Moses - episode 1

With Joseph’s story also ends the first book of the Bible, Genesis. We continue our narration with the Book of Exodus, chapter 1 and following. The Jewish people remained in Egypt after the end of the famine that Joseph had predicted interpreting the dream of Pharaoh and «The children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it happen that when any war breaks out, they also join themselves to our enemies, and fight against us, and escape out of the land.”». These measures are initially only heavy forced labor, then the Pharaoh asks the midwives to kill every Hebrew male child during childbirth and finally, when even this initiative fails, he orders to cast into the Nile every Hebrew newborn son.

Pharaoh begins to experience that the Lord’s blessing to Abraham and his descendants can not be undone by human projects: even when he seems to have finally triumphed, a Hebrew mother secretly disobeys and saves her little son by building a waterproof basket of papyrus and pitch and letting it float on the river. The Pharaoh’s daughter finds him and decide to adopt him: ironically the king of Egypt’s most formidable opponent will grow in his own house. His name is Moses, the “drawn out from the waters”.

 

 

«It happened in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brothers, and looked at their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers. 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. He went out the second day, and behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, “Why do you strike your fellow?” He said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you plan to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?” Moses was afraid, and said, “Surely this thing is known.” Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and lived in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock. The shepherds came and drove them away; but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock». Moses remains aware of his origins and by those two episodes we can figure out a major side of his character: the strong sense of justice that requires him to intervene when a weak person is threatened by an unfair power. Maybe, subconsciously, he already begins to feel that his life will be spent to this precise purpose: free his oppressed brothers. The beginnings, however, are not encouraging: the result of his clumsy attempt is failure and escape from certain death. He passes from the splendor of the Egyptian court to the humble work of shepherd in the desert, as husband of Zipporah, one of the priest of Midian’s daughters. Indeed he missed a key ingredient to the success of his task: God’s mandate. Moses will free his oppressed brothers by the Lord’s power and faithfulness to his Promises, not with poor human initiatives. Rabbinic tradition divides the hundred and twenty years of Moses’ life in three periods of forty years (see Acts 7,17 and following). He spent his first forty years in the refined education of the Egyptian court, while the second forty years are for silence and reflection. They lead him to the necessary maturity for the meeting with the God of his fathers: there begins a divine communion and intimacy that will not have equals in any other prophet. The new flock to drive through difficulties and dangers will be no more made by animals, but by the Hebrew brothers that the Lord has entrusted to him. «Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. Moses said, “I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!” He said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not come close. Take your sandals off of your feet, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”». In the next post we will conclude the story of Moses’ call, which is the beginning of his mission.