Moses stood on the summit of Mount Nebo, and God showed him the entire Land of Israel. The Torah specifies that he saw "the valley of Jericho" (Deuteronomy 34:3). The Mekhilta finds this detail puzzling. The valley of Jericho is a low-lying plain near the Jordan River. Any person standing on a mountaintop could see it with ordinary eyesight. There is nothing remarkable about viewing a valley from a height.
So what was God actually showing Moses? Not geography. Not topography. He was showing him the future.
The Mekhilta explains with an agricultural metaphor. Just as a cultivated plain spreads out with one field planted in wheat and another in barley — orderly, productive, abundant — so God showed Moses all of Eretz Yisrael in its fully cultivated state, as rich and fruitful as the valley of Jericho at its best.
This was not a view of the land as it existed in that moment. It was a prophetic vision of what the land would become. Every hillside terraced with vineyards. Every valley floor thick with grain. The entire country transformed into a garden, from the Galilee to the Negev, as lush and orderly as the most fertile plain in the Jordan Valley.
Moses would never set foot in that land. But God granted him something arguably greater than entry: the certainty that the promise would be fulfilled. The valley of Jericho was not the point. It was the key to understanding everything else Moses saw that day.