My mom let me borrow their old VHS version of The Ten Commandments and the other night we finally finished watching it. It’s pretty long so we would watch parts of it here and there. There’s bits and pieces of creative elaboration to the Biblical story. But its a great movie. After we watched it I really wanted to read about Moses life. It is so interesting to start in Exodus 1:1 and just read through about Moses being born and put in a basket and onto the river. People always act like the story of Moses is just a nice little children’s Sunday school lesson, but it is an amazing story of God using one man to accomplish huge things.

At the end of the the movie Moses is looking out at the people before he walks up the mountain and makes a grandiose pose with his arms stretched wide. He makes a brief mention about not being able to continue with the people because “The Lord was angry with me because I disobeyed him by the waters of strife…”

So I looked it up in Numbers 20 to read the whole story. God did not let Moses enter the promised land because when the Israelites were in Kadesh there was no water and God told Moses to speak to the rock and water would come out of it for the people. But Moses was angry with the people for complaining and instead he struck the rock with his staff. For this sin of disbelief and disobedience, God did not allow Moses to go to the very land he had led the people to.

The end of Deuteronomy, chapter 34, tells of Moses’ death. It says,

“So Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day. Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died. His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor diminished…But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord new face to face, in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh before all his servants, and in all his land, and by all that mighty power and all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”

The story of Moses is so amazing to me. He was the greatest prophet and the Lord had an intimate relationship with him and used Moses as a instrument of His power. The above passage tells us that God buried Moses body. God wanted Moses to be buried in a secret place that no man would know. Jude 9 says the most interesting thing about this–”But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’” Maybe Satan wanted to use Moses’ body in some way to distract the Israelites from following God.

If you haven’t seen the Ten Commandments, it is definitely worth watching. But even if you don’t watch it, read through Exodus, it’s so encouraging to see God’s work and realize the same God is working in our own lives today. That is exciting!