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By Pharaoh's orders, he was supposed to have died at birth. But by a brilliant trick of his mother and sister, he survived. Although his name is not found in Egyptian documents, very few people are as important as Moses in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Moses is indeed the one whom God chose and charged with the mission of delivering his people from the slavery of Egypt and leading them to the Promised Land. Yet Moses is indeed this prince who became a shepherd. He is indeed this foreigner who became the liberator of God's people in Egypt. The Story of Moses is one of the most enigmatic for the historian. His life has been subjected to various interpretations, various analyses, whether from the point of view of archeology, history or theology. In this mini-dossier, we shed light on the life and history of this leader who is said to have lived more than 3,500 years and whose story constitutes the foundation of Judaism.
Told in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the life of Moses is a true saga. Woven around deliverance, divine commands and strange miracles, his life begins in Egypt, at a time when the Hebrew people, descendants of Jacob, descendants of Abraham, are slaves.
Sensing the threat of the strong growth in their numbers, the Pharaoh decreed that all the newborn Hebrews, if they were males, be killed. The child Moses was born in this context and escaped death by justice. Indeed, Jochebed, his mother, moved by this faith that maternal love engendered, placed her baby in a basket covered with bitumen that she placed on the Nile.
The basket containing the baby child is found by the Pharaoh's daughter who could not resist the emotion of the moment. The young girl decided to adopt this Egyptian baby and gave him the name that we still know today: Moses. The meaning of this name? Saved from the waters. Thus begins the story of the man who will become a few decades later the first enemy of Egypt.
Moses' youth was that of a prince, since he lived in the royal court. But the adopted prince continued to feel Hebrew blood flowing within him. Witnessing a scene of violence by an Egyptian against a Hebrew, he threw himself on the Egyptian and took his life, managing to hide his body. Very quickly, the affair became known and Moses had to flee to avoid reprisals. He went to Midian, a region in northwestern Arabia.
It was the land of Midian that gave him his wife, who was none other than the daughter of the priest of Midian who had sheltered Moses. In Midian, Moses became a shepherd. He had to graze the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro on Mount Horeb. For forty years, this would be his function. He did not know that it was a period of spiritual preparation for a mission that God was going to entrust to him.
Moses the shepherd went about his daily business as usual. One day, while traveling to Horeb, he had a most unusual experience. He came face to face with a burning bush that burned without being consumed. Moses was captivated. He heard Jehovah speaking to him through the bush, revealing to him the commission he was to undertake.
Moses was charged with freeing the Israelites from Egyptian slavery and leading them to a promised land that God would show him. The promised land is a land flowing with milk and honey. Moses, at first hesitant and taking refuge behind a supposed inability to accomplish this mission, was reassured by God. He would be assisted by Aaron, his brother. He would be his spokesperson.Moses accepts the mission and returns to Egypt with Pharaoh. Thus begins a new adventure in the life of Moses, who becomes the greatest of the prophets of the Old Testament.
In Egypt, Moses asks the Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go and serve God. As one might expect, the Pharaoh opposed this bold request. To force his hand, God inflicted a series of ten plagues on the Pharaoh's land that served to demonstrate divine power. First, he turned the water of the Nile into blood. Then, he sent an army of frogs, lice, flies. He also sent livestock plague, boils, hail, locusts, darkness.
The final plague that broke Pharaoh's resistance and intransigence was the death of the firstborn of Egypt. After this, Pharaoh let go and granted the Israelites permission to leave. This is a historical event that is celebrated every year during the Jewish Passover to commemorate the deliverance of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt.
Having received the unexpected permission of the Pharaoh, the Israelites left Egypt in haste. This exodus from Egypt consecrated an alliance that is celebrated to this day in the Judeo-Christian tradition. After a certain time, the Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued them with his troops and caught up with them at the Red Sea. The Israelites who arrived in front of the Red Sea were thus surrounded from behind by the army of the Pharaoh.
At God's instruction, Moses stretched out his shepherd's staff over the waters of the sea, which parted, allowing the Israelites to cross on dry land. After the Egyptians had passed, the same waters closed over Pharaoh's army, marking the end of their journey. All died, swallowed up, a miracle that remains to this day one of the most powerful miracles God performed through Moses. In sermons, this event is often mentioned as one of the greatest acts of divine deliverance.
As they left the Red Sea, the Israelites, God's chosen people, stopped at the foot of Mount Sinai. For forty days and forty nights, Moses would be on this mountain to receive God's ten commandments and a battery of laws and directives intended to organize the socio-religious life and govern the moral and civic issues of the Israelites, who now form a nation in their own right. These ten commandments would become the foundation of Mosaic law and that of the Judeo-Christian faith.
Unfortunately, Moses was still on Mount Sinai when the worry and impatience of the Israelites who did not know when Moses would return, had a god made for themselves. Aaron was the one who made the god which was a golden calf. Idolatry thus entered the camp of Israel. Moses was inflamed when he saw the odious spectacle as he came down from the mountain.
In a moment of anger, he broke the Tablets of the Law that God had given him. He returned to Mount Sinai to observe a second period of 40 days to implore God's mercy for this people who had betrayed him by sinning against him. God showed them mercy and renewed his covenant with the people of Israel. New tablets of the law are engraved to replace those that Moses broke in a fit of anger.
If Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai to receive the divine laws, the people of Israel would spend 40 years in the desert before reaching the Promised Land.It was a very long journey, their journey marked by a series of trials, acts of rebellion, and murmurings. The leader of this people, Moses, also had to face great difficulties in trying to lead his people who demanded that he find a solution to quench their thirst and calm their hunger. There were even plots within the ranks of the people against Moses. It took a lot of effort to keep the faith and get them to remain obedient to God. The deliverer of the Israelites had to continue to guide this people, to teach them the divine laws and to prepare the next generation to enter the Promised Land.
Moses' journey ended in the desert. Despite his supplications, he was unable to enter the promised land. This sentence was inflicted on him because he was guilty of disobedience. God had asked him to speak to the rock so that it would give them its waters. Moses, under pressure from the people, struck the rock twice, bringing upon himself the sentence of the Lord.
His punishment was that he would not be able to enter Canaan, the promised land. He could only see it from afar. Moses died at the age of 120 on Mount Nebo, where he could see Canaan from afar. According to the Bible, it was God himself who buried him in a valley in Moab. No one knows his tomb to this day.
While the biblical texts are very convincing regarding the story of Moses, as they are regarding the stories of other biblical figures, historical and archaeological perspectives subject these stories to debate. Indeed, the biblical stories are considered not only as literary and theological texts, but also as historical texts.
These stories, to be given the seal of absolute credibility, must therefore be supported by archaeological evidence. However, much controversy has arisen over the archaeological evidence relating to the Hebrew exodus and the decades they spent in the desert. According to some scholars, the story of Moses has its origins in old oral traditions that have been embellished over time.
In fact, several Egyptologists and historians have taken it upon themselves to look for evidence of possible correlations between Egyptian records and biblical accounts. Some of them have indicated that Moses may have lived during a period of crisis or transition in Egypt around 1550 and 1070 B.C. They have also noted that the ten plagues of Egypt may have been natural disasters that occurred during this period.
However, the spiritual and theological perspectives on the figure of Moses are completely different from what historical and archaeological debates suggest. Indeed, for the Jews, Moses is not a historical figure.
His figure carries a very strong theological and spiritual significance. According to the Jews, he is the mediator of the alliance concluded between God and the people of Israel. The Jews consider him the greatest prophet and attribute to him the writer of the first five books of the Bible (Old Testament), called the Pentateuch.
In the Christian tradition, Moses is more than just a prophet. A symmetry is established between him and Christ by considering him as the precursor of Jesus Christ. This symbolism is even found in christian jewelry, who embody this spiritual connection through representations of Moses or other biblical symbols. It should be remembered that even among Muslims, the name Moses comes up very frequently. Called "Moussa", he is considered a major prophet, and a model of faith and perseverance for the believer who wishes to walk with God.
It should also be noted that the Bible recognizes Moses as the humblest man on earth at his time. He left a very rich legacy to the Jewish and Christian people. We will especially remember the song he left in the book of Deuteronomy 32, as a farewell, and that he taught to the people of Israel in their last days.
Moses will leave behind him a people made up mostly of people who have not seen the plagues and miracles by which God freed his people from Egypt. He leaves them this song which will allow them to perpetuate the memory of the events they did not experience, but which will form the foundation of their faith and nourish their attachment to the alliance that God concluded with their fathers.
We learn later in the New Testament that after Moses' death, the devil disputed his body with the angel Michael. Thus, then, is the story of Moses, a forerunner of the new covenant that Jesus Christ came to implement later.
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