Deuteronomy 34:1–12
This passage from Deuteronomy narrates the death of Moses, who does not enter the Promised Land. The Lord tells him: "I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there."
Moses' death here, still on the journey, emphasizes the extent to which the story of God's people is a story of migration. The Israelites journey as migrants after leaving Egypt. They reach liberation, but only by taking on the risk of movement.
The symbol of the Promised Land has become a fraught one in light of the displacement of Palestinian people for modern Israel. The symbol of the journey, though, before the destination is reached, reminds us of God's perpetual presence with all who migrate and all who travel. It is in the very provisional and incomplete place of movement that God accompanies Israel in cloud and fire. It is on the journey that God speaks to Moses, a prophet about whom Deuteronomy 34:10 says, "Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face."
The fundamental theological demand for Migration With Dignity, perhaps, is the image that God knows Moses face to face in the wilderness, on the journey. God sees the dignity of God's migrant people. In this, it mirrors what we saw in Genesis 32:22–31. Over and over, God is seen at the boundary, on the border, taking the risk of leaving one place to cross into another. Where do we see God at our own border today?
Hannah Bowman is a member of the Episcopal Migration Caucus who lives in Los Angeles, the founder of Christians for the Abolition of Prisons, and the author of Abolition Ecclesiology: A Spatial Theology for a Church Against Prisons (forthcoming from Fortress Press in November 2026)