnestly to the accomplishment of their national mission, and the terrible judgments that would fall upon them if they, as he anticipated, should apostatize, despite God's mercies to them, and provoke the vengeance with which God was bound to visit such apostasy. The poems are too long to be inserted here in their entirety; but a specimen may be given from each, which will sufficiently indicate their style and general character:

"Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked

Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art become sleek:
Then he forsook the God which made him,

And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

They moved Him to jealousy with strange gods,
With abominations provoked they Him to anger;
They sacrificed unto demons, which were no gods,
To gods whom before they knew not;

To new gods that came newly up

Gods, whom your fathers feared not.

Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful,

And hast forgotten the God that gave thee birth;
And when the Lord saw it, He abhorred them,

For the provoking of His sons and of His daughters:
And He said, I will hide My face from them-

I will see what their end shall be ;

For they are a very froward generation,

Children in whom there is no faith.

They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God;

They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities;

And I will move them to jealousy with those that are not a people
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

For a fire is kindled in mine anger,

"Speaker's Commentary," vol. i. part ii. p. 920.

And burneth unto the lowest hell,

And devoureth the earth, with her increase,

And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

I will heap mischiefs upon them;

I will spend Mine arrows upon them;

They shall be wasted with hunger,

And devoured with burning heat,

And with bitter destruction;

And the teeth of beasts will I send upon them,

With the poison of crawling things of the dust.
Without shall the sword bereave,

And in the chambers terror;

It shall destroy both young man and maid,
The suckling with the man of grey hairs.

I said, I would scatter them afar ;

I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among

men;

Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,

Lest their adversaries should misunderstand

Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted,

And the Lord hath not done all this." I

The "Song of Blessing" has a prologue and an epilogue of a general character, the "Blessing" proper being the following:

Let Reuben live, and not die;
And let not his men be few.

And this is the blessing of Judah-He said,

Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah,

And bring him unto his people;

Let his hands be sufficient for him,

And be Thou a help to him from his enemies.

And of Levi he said

Thy Thummim and thy Urim are with thy godly one,
Whom thou didst prove at Massah,

With whom thou strovest at the waters of Meribah;
Who said of his father and mother, I have not seen him;
Neither did he acknowledge his brethren ;

Nor knew he his own children:

For they have observed thy word,
And they have kept thy covenant.

They shall teach Jacob thy judgments,

And Israel shall they teach thy law:

They shall put incense before thee,

And whole burnt offerings upon thine altar.
Bless Thou, Lord, his substance;

■ Deut. xxxii. 15-27.

And accept the work of his hands:

Smite through the loins of them that rise against him,
And of them that hate him, that they rise not again.

Of Benjamin he said

The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him; And He (i.e., the Lord) shall cover him all the day long; And he (i.e., Benjamin) shall dwell between His shoulders. And of Joseph he said—

Blessed of the Lord be his land,

For the precious things of heaven, for the dew,

And for the deep that coucheth beneath,

And for the precious things of the fruits of the sun,

And for the precious things of the growth of the moons,
And for the chief things of the ancient mountains,

And for the precious things of the lasting hills,

And for the precious things of the earth and its fulness,

And for the good will of him that dwelt in the bush :

Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph,

And on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren.

His firstling bullock is his glory;

And his horns are the horns of the wild ox;

With them shall he push all the people to the ends of the earth •
And they are the ten thousands of Ephraim,

And they are the thousands of Manasseh.

And of Zebulun he said :

Rejoice, Zebulun, in thy going out;

And Issachar, rejoice in thy tents.

They shall call the people unto the mountain;
There shall they offer sacrifices of righteousness;
For they shall suck of the abundance of the seas,
And of treasures hid in the sand.

And of Gad he said :

Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad:

He dwelleth as a lioness,

And teareth the arm, yea, the crown of the head.
And he selected the first part for himself,

Because for him was reserved the leader's portion:
And he came, together with the heads of the people
He executed the justice of the Lord,

And his judgments, together with Israel.

And of Dan he said :

Dan is a lion's whelp,

That leapeth forth from Bashan.

And of Naphtali he said :

O Naphtali, satisfied with favour,

And full with the blessing of the Lord,
Possess thou the sea and the south.

And of Asher he said :

Blessed be Asher with children;

Let him be favoured among his brethren;
And let him dip his foot in oil.

Thy bars shall be iron and brass;
And as thy days, so shall thy strength be."
• Deut. xxxiii.

CHAPTER XVI.

MOSES' DEATH.

The ascent of Pisgah-The view from it-Hebrew legend of the circumstances of Moses' death-Actual circumstances unknown-Place of sepulture unknown-Chief characteristics of Moses-His faithful service of God-His "meekness"-His trust in God-His unselfishnessConclusion.

Two things only now remained for Moses to do-to satisfy his soul with the fullest sight of the Promised Land that was possible for him under the circumstances, and to die. He might not go over Jordan, but he might feast his eyes, and comfort his heart, with a long, rapt, earnest gaze upon that goodly land to which he had brought his people, and which he knew to be their sure inheritance. He might "lift up his eyes," and look "westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward," and behold "the good land that was beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon " (Deut. iii. 25, 27). So much had been granted him, and he had been bidden to ascend into the top of Pisgah, and thence contemplate the wondrous, the unequalled, prospect. It is to be remembered that though aged a hundred and twenty years, he was in no way infirm; "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated" (Deut. xxxiv. 7). He was able, therefore, without any extreme fatigue or exhaustion, to mount from the low plain of Jordan, where the host lay encamped, from ridge to ridge, and from terrace to terrace, up the rocky range of Moab, to the "high places" dedicated to Baal on the top of the rocks, to the bare hill close above it-the cultivated field of the watchmen (Zophim) on the top of Pisgah-to the peak where