25 Please let me go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon."
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
That goodly mountain - i. e., that mountainous district. The fiat districts of the East are generally scorched, destitute of water, and therefore sterile: the hilly ones, on the contrary, are of more tempered climate, and fertilized by the streams from the high grounds. Compare Deuteronomy 11:11.
The whole of this prayer of Moses is very characteristic. The longing to witness further manifestations of God's goodness and glory, and the reluctance to leave unfinished an undertaking which he had been permitted to commence, are striking traits in his character: compare Exodus 32:32 ff; Exodus 33:12, Exodus 33:18 ff; Numbers 14:12 ff.
I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that [is] beyond Jordan, that goodly (k) mountain, and Lebanon.
(k) He means Zion, where the Temple should be built, and God honoured.
I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan,.... The land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey; a land which he describes as a most excellent one, Deuteronomy 8:7. To see this land, he was very desirous of going over the river Jordan, beyond which it lay with respect to the place where he now was:
that goodly mountain, and Lebanon; or, "that goodly mountain, even Lebanon"; which lay to the north of the land of Canaan, and was famous for cedar and odoriferous trees. But if two distinct mountains are meant, the goodly mountain may design Mount Moriah, on which the temple was afterwards built, and of which Moses might have a foresight; and some by Lebanon think that is meant, which was built of the cedars of Lebanon, and therefore goes by that name, Zac 11:1 and a foreview of this made the mountain so precious to Moses, and desirable to be seen by him. So the Targum of Jonathan;"that goodly mountain in which is built the city of Jerusalem, and Mount Lebanon, in which the Shechinah shall dwell''to which agrees the note of Aben Ezra, who interprets the goodly mountain of Jerusalem, and Lebanon of the house of the sanctuary. In the Septuagint it is called Antilibanus. Mount Libanus had its name not from frankincense growing upon it, as some have thought; for it does not appear that any did grow upon it, for that came from Seba in Arabia Felix; but from the whiteness of it, through the continual snows that were on it, just as the Alps have their name for the same reason; and so Jerom says (b) of Lebanon, that the snow never leaves from the tops of it, or is ever so overcome by the heat of the sun as wholly to melt; to the same purpose also Tacitus (c) says, and Mr. Maundrell (d), who was there in May, speaks of deep snow on it, and represents the cedars as standing in snow.
(b) In Hieremiam, c. 18. 14. (c) Hist. l. 5. c. 6. (d) Journey from Aleppo, p. 139, 140.
I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon--The natural and very earnest wish of Moses to be allowed to cross the Jordan was founded on the idea that the divine threatening might be conditional and revertible. "That goodly mountain" is supposed by Jewish writers to have pointed to the hill on which the temple was to be built (Deuteronomy 12:5; Exodus 15:2). But biblical scholars now, generally, render the words--"that goodly mountain, even Lebanon," and consider it to be mentioned as typifying the beauty of Palestine, of which hills and mountains were so prominent a feature.
"I pray Thee, let me go over." אעבּרה־נּא, a form of desire, used as a petition, as in Deuteronomy 2:27; Numbers 21:22, etc. "That goodly mountain" is not one particular portion of the land of Canaan, such as the mountains of Judah, or the temple mountain (according to Exodus 15:17), but the whole of Canaan regarded as a mountainous country, Lebanon being specially mentioned as the boundary wall towards the north. As Moses stood on the lower level of the Arabah, the promised land presented itself not only to his eyes, but also to his soul, as a long mountain range; and that no merely as suggestive of the lower contrast, that "whereas the plains in the East are for the most part sterile, on account of the want of springs or rain, the mountainous regions, which are well watered by springs and streams, are very fertile and pleasant" (Rosenmller), but also on a much higher ground, viz., as a high and lofty land, which would stand by the side of Horeb, "where he had spent the best and holiest days of his life, and where he had seen the commencement of the covenant between God and His people" (Schultz).
Let me go over - For he supposed God's threatening might be conditional and reversible, as many others were. That goodly mountain - Which the Jews not improbably understood of that mountain on which the temple was to be built. This he seems to call that mountain, emphatically and eminently, that which was much in Moses's thoughts, though not in his eye.
*More commentary available at chapter level.