Bible: The Old Testament: Exodus. Summary The Book of Exodus begins more than four hundred years after Joseph, his brothers, and the Pharaoh he once served have all died.
The new leadership in Egypt—feeling threatened by Jacob’s descendants, who have increased greatly in size—embarks on a campaign to subdue the Israelites, forcing them into slavery and eventually decreeing that all Hebrew boys must be killed at birth in the Nile River. The Hebrew women resist the decree, and one woman opts to save her newborn son by setting him afloat on the river in a papyrus basket. Fortunately, Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the abandoned child and raises him after he has been nursed, naming him Moses. Moses is aware of his Hebrew roots, and, one day, he kills an Egyptian who is beating an Israelite worker. Moses and Aaron return to Egypt, where Moses organizes the Israelites and confronts the Pharaoh, demanding the release of the Hebrew people. Analysis Moses is the first true hero we encounter in the Hebrew Bible. MOSES - JewishEncyclopedia.com. —Biblical Data: The birth of Moses occurred at a time when Pharaoh had commanded that all male children born to Hebrew captives should be thrown into the Nile (Ex. ii.; comp. i.).
Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son, and kept the child concealed for three months. When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to death she set him adrift on the Nile in an ark of bulrushes. The daughter of Pharaoh, coming opportunely to the river to bathe, discovered the babe, was attracted to him, adopted him as her son, and named him "Moses. " Thus it came about that the future deliverer of Israel was reared as the son of an Egyptian princess (Ex. ii. 1-10). When Moses was grown to manhood, he went one day to see how it fared with his brethren, bondmen to the Egyptians. One day, as Moses led his flock to Mount Horeb, he saw a bush burning but without being consumed. In the Wilderness. Moses and the Israelites sojourned at Sinai about a year (comp. Death of Moses. Moses. Moses (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה, Modern Moshe Tiberian Mōšéh ISO 259-3 Moše ; Syriac: ܡܘܫܐ Moushe; Arabic: موسى Mūsā ) was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an, and Baha'i scripture, a former Egyptian prince and warrior,[citation needed] later turned religious leader, lawgiver, and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed.
Also called Moshe Rabbenu in Hebrew (מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּנוּ, Lit. "Moses our Teacher/Rabbi"), he is the most important prophet in Judaism.[1][2] He is also an important prophet in Christianity and Islam, as well as a number of other faiths. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Children of Israel, were increasing in numbers and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might ally with Egypt's enemies. God sent Moses back to Egypt to demand the release of the Israelites from slavery. Name The biblical text explains the name Mošeh משה as a derivation of the root mšh משה "to draw", in Exodus 2:10: