He was probably the most striking of all the characters in the Old Testament. His mind-blowing journey with the Lord God of Israel made Moses one of the great stories in the entire Bible. As we read his story, we can only gasp with wonder as we visualize how God guided him step-by-step to lead his people from bondage and slavery to their promised land, the land that the whole world knows today as Israel.
Long before Moses was even born, the Israelites were in captivity to the Pharaoh in Egypt. Even though they were forced to be slaves, their ever increasing numbers worried the Pharaoh so much that he at once ordered all the male children born to these slaves to be put to death. Such was his fear that they would gather and overthrow him. It was during this terrible time when all the slaves feared for their male children that Moses was born. His mother who was a Hebrew (Israelite) decided to hide him so that he could escape death from the Pharaoh. After a time of three months she placed Moses in an ark basket and dropped him in the waters of the river. She hoped that the child could escape and be found by another person who will raise him in safety as his own child. It was the will of God that the child Moses is found from the river waters by the daughter of the Pharaoh himself. This was how incredibly Moses, a slave was raised in the house of the Pharaoh as one of them.
Sure enough as Moses grew older, he could not bear to see the sufferings of the slaves at the hands of the Egyptians. He once saw an Egyptian severely assaulting a slave. This enraged Moses so much that he killed the Egyptian soldier. When Pharaoh learns of Moses’ behaviour he decides to kill Moses. It was then that Moses escapes into the desert and lives there for forty years before God calls him to return to lead his slave brothers and sisters out of Egypt. It is interesting to note that God calls upon Moses to lead his people out of bondage only after 40 years. God appears to Moses in the burning bush. It is only here we see God directly talking to Moses. He instructs Moses to return to Egypt to rescue the slaves. God was going to lead them all to “good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and Hittites.” God assures Moses that He was the God who was also the God of his forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
People who are well versed with what happened then about how God asked Moses to approach the Pharaoh to request him to allow the slaves to go with Moses, have written rich commentaries about the wonders that God did through Moses. Many are wonderful stories about the Moses’ rod turning into a serpent and how it turns back into a rod. The story of the water turning into blood, how God asks Moses to take his brother Aaron to be his voice, is some of the incredible incidents that occurred in the life of this Old Testament hero. More miracles happened when the Red Sea parted in between to allow the slaves to go through the waters. How the Egyptian soldiers who pursued them were caught up in the waters is another incident that has raked the minds of all Bible scholars. But the greatest miracle can easily be The Ten Commandments that God gave Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was here that God reveals Himself to Moses. How God showed only His back and not His face! (Exodus 33:21-23)
The only sad thing that happened in the life of great Old Testament hero was that he himself could not reach the promised land. Moses disobeyed God by striking the rock with his rod when God had actually instructed him to speak to the rock. But nowhere in the Bible can we see why Moses did like this. It was left to Joshua and Caleb to lead the people from the wilderness into the promised land of Egypt.
But it must be said that this one act of noncompliance does not make Moses a lesser hero. There is obviously a lesson for all mankind from the life of this super hero in the Bible. Moses disobeyed and paid the price. For obedience is the single most connection to receiving God’s power or blessing, while disobedience to God’s Word can stop the flow of God’s blessing.
Moses was a true hero. Let us all learn from all that happened with him.
Bible commentator: Sunder Venkataram (Thane, Maharashtra)
