Moses

Moses was a leader of the ancient Hebrews who brought them out of Egypt in the so-called Exodus (c.1250 BC), mediated the covenant between them and Yahweh at Sinai, and guided them through the desert to the borders of Canaan. The biblical tradition assigns him a life span of 120 years, but the reliability of this figure is questioned.

The books of Exodus through Deuteronomy in the Bible are the only available sources for details about Moses' life. No contemporary Egyptian documents yet found mention him, and the later traditions about him recorded in the work of Philo of Alexandria and in Josephus and rabbinic sources appear to be mere elaborations of the biblical story. Moreover, the biblical story is a composite of sources, the earliest of which postdates Moses by more than 200 years and allows ample time for legendary accretions. The story of the baby Moses in the reed basket on the Nile, for example, is a typical legend about a famous man's childhood. The same basic story is also told about Sargon, king of Akkad (c.2350 BC).

According to the biblical account, Moses grew up at the pharaoh's court but was forced to flee to Midian after killing an Egyptian whom he had seen strike an Israelite. Moses' presence at the pharaoh's court may be explained by the Egyptian practice of taking hostages from their Semitic vassals, giving them Egyptian training, and sending them back to lead their people with an ingrained Egyptian point of view. Such a background might also explain the story of Moses' adoption by the pharaoh's daughter.

In exile Moses married the daughter of the high priest of Midian. While he was keeping his father-in-law's flock, God spoke to him at a burning bush and commissioned him to lead Israel out of Egypt. After the Exodus, Moses met again with his father-in-law, who performed sacrifices and advised him regarding an improved judicial system. These traditions suggest that certain aspects of Moses' religious and legislative reforms, perhaps even God's new name, Yahweh, were derived from beliefs of the Midianites.

Moses returned to Egypt to confront the pharaoh with Yahweh's demand. After a long struggle involving ten plagues and culminating in the slaying of the first-born of the Egyptians, the pharaoh permitted Israel to leave. He then changed his mind, but God drowned the pursuing Egyptians in the Reed (traditionally, Red) Sea. The ancient poem in Exodus 15 celebrates this victory, but the actual event cannot be reconstructed from this poetic account.

After the Israelites experienced Yahweh's deliverance in the Exodus, Moses led them to the sacred mountain--named Sinai in one source, Horeb in another. There God appeared to them in a frightening display of thunder and lightning. Moses went up into the mountain and returned with God's instructions including the Ten Commandments. Thus Moses mediated the Covenant God made with the people of Israel. As covenant mediator Moses was a lawgiver, and his status became such that all of Israel's laws were attributed to him, even much later ones (see Torah).

Israel remained in the desert under Moses' leadership for a number of years, camping at Qadesh and other oases. The Old Testament tells of many conflicts between Moses and the people during this time. The most dramatic one concerned the Golden Calf set up by Moses' brother Aaron while Moses was on Mount Sinai (or Horeb).

Although this was a trying period, these stories of conflict were probably shaped in part by much later struggles, making it difficult to determine how much of the story belongs to the Mosaic age and how much was added later. Moses died before Israel crossed into Canaan.

J. J. M. Roberts

Bibliography
Beegle, D. M., Moses: The Servant of Yahweh (1972); Bright, John, A History of Israel, rev. ed. (1972); Buber, Martin, Moses: The Revelation and the Covenant, new ed. (1958; repr. 1987); Childs, Brevard, The Book of Exodus (1974); Daiches, David, Moses: The Man and His Vision (1975); Hermann, Siegfried, Israel in Egypt (1973); Maimonides, Moses, The Reason of the Laws of Moses, ed. by J. Townley (1827; repr. 1975); Noth, Martin, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (1972); Wellek, Rene, ed., The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated, 4 vols., 2d ed. (1978); Zeligs, D. F., ed., Moses: A Psychodynamic Study (1986).

Mos'es

Moses, drawn (or Egypt. mesu, "son;" hence Rameses, royal son). On the invitation of Pharaoh (Gen. 45:17-25), Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt. This immigration took place probably about 350 years before the birth of Moses. Some centuries before Joseph, Egypt had been conquered by a pastoral Semitic race from Asia, the Hyksos, who brought into cruel subjection the native Egyptians, who were an African race. Jacob and his retinue were accustomed to a shepherd's life, and on their arrival in Egypt were received with favour by the king, who assigned them the "best of the land", the land of Goshen, to dwell in. The Hyksos or "shepherd" king who thus showed favour to Joseph and his family was in all probability the Pharaoh Apopi (or Apopis). Thus favoured, the Israelites began to "multiply exceedingly" (Gen. 47:27), and extended to the west and south. At length the supremacy of the Hyksos came to an end.

The descendants of Jacob were allowed to retain their possession of Goshen undisturbed, but after the death of Joseph their position was not so favourable. The Egyptians began to despise them, and the period of their "affliction" (Gen. 15:13) commenced. They were sorely oppressed. They continued, however, to increase in numbers, and "the land was filled with them" (Ex. 1:7). The native Egyptians regarded them with suspicion, so that they felt all the hardship of a struggle for existence. In process of time "a king [probably Seti I.] arose who knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:8). The circumstances of the country were such that this king thought it necessary to weaken his Israelite subjects by oppressing them, and by degrees reducing their number.

They were accordingly made public slaves, and were employed in connection with his numerous buildings, especially in the erection of store-cities, temples, and palaces. The children of Israel were made to serve with rigour. Their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, and "all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigour" (Ex. 1:13, 14). But this cruel oppression had not the result expected of reducing their number. On the contrary, "the more the Egyptians afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew" (Ex. 1:12). The king next tried, through a compact secretly made with the guild of midwives, to bring about the destruction of all the Hebrew male children that be born. But the king's wish was not rigorously enforced; the male children were spared by the midwives, so that "the people multiplied" more than ever. Thus baffled, the king issued a public proclamation calling on the people to put to death all the Hebrew male children by casting them into the river (Ex. 1:22).

But neither by this edict was the king's purpose effected. One of the Hebrew households into which this cruel edict of the king brought great alarm was that of Amram, of the family of the Kohathites (Ex. 6:16-20), who with his wife Jochebed and two children, Miriam, a girl of perhaps fifteen years of age, and Aaron, a boy of three years, resided in or near Memphis, the capital city of that time. In this quiet home a male child was born (B.C. 1571). His mother concealed him in the house for three months from the knowledge of the civic authorities. But when the task of concealment became difficult, Jochebed contrived to bring her child under the notice of the daughter of the king by constructing for him an ark of bulrushes, which she laid among the flags which grew on the edge of the river at the spot where the princess was wont to come down and bathe. Her plan was successful. The king's daughter "saw the child; and behold the child wept." The princess (Pharaoh's daughter) sent Miriam, who was standing by, to fetch a nurse. She went and brought the mother of the child, to whom the princess said, "Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."

Thus Jochebed's child, whom the princess called "Moses", i.e., "Saved from the water" (Ex. 2:10), was ultimately restored to her. As soon as the natural time for weaning the child had come, he was transferred from the humble abode of his father to the royal palace, where he was brought up as the adopted son of the princess, his mother probably accompanying him and caring still for him. He grew up amid all the grandeur and excitement of the Egyptian court, maintaining, however, probably a constant fellowship with his mother, which was of the highest importance as to his religious belief and his interest in his "brethren." His education would doubtless be carefully attended to, and he would enjoy all the advantages of training both as to his body and his mind. He at length became "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22). Egypt had then two chief seats of learning, or universities, at one of which, probably that of Heliopolis, his education was completed. Moses, being now about twenty years of age, spent over twenty more before he came into prominence in Bible history.

These twenty years were probably spent in military service. There is a tradition recorded by Josephus that he took a lead in the war which was then waged between Egypt and Ethiopia, in which he gained renown as a skilful general, and became "mighty in deeds" (Acts 7:22). After the termination of the war in Ethiopia, Moses returned to the Egyptian court, where he might reasonably have expected to be loaded with honours and enriched with wealth. But "beneath the smooth current of his life hitherto, a life of alternate luxury at the court and comparative hardness in the camp and in the discharge of his military duties, there had lurked from childhood to youth, and from youth to manhood, a secret discontent, perhaps a secret ambition. Moses, amid all his Egyptian surroundings, had never forgotten, had never wished to forget, that he was a Hebrew." He now resolved to make himself acquainted with the condition of his countrymen, and "went out unto his brethren, and looked upon their burdens" (Ex. 2:11).

This tour of inspection revealed to him the cruel oppression and bondage under which they everywhere groaned, and could not fail to press on him the serious consideration of his duty regarding them. The time had arrived for his making common cause with them, that he might thereby help to break their yoke of bondage. He made his choice accordingly (Heb. 11:25-27), assured that God would bless his resolution for the welfare of his people. He now left the palace of the king and took up his abode, probably in his father's house, as one of the Hebrew people who had for forty years been suffering cruel wrong at the hands of the Egyptians. He could not remain indifferent to the state of things around him, and going out one day among the people, his indignation was roused against an Egyptian who was maltreating a Hebrew. He rashly lifted up his hand and slew the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand. Next day he went out again and found two Hebrews striving together. He speedily found that the deed of the previous day was known.

It reached the ears of Pharaoh (the "great Rameses," Rameses II.), who "sought to slay Moses" (Ex. 2:15). Moved by fear, Moses fled from Egypt, and betook himself to the land of Midian, the southern part of the peninsula of Sinai, probably by much the same route as that by which, forty years afterwards, he led the Israelites to Sinai. He was providentially led to find a new home with the family of Reuel, where he remained for forty years (Acts 7:30), under training unconsciously for his great life's work. Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush (Ex. 3), and commissioned him to go down to Egypt and "bring forth the children of Israel" out of bondage. He was at first unwilling to go, but at length he was obedient to the heavenly vision, and left the land of Midian (4:18-26). On the way he was met by Aaron (q.v.) and the elders of Israel (27-31). He and Aaron had a hard task before them; but the Lord was with them (ch. 7-12), and the ransomed host went forth in triumph. (See Exodus.) After an eventful journey to and fro in the wilderness, we see them at length encamped in the plains of Moab, ready to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land.

There Moses addressed the assembled elders (Deut. 1:1-4; 5:1-26:19; 27:11-30: 20), and gives the people his last counsels, and then rehearses the great song (Deut. 32), clothing in fitting words the deep emotions of his heart at such a time, and in review of such a marvellous history as that in which he had acted so conspicious a part. Then, after blessing the tribes (33), he ascends to "the mountain of Nebo (q.v.), to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho" (34:1), and from thence he surveys the land. "Jehovah shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan, and all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea, and the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar" (Deut. 34:2-3), the magnificient inheritance of the tribes of whom he had been so long the leader; and there he died, being one hundred and twenty years old, according to the word of the Lord, and was buried by the Lord "in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor" (34:6). The people mourned for him during thirty days. Thus died "Moses the man of God" (Deut. 33:1; Josh. 14:6).

He was distinguished for his meekness and patience and firmness, and "he endured as seeing him who is invisible." "There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders, which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which Moses shewed in the sight of all Israel" (Deut. 34:10-12). The name of Moses occurs frequently in the Psalms and Prophets as the chief of the prophets. In the New Testament he is referred to as the representative of the law and as a type of Christ (John 1:17; 2 Cor. 3:13-18; Heb. 3:5, 6). Moses is the only character in the Old Testament to whom Christ likens himself (John 5:46; comp. Deut. 18:15, 18, 19; Acts 7:37). In Heb. 3: 1-19 this likeness to Moses is set forth in various particulars. In Jude 9 mention is made of a contention between Michael and the devil about the body of Moses. This dispute is supposed to have had reference to the concealment of the body of Moses so as to prevent idolatry.

Moses - The Close of His Life

From: Home Bible Study Commentary by James M. Gray

DEUTERONOMY CHAPTERS 31:1-32:43

moses