MOSES, the son of Amram and Jochebed, was born in the year 1571 before Christ. Pharaoh king of Egypt, perceiving that the Hebrews had become a formidable nation, issued an edict commanding all the male children to be put to death. To avoid this cruel decree, Jochebed, the mother of Moses, having concealed her son for three months, at length made an ark or basket of bulrushes, daubed it with pitch, laid the child in it, and exposed him on the banks of the Nile. Thermuthis, the king’s daughter, who happened to be walking by the river’s side, perceived the floating cradle, commanded it to be brought to her, and, being struck with the beauty of the child, determined to preserve his life. In three years afterwards the princess adopted him as her own son, called his name Moses, and caused him to be diligently instructed in all the learning of the Egyptians. But his father and mother, to whom he was restored by a fortunate accident, were at still greater pains to teach him the history and religion of his fathers. Many things have been related by historians concerning the first period of Moses’s life, which are not to be found in the Old Testament. According to Josephus and Eusebius, he made war upon the Ethiopians, and completely defeated them; and they add, that the city Saba, in which the enemy had been forced to take refuge, was betrayed into his hands by the king’s daughter, who became deeply enamoured of him, when she beheld from the top of the walls his valorous exploits at the head of the Egyptian army. But as the truth of this expedition is more than doubtful, we shall confine ourselves to the narrative of Sacred Writ, which commences at the fortieth year of Moses’s life. He then left the court of Pharaoh, and went to visit his countrymen the Hebrews, who groaned under the tyranny and oppression of their unfeeling masters. Having perceived an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew, he killed the Egyptian, and buried him in the sand. But he was obliged, in consequence of this murder, to fly into the land of Midian, where he married Zipporah, daughter of the priest Jethro, by whom he had two sons, Gershom and Eliezar. Here he lived forty years, during which time he employed himself in tending the flocks of his father-in-law. Having one day led his flock towards Mount Horeb, God appeared to him in the midst of a bush which burned with fire but was not consumed, and commanded him to go and deliver his brethren from their bondage. Moses at first refused to go, but was at length prevailed on by two miracles, which the Almighty wrought for his conviction. Upon his return to Egypt, he, together with his brother Aaron, went to the court of Pharaoh, and told him that God commanded him to let the Hebrews go to offer sacrifices in the desert of Arabia. But the impious monarch disregarded this command, and caused the labour of the Israelites to be doubled. The messengers of the Almighty again returned to the king, and wrought a miracle in his sight, that they might move his heart, and induce him to let the people depart. Aaron having cast down his miraculous rod, it was immediately converted into a serpent; but the same thing being performed by the magicians, the king’s heart was more and more hardened, and his obstinacy at last drew down the judgments of the Almighty upon his kingdom, which was afflicted with ten dreadful plagues. The first was the changing of the waters of the Nile and of all the rivers into blood, so that the Egyptians died of thirst. In consequence of the second plague, the land was covered with innumerable swarms of frogs, which entered even into Pharaoh’s palace. By the third plague the dust was converted into lice, which cruelly tormented both man and beast. The fourth plague consisted of a multitude of destructive flies which spread throughout Egypt, and infested the whole country. The fifth was a sudden pestilence, which destroyed all the cattle of the Egyptians, without injuring those of the Israelites. The sixth produced numberless ulcers and fiery boils both upon man and upon beast. The seventh was a dreadful storm of hail, accompanied with thunder and lightning, which destroyed every thing that was in the field, whether man or beast, and spared only the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel dwelt. By the eighth plague swarms of locusts were brought into the country, which devoured every green herb, the fruit of the trees, and the produce of the harvest. By the ninth plague thick darkness covered all the land of Egypt, excepting the dwellings of the children of Israel. The tenth and last plague was the death of the first-born in Egypt, who were all in one night cut off by the destroying angel, from the first-born of the king to the first-born of the slaves and of the cattle. This dreadful calamity moved the heart of the hardened Pharaoh, and he at length consented to allow the people of Israel to depart from his kingdom.

Profane authors who have spoken of Moses appear to have been in part acquainted with these mighty wonders. That he performed miracles, has been allowed by many, by whom he was considered as a famous magician; and he could scarcely appear in any other light to men who did not acknowledge him as the messenger of the Almighty. Both Diodorus and Herodotus mention the distressed state to which Egypt was reduced by these terrible calamities. The Hebrews, amounting to the number of six hundred thousand men, without reckoning women and children, left Egypt on the fifteenth day of the month Nisan, which, in memory of this deliverance, was thenceforth reckoned the first month of their year. Scarcely had they reached the shore of the Red Sea, when Pharaoh with a powerful army set out in pursuit of them. On this occasion Moses stretched forth his rod upon the sea; and the waters thereof being divided, remained suspended on both sides till the Hebrews passed through dry footed. The Egyptians determined to follow the same course; but God caused a violent wind to blow, which brought back the waters to their bed, and the whole army of Pharaoh perished in the waves.

After the miraculous passage of the Red Sea, the army proceeded towards Mount Sinai, and arrived at Marah, where the waters were bitter; but Moses, by casting a tree into them, rendered them fit for drinking. Their tenth encampment was at Rephidim, where Moses drew water from the rock in Horeb, by smiting it with his rod. Here likewise Amalek attacked Israel. Whilst Joshua fought against the Amalekites, Moses stood upon the top of a hill, and lifted up his hands, in consequence of which the Israelites prevailed, and cut their enemies in pieces. They at length arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai on the third day of the ninth month after their departure from Egypt. Moses having ascended several times into the mount, received the law from the hand of God himself in the midst of thunders and lightnings, and concluded the famous covenant between the Lord and the children of Israel. When he descended from Sinai, he found that the people had fallen into the idolatrous worship of the golden calf. The messenger of God, shocked at such ingratitude, broke in [7:15:571]pieces the tables of the law which he carried in his hands, and put twenty-three thousand of the transgressors to the sword. He afterwards re-ascended the mountain, and there obtained new tables of stone, upon which the law was inscribed. But when he descended, his face shone so that the Israelites dared not to come nigh unto him, and he was obliged to cover it with a veil. The Israelites were here employed in constructing the tabernacle, according to a pattern shown them by God. It was erected and consecrated at the foot of Mount Sinai, on the first day of the first month of the second year after their departure from Egypt; and it served the Israelites instead of a temple till the time of Solomon, who built a house for the God of his fathers, after a model shown him by David.

Moses having dedicated the tabernacle, consecrated Aaron and his sons to be its ministers, and appointed the Lévites to its service. He likewise gave various commandments concerning the worship of God and the political government of the Jews. This was a theocracy in the fullest extent of the word. God himself governed them immediately by means of his servant Moses, whom he had chosen to be the interpreter of his will to the people; and he required all the honours belonging to their king to be paid to himself. He dwelt in his tabernacle, which was situated in the middle of the camp, like a monarch in his palace; he gave answers to those who consulted him, and himself denounced punishment against the transgressors of his laws. This was properly the time of the theocracy, taken in its full extent; for God was not only considered as the divinity who formed the object of their religious worship, but as the sovereign to whom the honours of supreme majesty were paid. The case was nearly the same under Joshua, who, being filled with the spirit of Moses, under- . took nothing without consulting God. Every measure, both of the leader and of the people, was regulated by the direction of the Almighty, who rewarded their fidelity and obedience by a series of miracles, victories, and successes. After Moses had regulated every thing regarding the civil administration and the marching of the troops, he led the Israelites to the confines of Canaan, to the foot of Mount Nebo; and here the Lord commanded him to ascend into the mountain, whence he showed him the promised land, into which he was not permitted to enter. He immediately afterwards yielded up the ghost, without sickness or pain, in the one hundred and twentieth year of his age, and 1451 years before Jesus Christ.

Moses is incontestably the author of the first five books of the Old Testament, which go by the name of the Pentateuch, and which are acknowledged to be inspired, by the Jews, and by Christians of every persuasion. Some, however, have denied that Moses was the author of these books, and have founded their opinion on this, that he always speaks of himself in the third person. But this manner of writing is by no means peculiar to Moses; it occurs also in several ancient historians, such as Xenophon, Caesar, Josephus, and others, who, possessed of more modesty or good sense than some modern historians, whose egotism is altogether disgusting, have not, like them, left to posterity a spectacle of ridiculous vanity and self-conceit. After all, it is proper to observe, that profane authors have related many falsehoods and absurdities concerning Moses, and also concerning the origin and the religion of the Jews, with which they were in fact but little acquainted. Plutarch, in his book concerning Isis and Osiris, says, that Judaeus and Hierosolymus were brothers, and descended from Typhon; and that the former gave his name to the country and its inhabitants, and the latter to the capital city. Others allege that they came from Mount Ida in Phrygia. Strabo is the only author who speaks anything like reason and truth concerning them; although he too says that they were descended from the Egyptians, and considers Moses their legislator to have been an Egyptian priest. He acknowledges, however, that they were a people strictly just and sincerely religious. Other authors by whom they are mentioned appear not to have had the smallest acquaintance either with their laws or with their worship; and frequently confound them with the Christians, as is the case with Juvenal, Tacitus, and Quintilian.