where our dead Leader lies, but to an open sepulchre by the city wall
in the sunshine, from whence has come forth the ever-living 'Captain of
our salvation.'

IV. The last lesson is the uselessness of a dead leader to a generation
with new conflicts.

Commentators have spent a great deal of ingenuity in trying to assign
reasons why God concealed the grave of Moses. The text does not say
that God concealed it at all. The ignorance of the place of his
sepulchre does not seem to have been part of the divine design, but
simply a consequence of the circumstances of his death, and of the fact
that he lay in an enemy's land, and that they had had something else to
do than go to look for the grave of a dead commander. They had to
conquer the land, and a living Joshua was what they wanted, not a dead
Moses.

So we may learn from this how easily the gaps fill. 'Thirty days'
mourning,' and says my text, with almost a bitter touch,' so the days
of mourning for Moses were ended.' A month of it, that was all; and
then everybody turned to the new man that was appointed for the new
work. God has many tools in His tool-chest, and He needs them all
before the work is done. Joshua could no more have wielded Moses' rod
than Moses could have wielded Joshua's sword. The one did his work, and
was laid aside. New circumstances required a new type of character--the
smaller man better fitted for the rougher work. And so it always is.
Each generation, each period, has its own men that do some little part
of the work which has to be done, and then drop it and hand over the
task to others. The division of labour is the multiplication of joy at
the end, and 'he that soweth and he that reapeth rejoice together.'