At 120 years of age, Moses bid his people farewell. In his last address — embodied in the book of Deuteronomy — he reviewed the soul-focusing, mind-elevating statutes and ordinances of "the Law."
It would be called the Law of Moses, but it was designed and given by the great and wise Jehovah, the God who knew just how to prepare this swelling, balky clan for the time when he himself would come among them.
Moses mingled his final address with pleas and urgings, prophecies and warnings, promises and blessings. He then made his way up to the heights of Mount Nebo. From there, he beheld the sprawling encampment of Israel's 12 tribes — each tribe itself now large enough to be considered a small nation.
The worn and aged prophet had loved and lifted and led his people during 40 years, beginning at age 80. He had not let them settle permanently in any one place. He had moved them from time to time, across sun-blistered wastelands touching northern Africa, western Asia and southern Europe.
The people of Israel were now ready, more or less, to make their abode in the destination that had never been very far away during their wanderings. That destination was Canaan, the region that had centuries before been purchased, reserved and staked out for this very purpose by Father Abraham. It was a covenant land — a land for covenant-making, covenant-keeping people.
From Nebo's crest, Moses could see where Israel now was — on the east side of the River Jordan, at the place where its precious waters empty into the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on the earth, the staging place from which Israel would move into Canaan.
He could also look west, beyond Jordan, and see the places that awaited them. He could see Jericho, and beyond that city the desert that would be called Judea. He could even see, if the air were as clear as it usually is, the hills around the site of future Jerusalem and its future temple.
Moses, the gatherer of God's people, would presently be translated. He would, in that special condition, continue to hold the grand priesthood keys for gathering. He would yet confer those keys on leaders of future dispensations. This seer would yet see, and oversee, events both tragic and triumphant in the long, intricate business of welding a people together for the presence of God.
Meanwhile, down there among the mortals Moses left behind, there presided another prophet: Joshua. This new seer would guide Israel's 12 mini-nations across Jordan into Canaan.
Canaan was then occupied by what we might call "squatters," people who had taken over Abraham's real estate but had thoroughly rejected the standards and goodness, the culture and religion designated for that property. So, beginning with Jericho, Joshua would lead Israel in a lengthy, solemn and sacred labor to restore the covenant land to its covenant status. From the lowest place on earth, Joshua would start Israel upward to where Israel belonged.
The name of this new prophet, who would invite Israelites to take their next step upward, was then pronounced "Yoshua." It would, over the centuries, come to be pronounced "Yeshua." The modern, anglicized version of that same name is very familiar to us: "Jesus."
It is no accident that this other "Joshua" would later launch an even more sacred campaign of elevation, restoration and setting things right.
From Jordan's waters he would go into the cities of Abraham's seed, lifting, loving, offering to save. That new Joshua — our own beloved Jesus — then and now leads upward from where Moses left off.
Wayne E. Brickey, who lives in Gallatin, Mo., is a retired Church Educational System teacher and curriculum writer and has been a tour guide to Holy Land and Mormon history sites.