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Moses' eleventh speech, Part 12, From Moses to Joshua

At the end of Deuteronomy 30, Moses concludes his teaching in regard to the New Covenant itself. This is made clear by Eleazar’s insertions in Deuteronomy 31:1, 7, 9, and 10, which give short introductions to Moses’ next words. The eleventh speech continues until Deuteronomy 31:13, but the only other reference to the New Covenant that Moses makes is in verses 10-13, where he ends with a final admonition to keep the feast of Tabernacles, or “booths.”

Eleazar’s introduction is found in Deuteronomy 31:1,

¹ So Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. ² and he said to them…

Ferrar Fenton renders this verse:

¹ Then Moses proceeded to conclude his speeches to all Israel, ² and said to them:

The words of Moses are then recorded by Eleazar, the priestly scribe,

² … I am a hundred and twenty years old today; I am no longer able to come and go, and the Lord has said to me, “You shall not cross this Jordan.”

We learn here that Moses was 120 years old when he died. His life was divided into three periods of forty years each, which was prophetic of Kingdom history. Moses spent his first forty years in Egypt with no particular awareness of his calling. Then when he was forty, he fled to the land of Midian (Exodus 2:15), where God trained him for the next forty years. Then Moses returned to Egypt and led Israel into the wilderness, where they remained for another forty years until Moses died at the age of 120.

Each year of Moses’ life represented one Jubilee cycle (49 years) in the history of God’s Kingdom. The first forty Jubilees (49 x 40 = 1,960 years) bring us from Adam to Abraham. Abraham was born in the year 1948 from Adam, according to Bible chronology. (See Secrets of Time, chapter 2.)

Everything changed when God called Abraham to leave his kindred and go into a land that God would show him. In like manner, at the age of forty, God called Moses to go out of Egypt into an unknown land. Just as Moses was trained by God forty years, so also God trained the seed of Abraham forty Jubilees until the time of Christ.

Moses returned at the age of 80 to begin his calling. So also the 80^th Jubilee from Adam was the year 26 A.D., and three years later Jesus was baptized by John at the Jordan River to begin His ministry.

Even as Moses led Israel out of the house of bondage at Passover, so also did Jesus lead us out of the house of bondage (sin) when He became the Passover Lamb in 33 A.D. (See Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.) The seven-year period from 26-33 A.D. was the seventieth “week” of Daniel 9:24.

Then, even as Moses led Israel in the wilderness forty years before turning over the government of the Kingdom to Joshua the Ephraimite, so also did Jesus Christ act as a prophetic type of Moses forty years while the church wandered in the wilderness until the present time. The 120^th Jubilee was to be declared October 13, 1986, and the Year of Jubilee extended until October 3, 1987, which was the next Day of Atonement. We are now in the middle of the 121^st Jubilee from Adam. By the end of this Jubilee cycle, ending in 2035-2036 it would seem that our own Joshua (Yeshua-Jesus) ought to manifest Himself in His Ephraimite calling (that is, Joseph) to lead us into the next phase of Kingdom history.

The fact that Moses mentioned his age at the close of his New Covenant speech suggests that his words pointed toward our own time in the latter days. As we will see later, Moses was about to give the reins of government to Joshua, who represents Yeshua-Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant. Joshua was Moses’ right-hand man, and he was ever present throughout Israel’s wilderness journey, but he did not take the lead until that journey ended at the shores of the Jordan River.

So also, Jesus has been present with the church throughout its wilderness journey, but something new is soon to take place. When Jesus came the first time, He came through the tribe of Judah. He was Yeshua the Judahite, which was necessary to claim His throne rights from King David. However, to lead us into the Promised Land, He must manifest Himself as Yeshua the Ephraimite, of the house of Joseph.

This is prophesied in Revelation 19:13, “And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood.” This refers to Joseph, whose robe was dipped in blood in Genesis 37:31. It identifies Him with Joshua the Ephraimite, for Ephraim was the son of Joseph who received the birthright (Genesis 48:20) after the sign of the cross was placed upon him (Genesis 48:13-19).

Scripture teaches that the purpose of the two comings of Christ differ in purpose. The first coming was to secure the throne rights of King David, who was of Judah. The purpose of the second coming is to secure the birthright of Joseph, thus reuniting the two “sticks” (callings) of Judah and Joseph and repairing the breach between Judah and Israel. See The Laws of the Second Coming.

Getting back to Moses’ speech, we see that God had told him, “You shall not cross this Jordan.” Later we are told that the surface reason was that Moses struck the rock when he should have spoken to it (Deuteronomy 32:51). But in the larger prophetic picture, God had determined that Moses was to be a type of Christ in the Exodus covenant, leading Israel out of Egypt at Passover, while Joshua was to be a type of Christ in the Deuteronomy covenant, leading Israel into the Promised Land.

Moses, being a type of Christ under the Old Covenant, could lead Israel all the way to the Promised Land, but could not cross the Jordan. Why? The Old Covenant depended upon the ability of the people to hear and obey the law of God, and even Moses could not satisfy that requirement. A fresh covenant was needed, along with a fresh leader who represented the New Covenant. This covenant, as we have already seen, depended only on the oath of God, as He promised to change the hearts of the people so that they could inherit the promises of God.

The Israelites who crossed the Jordan under Joshua were still imperfect, of course, for they lived in Old Covenant times. Yet the nation served also as a prophetic type of a future time, when the true Israel of God—the overcomers—would enter and inherit the Kingdom under a New Covenant.

Moses continues in Deuteronomy 31:3,

³ It is the Lord your God who will cross ahead of you; He will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the Lord has spoken.

Here Moses gives us a remarkable prophecy that identifies who Jesus Christ is. He equates “the Lord your God” (Yahweh Elohim) with Joshua. The prophetic wording shows that Jesus Christ was Yahweh Elohim prior to His physical incarnation on earth. This is prophesied many times in Scripture, most notably in two places. A literal rendering of Exodus 15:2 reads,

² Yahweh is my strength and song, and He has become my Yeshua; this is my God, and I will praise Him; My father’s God, and I will extol Him.

The prophet Isaiah refers to this later, saying in Isaiah 12:2, 3,

² Behold, God is my Yeshua, I will trust and not be afraid; for Yah Yahweh is my strength and song, and He has become my Yeshua. ³ Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs [or wells] of Yeshua.

In John 7:37 Jesus issued a call to those who were thirsty, telling them to come to Him to drink from the water of life. It was a call to “draw water from the springs of Yeshua.” Further, He said that those who believe in Him—that is, those who are part of His body—would also be wells from which rivers of living water would flow out to the people. All of this shows that Jesus understood that where Yeshua (“salvation”) is mentioned in the law and the prophets, it referred prophetically to Himself.

And so, Moses treats Joshua (Yeshua) as if he were Yahweh Elohim. He may have prophesied unknowingly, but it is also possible that God revealed this messianic truth to Moses when he wrote the song in Exodus 15:2. We are not told. However, we know that many prophets wrote of things with only a dim understanding of how their prophecies would be fulfilled.

What is clear to us in studying Moses’ eleventh speech is that it was all about the New Covenant and the Mediator of that Covenant—Joshua, that is, Yeshua-Jesus.