Moses

Drawn Out of the Water

After Joseph’s death, the Israelites in Egypt became forced laborers. Pharaoh gave an order: “You shall cast every son who is born into the river” (Exod 1:22). When Moses was born, his mother “saw that he was a fine child, she hid him three months” (Exod 2:2). Later Pharaoh’s daughter took him as her son. “She named him Moses, and said, ‘Because I drew him out of the water’” (Exod 2:10).

Stephen would later say, “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works” (Acts 7:22).

Flight to Midian

When Moses had grown up, he went out to see his own people at their hard labor. “He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.” Then “he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no one, he killed the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand” (Exod 2:11–12). Stephen says this was “when he was forty years old” (Acts 7:23). When Pharaoh heard of it, he tried to kill Moses, “but Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian” (Exod 2:15). There he married Zipporah and kept the flock of his father-in-law (Exod 2:21; 3:1).

Hebrews says, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time” (Heb 11:24–25).

The Call from the Bush

“When forty years were fulfilled,” in the wilderness, God appeared to Moses from a bush that burned but “was not consumed” (Acts 7:30; Exod 3:2). God sent him to Pharaoh to bring the people out of Egypt. Moses held back again and again: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh” (Exod 3:11); “I am not eloquent” — “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Exod 4:10). God told him, “Certainly I will be with you” (Exod 3:12), and told him his name: “I AM WHO I AM” (Exod 3:14).

The Plagues and the Passover

Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go?” (Exod 5:2). When they spoke to Pharaoh, “Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old” (Exod 7:7). God sent one plague after another on Egypt (Exod 7–11).

On the last night, God told each household to kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorframe: “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exod 12:13). “At midnight, the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” (Exod 12:29). The text records that night plainly and does not explain it further. “That same day, the LORD brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies” (Exod 12:51).

Through the Sea

Pharaoh sent his army after them. The sea was ahead, and the people were afraid. Moses told them, “Don’t be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work for you today” (Exod 14:13). The waters parted and Israel crossed on dry ground; the text says “the people feared the LORD; and they believed in the LORD and in his servant Moses” (Exod 14:31). Moses and the Israelites sang to the LORD, and Miriam led the women with tambourines and dancing (Exod 15:1, 20).

Provision in the Wilderness

In the wilderness, “the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron” (Exod 16:2). God said, “Behold, I will rain bread from the sky for you” (Exod 16:4) — the bread the people called manna (Exod 16:15, 31). When there was no water, God told Moses at the rock in Horeb, “You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it” (Exod 17:6).

The Covenant at Sinai

At Mount Sinai, God said to the people, “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be my own possession from among all peoples” (Exod 19:5). God gave the Ten Commandments, which begin, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exod 20:2). The people said, “We will do all that the LORD has said, and be obedient” (Exod 24:7). Moses sprinkled blood on the people and said, “Look, this is the blood of the covenant” (Exod 24:8).

God also told them to build a tabernacle: “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Exod 25:8). On the day it was finished, “the LORD’s glory filled the tabernacle” (Exod 40:34).

The Golden Calf and the Plea

While Moses was on the mountain, Aaron made a molded calf, and the people said, “These are your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt” (Exod 32:4). Moses came down and broke the tablets; the text records that “about three thousand men fell of the people that day” (Exod 32:19, 28). Moses went back before God to plead for the people: “Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written” (Exod 32:32).

The text says, “The LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exod 33:11). And God proclaimed before Moses, “The LORD! The LORD, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth” (Exod 34:6).

Forty Years and the Rock

When the people reached the edge of Canaan, they would not go in. God said their children “shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years” (Num 14:33). The text also says, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all the men who were on the surface of the earth” (Num 12:3).

At Kadesh there was again no water, and the people quarreled again. God told Moses to “speak to the rock” (Num 20:8), but Moses said, “Hear now, you rebels! Shall we bring water out of this rock for you?” and “struck the rock with his rod twice”; water still came out (Num 20:10–11). God said to Moses and Aaron, “Therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them” (Num 20:12).

Later, when snakes bit many of the people, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent: “If a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the serpent of bronze, he lived” (Num 21:9). Jesus later said to Nicodemus, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14).

Seeing the Promised Land

On the plains of Moab, Moses went over the law again with the people. He said, “I am one hundred twenty years old today. I can no more go out and come in. The LORD has said to me, ‘You shall not go over this Jordan’” (Deut 31:2). In front of all Israel he told Joshua, “Be strong and courageous” (Deut 31:7).

Moses went up Mount Nebo (Deut 34:1), and God showed him the promised land: “I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there” (Deut 34:4). “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab,” and “no man knows where his tomb is to this day” (Deut 34:5–6). “Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his strength gone” (Deut 34:7). The text ends, “Since then, there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deut 34:10).

The five books from Genesis to Deuteronomy are traditionally attributed to Moses. The New Testament says, “For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).