This week we are going to start a 6 week study series on Moses.  The purpose I have for the study is to encourage us to think about those qualities of Moses’ life and his relationship with God that may serve as either positive or negative examples for our own life.  Although Moses is a revered figure in at least three major world religions, the picture the Hebrew scriptures paint of him is as often unflattering as it is positive.  Throughout his life he struggled with doubt, fear, pride, anger and sin.  In other words, he was a person just like me.  But in the end, he found himself used of God.

In our first session I want us to set the stage, to remind ourselves, in very broad strokes, of the life of Moses.  You can skip this part if you want because the purpose of the lesson is not to recount all or many of the events of Moses life. So, in bullet points:

• Name — Moses or Moshe in modern Hebrew.  Root of the word is to draw.  Two schools of thought, draw passive as in he was drawn from the river per Exodous 2:10 or draw active as in he drew his people out of Egypt.  Yet another group suggests that the root word is Egyptian “mose” meaning born, often combined in names like “Thut-mose”.
• Timing of his life is disputed.  Scripture gives no name to the Pharaoh who was in power and there has been much speculation.  The archeological record is inconclusive, no solid evidence has surfaced regarding the events described in scripture.  There are some tantalizing glimpses however which this site discusses in some detail if you are interested.
• During the famine in Palestine, Joseph and his family migrated to Egypt due to the availability of food (likely others did as well).  These proto-hebrews did well by both themselves and their hosts, but as scripture says,”There came a pharaoh who knew not Joespeh” and he ordered the enslavement of the foreigners.
• Even in slavery the population grew and Pharaoh ordered all male children to be killed by drowning them in the Nile.
• Moses’ mother was Jochebed who was married to the Levite Amram (Num 26:59).  When Moses was born she hid him for three months but when this was no longer possible she put him in a basket caulked with pitch and set him adrift in the Nile.
• Miriam, Moses sister, watched the basket until it came to where pharaoh’s daughter (un-named in Genesis, but Jewish tradition gives says she is the same daughter of Pharaoh named Bithiah mentioned in 1 Chronicles 4:18).
• Pharaoh’s daughter decided to keep moses as her own, gave him his name.  Miriam skillfully maneuvered to have her mother employed as Moses’ nurse.
• Moses was raised and educated in Pharaoh’s household.
• When Moses was grown he found an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew; he killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the sand.
• Moses discovered in conversation with two other Hebrews that the murder was known and ran off to Midian, which was all the way across the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt and settled by a well (we’re near the end of Exodus 2 if you’re keeping score at home).
• Moses defended the 7 daughters of the Midian Priest Reuel at a well from some shepherds.
• Moses marries Reuel’s daughter Zipporah and they have a son Gershom.  Just to confuse things a little Zipporah’s father is identified as Jethro just a little later on.  It is suggested that Reuel is the man’s given name and Jethro or Jether is a title like “Excellency”.
• During all this the Pharaoh dies and his successor is even more cruel to the Egyptians.
• One day Moses is out tending Reuel/Jethro’s flock when God speaks to him from a burning bush.
• God directs Moses to go to Egypt and secure the release of his people.  Moses demurs offering a number of excuses including lack of means to convince the elders of Israel that God has spoken to him and an inability to speak.  God sends him on his way with several miraculous signs and the promise that Aaron will speak for him.
• Aaron and Moses impress the Israelites with words and signs and the Israelites are reverently pleased that God has heard their cry.
• Pharaoh is not so impressed with Moses or God and, upon being asked to release the Israelites, doubles down on their work.  The Israelites are seriously displeased with Moses (Exodous 5:20 “you have made us stink in the opinion of Pharaoh”, lovely.)
• Moses blames God for getting him in trouble with Pharaoh and the Israelites.
• Moses and Aaron return to talk with Pharaoh and do miracles (which Pharaoh has duplicated) and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.
• Then ensued the plauges:  Nile turns to blood, frogs, gnats, flies, disease in livestock, boils, hail, locusts, darkness, and finally death of the firstborn.
• The Passover is instituted in association with the death of the firstborn as Israelite children are to be bypassed.
• Pharaoh summons Moses and announces he is expelling the Hebrews.
• Hebrews leave with treasure just as God said.
• Pharaoh regrets letting the Hebrews go and chases them with chariots through the desert to the Red Sea.  Hebrews panic and accuse Moses of leading them to their death.
• God saves them despite their ingratitude by parting the sea, letting the Hebrews walk across and drowning the Pharaoh’s army.
• Despite the grumbling of the Israelites God provides water in the desert and manna in the morning and quail in the evening  to eat.
• Moses keeps his hands up and the Hebrews win a victory over the Amalekites.
• Moses listened to sound advice from Reuel/Jethro (his father in law) about delegating authority.
• God makes a covenant with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.
• God provides the 10 commandments (or, for most Americans today, the 10 really interesting suggestions that might be kept if convenient) and other related laws.
• God sends the angel of his presence.
• God ratifies the covenant and the Israelites promise to obey him.
• Moses goes up on the mountain and God lays out a bunch of stuff like how to build the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle, how to consecrate Aaron and his sons as priests, clothes for priests, and Sabbath Observance.  This takes a long time.
• Meanwhile the Hebrews get bored (their promises notwithstanding) and get Aaron (sorta ironic) to build them an idol (golden calf) to worship.
• Moses sees the calf, smashes the tablets of the law, burns the calf and has the Levites kill 3,000, but also intercedes for the people.
• The tablets of the law are remade.
• The tabernacle, the ark and other items are made according to God’s instruction.
• A cloud leads the Israelites by day and fire leads by night. (Exodus ends)
• Moses ordains Aaron and the priests and the tabernacle is inaugurated.  (Leviticus 8-9)
• Moses takes a census of Israel (Numbers 1-2), records lots of unpronounceable names, and organizes the Tribes.
• Moses gives a whole bunch more laws at God’s command.
• Moses separates and purifies the Levites.
• About Numbers 10, after a lot of what seems like bureaucratic nonsense, the journey to the Promised Land begins and as usual the Hebrews complain.  They complain about food and they complained even after God got mad and burned part of the camp.
• And, even Moses complained.  He reminded God that this whole thing was God’s idea, not Moses and that if he’s going to have to deal with all these complaints then God can just kill him now.  Is this not just deliciously ironic, and so much like us some times.  Read Numbers 11 sometime.
• God responded by saying, “Meat, you want meat, I’ll give you meat until you’re sick.
• Aaron and Miriam oppose Moses because he married a woman from Kush. They said they had just as much to say on God’s behalf as Moses did.  God reminded them that he would speak to a prophet in a dream, in riddles, but that Moses was different.  His faith an faithfulness let God speak to Moses face to face. Miriam is struck with leprosy.
• Aaron pleads with Moses and Moses pleads with God for Aaron and Miriam.  God relented.
• The spies were sent out to Canna. All but Caleb reported that, though the land was rich, the inhabitants were so strong that the Israelites could not conquer them.
• The Hebrews freaked and complained (again) they had been brought all this way to die.
• Moses convinces the Lord not to kill all the Hebrews by saying that if he does so it will be said by others that he could not bring them into the land he swore to give them.
• God punishes the people by sending them into the wilderness so that the generation who rebelled would never see the promised land.
• Korah (a Levite) and 250 others rebelled against Moses and were punished by God along with 14,700 others.
• Aaron’s staff blooms.
• Miriam dies and is buried in Kadesh.  And the Hebrews complain again about water.
• Moses makes water come from a rock by striking it twice with his staff.  But God had told him to speak and the water would flow.  As a result God told Moses he would not bring the people into the Promised Land.
• Aaron dies on Mount Hor.
• While they were bypassing Edom (who refused them entry) the people complained yet again (“we detest this worthless food”).  This hacked off God who sent poisonous snakes and many died.  Moses made a brass snake , put it on a pole and when anybody who had been bitten looked at the snake they were healed.
• There was the affair of the Midianite women with whom Israelite men were committing sexual immorality.  Aaron’s Grandson, Phinehas, killed an Israelite man and a woman with a javelin thus averting God’s anger, stopping a plague that had killed 24,000.
• Moses takes a second census and the Israelites numbered 601,730.
• Got tells Moses to go up into a mountain in the Abarim range.  There he will see the land God is to give to the Israelites and then die.  Before hand he is to begin to let Joshua share some of his authority, so that the people will get used to following Joshua.
• Then God tells Moses to “Exact vengence on the Midianites for the Israelites and after that you will be gathered to your people”.
• Through most of the book of Deuteronomy Moses commissions Joshua, pronounces blessings and curses, gives additional laws and finally, in Deuteronomy he climbs Mount Nebo to the summit of Pisgah and God shows him the entire land of promise.  Moses died on the spot and God buried him.

That was long, longer than I thought it might be.  And here is the point:  who was the major actor through all that story?  Was is Moses?  It was not what Moses did that gave his life real significance, it was what God did through him.  As Americans we like self made people.  We admire stories where people rise from obscure beginnings to become titans of commerce, politics or entertainment.  Moses was greater than all of those we can think of, and yet his actions were not his own.  He gave the Israelites God’s promises, not his, he delivered God’s law, not his, he handed down God’s judgements, not his own, he performed miracles through God’s power not his own.  And God said of Moses that, unlike other prophets to whom God spoke in dreams and riddles, God spoke to Moses as face to face.  What would happen if we, like Moses allowed God to act through us.