Deuteronomy 3:23-26

Denial to Moses of the Promised Land

3:23 Moreover, at that time I pleaded with the Lord, 3:24 “O, Lord God, ¹  you have begun to show me ²  your greatness and strength. ³  (What god in heaven or earth can rival your works and mighty deeds?) 3:25 Let me please cross over to see the good land on the other side of the Jordan River – this good hill country and the Lebanon!” ⁴  3:26 But the Lord was angry at me because of you and would not listen to me. Instead, he ⁵  said to me, “Enough of that! ⁶  Do not speak to me anymore about this matter.

Deuteronomy 4:21

4:21 But the Lord became angry with me because of you and vowed that I would never cross the Jordan nor enter the good land that he ⁷  is about to give you. ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 34:4

34:4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ⁹  I have let you see it, ¹⁰  but you will not cross over there.”

Numbers 20:12

The Lord’s Judgment

20:12 Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough ¹¹  to show me as holy ¹²  before ¹³  the Israelites, therefore you will not bring this community into the land I have given them.” ¹⁴ 

Numbers 27:13-14

27:13 When you have seen it, you will be gathered ¹⁵  to your ancestors, ¹⁶  as Aaron your brother was gathered to his ancestors. ¹⁷  27:14 For ¹⁸  in the wilderness of Zin when the community rebelled against me, you ¹⁹  rebelled against my command ²⁰  to show me as holy ²¹  before their eyes over the water – the water of Meribah in Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin.”

Psalms 106:32-33

106:32 They made him angry by the waters of Meribah,

and Moses suffered ²²  because of them,

106:33 for they aroused ²³  his temper, ²⁴ 

and he spoke rashly. ²⁵ 

[3:24]  ¹ tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (’adonay yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.” Cf. NIV, TEV, NLT “Sovereign Lord.”

[3:24]  ² tn Heb “your servant.” The pronoun is used in the translation to clarify that Moses is speaking of himself, since in contemporary English one does not usually refer to oneself in third person.

[3:24]  ³ tn Heb “your strong hand” (so NIV), a symbol of God’s activity.

[3:25]  ⁴ tn The article is retained in the translation (“the Lebanon,” cf. also NAB, NRSV) to indicate that a region (rather than the modern country of Lebanon) is referred to here. Other recent English versions accomplish this by supplying “mountains” after “Lebanon” (TEV, CEV, NLT).

[3:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord.” For stylistic reasons the pronoun (“he”) has been used in the translation here.

[3:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “much to you” (an idiom).

[4:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” See note on “he” in 4:3.

[4:21]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text includes “(as) an inheritance,” or “(as) a possession.”

[34:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[34:4]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text includes “with your eyes,” but this is redundant in English and is left untranslated.

[20:12]  ¹¹ tn Or “to sanctify me.”

[20:12]  ¹² sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[20:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “in the eyes of.”

[20:12]  ¹⁴ tn There is debate as to exactly what the sin of Moses was. Some interpreters think that the real sin might have been that he refused to do this at first, but that fact has been suppressed from the text. Some think the text was deliberately vague to explain why they could not enter the land without demeaning them. Others simply, and more likely, note that in Moses there was unbelief, pride, anger, impatience – disobedience.

[27:13]  ¹⁵ tn The first verb is a perfect tense with a vav (ו) consecutive, and the second verb is also. In such parallel clauses, the first may be subordinated, here as a temporal clause.

[27:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “people.”

[27:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “was gathered.” The phrase “to his ancestors” is elided in the Hebrew text, but is an implied repetition from the beginning of the verse, and has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[27:14]  ¹⁸ tn The preposition on the relative pronoun has the force of “because of the fact that.”

[27:14]  ¹⁹ tn The verb is the second masculine plural form.

[27:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “mouth.”

[27:14]  ²¹ sn Using the basic meaning of the word קָדַשׁ (qadash, “to be separate, distinct, set apart”), we can understand better what Moses failed to do. He was supposed to have acted in a way that would have shown God to be distinct, different, holy. Instead, he gave the impression that God was capricious and hostile – very human. The leader has to be aware of what image he is conveying to the people.

[106:32]  ²² tn Heb “there was harm to Moses.”

[106:33]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text vocalizes the form as הִמְרוּ (himru), a Hiphil from מָרָה (marah, “to behave rebelliously”), but the verb fits better with the object (“his spirit”) if it is revocalized as הֵמֵרוּ (hemeru), a Hiphil from מָרַר (marar, “to be bitter”). The Israelites “embittered” Moses’ “spirit” in the sense that they aroused his temper with their complaints.

[106:33]  ²⁴ tn Heb “his spirit.”

[106:33]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew text adds “with his lips,” but this has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.