Innumerable legends have gathered about the death of Moses on Nebo. The Talmud abounds with them. Josephus rises to true pathos and poetry as he describes its traditionary incidents. The Mohammedans have wild weird myths of the war which raged amongst the spirits of good and evil around his dying form, and they perform pilgrimages to his legendary tomb on the mountain just above Jericho. All we know is that “Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor; but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.”[120] Even in Palestine itself there are few spots upon which the eye rests with a deeper sense of awe, and mystery, and reverential wonder than as we look across the Ghor of the Jordan and gaze upon this peak, glowing in the light of the setting sun, where the prophet of the Lord breathed his last earthly sigh, and awoke in the presence of his God. As soon as the days of mourning for their great leader had been accomplished, his chivalrous successor set the host in motion. Passing, probably, down the Wady Hesban, they encamped in the valley of the Jordan. To cross the river in the presence of their enemies would at any time have been a difficult and dangerous operation. The fords were few, the river rapid, the banks steep. And Jordan was now in flood. It had filled up its banks and was absolutely impassable. Confiding, however, in divine aid, the signal to advance is given. The priests march first, bearing with them the ark. A mile in their rear are the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh fully armed, so as to resist any attack made upon them by their foes.[121] No sooner had the feet of the priests touched the brimming waters of the river, than the stream ceased to flow downward, being cut off at a point nearly thirty miles above, at the city of Zaretan, leaving the bed dry till the whole people had passed safely over. We are told, respecting the similar miracle of the crossing of the Red Sea, that “the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night.”[122] The enquiry suggests itself whether any natural agency, working under the control of a divine power can be suggested to account for this drying up of the Jordan. It has been already remarked that the whole region is volcanic and subject to earthquakes. It is, therefore, a possible conjecture that such a convulsion of nature may have occurred at this critical moment, so that for a time the bed of the Jordan was laid bare “from the city of Adam, that is beside Zaretan.”[123] We need not, however, feel any anxiety to explain these divine interpositions by the action of natural laws. He who instituted the laws of nature and uses them for His purposes as He pleases, can, when it seems good to Him, dispense with them altogether. The fact of the miracle is certain, account for it how we please: “this