The Body of Moses

April 3, 2009

Today's Reading: Deuteronomy 33-34 and Proverbs 26

It would appear that we are at the end of the five books of Moses, and it chronicles his death. Something tells me the last part of this was probably ghost written.

Seriously, though, there is some interesting stuff to note when Moses reached the end of his life. It wasn’t like he died, and a mortician or coroner had a look at the body, pronounced him dead, and he went to the funeral home and then the graveyard. No, God took care of all that.

I always wondered why it played out that way. Why did God hide away the body of Moses? Was He afraid that the body would be mobbed, like at the funeral of the Ayatollah Khomeini? That was some weird stuff.

As far as we know, Moses still lies resting in some unmarked grave somewhere. Imagine what would happen if it were dug up today. Maybe somebody would be trying to build a shopping mall at Sinai, and they uncover this body. I’ve heard that if a body is found during a construction site, then the historical society can declare it a national site, and construction grinds to a halt after that. I imagine a lot of tycoons have lost money that way.

Still, if we found the body of Moses, how would we know that it was Moses? It’s not like we have a picture of him or anything. For all we know, Moses didn’t have that great full beard and hair that we see in the artistic interpretations of him. We also don’t have any DNA method of Identification. Maybe if that “God Rod” was buried with him, there might some sort of indicator.

In short, if Moses’ body was found, it would be seen as just an ordinary skeleton, just like if someone unburied our bones after a few thousand years. Now, I’ve heard that when a dead man fell on Elisha’s bones, he was raised from the dead. I suppose this is a best case scenario for a dead body of a Holy man.

It is a real shame that there isn’t a tomb or something that we can visit for Moses, like there is for Lenin. Then again, it really is just a dead body. Not much more can be done with it, honestly.

Still, if Moses had a grave marker, it would have said a mouthful about how great he is, or was. It is a reminder about what we do in life matters, but after we die, who cares about the body?