about: the Biblical figure

Moses (Egyptian, Latin: Moyses, ; Greek: lang: Mωϋσῆς in both the Septuagint and the New Testament; Arabic: lang: موسىٰ, ; Ge'ez: lang: ሙሴ, Musse) is a Biblical Hebrew religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed. Also called Moshe Rabbeinu in Hebrew (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. "Moses our Teacher"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism, and also an important prophet of Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, Rastafari, Chrislam and many other faiths.

According to the book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when war threatened and the large increase in the number of his people concerned the Pharaoh who was worried that they might help Egypt's enemies. His Hebrew mother, Jochebed, hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed, and he ended up being adopted into the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian where he tended the flocks of Jethro, a priest of Midian on the slopes of Mt. Horeb. After the Ten Plagues were unleashed on Egypt, Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, where they based themselves at Horeb and compassed the borders of Edom. It was at this time, that according to the Bible, Moses received the Ten Commandments. Despite living to 120, Moses died before reaching the Land of Israel.

Religious texts

In the Bible the narratives of Moses are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy while the main source for Moses' life is the Book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus takes up the narrative 230 years after the arrival of Jacob in Egypt. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was a son of Amram, a member of the Levite tribe of Israel, having descended from Jacob, and his wife Jochebed. Jochebed (also Yocheved) was kin to Amram's father Kehath (Exodus 6:20). Moses had one older (by seven years) sister, Miriam, and one older (by three years) brother, Aaron. According to Genesis 46:11, Amram's father Kehath immigrated to Egypt with 70 of Jacob's household, making Moses part of the second generation of Israelites born during their time in Egypt. In the Exodus account, the birth of Moses, on 7 AdarTalmud Bavli, Megilah 13b, Sotah 12b, Kidushin 38a 2368Seder Olam. The Seder Olam's calendar starts two years later than the one currently used by Jews. (about Feb-Mar 1391 BC), occurred at a time when the current Egyptian Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born be killed by drowning in the river Nile. The Torah and Flavius Josephus leave the identity of this Pharaoh unstated. Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son and kept him concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed, she set him adrift on the Nile River in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch. According to the Quran, she is commanded by God to place him in an ark and cast him on the waters of the Nile, thus abandoning him completely to God's protection and demonstrating her total trust in God. In the Biblical account, Moses' sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat until it reached a place where Pharaoh's daughter Thermuthis (Bithiah) was bathing with her handmaidens. It is said that she spotted the baby in the basket and had her handmaiden fetch it for her. Miriam came forward and asked Pharaoh's daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. Thereafter, Jochebed was employed as the child's nurse, and he grew and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter and became her son, and a younger brother to Rameses II, the future Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses would not be able to become Pharaoh because he was not the 'blood' son of Bithiah, and he was the youngest.