Why Devarim Rabbah Read Moses's Whole Life as One Long Argument

Most readers picture Moses as the prophet who delivered the law and accepted his fate at the edge of the Promised Land. Devarim Rabbah, the homiletic midrash on Deuteronomy compiled in Palestine in the late Talmudic period, refuses that quiet portrait.

In Devarim Rabbah, Moses argues. He argues with his sister and brother. He argues with the patriarchs who came before him. He argues with the Angel of Death. He argues with the Holy One about whether all the miracles he has carried out of Egypt should have purchased him a few more days. The midrash treats the arguing as a kind of prayer, and the prayer as a kind of prophecy, and the prophecy as the only honest way to face mortality.

Four passages, stacked together, show how Devarim Rabbah heard Moses.

The Snake That Was Supposed to Bite

The first scene seems unrelated to the others. Devarim Rabbah 5 presents Rabbi Yitzhak's small parable about an akhina, a poisonous snake, sitting at a crossroads and biting passersby. A non-venomous snake comes and curls up next to it. A snake charmer arrives and stops. The poisonous one bites because that is its nature, he says. But this other one, why has it come and clung to it?

The parable is Moses's response to Miriam and Aaron speaking against him (Numbers 12:1). Moses, in the midrash's reading, is not surprised that Miriam spoke. He is heartbroken that Aaron spoke too. The snake's bite is its nature. Aaron's silence would have been his.

What the parable establishes is the voice we are about to hear from Moses through the rest of the cluster. He grieves by arguing. He turns accusations over to find their structure. The first thing he does with pain is to put it on a workbench and take it apart.

The Day He Asked the Question Out Loud

The middle of the cluster is the most personal moment in the Pentateuchal afterlife of Moses. Devarim Rabbah 9:4 opens with the question Moses finally asks aloud at the end of his life. Master of the universe, after all the glory and all the bravery that my eyes saw, will I die?

The Holy One does not soften the answer. He quotes Psalm 89:49 back at Moses. Who is the man who lives and does not see death? The midrash treats the verse as a roll call of the patriarchs.

Was there a man like Abraham, who descended into the fiery furnace and was saved? Abraham still expired and died (Genesis 25:8). Was there a man like Isaac, who outstretched his neck on the altar? Isaac still grew old and confessed he did not know the day of his death (Genesis 27:2). Was there a man like Jacob, who wrestled an angel through the night? Jacob still saw the time of Israel approached to die.

The argument is not consolation. It is solidarity. The Holy One is telling Moses that the question he has just asked has been asked, in different words, by every man who walked closely with God. Moses is not being singled out. He is being welcomed into the company of the patriarchs in their final hour.

When the Angel of Death Was Sent Away

The third scene tilts toward defiance. Devarim Rabbah 11:5 records what happened the moment the Angel of Death arrived in Moses's tent.

The angel approached. The Holy One has sent me to you, for you are departing today. Moses refused. Go from here, he answered. I seek to laud the Holy One. Then he quoted Psalm 118:17 to the angel directly. May I not die but live, so I may relate the deeds of the Lord. The angel left, at least at first.

Rabbi Meir tells the scene as if it were a small play. The angel returns and accuses Moses of arrogance. He has others who will laud Him. The heavens and the earth laud Him every hour. Moses, undeterred, blesses the tribes one by one before allowing the angel back into his tent. The midrash is not pretending Moses won. It is reporting that Moses extracted, by argument, the only thing he wanted before he went. Time to finish what he had started.

The detail that hangs in the room is the angel's question. Why was Moses being so stubborn? Why fight a sentence that had already been issued? The midrash does not have Moses answer. The answer is the blessing he is still giving.

The Words That Hold Up the Heavens

Underneath the three scenes runs a smaller passage that explains why the arguing was permitted in the first place. Devarim Rabbah 7:8 establishes the rabbinic ground rule that every meaningful act in Jewish life is bracketed by blessings on both sides. A Torah reading begins with a blessing. A Torah reading ends with a blessing. A meal begins with a blessing. A meal ends with the lengthy Grace After Meals, which the rabbis trace back to Moses himself.

The hidden teaching is that the arguments Moses raises against death are themselves bracketed blessings. He opens his complaint with the wonder of what his eyes saw. He closes his struggle with the angel by blessing the tribes. Even his refusal is wrapped in praise. The midrash is teaching the reader, by structure as much as by story, how a Jew is permitted to argue with heaven. You bless on the way in. You bless on the way out. The argument in the middle is a form of prayer.

Why the Arguing Was the Faith

Stack the four passages and the project of Devarim Rabbah on the figure of Moses comes into focus. Moses is not the prophet who accepted death. He is the prophet who refused to receive death silently.

He argued with his siblings about the meaning of slander. He argued with the Holy One about whether miracles purchase mortality. He argued with the Angel of Death about who had the right to praise. He blessed before, he blessed after, and in the gap between blessings he pushed back, hard, on every verdict heaven sent his way. The midrash is not embarrassed by any of it.

Midrash Rabbah treats the death of Moses as the moment Jewish prayer learned how to take its final shape. You may argue. You may insist. You may even refuse, briefly, to receive the sentence. But you bless on both sides of the argument, and somewhere in the middle of the argument, you remember that the One you are arguing with is still listening.