introduction

Moses was an early leader of the Hebrews and probably the most important figure in Judaism. He was raised in the court of the Pharaoh in Egypt, but then led the Hebrew people out of Egypt. Moses is said to have talked with God. His story is told in the Bible in the book of Exodus.

 The story of Moses’ childhood comes fromExodus. In it, the pharaoh of Egypt (probably Ramses II) decreed that all the Hebrew boy babies were to be drowned at birth, in a story similar to that of the founder of Rome, Romulus and his twin Remus, and the Sumerian king Sargon I. Yocheved, Moses’ mother, hid her newborn for 3 months and then placed her baby in a wicker basket in the Nile River reeds. The baby cried and was rescued by one of the pharaoh’s daughters who kept the baby.

During the 40-year journey of the Hebrews from Egypt to Canaan, Moses received the 10 Commandments from God at Mt. Sinai. While Moses communed with God for 40 days, his followers built a golden calf. Angry, God wanted to kill them, but Moses dissuaded him. However, when Moses saw the actual shenanigans he was so angry he hurled and shattered the 2 tablets holding the 10 Commandments.

It is not clear what exactly Moses did to receive punishment (see Comment From Reader), but God tells Moses that he failed to trust Him sufficiently and for that reason Moses would never enter Canaan. Moses climbed Mt. Abarim to see Canaan, but that was about as close as he came. Moses chose Joshua as successor. At the ripe old age of 120, Moses climbed Mt. Nebo and died after the Hebrews entered the promised land.

 

 

reaction

 

Along with God, it is the figure of Moses (Moshe) who dominates the Torah. Acting at God’s behest, it is he who leads the Jews out of slavery, unleashes the Ten Plagues against Egypt, guides the freed slaves for forty years in the wilderness, carries down the law from Mount Sinai, and prepares the Jews to enter the land of Canaan. Without Moses, there would be little apart from laws to write about in the last four books of the Torah.

Moses is born during the Jewish enslavement in Egypt, during a terrible period when Pharaoh decrees that all male Hebrew infants are to be drowned at birth. His mother, Yocheved, desperate to prolong his life, floats him in a basket in the Nile. Hearing the crying child as she walks by, Pharaoh’s daughter pities the crying infant and adopts him (Exodus 2:1-10). It surely is no coincidence that the Jews’ future liberator is raised as an Egyptian prince. Had Moses grown up in slavery with his fellow Hebrews, he probably would not have developed the pride, vision, and courage to lead a revolt.

 

The Torah records only three incidents in Moses’ life before God appoints him a prophet. As a young man, outraged at seeing an Egyptian overseer beating a Jewish slave, he kills the overseer. The next day, he tries to make peace between two Hebrews who are fighting, but the aggressor takes umbrage and says: “Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Moses immediately understands that he is in danger, for though his high status undoubtedly would protect him from punishment for the murder of a mere overseer, the fact that he killed the man for carrying out his duties to Pharaoh would brand him a rebel against the king. Indeed, Pharaoh orders Moses killed, and he flees to Midian. At this point, Moses probably wants nothing more than a peaceful interlude, but immediately he finds himself in another fight. The seven daughters of the Midianite priest Reuel (also called Jethro) are being abused by the Midianite male shepherds, and Moses rises to their defense (Exodus 2:11-22).

 

The incidents are of course related. In all three, Moses shows a deep, almost obsessive commitment to fighting injustice. Furthermore, his concerns are not parochial. He intervenes when a non-Jew oppresses a Jew, when two Jews fight, and when non-Jews oppress other non-Jews.

 

Moses marries Tzipporah, one of the Midianite priest’s daughters, and becomes the shepherd for his father-in-law’s flock. On one occasion, when he has gone with his flock into the wilderness, an angel of the Lord appears to him in the guise of a bush that is burning but is not consumed (see next entry). The symbolism of the miracle is powerful. In a world in which nature itself is worshiped, God shows that He rules over it.

Once He has so effectively elicited Moses’ attention, God commands-over Moses’ strenuous objections-that he go to Egypt and along with his brother, Aaron, make one simple if revolutionary demand of Pharaoh: “Let my people go.” Pharaoh resists Moses’ petition, until God wreaks the Ten Plagues on Egypt, after which the children of Israel escape.

 

Months later, in the Sinai Desert, Moses climbs Mount Sinai and comes down with the Ten Commandments, only to discover the Israelites engaged in an orgy and worshiping a Golden Calf. The episode is paradigmatic: Only at the very moment God or Moses is doing something for them are they loyal believers. The instant God’s or Moses’ presence is not manifest, the children of Israel revert to amoral, immoral, and sometimes idolatrous behavior. Like a true parent, Moses rages at the Jews when they sin, but he never turns against them-even when God does. To God’s wrathful declaration on one occasion that He will blot out the Jews and make of Moses a new nation, he answers, “Then blot me out too” (Exodus 32:32).

 

The law that Moses transmits to the Jews in the Torah embraces far more than the Ten Commandments. In addition to many ritual regulations. the Jews are instructed to love God as well as be in awe of Him, to love their neighbors as themselves, and to love the stranger-that is, the non-Jew living among them-as themselves as well.

 

The saddest event in Moses’ life might well be God’s prohibiting him from entering the land of Israel. The reason for this ban is explicitly connected to an episode in Numbers in which the Hebrews angrily demand that Moses supply them with water. God commands Moses to assemble the community, “and before their very eyes order the [nearby] rock to yield its water.” Fed up with the Hebrews’ constant whining and complaining, he says to them instead: “Listen, you rebels, shall we get water for you out of this rock?” He then strikes the rock twice with his rod, and water gushes out (Numbers 20:2-13). It is this episode of disobedience, striking the rock instead of speaking to it, that is generally offered as the explanation for why God punishes Moses and forbids him to enter Israel. The punishment, however, seems so disproportionate to the offense, that the real reason for God’s prohibition must go deeper. Most probably, as Dr. Jacob Milgrom, professor of Bible at the University of California, Berkeley, has suggested (elaborating on earlier comments of Rabbi Hananael, Nachmanides, and the Bekhor Shor) that Moses’ sin was declaring, “Shall we get water for you out of this rock?” implying that it was he and his brother, Aaron, and not God, who were the authors of the miracle. Rabbi Irwin Kula has suggested that Moses’ sin was something else altogether. Numbers 14:5 records that when ten of the twelve spies returned from Canaan and gloomily predicted that the Hebrews would never be able to conquer the land, the Israelites railed against Moses. In response, he seems to have had a mini-breakdown: “Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of the Israelites.” The two independent spies, Joshua and Caleb, both of whom rejected the majority report, took over “and exhorted the whole Israelite community” (Numbers 14:7). Later, in Deuteronomy, when Moses delivers his final summing-up to the Israelites, he refers back to this episode: “When the Lord heard your loud complaint, He was angry. He vowed: “Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers, none except Caleb…. Because of you, the Lord was incensed with me too, and He said: You shall not enter it either. Joshua … who attends you, he shall enter it” (1:34-38).

 

Despite these two sad episodes, Moses impressed his monotheistic vision upon the Jews with such force that in the succeeding three millennia, Jews have never confused the messenger with the Author of the message. As Princeton philosopher Walter Kaufmann has written: “in Greece, the heroes of the past were held to have been sired by a god or to have been born of a goddess … [and] in Egypt, the Pharaoh was considered divine.” But despite the extraordinary veneration accorded Moses — “there has not arisen a prophet since like Moses” is the Bible’s verdict (Deuteronomy 34:10) — no Jewish thinker ever thought he was anything other than a man. See And No One Knows His Burial Place to This Day.

 conclusion

 

The Bible tells us that Moses was the great leader who took the Israelites out of Egypt but was never allowed to enter the Promised Land, spending forty years wandering in the wilderness.

History will inevitably remember Moses differently, as there was never really an Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible. History will look at the sociological and theological bases for the story of Moses and remember him through these and also the impact the Moses story had on subsequent Hebrew and Christian beliefs.

 

 

 

 

introduction

Now the Bible turns its attention to Moses, who was born about 1500 BC. He was chosen to lead Israel out of slavery and give them God’s laws. When the Book of Exodus begins, the Hebrews were living in Egypt and after time they grew in number and the new Pharaoh didn’t remember Joseph and put them into slavery. The Hebrew slaves had been reproducing so fast that the king felt threatened by a potential revolt against his authority. He gave orders that no more male Hebrew children should be allowed to live. To save the infant Moses, his mother made a little vessel of papyrus waterproofed with asphalt and pitch. She placed Moses in the vessel, floating among the reeds on the bank of the Nile River.  By God’s providence, Moses– the child of a Hebrew slave– was found and adopted by an Egyptian princess, the daughter of the Pharaoh himself. He was reared  in the royal court as a prince of the Egyptians: “And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds” (Acts 7:22). At the same time the Lord determined that Moses should be taught in his earliest years by his own mother. This meant that he was founded in the faith of his fathers, although he was reared as an Egyptian (Ex. 2:1-10).

Moses was educated in a civilization unsurpassed by any people at that time. His training was designed to prepare him for a high office, or even the throne of Egypt. He became familiar with life at Pharaoh’s courts and the pomp and grandeur of Egyptian religious worship. He was schooled in the writing and literary ideas of the time. He witnessed the administration of justice. When he was 40 years old, Moses became angry at an Egyptian taskmaster who was beating a Hebrew slave; he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand (Ex. 2:12). When this became known, however, he feared for his own life and fled from Egypt to the desert land of Midian where he married a daughter of Jethro in agreement to tend Jethro’s flocks.

 After about 40 more years, God spoke to Moses from a bush that was on fire but didn’t burn. God sent Moses back to Egypt to lead the Hebrews out of slavery, and into the land promised to Abraham. God demonstrated His power to Moses and revealed to Him His holy Name “YHVH” or “Yaweh” (Jehovah became a popular pronunciation in the 16th century through German translators although there is no “J”sound in the Hebrew).

God commanded the Israelites to celebrate yearly the “Passover”, where the death angel passed over the houses that had the blood of a lamb.

The Israelites were guided by the mysterious Shekinah glory cloud that led them to Mount Sinai. On the way their faith was tested as they experienced intense heat, hunger, thirst, and war. God did many miracles including “manna”, bread that fell from heaven.

 still Moses didn’t able to enter the Promised Land.

 

reaction

Moses (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה‎, Modern Moshe Tiberian Mōšéh ISO 259-3 Moše ; Arabic: موسى‎ Mūsā ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur’an, and Baha’i scripture, a religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. “Moses our Teacher/Rabbi”), he is the most important prophet in Judaism;^[1][2] he is also an important prophet in Christianity andIslam, as well as a number of other faiths.

 

The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story are disputed amongstarchaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence, and related origin myths inCanaanite culture.^[3][4][5] Other historians maintain that the biographical details and Egyptian background attributed to Moses imply the existence of an historical political and religious leader who was involved in the consolidation of the Hebrew tribes in Canaan towards the end of the Bronze Age.

 

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Children of Israel, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might help Egypt’s enemies. Moses’ Hebrew mother, Jochebed, hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed, and the child was adopted as a foundling by the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slavemaster, Moses fled across the Red Seato Midian, where he encountered the God of Israel in the form of a “burning bush“.

 

God sent Moses back to Egypt to request the release of the Israelites. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land.

 

Although considered a messenger of God, Moses had difficulties with speech, which is documented in the Torah. Because of this, Aaron (the brother of Moses) would often do the talking for him.^[8]

 

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him that the Lord God of Israel wanted Pharaoh to permit the Israelites to celebrate a feast in the wilderness. Pharaoh replied that he did not know their God and would not permit them to go. They gained a second hearing with Pharaoh and changed Moses’ rod into a serpent, but Pharaoh’s magicians did the same with their rods. Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh at the Nile riverbank, and Moses had Aaron turn the river to blood, but Pharaoh’s magicians could do the same.^[25]

 

Moses obtained a fourth meeting, and had Aaron bring frogs from the Nile to overrun Egypt, but Pharaoh’s magicians were able to do the same thing. Pharaoh asked Moses to remove the frogs and promised to let the Israelites go observe their feast in the wilderness in return. Pharaoh decided against letting the Israelites leave to observe the feast.^[26]

 

Eventually Pharaoh let the Hebrews depart after Moses’ God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians. The third and fourth were the plague of gnats and flies. The fifth was diseases on the Egyptians’ cattle, oxen, goats, sheep, camels, and horses. The sixth was boils on the skins of Egyptians. Seventh, fiery hail and thunder. The eighth plague was locusts. The ninth plague was total darkness. The tenth plague was the slaying of the Egyptian male first-born children, whereupon such terror seized the Egyptians that they ordered the Hebrews to leave. The events are commemorated as Passover, referring to how the plague “passed over” the houses of the Israelites while smiting the Egyptians.^[27]

 

According to the Bible, after crossing the Red Sea and leading the Israelites towards the desert, Moses was summoned by God to Mount Sinai, also referred to as Mount Horeb, the same place where Moses had first talked to the Burning Bush, tended the flocks ofJethro his father-in-law, and later produced water by striking the rock with his staff and directed the battle with the Amalekites.

 

Moses stayed on the mountain for 40 days and nights, a period in which he received the Ten Commandments directly from God. Moses then descended from the mountain with intent to deliver the commandments to the people, but upon his arrival he saw that the people were involved in the sin of the Golden Calf. In terrible anger, Moses broke the commandment tablets^[31] and ordered his own tribe (the Levites) to go through the camp and kill everyone, including family and friends,^[32] upon which the Levites killed about 3,000 people, some of whom were children.^[33] God later commanded Moses to inscribe two other tablets, to replace the ones Moses smashed,^[34] so Moses went to the mountain again, for another period of 40 days and nights, and when he returned, the commandments were finally given.

 

In Jewish tradition, Moses is referred to as “The Lawgiver” for this singular achievement of delivering the Ten Commandments.

 

 

conclusion

 

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (colloquially called Mormons) generally view Moses in the same way that other Christians do. However, in addition to accepting the Biblical account of Moses, Mormons include Selections from the Book of Moses as part of their scriptural canon.^[112] This book is believed to be the translated writings of Moses, and is included in the Pearl of Great Price.^[113]

 

Latter-day Saints are also unique in believing that Moses was taken to heaven without having tasted death (translated). In addition, Joseph Smith, Jr. and Oliver Cowdery stated that on April 3, 1836, Moses appeared to them in the Kirtland Temple in a glorified, immortal, physical form and bestowed upon them the “keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth, and the leading of the ten tribes from the land of the north.”^[114]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the historical works of moses

Some people believe that Moses is not an historical person, that the Exodus did not happen, and that Moses is a myth and therefore did not write the Pentateuch. Obviously, there are many religions that do not embrace these beliefs.

 

Moses, the Prophet, was born into the Levite tribe of the Israelite nation. His father was Amram and his mother Jochebed. Moses grew up during a time of turmoil when the Israelites were in bondage and slavery to a formidable Egyptian nation. Through years of harsh servitude, the Israelites had grown out of favor with God, forgotten their origin, adopted shared religious beliefs and worship of God, and were suspicious of all things they had been unaccustomed to. It was during such an era that a humble and reluctant leader named Moses had been destined for greatness.

 

The Lord God manifested Himself to Moses in the wilderness as a burning bush that was not consumed, and spoke directly to Moses saying,

“I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6).

Thus, Moses got in touch with the experience of the utmost fear; as he was afraid to look upon God. According to traditional belief at that time, it was fatal to look upon Divinity as it meant unequivocal death. “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20).

Moses did not aspire to be a leader as he was far from being immediately motivated to do as God had asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, across the Sinai deserts into Canaan the Promised Land. Initially, Moses lacked ambition and determination. He did not believe he could be the one chosen for leadership role for the Hebrews to follow him; nor did he desire such a role; furthermore, it is not known whether Moses, as a young adult, showed any special interest in religious matters.

However, God did choose Moses, providing him with signs of Divine power, handing down to him the Ten Commandments from which was derived the Israelite Law named by scholars as the “Mosaic Law”. In addition, God the Almighty gave Moses Divine instruction, and appeared to him in the Tent of Meeting to give advice or hear prayers. In this way, God had shaped Moses for greatness; as it is clear greatness was not his ambition; nor was strong faith his asset. But Moses was loyal to his people and defended them in unjust situations as seen in two biblically recorded incidents: one being when he witnessed an Egyptian beat a Hebrew and the other when he intervened in a fight between two Israelites. Reared into wealth, education, and leisure of the Egyptian ruling class, he was not taught to defend the helpless; rather it was his gift that God would reveal to Moses in paramount proportions in His own time.

God both created a leader in Moses and formed unity within a nation in the desert. Moses proved to be a leader of a certain amount of intolerance to unfairness; and yet would put his people before himself. Moses taught the Israelites how to care for themselves. Rather than keeping the power and glory to himself, he appointed seventy elders and asked the Lord to appoint the next leader of the Israelite nation. It is to be speculated that the leadership appointment could have been one of ability rather than religious fervor; as the leader did not come from Aaronic priesthood.

However, in spite of all of Moses’ great and inspiring accomplishments, he was not allowed to enter the promised land of Canaan. Moses never crossed the Jordan River banks to enter into the land flowing with milk and honey. For a man who, through Divine intervention, could predict plagues, part the Red Sea, witnessed manna rain from Heaven, delivered the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, and could mold slaves into a devoted nation to God and the Law, Moses was still denied the promised land due to a single fit of disobedience.

 

conclusion

The Law Moses established through God became known as the Mosaic Law. Moses is mentioned in the New Testament more than any other Old Testament prophet, the Transfiguration with the Lord Jesus Christ talking to Moses and Elijah is recorded in three New Testament Holy Gospels.

 

While Moses’ single display of disobedience prevented his entrance into the Promised Land, his greatness far outweighed his punishment; as it must have been intended by God. A leader by God’s design, a law maker by God’s will, and a sinner portrayed by his human weakness made known before the nation he led, Moses persevered to the end and his love to God never failed.

 

“It is neither the faith, nor the love, nor the hope, nor the endurance of one day; Rather, ‘he that endures to the end will be saved…” St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 195).

Moses talked with God face to face and God knew Moses in person. Although Moses’ punishment was not to enter into the Promised Land, perhaps with God, Moses was living its fulfillment long before he could reach it.

 

 

Moses talked with God face to face and God knew Moses in person. Although Moses’ punishment was not to enter into the Promised Land, perhaps with God, Moses was living its fulfillment long before he could reach it.