The Bible says that he was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3). “ But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst? So Moses cried to the Lord, What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” They were “ a stiff-necked people” (Exodus 33:3) who rebelled against God and made Moses responsible for their difficulties.įor one example, let’s read Exodus 17:3-5: The people frequently complained about a lack of food, water, and so on. This was not an easy task! They were traveling through the wilderness for months with an enormous group of people, including babies and elderly people, and they had to take all their possessions and their cattle with them. He told the people what the Lord God wanted them to do, where they needed to go, and so on. When the Israelites finally left Egypt, Moses was their leader. His stubbornness left his country in ruin. It took ten supernatural plagues to convince him that he had no other choice. But Pharaoh did not want to let them go at all. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him: “ Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Let my people go” (see Exodus 5:1 and many more places). He did not want to, at first, since he considered himself incapable of such a task. Moses was called by God to deliver the people of Israel. After spending another forty years in the land of Midian, the Lord God appeared to Moses and made Himself known as “ the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6), but also as “ I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). When Moses left Egypt, he was forty years old. The book of Hebrews looks back on this episode in Moses’ life and says that his decision to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of his life as an Egyptian prince, was a proof of faith (Hebrews 11:24-25). Why do you wrong each other?’ But the man who was wronging his neighbor thrust him aside, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’ At this retort Moses fled and became an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons” (Acts 7:22-29). And on the following day he appeared to them as they were quarreling and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. He supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand. And seeing one of them being wronged, he defended the oppressed man and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian. When he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brothers, the children of Israel. “ And Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds. The book of Acts summarizes what happened next: Pharaoh’s daughter came down to bathe at the river, found the basket and adopted the baby, whom she called “Moses”. Therefore, she made a waterproof basket, and put her child in this basket among the reeds by the river bank. She tried to hide him from the Egyptians to save his life, but as the baby grew older, this became almost impossible. Moses’ birth and childhoodĪt this time, an Israelite mother had a baby boy. They even killed their baby boys (Exodus 1:22). They oppressed the Israelites and made them work as slaves. This led to major problems, however, since the Egyptians started to see them as a threat. They were growing from a family into a people. The second book of the Bible, the book of Exodus, starts by describing how Abraham’s descendants “ were fruitful and increased greatly they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them” (Exodus 1:7). At the end of the book of Genesis, Abraham’s grandson Jacob (also called Israel) died in Egypt and his descendants continued to live there for a couple generations. His descendants would become a large and blessed nation in the land of Canaan, and through them all other nations would be blessed as well. The book of Genesis records how God chose a man called Abraham to play a special role in history. He is the prophet most often cited in the New Testament, particularly by Jesus. The story of his life is told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, but later Bible books also refer back to him. He played a major role in establishing Israel as a nation and was an important prophet who delivered God’s laws to the people and wrote the first five books of the Bible (apart from some minor parts). Moses is one of the most prominent people in the Bible.
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