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Moses - Moses in Judaism
A wealth of stories and additional information about Moses can be found in the Jewish genre of rabbinical exegesis known as Midrash, as well as in the primary works of the Jewish oral law, the Mishnah and the Talmud. Little evidence outside of religious sources supports any of these stories, according to its detractors. However, the strong and rigid rules for scribes making copies of the Torah, provide a continuity into the ancient past, and many of the stories have seen reflections in archaeology.
According to the Hebrew Bible, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, and received the Torah of Judaism from God on Mount Sinai. The Torah contains the life story of Moses and his people until his death at the age of 120 years, according to some calculations in the year 2488 in the Hebrew calendar or 1273 BCE[1]. Arising in part from his age, but also because 120 is elsewhere stated as the maximum age for Noah's descendants (Genesis 6:3), "may you live to 120" has become a common blessing among Jews.
The birth of Moses occurred at a time when the current Egyptian monarch had commanded that all male children born to Hebrew captives should be killed by drowning in the Nile River. The Torah leaves the identity of this Pharaoh unstated, but he is often believed to be Ramses II; other, earlier pharaohs have also been suggested including a Hyksos pharaoh or one shortly after the Hyksos had been expelled, whilst others suggest a later pharaoh such as Setnakhte or even Sheshonk.
Jochebed, daughter of Levi and the wife (and paternal aunt) of the Levite Amram, bore a son, and kept him concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed she set him adrift on the Nile river in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch. The daughter of Pharaoh discovered the baby and adopted him as her son, and named him "Moses" (considered to mean "to draw out"). By Biblical account, Moses' sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat. Miriam then asked Pharoah's daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Thereafter, Jochebed was employed as the child's nurse, and he grew and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter and became her son.
When Moses grew to manhood, he went one day to see how his brethren, slaves to the Egyptians, fared. Seeing an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand, supposing that no one who would be disposed to reveal the matter knew of it. The next day, seeing two Hebrews quarreling, he endeavored to separate them, whereupon the Hebrew who was wronging his brother taunted Moses with slaying the Egyptian. Moses soon discovered from a higher source that the affair was known, and that Pharaoh was likely to put him to death for it; he therefore made his escape to the Sinai peninsula and settled with Hobab, or Jethro, priest of Midian, whose daughter Zipporah he in due time married. There he sojourned forty years, following the occupation of a shepherd, during which time his son Gershom was born. Moses is also said to have had an Ethiopian wife, according to Numbers 12:1.
According to the Book of Exodus, one day, as Moses led his flock to Mount Horeb, he saw a burning bush which was not consumed. When he turned aside to look more closely at the marvel, God spoke to him from the bush, revealing his name to Moses.
He also felt commissioned by God to go to Egypt and deliver his Hebrew brethren from their bondage. He then returned to Egypt. Moses was met on his arrival in Egypt by his elder brother, Aaron, and gained a hearing with his oppressed brethren. It was a more difficult matter, however, to persuade Pharaoh to let the Hebrews depart. This was not accomplished until God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians. These plagues culminated in the slaying of the Egyptian first-borns, whereupon such terror seized the Egyptians that they ordered the Hebrews to leave.
The long procession moved slowly, and found it necessary to encamp three times before passing the Egyptian frontier, some believe at the Great Bitter Lake while others propose as far south as the northern tip of the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Pharaoh had a change of heart and was in pursuit of them with a large army. Shut in between this army and the Red Sea, the Israelites despaired, but instructed by God to walk across it, the waters of the sea miraculously divided so that they passed safely across on dry ground. When the Egyptians attempted to follow, God permitted the waters to return upon them and drown them.
As a result of this the Tabernacle, according to the last chapters of Exodus, was constructed, the priestly law ordained, the plan of encampment arranged both for the Levites and the non-priestly tribes and the Tabernacle consecrated.
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