All this was a good and a glorious thing beyond what had been promised. But was it also beyond what had been lost and forfeited? Yes, far indeed beyond it. The land which he had lost, through his own pride and naughtiness of heart, was now found to be his footstool, while he himself was in company with Him who is to sit on the throne of it forever.
Wonderful moment of divine joy! Moses has entered into nothing less than ‘the joy of his Lord.’-Does it satisfy him? In the brightness of it, can he forget all other delights? Was Peter satisfied? Had that hour on the hill, power to fix the desires of Peter’s heart? We know it had. “Master, it is good for us to be here,” tells us so. And yet as we have seen, this was a still more wondrous moment for a child of dust. The difference of the two occasions was far in the favor of Moses. And we may surely conclude that he was satisfied, that he also was able to say, with still more compass of heart, “It is good for me to be here.” Could he exchange the throne for the footstool? Could he pass from this to that? Could he descend to earth again? No. He was “with the Lord.” He had already, as a heavenly man, met Him “in the air.” In the spirit of his present place, he was already “caught up.” He could not descend even to Goshen, or Canaan, or the most honored spot on earth. Nor does he. The Lord gives him rest-and his rest is glorious. The Lord Himself puts him to sleep, and buries him as in sure and certain hope of the better resurrection.
And accordingly, when next we see him, it is as one of the heavenly family, glorified with the Lord Himself and Elijah (Matt. 17). On that New Testament Pisgah, he shines as a child of the resurrection. The vile body has been laid down, the body like unto Christ’s glorious body has been taken up. He bears “the image of the heavenly” there-as on the true hill of glory, it will be borne by all whose conversation is now in heaven.