Moses

Tradition consistently asserts that he was educated as an Egyptian in the house of a Pharaoh.

Continuing The Earliest Jews,
our selection from Universal History: The Oldest Historical of Nations and Greece by Leopold von Ranke published in 1884. The selection is presented in six easy 5-minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The Earliest Jews.

The essential truth which they embody is that in the midst of the Canaanitish population a powerful tribe arose, which clung tenaciously to the idea of the Most High God and rejected every temptation to pay honor to Baal-Moloch. The tribe which under Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, grew into a great people, had soon to learn that there was no further sojourn for them in Canaan. They turned towards the fertile land of Egypt, with which Abraham had already had relations, and where, so runs the story, his son Joseph, sold into Egypt by his brethren, had risen to a high station. Instances of similar success are found in the Egyptian inscriptions. The whole tribe found a refuge in the land of Goshen, where under the Pharaoh it enjoyed peace and could pasture its flocks. After a long sojourn, however, the duration of which we cannot determine, the posterity of Israel and his sons became aware that they could not tarry here either without completely forfeiting all they could call their own. The tribe was compelled to services which, though conformable to the religion and constitution of Egypt, were oppressive to all who did not acknowledge its authority.

It was at this time that Moses appeared among the people of Israel. Tradition consistently asserts that he was educated as an Egyptian in the house of a Pharaoh, and that, being unable any longer to tolerate the acts of violence to which his countrymen were exposed, he fell into a dispute on the subject with the natives of the country, slew one of them, and then took to flight. He was received by the Shepherd-kings in the neighborhood of Egypt, whose tribes were related to his own, and pastured with them his flocks on Sinai. Eusebius says that he meditated philosophy in the desert, and many have felt that wonderful exaltation which man experiences when he finds himself in a wild and lonely region face to face with God. This exaltation reached its highest flight in Moses, when an exile for his people’s sake.

Here the God of his fathers appears to him ; he sees Him not, for he shrinks from the vision, but he hears Him, and receives the announcement of His name in the sublime words, “I am that I am.” The Eternal Being opposes Himself to the phantom to whose service the world is devoted. The nation receives with joy the announcement of this manifestation. Asin Canaan the service of Baal had been rejected for that of the Most High God, so here in Egypt arose the desire to find in the Most High God deliverance from the oppressive yoke of the Egyptian religion and of the monarchy of Thebes, the visible manifestation of Amon Ra. The Israelites asked from Pharaoh a short leave of absence, in order to worship their God in the place consecrated to Him. The permission was refused, and their migration began. The hymn of praise in which the miracle of the Exodus is extolled treats of the incident with great simplicity. ‘ Pharaoh’s chariots and his host He hath cast into the sea; his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea.’

Thus, they reached those primeval heights where Moses had first spoken with the God of their fathers. It was his purpose to guide the people to that place where he had himself learn to look beyond the horizon of the Egyptian forms of worship. The people encamped at the foot of the mountain, brought thither, as the voice of God says, by Himself upon eagles’ wings, and the great event approached its completion. The God who says of Himself, ‘The whole earth is mine,’ purposes nevertheless to regard this nation as His especial property, and to fashion it into a kingdom of priests. The people draw near, adorned and prepared as befits the solemnity. From the foot of Sinai, after an ascent of some duration, the plateau of Er-Rahah expands to the view, shut in by rugged mountains of dark granite, crested by wild, jagged summits of rock towering one above the other—a scene of majestic and commanding solitude, to which the perpendicular wall of Horeb, from twelve to fifteen hundred feet in height, forms a dark and awful barrier.* The people are gathered in the valley, a solemn and mysterious region shut out from the world by mountains, and here the will of God is revealed.

[* Robinson’s Palestine, i. 143. In Ebers, Durch Gosen zum Shmi, p. 389 flf., the reader will find that several other hypotheses have been formed as to the locality of the giving of the Law. I give the preference to that of the enterprising American, whose sober judgment is unbiassed by preconceived opinions.]

God speaks and says,

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”

It would be impossible to express more sharply the contrast with Egypt, where the worship of numerous deities prevailed, each of which was nevertheless intended to be an image of divine power. In this multiplicity of forms polytheism lost sight of the very idea out of which it had been developed and was transformed into idolatry. In opposition to this was revealed the absolute idea of the pure Godhead, independent of all accident in the mode of its conception.

The Decalogue is the outcome of this thought. It has been held to be a defect that the moral law in the Decalogue is regarded as the command of the Legislator. This, however, is an essential and necessary feature; no distinction could be made between religion, moral laws, and civil institutions. The sabbath, which was substituted for the innumerable festivals of the Egyptian nature worship, is associated with the creation as exhibited in the Mosaic cosmogony. The fact that even slaves are permitted to rest on the sabbath, implies the conception of a divine polity embracing all mankind, and involves a kind of emancipation from personal thraldom. These clauses are followed by the simplest civil enactments. A blessing is attached to the commandment to honor parents as the fundamental principle of family life. Marriage is held especially sacred; while life and property are declared equally inviolable.

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