Unique Burial
His life was unutterably grand, his burial must be on the same scale. God would let neither man nor saint nor archangel have anything to do with weaving for him a shroud or digging for him a grave. The omnipotent God left His throne in heaven one day, and if the question was asked, “Whither is the King of the Universe going?” the answer was, “I am going down to bury Moses.” And the Lord took this mightiest of men to the top of a hill, and the day was clear, and Moses ran his eye over the magnificent range of country. Here, the valley of Esdraelon, where the final battle of all nations is to be fought; and yonder, the mountains Hermon, and Lebanon, and Gerizim, and hills of Judea; and the village of Bethlehem there, and the city of Jericho yonder, and the vast stretch of landscape that almost took the old lawgiver’s breath away as he looked at it.
And then, without a pang, as I learn from the statement that the eye of Moses was undimmed, and his natural force unabated, God touched the great lawgiver’s eyes and they closed; and his lungs, and they ceased; and his heart, and it stopped; and commanded, saying: “To the skies, thou immortal spirit!” And then one divine hand was put against the back of Moses, and the other hand against the pulseless breast and God laid him softly down on Mount Nebo, and then the lawgiver lifted in the Almighty’s arms, was carried to the opening of a cave and placed in crypt, and one stroke of the divine hand smoothed the features into an everlasting calm, and a rock was rolled to the door, and the only obsequies at which God did all the offices of priest, and undertaker, and grave-digger, and mourner were ended.