Moses

Old Testament prophet and chosen leader of the Hebrew people (the Israelites) as they left slavery in Egypt. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. Because he received the Ten Commandments and the Old Testament Law from God, he is known as the “Lawgiver.”

Moses’s life shows that God’s plans cannot be defeated. When Moses was a baby, the pharaoh ordered that all male Hebrew babies were to be killed. Moses’s mother placed him in a basket, and Moses’s sister, Miriam, watched over it. The basket and baby were found by an Egyptian princess, who adopted Moses. She hired Moses’s mother to take care of him until Moses was a little older. In this way, Moses grew up understanding the beliefs and customs of both the Hebrews and the Egyptians.

Moses was not perfect. At times, his temper got the better of him. He killed an Egyptian while trying to defend an Israelite slave and ran away to Midian. There, he lived as a shepherd and the husband of Zipporah, the daughter of a priest. But forty years later, God called Moses to be a shepherd of people instead of sheep!

During their forty years in the wilderness, the people constantly grumbled against Moses and Aaron. Many times Moses was discouraged. Sometimes he disobeyed God. But he was still a great leader. He had to organize a mass of people, settle their arguments, answer their complaints, and try to teach them how to worship God.

Moses and all the other adults (except Joshua and Caleb) who left Egypt were not permitted to enter the Promised Land because of their earlier sins of doubting and disobeying God. Moses died at age 120 and was buried in the land of Moab.