Targum Jonathan opens (Deuteronomy 31) with Moses entering not a tent but "the tabernacle of the house of instruction"—a study hall. Even at the threshold of death, the setting is educational. Moses announces he is 120 years old and "no more able to go out and come in." The Targum adds: "the Word of the Lord hath said to me: Thou shalt not go over this Jordan." It is not age that stops Moses. It is a divine decree spoken through the Memra.
Then comes a passage with no parallel in the Torah. The Targum declares: "Unto three of the just was it told that the time of their death was drawing nigh, and that they should not attain to the days of their fathers; and each of them had been appointed a prince in his days—Jakob our father, David the king, and Mosheh the prophet." Three leaders. Three death announcements. The Targum links Moses' final day to a pattern of divinely informed departures stretching across Israel's history.
The Shekinah (the Divine Presence)'s departure is described with devastating intimacy. God tells Moses: "this wicked people will rise up and go astray after the idols of the nations, and will forsake My worship." Then: "I shall abhor them, and remove My Shekinah from them, and they will become a prey." The people will cry out: "Is it not because the Shekinah of my God dwelleth not among me, that all these evils have befallen me?" They will know exactly what they lost—and God responds: "I will indeed remove My Shekinah from them at that time, until they have dwindled away."
Moses' soul will be "treasured in the treasury of eternal life with thy fathers." His body dies; his soul enters a cosmic vault. The Torah written by Moses must be placed "into a chest on the right side of the ark of the covenant." And Moses' final assessment of his people is unflinching: "while I am yet alive among you today ye are rebellious before the Lord; but how much more when I am dead!" He calls heaven and earth as witnesses—not because he trusts the people, but because he knows they will fail.