![]() As a young man, outraged at seeing an Egyptian overseer beating a Jewish slave, he kills the overseer. The Torah records only three incidents in Moses’ life before God appoints him a prophet. Had Moses grown up in slavery with his fellow Hebrews, he probably would not have developed the pride, vision, and courage to lead a revolt. It surely is no coincidence that the Jews’ future liberator is raised as an Egyptian prince. Hearing the crying child as she walks by, Pharaoh’s daughter pities the crying infant and adopts him ( Exodus 2:1-10). His mother, Yocheved, desperate to prolong his life, floats him in a basket in the Nile. Moses is born during the Jewish enslavement in Egypt, during a terrible period when Pharaoh decrees that all male Hebrew infants are to be drowned at birth. Without Moses, there would be little apart from laws to write about in the last four books of the Torah. Acting at God’s behest, it is he who leads the Jews out of slavery, unleashes the Ten Plagues against Egypt, guides the freed slaves for forty years in the wilderness, carries down the law from Mount Sinai, and prepares the Jews to enter the land of Canaan. Along with God, it is the figure of Moses (Moshe) who dominates the Torah. ![]()
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