MOSES 



MOSES 



impressive story is told. One day while feed- 

 ing the flocks of Jethro he saw a bush appar- 

 ently burning without being consumed. As he 

 approached to look more closely at the strange 

 spectacle, a voice cried out from the bush and 

 told him to go back to Egypt and lead his peo- 

 ple out of the land of bondage into the prom- 



; land of Canaan. He must have accom- 

 pli<hed a task of this kind, for otherwise, the 



:es would have no meaning at all. It is 

 natural that so great an event should have 

 made a lasting impression on the people who 



STATUE BY MICHELANGELO 

 This famous Moaca stands in the Church of San 

 ro, Rome. 



loved to dwell on the miraculous way in which, 

 with the help of God, Mooes saved the people 

 i their oppression at the hands of the Egyp- 

 tians. The stories are most dramatically told 

 how Moses, accompanied, acconln 

 tradition, by Aaron, appeared frequently before 

 nnu him to let his people go, 

 and, when Pharaoh refused, bringing all kinds 

 utties upon the country. 



last and most terrible plague, sent as a 

 punishment because Pharaoh each time that 

 some misfortune came promised to let the 



people go and then withheld his promise, was 

 the killing of all first-born children in Egypt 

 through the Angel of Death. This angel passed 

 through the land, says the impressive story, 

 and spared the houses in which Hebrews lived. 

 Through the Angel of Death every household 

 in Egypt was thrown into mourning, and Pha- 

 raoh finally felt obliged to yield. As though 

 to make the story of the deliverance still more 

 dramatic, Pharaoh is represented as having 

 again regretted his decision, after the Hebrews 

 had left, and pursued them to the Red Sea. 

 Here a strange thing happened. Moses called 

 to his people, when they saw the Egyptians in 

 pursuit, "Fear not; the Lord shall fight for 

 you." The Bible then relates that a strong 

 east wind divided the waters and all the people 

 marched over in safety; but when the Egyp- 

 tians followed the waters rolled back and all 

 of Pharaoh's horsemen were drowned in the 

 sea. Thus the Hebrews were brought out of 

 Egypt, and there is no doubt that it was Moses 

 who accomplished this. 



The Period in the Wilderness. We now have 

 a series of stories in the book of Exodus, de- 

 scribing how the Hebrews moved from one 

 spot to another, settling for a time in one place 

 and then passing on. These accounts show that 

 at the time the Hebrews were still in what is 

 called the nomadic stage, somewhat like the 

 modern Arabic Bedouins, who likewise move 

 from place to place (see NOMAD LIFE). The 

 Hebrews, however, had reached the stage when, 

 in their wanderings, they were accompanied by 

 their flocks, and it was the necessity of securing 

 pasturage that led them frequently to change 

 their place of sojourn. 



Later on, after the death of Moses, we find 

 the Hebrews entering the land of Canaan and, 

 dispossessing the inhabitants, becoming tillers 

 of the soil, or agriculturists. People who reach 

 this stage of culture no longer move from place 

 to place. They become bound to the soil, 

 which they cultivate, and of which they become 

 tin- owners. When people own land they must 

 stay there to watch it and take care of it. The 

 period between the exodus from Egypt and the 

 conquest of Canaan is generally spoken of as 

 thr time of the wanderings in the wilderness, 

 near and around a sacred mountain which was 

 known as Mount Sinai. This period of the 

 wanderings is put down as forty years in the 

 Bible, which, 1 v round num- 



ber to indicate an entire generation. Probably 

 several generations elapsed, however, before 

 Canaan became the land of the Hebrews. Im- 



