Rand McMoses

Deuteronomy 3:12-20

Moses recaps the occurrences of Numbers 32, but in a much more abbreviated version.  If you don't remember our riveting conversation from last year, you can find it here: http://chiphall.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-sins-of-fathers-numbers-32-so-as.html

Moses tells us in a quite boring fashion how this land was split up and that the folks who were staying to claim it still had to cross over the Jordan and help their brothers claim the rest of the land.  However, they could leave their women, children, and livestock safely behind.

Moe eliminates any detail of the discussion to claim these lands as inheritance and that this was an idea the Israelites pitched to God.  Could this be a separate thread of the oral retelling?  Family stories are told differently by different people who remember different details- or who want to frame stories to make themselves appear more heroically.  Both versions of this tale are ascribed to Moses, but certainly pieces of them (especially this book written after his death) could have been written by others who remembered things with less specificity. 

It's a bit disheartening for us lovers of plot that the part left out was the closest thing to a story that existed here. 

Perhaps the message is to remember that God's story doesn't end with the generation that experienced it.  Retellings keep the story alive from generation to generation.  However, those stories that more blatantly seem to tell us about God and his people are a bit more helpful to relive.