The Bible Says Moses Was 120 and Still Strong — So What Killed Him?

The Bible Says Moses Was 120 and Still Strong — So What Killed Him? On the last day of his life, Moses was one hundred and twenty years old, and the Bible goes out of its way to say "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." God told him to climb Mount Nebo that selfsame day. He climbed it, and he never came down. So what killed him? The Bible gives the cause in three Hebrew words, al pi Yahweh, and the English turns one of them into "word." The Hebrew says he died "by the mouth of the LORD." In this video we read the death of Moses verse by verse. We look at the contradiction between "I can no more go out and come in" and the narrator's verdict, and at the Hebrew word leho, his moisture, his freshness. We go back to the rock at Kadesh, to the prayer God refused ("speak no more unto me of this matter"), and to Aaron, who died on Mount Hor with the very same Hebrew words. We follow the thread of the mouth through the life of Moses: the man who was "slow of speech," the God who said "I will be with thy mouth," the prophet God spoke to "mouth to mouth." Then we hear how the ancient rabbis read it: the Talmud says Moses, Aaron and Miriam died "with a kiss, and not at the hand of the Angel of Death," and calls that death "like drawing a hair from milk." We tell the rabbinic story of Moses' last day, where the soul begs, "Leave me in Moses' body." And we look at the burial no one witnessed, the grave "prepared there ever since the six days of Creation," Josephus and the cloud, Philo, and the tradition that "Moses wrote it in tears." Throughout, we separate what the Bible says from what later Jewish tradition teaches. Subscribe for more of the verses you already know, explained from the text itself, with the sources below. Turn on notifications so you don't miss the next one. And tell us in the comments: had you ever noticed that the Bible says Moses' strength never faded? Main sources The Holy Bible, King James Version: Exodus 2:4; 4:2-3; 4:10-16; 14:16; 34:29-35; Numbers 12:1-8; 20:10-12; 20:23-29; 25:1-3; 27:12-23; 33:38-39; Deuteronomy 3:23-27; 31:2; 32:48-52; 34:1-12; Song of Songs 1:2; Micah 7:2; Luke 9:30-31; Jude 1:9. The Hebrew text with Strong's Concordance and Brown-Driver-Briggs, via Bible Hub (peh, al pi, leho), and Young's Literal Translation of Deuteronomy 34:7. The Babylonian Talmud: Bava Batra 17a; Berakhot 8a; Moed Katan 28a (The William Davidson Talmud). Rashi on Deuteronomy 34:5-7 (translated by M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann). Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:10. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 4, chapter 8 (translated by William Whiston). Philo of Alexandria, On the Life of Moses, book 2 (translated by C. D. Yonge). Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 51. Visual credits Archive images (Wikimedia Commons): "Mount Nebo BW 6" — Berthold Werner, CC BY 3.0 "Mount Nebo-4" — Faris El-Gwely, CC BY-SA 4.0 "Hebrew Sefer Torah Scroll side view" — Bejinhan, CC BY-SA 3.0 "Torah scroll writing" — Liran1977, CC BY-SA 3.0 Stock photos and footage: Pexels and Pixabay. The narration voice and many of the images are AI-generated. AI images are conceptual reconstructions, not historical records. Thumbnail: AI-generated illustration. #Bible #Moses #Deuteronomy #Talmud #BibleStudy #Hebrew #WhatTheBibleReallyMeans