Moses’ leadership as portrayed through the Exodus event

Abstract

Moses’ story is told in the Book of Exodus, but it actually starts in Genesis with the story of Abraham and his family with whom God makes a covenant. Generations later the Biblical Moses draws this extended family together in the form of a nation with a structure and code of law, given to him on Mount Sinai. I will explore the story of Moses as the Exodus hero or ‘The Leader Moses’. The great importance of Moses and the influence he has left on mankind and in the world and Christian followers, is not only because of the Bible references, the name Moses is mentioned 784 times in the Bible, in ancient literature the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria also called Philo Judaeus wrote a ‘Life of Moses’. Michelangelo’s masterpiece ‘the strength of the horned Moses’ in medieval art was of immense beauty. In the modern period, Karen Laub–Novak captured the twin roles of Moses’ leadership and his dependency on God, in a painting of perceptive quality. Moreover as quoted in the Old Testament, “Ezra was a scholar with a thorough knowledge of the Law which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given to Moses” (Ezra 7:6) for example, so in our time, the name of Moses has become a symbol for religious authority. Moses is regarded as the author of the Torah, the first and most revered section of the Bible. The introduction of Moses in the first chapters of Exodus symbolises a new beginning in the Bible’s version of the history of the Jewish people and of Israel. The first acclamation was made in the Book of Genesis with Abraham and the patriarchs who preceded him. In this first glance the focus is directly upon Israel, as a family which is united and bound in a direct relationship or covenant to its God. After the description found in the Genesis, Moses’ beginning in the Exodus marks the extension of the group, which grows from family to a nation. Although the mass of people grows exponentially and transforms into a nation, it is still a group with a strong sense of kinship and mutual understanding. Through this development the emphasis evolves into a common administration, as well as the creation of the covenant as a code of law that gives the nation its structure. The way in which the code of laws is presented portrays that is of utmost importance for the nation to strive and develop. Ancient Egypt was a civilization located in the North Eastern part of the African continent, mainly concentrated throughout the banks of the River Nile, in an area which is today Egypt. The pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and wielded complete control of the land and its resources. ‘A Tale of Two Countries’, the Mosaic distinction is expressed as the distinction between Israel and Egypt. On the map of physical and political geography, Ancient Israel and Ancient Egypt were two neighbouring countries in the eastern Mediterranean. Each of them had other neighbours as well. Sharing the common historical and political world that was the Mediterranean and the Near East, the two countries were related to each other as well as to their other neighbours by a network of political, commercial, and ideological ties which were sometimes friendly, often conflictual, but always complex. Yet on the map of memory Israel and Egypt appear as antagonistic worlds. The complexity and the plurality of a geopolitical continuum disappear. Historical reality is reduced to a figure of memory which retains just the two of them as the basic symbol of the Mosaic distinction. Israel embodies truth, Egypt symbolizes darkness and error. Egypt loses its historical reality and is turned into an inverted image of Israel. Israel is the negation of Egypt, and Egypt stands for all that Israel has overcome. This antagonistic constellation assumed the form of a Grand Narrative: the myth of the Exodus5 Moses must have been conscious of his great abilities, ambitious and spirited; perhaps he saw himself in a dim future as the leader of his people, the governor of the Empire.