When God took Moses to the summit of Mount Pisgah and showed him the entire Promised Land, the vision included far more than hills and valleys. The Mekhilta asks: how do we know that God showed Moses David in his kingdom?
The answer comes from the phrase "and the whole land of Judah" (Deuteronomy 34:2). On the surface, this is a geographic reference — Moses is being shown the territory that would later belong to the tribe of Judah. But the Mekhilta reads it as a prophetic vision of everything Judah would produce, including its greatest king.
The proof text comes from (1 Chronicles 28:4), where David himself declares: "The Lord chose me of all the house of my father to be king over Israel forever. For He chose Judah to be ruler." David's kingship was inseparable from the identity of his tribe. To see the land of Judah was to see the monarchy that would rise from it.
Moses therefore witnessed not just terrain but destiny. He saw the hills where David would shepherd his flocks, the fields where he would slay Goliath, and the city of Jerusalem where he would establish his throne. God compressed centuries of history into a single panoramic vision from a mountaintop. Moses could not enter the land, but he could see its entire future — including the king who would one day unite the twelve tribes into a single nation and bring the ark of the covenant to its resting place.