Like Moses before him, the Rev Ian Paisley can see the promised land but he is unable to get there because of his lack of faith.
He is terrified of being a "Trimble" in the latter years of his life, as he characterises it to colleagues in the Democratic Unionist Party: caught out midway in a choreography of final acts of completion without the elusive P. O'Neill. He is holding out for agreement to photographs of IRA decommissioning in front of General John de Chastelain before he will sign up to a deal.
From Dr Paisley's perspective, having spent a life saying "no" to Catholic, nationalist and republican equality, this hesitation is understandable. The man who has had the comfort of being in opposition for all of his long life is now the power-broker for the majority of the people of Northern Ireland. He decides the future for his Protestant people. He will determine whether public pictures of IRA decommissioning are the issue on which these negotiations should fail.
It would be well to remember, however, that Dr Paisley will have to do a good deal of swallowing, as he himself put it, in the coming days. He is not the only one who will have to bite his lip if there is to be the expected announcement on Wednesday. But he does have responsibility for progress.
So, too, does Sinn Féin and the IRA for providing cast iron guarantees this time that paramilitary activities are at an end. They have always been found wanting before. Their words have never matched their actions, never more so than in October, 2003, when the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr Trimble, had to stop unfolding events throughout the choreography of the day. Dr Paisley wants to stop a repetition of these events at all costs this time.
But if Dr Paisley is haunted by happenings of the immediate past, so, too, should be the Taoiseach. Mr Ahern should remember that following the failed initiative in October, 2003, he pointed out that the one person that they did not consult was P. O'Neill. The two governments must have learned that there can be no constructive ambiguity this time if for no other reason than that Dr Paisley is a black-and-white Bible believing leader.
He wants to see photographs being published of the decommissioning of IRA weapons. He wants to see them made public in such a way that they will be available for use in a party political broadcast. He wants the wee man in the street to witness the end of the IRA as a paramilitary army.
But he is expecting more than the peace process can bear. For if Gen de Chastelain can photograph IRA decommissioning, if agreed clergymen can witness the events over coming weeks, that is much more than Mr Trimble had guaranteed to the majority of the people in Northern Ireland. Standing back from party political considerations, a compromise on photographs would appear to be the price of signing up to the principle of the Belfast Agreement.