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In Deuteronomy 34, Moses is buried in a place no one knows. The Testament of Moses tries to explain why, when Joshua asks before Moses dies what place could hold his body and answers that the whole world is his grave.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 34:6
Hebrew Bible
5 So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab near Beth Peor, but no one knows his exact burial place to this very day. 7 Moses was 120 years old when he died, but his eye was not dull nor had his vitality departed. 8 The Israelites mourned for Moses in the rift valley plains of Moab for thirty days; then the days of mourning for Moses ended.
Testament of Moses 11:8
Assumption of Moses
Pseudepigrapha, Testaments
'Why do you comfort me, (my) lord Moses? And how shall I be comforted in regard to the bitter word which you have spoken which has gone out from your mouth, which is full of tears and lamentation, in that you depart from this people? (But now) what place shall receive you? Or what shall be the sign that marks (your) sepulcher? Or who shall dare to move your body from there as that of a mere man from place to place? For all men when they die have according to their age their sepulchers on earth; but your sepulcher is from the rising to the setting sun, and from the south to the confines of the north: all the world is your sepulcher.
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Notes and References
“... In As. Mos. 11:1-19, Joshua is described as reacting to Moses' prophecy in despair (11:1-4). In a long list of questions he expresses his fear of a future without Moses. This passage forms an expansion of the basic pattern of the testament genre. In most other examples of the genre, the testator delivers his speech uninterruptedly and dies. A statement concerning his death may be followed by a note on the bereaved lamenting the deceased or taking care of his funeral. [...] The questions Joshua asks can be divided into three sections. In the first set of questions (11:5-8), the problem of Moses' burial is addressed: no human being, it is said, is worthy of burying Moses, and no memorial matching Moses' glory can be made. This problem emerges from the biblical passage on Moses' burial site, which is said to be unknown (Deut. 34:6), and was probably addressed in the ending of As. Mos., which in all likelihood related the burial of Moses by angels (see the commentary on the lost ending). ...”
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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