Moses
Moses, drawn from the Nile and called from the bush, led Israel out of Egypt, received the Law at Sinai, and died in sight of a land he was not allowed to enter; Christ says of him, "he wrote about me" (John 5.46).
For Inquirers
Moses is the man the Bible says was pulled out of a river. His mother hid him as a baby, and when she could hide him no longer she set him afloat in a little basket coated with tar. The daughter of the king who wanted every Hebrew boy dead found the basket and raised the child as her own son.[^inq-birth] He grew up with every advantage, and then in one rash afternoon he struck down an Egyptian who was beating a slave and ran away to the desert, where he became a shepherd, married, and had a son.[^inq-flight] Years later he saw a bush that was on fire and was not burning up, and a voice from the bush told him to go back and bring his people out of slavery. He argued. He said he was nobody, and that he could not even speak well, and the voice answered that it would be with him.[^inq-call]
What follows is a very long story, and Moses is in the middle of nearly all of it. He leads a whole people across the bed of a sea, climbs a mountain wrapped in smoke, and comes down with God's commandments carved in stone, and when he finds the people dancing around a golden calf he is so angry that he smashes the tablets. Then he goes back up and begs God to forgive them, even offering to be erased from God's book himself if they cannot be forgiven.[^inq-calf] The Bible calls him the meekest man on earth, and says that God spoke with him "face to face, as if one should speak to his friend."[^inq-friend] He spends forty years leading people who complain at every turn, and at the end he is allowed to see the country he has been walking toward all his life, but not to enter it. He dies on a mountain, and no one knows where he is buried.[^inq-death]
Jesus speaks of Moses more than once. He tells a crowd that Moses wrote about Him, and on another mountain Moses stands beside Jesus with Elijah, a later prophet who the Bible says was carried up into heaven in a whirlwind, while Jesus' face shines like the sun.[^inq-christ] Moses is not an easy figure, and a thoughtful reader will stumble over some of what he does and over what is done to him. Jewish readers honor him as the one through whom the Law came, and Christians read him as a signpost pointing past himself.
Overview
- Moses is the leader of Israel in the exodus from Egypt and the lawgiver at Sinai. He was born to a Levite family in Egypt, raised in Pharaoh's house, called at the burning bush, and he died at a hundred and twenty years old on Mount Nebo in Moab, buried in a grave no one has seen.[^ov-life]
- His name is explained in Exodus itself, in Pharao's daughter's words, "I took him out of the water." The Old Testament calls him "servant of the Lord," "man of God," and a prophet unlike any other, and says that the Lord spoke to him "face to face, as if one should speak to his friend."[^ov-names]
- The New Testament places him at the Transfiguration beside Elijah, has Christ say that Moses "wrote about me," sets him beside Christ in Hebrews as a faithful servant beside a Son, and speaks of "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb."[^ov-nt]
- The Church reads him as a type of Christ, the prophet "like me" of Deuteronomy 18, the man whose raised hands and bronze serpent point to the Cross, and the witness of the burning bush whose unconsumed fire the hymns apply to the Virgin.[^ov-type]
- The Church keeps his feast on September 4. The first of the nine biblical odes sung at Matins is his Song at the sea, and his name runs through the readings of Holy Saturday, Theophany, and the Transfiguration.[^ov-lit]
- Orthodox sources date him differently: the OCA's life of the prophet places his birth in 1689 B.C. and his death in 1569 B.C., while OrthodoxWiki puts his birth in the thirteenth century B.C. The date of the exodus and the questions of authorship that attach to his name belong to Book of Exodus, Book of Genesis, and Book of Leviticus.[^ov-date]
Summary
Moses is remembered first as a child who should not have lived. Pharao has ordered that every male Hebrew child be cast into the river, and a Levite woman hides her son and then lays him in an ark among the reeds, where the king's own daughter lifts him out and calls him Moses (Exodus 1.22; Exodus 2.3; Exodus 2.10). Raised at court, he kills an Egyptian who was striking a Hebrew, flees to Madiam, and takes a wife there. At Choreb an angel of the Lord appears to him "in flaming fire out of the bush," and the voice from it sends a reluctant shepherd back to Egypt with his brother Aaron to speak for him (Exodus 3.2; Exodus 4.14-Exodus 4.16). Through him come the plagues, the Passover, and the crossing of the sea, and at Sinai he goes up into the cloud, receives the tables of the covenant, and comes down to find the people worshipping a calf (Exodus 24.18; Exodus 32.19). He intercedes for them, speaks with the Lord in the tent "face to face," and for forty years leads a people who murmur against him, until at the waters of strife he and Aaron are told that they will not bring the congregation into the land (Exodus 33.11; Numbers 20.12). Joshua succeeds him, and the book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses on Nebo, looking at the whole land he has been promised for others (Deuteronomy 34.1-Deuteronomy 34.4).[^sum-life]
The New Testament and the Fathers read the same man from the other side. Christ says that if His hearers believed Moses they would believe Him, because Moses "wrote about me" (John 5.46), and on the mountain of the Transfiguration Moses and Elijah talk with Him about the departure He is about to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke 9.30-Luke 9.31). For the Epistle to the Hebrews Moses is faithful "as a servant," and Christ "as a Son over his house" (Hebrews 3.5-Hebrews 3.6).[^sum-nt] The Fathers bring their own questions to his story. Cyril of Jerusalem puts Moses sent to Egypt beside Christ sent into the world, and Gregory the Theologian, trying to say what can be said of God, goes up the mountain with Moses and comes back with only "the back parts of God."[^sum-fathers] The hymns of the Church draw the same lines in melody. Moses' rod parts the sea in the form of a cross, the bush burns and is not consumed as the Virgin bears and remains a virgin, and the song he sang on the far shore of the sea opens the canons sung at Matins.[^sum-hymns] Jewish tradition honors him as the lawgiver through whom the Torah came, and a fair account of him includes how Jewish readers have read the passages the Church takes in another direction. The man himself also raises hard questions, about a killing in Egypt, about a hardened king, and about a land he was not allowed to enter, and Basil, Chrysostom, and Augustine each speak to some of them.
His Life in Scripture
The life of Moses comes to the Church in the Greek Old Testament, with Acts and Hebrews alongside it to fill in what Exodus leaves unsaid. The questions of date, authorship, and the shape of the Pentateuch belong to the entries on Book of Exodus and The Torah.
Drawn out of the water
The story of Moses begins with a family and no names. "There was a certain man of the tribe of Levi, who took to wife one of the daughters of Levi. And she conceived, and bore a male child; and having seen that he was fair, they hid him three months" (Exodus 2.1-Exodus 2.2). When she can hide him no longer his mother makes an ark, besmears it with bitumen, and puts the child "in the ooze by the river," while his sister watches from a distance (Exodus 2.3-Exodus 2.4). Pharao's daughter opens the ark and sees "the babe weeping," and she "had compassion on it, and said, This is one of the Hebrews' children" (Exodus 2.6). The sister's offer to find a Hebrew nurse puts the child back into his own mother's arms, and the king's daughter pays the wages (Exodus 2.7-Exodus 2.9). When the boy is grown "he became her son; and she called his name, Moses, saying, I took him out of the water" (Exodus 2.10).[^ex2-birth]
Exodus says nothing about the court years, but Stephen, speaking before the council, fills them in. "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He was mighty in his words and works," and when he was forty years old "it came into his heart to visit his brothers" (Acts 7.22-Acts 7.23). What he sees there is stated both ways in Scripture. Exodus tells that "he sees an Egyptian smiting a certain Hebrew of his brethren," that "he sees no one," and that "he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand" (Exodus 2.11-Exodus 2.12). Stephen tells it as defense of the oppressed: "Seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him and avenged him who was oppressed, striking the Egyptian. He supposed that his brothers understood that God, by his hand, was giving them deliverance; but they didn't understand" (Acts 7.24-Acts 7.25).[^ex2-kill] The next day he finds two Hebrews fighting and is told, "Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? wilt thou slay me as thou yesterday slewest the Egyptian?" (Exodus 2.14). He flees from Pharao to Madiam, where he sits at a well, rescues seven shepherd's daughters from the shepherds who were driving them off, and is given Sepphora to wife (Exodus 2.15-Exodus 2.21). He names their son Gersam, "I am a sojourner in a strange land" (Exodus 2.22). Meanwhile "the king of Egypt died; and the children of Israel groaned because of their tasks," and "God heard their groanings, and God remembered his covenant made with Abraam and Isaac and Jacob" (Exodus 2.23-Exodus 2.24). The Epistle to the Hebrews reads the whole stretch as an act of faith. By faith Moses "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," and "by faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible" (Hebrews 11.24; Hebrews 11.27).
The bush and the call
Moses is feeding the flock of Jothor, his father-in-law, when he comes to Choreb, "the mount of God," and "an angel of the Lord appeared to him in flaming fire out of the bush, and he sees that the bush burns with fire,—but the bush was not consumed" (Exodus 3.1-Exodus 3.2). He says, "I will go near and see this great sight," and the Lord calls him by name out of the bush, bidding him loose his sandals, "for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground," and Moses "turned away his face, for he was afraid to gaze at God" (Exodus 3.3-Exodus 3.6). The commission follows: "I have surely seen the affliction of my people that is in Egypt, and I have heard their cry caused by their task-masters; for I know their affliction" (Exodus 3.7), and "now come, I will send thee to Pharao king of Egypt" (Exodus 3.10). Moses objects, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharao," and is given the answer, "I will be with thee" (Exodus 3.11-Exodus 3.12). He asks for a name to carry to the people and is told, "I am THE BEING," and "THE BEING has sent me to you" (Exodus 3.14).
Moses pleads that he is "weak in speech, and slow-tongued," is told that the One who made the mouth will open his, asks the Lord to "appoint another able person," and meets an anger the text states plainly: "the Lord was greatly angered against Moses," and gave him Aaron, who would "speak for thee to the people, and he shall be thy mouth" (Exodus 4.10-Exodus 4.16). Clement of Rome, writing to a Corinthian church divided by sedition and urging humility on it, holds up Moses at precisely this moment. "Moses was called faithful in all God's house," Clement says, and when "the divine oracle came to him out of the bush," he "did not adopt lofty language, but said, Who am I, that You send me? I am a man of a feeble voice and a slow tongue." Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 17.5 Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 17.6 Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 17.7[^clem17] For Clement the stammering is part of the greatness, since the man through whom God struck Egypt with plagues answered the call by naming his own weakness.
The night and the sea
Moses and Aaron are the ones to whom the Lord speaks in Egypt when He gives the first month and the lamb: "On the tenth of this month let them take each man a lamb," kept until the fourteenth, killed toward evening, its blood put "on the two door-posts, and on the lintel," and eaten "your loins girded, and your sandals on your feet, and your staves in your hands" (Exodus 12.3; Exodus 12.6-Exodus 12.7; Exodus 12.11). Passover gives the rite its due, and Book of Exodus tells the plagues in order; what belongs to Moses is that Pharao, after the midnight, "called Moses and Aaron by night" and told them to depart (Exodus 12.31).
At the sea Moses stands between a frightened people and the chariots. "Be of good courage: stand and see the salvation which is from the Lord, which he will work for us this day," he tells them, and "the Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace" (Exodus 14.13-Exodus 14.14). The Lord bids him lift his rod and stretch out his hand; he does, "and the Lord carried back the sea with a strong south wind all the night, and made the sea dry, and the water was divided" (Exodus 14.21). The sons of Israel go in "on the dry land, and the water of it was a wall on the right hand and a wall on the left" (Exodus 14.22), and when the Egyptians follow, Moses stretches out his hand again and the water returns. The chapter closes on a verdict about the man as well as the event: "the people feared the Lord, and they believed God and Moses his servant" (Exodus 14.31). Then "sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to God" (Exodus 15.1).
Sinai
At Sinai the cloud and the fire come first, and Moses is the one who goes toward them. The Lord calls him from the mountain with a message for "the house of Jacob": "ye shall be to me a royal priesthood and a holy nation" (Exodus 19.3; Exodus 19.6). On the third day there are "voices and lightnings and a dark cloud on mount Sina," the mountain is "altogether on a smoke, because God had descended upon it in fire," and "Moses spoke, and God answered him with a voice" (Exodus 19.16; Exodus 19.18-Exodus 19.19). The people, hearing the thunder and seeing the mountain smoking, "stood afar off, and said to Moses, Speak thou to us, and let not God speak to us, lest we die" (Exodus 20.18-Exodus 20.19), and while they keep their distance, "Moses went into the darkness where God was" (Exodus 20.21).
The covenant is sealed with blood, for Moses takes it and sprinkles it on the people, saying, "Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you concerning all these words" (Exodus 24.8). A meal on the mountain follows, where Aaron, Nadab, Abiud, and seventy of the elders "saw the place where the God of Israel stood," but Moses alone is bidden to "draw nigh to God" (Exodus 24.1-Exodus 24.2; Exodus 24.9-Exodus 24.10). "Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and went up to the mountain, and was there in the mountain forty days and forty nights" (Exodus 24.18), and at the end of it he is given "the two tables of testimony, tables of stone written upon with the finger of God" (Exodus 31.18). The giving of the commandments and what the tradition makes of them are treated in The Torah and Book of Exodus.
The calf, the tent, and the face
While Moses is on the mountain the people say to Aaron, "Arise and make us gods who shall go before us; for this Moses, the man who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what is become of him" (Exodus 32.1). The Lord tells Moses what they have done and says, "let me alone, and I will be very angry with them and consume them, and I will make thee a great nation" (Exodus 32.10). Moses refuses the offer. He asks why the Lord should be angry with the people He brought out of Egypt "with great strength, and with thy high arm," asks what the Egyptians will say, reminds Him of Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, and "the Lord was prevailed upon to preserve his people" (Exodus 32.11-Exodus 32.14). Then Moses comes down the mountain, sees the calf and the dances, and "being very angry cast the two tables out of his hands, and broke them to pieces under the mountain" (Exodus 32.19). He burns the calf, grinds it, and makes the people drink it (Exodus 32.20), and the Levites who rally to him are sent through the camp with the sword, so that "there fell of the people in that day to the number of three thousand men" (Exodus 32.26-Exodus 32.28). The next day he goes up again, saying, "if thou wilt forgive their sin, forgive it; and if not, blot me out of thy book which thou hast written" (Exodus 32.32).
After the calf the book gives a quieter picture. Moses takes his tent and pitches it "without the camp, at a distance from the camp," and it is called the Tabernacle of Testimony (Exodus 33.7); the people stand at their own tent doors and watch him go in, the pillar of cloud descends, and "the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if one should speak to his friend" (Exodus 33.11). Moses then asks for more, first that the Lord "reveal thyself to me, that I may evidently see thee," and then, "Manifest thyself to me" (Exodus 33.13; Exodus 33.18). The answer is the passage that Gregory the Theologian and Cyril of Jerusalem both take up below: "Thou shalt not be able to see my face; for no man shall see my face, and live." The Lord places him in a cleft of the rock and says "I will remove my hand, and then shalt thou see my back parts; but my face shall not appear to thee" (Exodus 33.20-Exodus 33.23). On the mountain again, the Lord passes before him and proclaims His own name, "pitiful and merciful, longsuffering and very compassionate, and true," and Moses "hasted, and bowed to the earth and worshipped" (Exodus 34.6; Exodus 34.8).
He comes down with a changed face, and does not know it. "Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified, when God spoke to him," and Aaron and all the elders of Israel "feared to approach him," so that after speaking with them he puts a veil on his face, taking it off whenever he goes in to speak with the Lord (Exodus 34.29-Exodus 34.30; Exodus 34.33-Exodus 34.35). Paul's reading of that veil is taken up with the New Testament below.
The wilderness and the meekest of men
Forty years of wilderness wear on him, and the text lets the reader see it. The people murmur for meat, and Moses cries to the Lord, "I shall not be able to bear this people alone, for this thing is too heavy for me. And if thou doest thus to me, slay me utterly" (Numbers 11.14-Numbers 11.15); the Lord answers by sharing the burden with seventy elders (Numbers 11.16-Numbers 11.17). When Mariam and Aaron "spoke against Moses" and ask, "Has the Lord spoken to Moses only? has he not also spoken to us?" the narrator interrupts: "the man Moses was very meek beyond all the men that were upon the earth" (Numbers 12.1-Numbers 12.3). The Lord summons the three to the tabernacle and distinguishes among prophets: to an ordinary prophet "I will be made known to him in a vision, and in sleep will I speak to him. My servant Moses is not so; he is faithful in all my house. I will speak to him mouth to mouth apparently, and not in dark speeches; and he has seen the glory of the Lord" (Numbers 12.6-Numbers 12.8). Mariam is struck with leprosy, and Moses, whom she had just slandered, "cried to the Lord, saying, O God, I beseech thee, heal her" (Numbers 12.10; Numbers 12.13). The meekness the text names is shown in that prayer.
The end on Nebo
Deuteronomy ends with Moses on the mountain. He goes up "to the top of Phasga, which is before Jericho; and the Lord shewed him all the mount of Galaad to Dan" and the rest of the land, and the Lord says, "I have shewed it to thine eyes, but thou shalt not go in thither" (Deuteronomy 34.1; Deuteronomy 34.4). "So Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab by the word of the Lord. And they buried him in Gai near the house of Phogor; and no one has seen his sepulchre to this day. And Moses was a hundred and twenty years old at his death; his eyes were not dimmed, nor were his natural powers destroyed" (Deuteronomy 34.5-Deuteronomy 34.7). The sons of Israel weep for thirty days, and "Joshua the son of Naue was filled with the spirit of knowledge, for Moses had laid his hands upon him" (Deuteronomy 34.8-Deuteronomy 34.9). The book then gives him an epitaph: "there rose up no more a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34.10). That the account of his death and the sentence that follows it sit in a book the tradition ascribes to him is one of the places where the questions of authorship raised in Book of Genesis are most felt, and they are left to that entry.
Names and Titles
The names the Old Testament gives Moses are a short biography. Exodus explains the first one in the mouth of Pharao's daughter, "I took him out of the water" (Exodus 2.10), and OrthodoxWiki repeats the gloss that the name means one who is drawn out, that is, from the water.[^names-moses] His son's name is a second record: Gersam, "I am a sojourner in a strange land" (Exodus 2.22).
The title the text uses most is servant. God's own word in Numbers is "My servant Moses" (Numbers 12.7; Numbers 12.8); the narrator closes Deuteronomy with "Moses the servant of the Lord died" (Deuteronomy 34.5); in the book of Joshua the Lord begins, "Moses my servant is dead" (Joshua 1.2); and after the sea "they believed God and Moses his servant" (Exodus 14.31). The last book of the Bible gathers the singers in heaven round "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb" (Revelation 15.3). Hebrews takes the word and draws a line through it: "Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant," and Christ is faithful "as a Son over his house" (Hebrews 3.5-Hebrews 3.6).
He is also "Moses the man of God," the phrase that introduces his last blessing of Israel (Deuteronomy 33.1) and that stands over Psalm 89 in the Greek numbering, "A Prayer of Moses the man of God" (Psalms 89.1). The Lord calls him "faithful in all my house" (Numbers 12.7), and the Psalter says that Moses "his chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn him away from the fierceness of his anger" (Psalms 105.23, again in the Greek numbering). The wise man's praise of the fathers speaks of "a merciful man, which found favour in the sight of all flesh; even Moses, beloved of God and men," and adds that God "sanctified him in his faithfulness and meekness, and chose him out of all men" (Sirach 45.1; Sirach 45.4).
Friend of God rests on a comparison: "The Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as if one should speak to his friend" (Exodus 33.11), and the OCA's article on the Law builds its short description of him on that verse, calling him "the great man of God" to whom the Lord spoke face to face.[^names-friend]
The second is the word god. Exodus has the Lord say, "Behold, I have made thee a god to Pharao, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet" (Exodus 7.1). Theodoret, answering an opponent who cited Moses as a mediator who was only a man, explains the phrase as part of Moses' typological office: "Moses was not by nature God, yet, to fulfil the type, he was called a god," and the verse then "assigns him also a Prophet as though to God."[^theodoret-god]
The title that the Church's service books give him is God-seer, in the OCA's heading for his feast, "Holy Prophet and God-Seer Moses," and its troparion says to him, "You ascended to the heights of the virtues, Prophet Moses; therefore, you were deemed worthy to see the glory of God."[^god-seer] Basil says that Moses, "at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him; or rather as it had not previously been granted to man to see Him," and he rests the claim on God's own word that He speaks to Moses "mouth to mouth" (Numbers 12.8). Hexaemeron — Homily I 1.8[^basil-hex] The qualifier "as far as it is possible for man" keeps the claim inside the limit that God sets in Exodus, "Thou shalt not be able to see my face" (Exodus 33.20). Cyril of Jerusalem and Chrysostom call him simply the Lawgiver, and Origen calls him "the first legislator of the Hebrew nation."[^lawgiver]
Moses in the New Testament
Moses stands in the New Testament first as a figure on a mountain beside Christ, then as a name in Christ's own mouth, and finally as the servant whom the apostles set beside the Son, in the speeches of Acts, in Paul's letters, in Hebrews, in Jude, and in Revelation.
On the mountain
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all set Moses at the Transfiguration. Matthew tells that Jesus took Peter, James, and John "up into a high mountain by themselves," where "he was changed before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light. Behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them talking with him," and Peter, wanting to stay, offers to make "three tents here: one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah" (Matthew 17.1-Matthew 17.4). Then "a bright cloud overshadowed them," the Father's voice says "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him," and when the disciples look up "they saw no one, except Jesus alone" (Matthew 17.5; Matthew 17.8). Mark names the two in the other order, "Elijah and Moses appeared to them, and they were talking with Jesus" (Mark 9.4), and Luke adds what they spoke of: they "appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem" (Luke 9.31). The feast and its theology belong to The Transfiguration.
Chrysostom, preaching on the passage, asks why these two and answers in several ways. The first answer is that the crowds had been calling Jesus one of the old prophets, and He brought "the leaders of His choir" so that they might see "the difference even hereby between the servants and the Lord." The second answer concerns Moses by name. Jesus' opponents were charging Him with breaking the Law, and so He "brings forward them who had shone out in each of these respects: Moses, because he gave the law, and the Jews might infer that he would not have overlooked its being trampled on." Homilies on Matthew — Homily 56 3.3 Homilies on Matthew — Homily 56 3.4[^chrys-matt56-why] A man who had given the Law and stood next to Christ on the mountain could not be thought to witness against Him.
Chrysostom also notices what the two men had in common with each other and with the apostles whom Christ had just told to take up their crosses. Each had "spoke boldly unto tyrants, the one to the Egyptian, the other to Ahab," and each had been put in danger by the very people he saved; each was "unlearned," Moses being "of a slow tongue, and dull of speech." Homilies on Matthew — Homily 56 3.16[^chrys-matt56-pair] Chrysostom sets them before the apostles as men who had already paid, in danger and in poverty, for the very thing Christ was asking of His disciples.
Chrysostom also reads Peter's words on the mountain as a plea with a hidden motive. Peter, he says, had heard that Christ was to go to Jerusalem and suffer, and so he reasons that "if we go not up, He will not die." Homilies on Matthew — Homily 56 4.6 The mountain he chooses is "where Moses also is present, and Elias; Elias who brought down fire on the mountain, and Moses who entered into the thick darkness, and talked with God," and its great recommendation is that "no one will even know where we are." Homilies on Matthew — Homily 56 4.7[^chrys-matt56-peter] Moses is in Peter's sentence as part of the shelter he hopes to build for Christ, away from the road to the Cross.
Origen, in his commentary on Matthew, reports the reading that takes Christ's words about some who would not taste death before seeing the kingdom to mean the three disciples on the mountain, and he pictures the scene as a king's court: "even as some spear-bearers stand around a king, so Moses and Elijah appeared to those who had gone up into the mountains, talking with Jesus." Elsewhere in the same commentary he asks what the disciples saw when the voice had spoken and they lifted their eyes and "saw Jesus only." His answer is offered as a reading of the details, and he introduces it as concerning "mystical matters": "Moses, the law, and Elijah, the prophet, became one only with the Gospel of Jesus," so that "the three became one." Of the bare letter he says only that Moses and Elijah, having appeared in glory and talked with Jesus, went away to the place from which they had come.[^origen-matt]
The Orthodox Study Bible's note puts the point more simply. The presence of the two men "manifests the communion of the saints," since both are "immediately recognizable and talk with the Lord."[^osb-communion]
A homily on the Transfiguration attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, in Archimandrite Ephrem Lash's translation, imagines what the two said. They were thanking Christ "that their words and those of all their fellow Prophets had been fulfilled by his coming," and the preacher adds that they worshiped Him for the salvation He had wrought.[^ephrem-tf9]
The same sermon says why the Father's voice falls on Jesus alone, and why Moses goes back to his place when the voice has spoken. The old covenant had its messengers, and the messengers were not the message: "Moses, as a servant, spoke what he was ordered to, and he proclaimed what he had been told, and so did all the Prophets, until the one to whom it belongs has come, that is Jesus, who is Son, not servant, Lord and not slave."[^ephrem-tf12]
What Christ says of Moses
Christ names Moses in His own teaching, often as a witness to Himself. On the road to Emmaus, "Beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself," and to the Eleven He says "all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms concerning me must be fulfilled," after which "he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke 24.27; Luke 24.44-Luke 24.45). The Orthodox Study Bible's sidebar on typology cites these verses, with John 5:38 and 46, in its account of why the Church reads the Old Testament as a witness to Christ.[^osb-typology]
In John the claim is sharper. To those who say they are disciples of Moses, Jesus says: "There is one who accuses you, even Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me. But if you don't believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" (John 5.45-John 5.47). John Behr reads that last sentence as the center of the Church's way of reading: Moses "certainly wrote in the past," but the meaning of his words "lies in how he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ."[^behr-44]
Basil meets opponents who argued that faith and baptism in the Spirit proved nothing, since the people before them had also believed "God and his servant Moses." De Spiritu Sancto 14.5[^basil-hs31] He turns the argument around and asks, "Is then our faith in the Lord a trifle, because it was signified beforehand through Moses?" De Spiritu Sancto 14.45[^basil-hs33]
Other verses in John place Moses at the beginning of a contrast. "For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ" (John 1.17); "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3.14); and when the crowd cites the manna, Jesus answers, "it wasn't Moses who gave you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven" (John 6.32). Elsewhere He cites Moses as the witness to the resurrection: "haven't you read in the book of Moses about the Bush, how God spoke to him, saying, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?" (Mark 12.26). The Orthodox Study Bible's sidebar lists the serpent and the manna among the events in Moses' life that Christ Himself picks out as pointing to Him.[^osb-typology2]
Acts, Paul, Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation
Peter and Stephen both bring Moses into the apostolic preaching. Peter, in the temple, quotes Moses' promise: "The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you" (Acts 3.22). Stephen retells Moses' whole life before the council, from the child "exceedingly handsome to God" to the man who "led them out, having worked wonders and signs in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years," and says, "This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, 'The Lord our God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me'" (Acts 7.20; Acts 7.36-Acts 7.37). Stephen also quotes the words of the crowd who once refused him, "Who made you a ruler and a judge?" and says that God sent that same Moses "as both a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush" (Acts 7.35).
Paul sets Moses beside the apostolic ministry in Second Corinthians, with the veil of Exodus 34 as the image. "The service of death, written engraved on stones, came with glory, so that the children of Israel could not look steadfastly on the face of Moses for the glory of his face, which was passing away," and Paul asks whether "service of the Spirit" will not be "with much more glory" (2 Corinthians 3.7-2 Corinthians 3.8). The veil, he says, "remains" over the reading of the old covenant, "because in Christ it passes away," and "whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away" (2 Corinthians 3.14; 2 Corinthians 3.16). In First Corinthians he says that the fathers "were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea," and that "they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10.2; 1 Corinthians 10.4).
Hebrews first sets Moses against Christ: "consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him, as also Moses was in all his house" (Hebrews 3.1-Hebrews 3.2). Chrysostom, preaching on it, notes that the apostle begins "from the flesh," putting Christ and Moses side by side on level ground so as not to alienate readers who revered Moses, and then draws the line a verse later. "Perceivest thou how he separates the thing made and the maker, the servant and the son?" he asks. Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 5 4.30[^chrys-heb5]
Hebrews then names Moses again in its list of faith, in which Moses' parents, who hid him because "they saw that he was a beautiful child," are named before Moses himself, who "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter," "kept the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood," and passed the sea "as on dry land" (Hebrews 11.23-Hebrews 11.29). Chrysostom picks out the phrase "the reproach of Christ" (Hebrews 11.26) and connects it to the day Moses was asked whether he meant to kill his questioner as he had killed the Egyptian. "So that this is rather the reproach of Christ than of Moses inasmuch as He suffered these things from His own," he says. Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 26 4.26[^chrys-heb26]
Jude sets Moses' body at the center of a quarrel between angels. He tells of the archangel Michael, "contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses," who "dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, 'May the Lord rebuke you!'" (Jude 1.9). The Jewish Annotated New Testament says that the story is "probably drawn from the T. Moses," an incomplete text giving Moses' last words to Joshua. The note adds that "as it stands the text does not depict the assumption," and that the legend of Michael and the devil over Moses' body "has no known clear source."[^jant-jude]
Revelation shows the saints singing "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb" (Revelation 15.3). The Jewish Annotated New Testament observes that the scene "evokes the Israelites before the Red Sea (Ex 14.30–15.19), where the first 'Song of Moses' was sung," and its note on the next verse sends the reader to Isaiah 56 and 60 for how "all nations will come."[^jant-rev15]
Moses as Type
The Church's habit of reading Moses as a type of Christ rests on a rule the Orthodox Study Bible states in a sidebar: "Typology is the interpretation of certain historical events occurring in the Old Testament as 'types' that prefigure events to be fulfilled through the Incarnation of the Son of God." It adds that "In each case, the type—the first event—is linked to its corresponding future event, called the 'antitype,'" and quotes Chrysostom, "The types, like patterns, anticipated and sketched out beforehand the dispensations which would be accomplished under the new covenant."[^osb-typology3] Typology in Scripture sets out the principles.
The prophet like Moses
Moses himself is the first to speak of one who would come after him. In Deuteronomy he tells the people what the Lord said at Choreb, "The Lord thy God shall raise up to thee a prophet of thy brethren, like me; him shall ye hear," and the Lord's own words, "I will raise up to them a prophet of their brethren, like thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them as I shall command him" (Deuteronomy 18.15; Deuteronomy 18.18). Peter and Stephen each cite the promise in the speeches already quoted (Acts 3.22; Acts 7.37), and in John the crowd who have been fed in the wilderness say, "This is truly the prophet who comes into the world," which echoes it (John 6.14; see also John 7.40).
The Orthodox Study Bible's note at Deuteronomy 18 says that "the words, 'like you' and 'from among their brethren' speak of the preincarnate Word taking on human nature to become the promised Prophet," and gives John 6:14, John 7:40, and Acts 3:22-23 as the places where Jesus is so recognized.[^osb-dt18]
Ephrem the Syrian, in the passage John Behr quotes from his Commentary on the Diatessaron, hears the crowd by the loaves repeating Moses' word and finds in each detail of the Gospel what "like me" would have to mean: "Like me, he walked on the sea and appeared in the cloud. He freed his Church from the circumcision, and established John, who was a virgin, in place of Joshua, son of Nun."[^ephrem-dt]
Augustine, answering a Manichaean who denied that Moses had written of Christ at all, takes up the objection that Christ is unlike Moses in many respects, and says that the objection proves nothing, "for we can show that in other respects He is like."[^aug-cf16-18]
Moses and Christ in Hebrews
The comparison that Hebrews draws between Moses and Christ is the New Testament's own statement of the type. Moses is "faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken," and Christ is "faithful as a Son over his house" (Hebrews 3.5-Hebrews 3.6). The Jewish Annotated New Testament notes on this passage that, "as with angels (1.5–14), so with Moses: Jesus is the superior intermediary."[^jant-heb3]
Basil takes up Moses' office as mediator when he answers opponents who set the people's belief in "his servant Moses" beside faith in the Spirit. "Moses then is joined with God, not with the Spirit," he says, "and he was a type not of the Spirit, but of Christ. For at that time in the ministry of the law, he by means of himself typified the Mediator between God and men." De Spiritu Sancto 14.41 De Spiritu Sancto 14.42[^basil-hs14]
Cyril of Jerusalem, in his first lecture to the newly baptized, on the rites that came before their baptism, lays the two stories side by side in a single sentence: "There we have Moses sent from God to Egypt; here, Christ, sent forth from His Father into the world: there, that Moses might lead forth an afflicted people out of Egypt; here, that Christ might rescue those who are oppressed in the world under sin." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 19 3.2[^cyril-myst1] In Cyril's pairing Moses is the man who is sent, and Christ is the One sent from the Father.
The raised hands and the Cross
The first battle after the sea is fought on two fronts. Joshua leads Israel against Amalec on the plain, and Moses stands on the hill with the rod of God in his hand, "and it came to pass, when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hands, Amalec prevailed," until "the hands of Moses were heavy" and "Aaron and Or supported his hands one on this side and the other on that, and the hands of Moses were supported till the going down of the sun" (Exodus 17.9-Exodus 17.12). The Epistle of Barnabas reads the scene as a figure set up on purpose. "The Spirit speaks to the heart of Moses, that he should make a figure of the cross, and of Him about to suffer thereon," it says, and in the same chapter, that Moses "stretched forth his hands, and thus again Israel acquired the mastery. But when again he let down his hands, they were again destroyed."[^barn12-hands]
Justin Martyr, arguing with Trypho in the second century, tells the story with the same shape. "If he gave up any part of this sign, which was an imitation of the cross, the people were beaten, as is recorded in the writings of Moses; but if he remained in this form, Amalek was proportionally defeated, and he who prevailed prevailed by the cross."[^justin-90] Justin takes care to say what he does not mean. The victory did not come simply from the fact that Moses prayed, since prayer with tears and bent knees was the ordinary posture, and neither Moses nor anyone else prays sitting on a stone; it came from the sign that his body made while a man who bore the name of Jesus led the fight.
A second detail in the story interests Justin as much as the posture, and it is the name of the general. In his account Amalek was defeated "by means of the type of the stretching out of Moses' hands, and the name of Jesus (Joshua), by which the son of Nave (Nun) was called."[^justin-91]
Cyril of Jerusalem finds the same two-sided pattern in the names that Moses himself gave. Moses called his own successor Jesus, and his brother Aaron Christ, "that by two well-approved men he might represent at once both the High Priesthood, and the Kingship of the One Jesus Christ who was to come," and Joshua, Cyril adds, "was in many things a type of Him." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 10 11.2 Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 10 11.4[^cyril-10-11] See Joshua for his own story.
The bronze serpent
When the people speak against God and Moses at the end of the wilderness years and the serpents come among them, Moses prays, and the Lord says, "Make thee a serpent, and put it on a signal-staff; and it shall come to pass that whenever a serpent shall bite a man, every one so bitten that looks upon it shall live." So "Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a signal-staff: and it came to pass that whenever a serpent bit a man, and he looked on the brazen serpent, he lived" (Numbers 21.8-Numbers 21.9). Christ takes it up Himself: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3.14-John 3.15). The Jewish Annotated New Testament observes of this verse that "Jesus is here described as superior to Moses, who held up the bronze serpent to save Israel from a plague of snakes."[^jant-john3] The full treatment of the sign is in The Bronze Serpent.
Justin puts the paradox to Trypho as a question about the Law: God had forbidden an image of anything in heaven or on earth, and yet had Moses make this one. "Give me a reason why Moses set up the brazen serpent for a sign," he says, "and bade those that were bitten gaze at it, and the wounded were healed; and this, too, when he had himself commanded that no likeness of anything whatsoever should be made." One of Trypho's companions answers, in Justin's account, "You have spoken truly: we cannot give a reason. For I have frequently interrogated the teachers about this matter, and none of them gave me a reason."[^justin-94] Justin's own answer is that the serpent proclaimed the mystery of the crucified, who would break the power of the serpent that occasioned Adam's transgression.
Cyril of Jerusalem, lecturing on the Cross, draws the conclusion in a question: "Does then the brazen serpent save when crucified, and shall not the Son of God incarnate save when crucified also?" Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 13 20.2[^cyril-13-20]
The bush and the Virgin
The burning bush has a place in the Church's prayer for which Scripture gives only the image: a fire that burns and does not consume. The hymns apply it to the Virgin. The Dogmatikon of the second tone, quoted by the OCA in its notice of the Unburnt Bush icon, says, "As the Bush burned and was not consumed, so the Virgin gave birth to Thee yet remained a Virgin."[^bush-dogmatikon]
A katavasia sung at Matins on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, in Lash's translation, praises "Him, who for Moses foreshadowed the wonder of the Virgin in the Bush on mount Sinai."[^bush-lash] A troparion of the second canon at Matins of Theophany itself, in Bishop Alexander (Mileant)'s booklet on the feast, turns the same picture toward the Jordan: "That which was revealed to Moses in the bush we see accomplished here in strange manner. The Virgin bore Fire within her, yet was not consumed, when she gave birth to the Benefactor Who brings us light."[^bush-theophany]
The Orthodox Study Bible's typology sidebar quotes a Matins hymn of the Nativity of the Theotokos in the same line, and says that the bush on the mountain and the Chaldean furnace "plainly prefigured thee, O Bride of God."[^osb-bush]
The OCA's notice describes how the icon is painted, "a bush engulfed in flames" with the Virgin and Child above it, and in later forms the Virgin at the center of an octagonal star, holding Jacob's ladder.[^bush-icon] OrthodoxWiki adds a reading of the flame itself, that it was "God's Uncreated Energies / Glory, manifested as light," so that the bush was not consumed.[^ow-bush] Orthodox sources thus place the vision at the bush in two lights, as an event in Moses' life and as a figure of the Mother of God, and the second is stated in the hymns and in the icon.
The Fathers on Moses
The hymns sing Moses as a figure of what was to come, and the Fathers who preach on him are as interested in the man.
A portrait
Basil the Great opens his homilies on the six days of creation with a portrait of the author of Genesis, to persuade his hearers that the account of creation can be trusted. Moses is the child who, "when still at the breast, is described as exceeding fair"; he is the adopted son of Pharao's daughter, who "received from her a royal education," and who "disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble condition of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting delights of sin"; in Basil's telling he took refuge in Ethiopia (Exodus itself says Madiam, Exodus 2.15), spent forty years "in the contemplation of nature," and then, "at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him; or rather as it had not previously been granted to man to see Him." Hexaemeron — Homily I 1.8[^basil-hex-portrait] Basil weaves Hebrews 11, Numbers 12, and Exodus 2 into one sentence-long life, and his purpose is to show that the man who wrote the first page of Scripture had seen God.
Into the cloud
Gregory the Theologian turns to Moses at Sinai when he asks how much of God can be known. In his second theological oration he says what happened to him when he tried: "I was running to lay hold on God, and thus I went up into the Mount, and drew aside the curtain of the Cloud, and entered away from matter and material things, and as far as I could I withdrew within myself." Select Orations — Oration 28 0.15[^greg-or28-a]
What he found was less than he had set out to find. "I scarce saw the back parts of God," he says, "although I was sheltered by the Rock, the Word that was made flesh for us." Select Orations — Oration 28 0.16[^greg-or28-b] Gregory is borrowing the shape of Exodus 33, where Moses stands in the cleft of the rock and sees only the back parts, and he goes on to say that no one can speak of God more fully than this, not even a Moses who had been made a god to Pharaoh, nor a Paul caught up to the third heaven. Cyril of Jerusalem takes the same verse in another direction. In his catechetical lecture on Christ as Lord, he supposes that Moses was granted the sight he asked for in the only form a man could bear: "For this reason then, because no man could see the face of the Godhead and live, He took on Him the face of human nature, that we might see this and live." Catechetical Lectures — Lecture 10 7.7[^cyril-10-7] The thought runs forward from the cleft in the rock to the Incarnation, and Cyril adds that when Christ's face shone like the sun on the mountain, even the disciples fell down in fear.
Meekness and intercession
Clement of Rome returns to Moses at the golden calf, and he stops at the offer to be erased from the book. The Lord told Moses, "let me destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make you a great and wonderful nation," and Moses said, "Far be it from You, Lord: pardon the sin of this people; else blot me also out of the book of the living." Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 53.5 Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 53.6 Clement then breaks off: "O marvellous love! O insuperable perfection! The servant speaks freely to his Lord, and asks forgiveness for the people, or begs that he himself might perish along with them." Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 53.7 Letter to the Corinthians (Clement) 53.9[^clem53] Clement is writing to a divided church, and he sets Moses before it as the man who would have been lost for the sake of a people who had just abandoned the God who freed them.
The same meekness is the theme of one of the Epiphany hymns that bear Ephrem's name, in which the poet asks who could despise Moses. "Who again could be found to despise Moses — the meek and slow of speech — when that excelling glory dwelt upon his meekness?" The next stanza answers with the fate of those who did: "They that despised him despised his Lord; the wicked that despised him — the earth swallowed up in anger."[^ephrem-ep4] Set beside Scripture, the phrase "the meek and slow of speech" gathers two things the Bible says of him in different places, the slow tongue he pleads at the bush (Exodus 4.10) and the meekness the narrator gives him in Numbers 12.3.
The veil, and how to read Moses
Origen, treating the inspiration of Scripture in On First Principles, says that Christ's coming is the proof of Moses. "The splendour of Christ's advent, therefore, illuminating the law of Moses by the light of truth, has taken away that veil which had been placed over the letter (of the law), and has unsealed, for every one who believes upon Him, all the blessings which were concealed by the covering of the word."[^origen-fp]
Chrysostom, expounding Paul's own use of the veil, insists that it hid nothing from Moses himself; it lay over the sight of the Jews of his day. He reads it as a type of what will happen to the one who turns to the Lord, who will see "the glory of the Law, and the face of the Lawgiver bare; yea rather, not this alone, but we shall then be even in the same rank with Moses." Homilies on Second Corinthians — Homily 7 4.11[^chrys-2cor7]
John Behr, drawing on Irenaeus, makes the same point from the side of the Cross: the Cross is what sheds light on the Scriptures, "removing the veil that lay over Moses himself and now lies upon those who read Moses without a knowledge of Christ."[^behr-48]
Moses in the Liturgy
The Church keeps a feast of Moses on September 4. The OCA's life of the prophet and God-seer tells his story from Exodus to Deuteronomy and adds that "the first two Biblical Odes are attributed to Moses": "Let us sing to the Lord..." (Exodus 15:1-9), sung on the shore of the sea, and "Attend, O heaven..." (Deuteronomy 32:1-43), sung in Moab a few days before his death.[^sept4-life]
The same notice records a story from the life of John of the Ladder. On the day John was installed as abbot of Sinai, the prophet Moses "was seen going around and giving orders to the cooks, stewards, and servants," and when the guests asked afterward who the stranger had been, John said, "Our Lord Moses does nothing strange by serving in the place which belongs to him."[^sept4-ladder] The troparion of the feast, for its part, says of the lawgiver that, "having received the grace-filled tablets of the Law," he was "the honorable praise of prophets, and a great mystery of piety."[^sept4-trop]
The Song of Moses at the sea stands at the head of the nine biblical odes that make up the canon at Matins. OrthodoxWiki explains that the odes are taken from Scripture, that the first is Exodus 15:1-19, and that the second, from Deuteronomy 32, is normally omitted for its severity, except on Tuesdays of Great Lent.[^odes-ow] The first ode of a canon thus carries Moses' own song into the Church's morning prayer, and the hymns attached to it can return to the sea. In Lash's translation, the irmos of the first ode in the canon for Mid-Pentecost has "Israel, who of old marched through the Red Sea dryshod," routing Amalek "in the wilderness through Moses' hands raised in the form of the Cross."[^midpen-irmos]
Hymns to the Cross in the Menaion for 1 August, in Lash's translation, take the same figures further. One says that the Cross is that "which Moses of old prefigured in himself when he overthrew and routed Amalek," and another, turning to Marah, says, "When Moses made the bitter waters sweet with wood, he prefigured your grace, O Cross."[^aug1-cross]
On Holy Saturday the OCA says that fifteen Old Testament readings are heard at the vesperal liturgy, among them "the passover-exodus of the Israelites in the days of Moses in Exodus."[^holysat-oca] On the eve of Theophany, according to Bishop Alexander (Mileant)'s booklet on the feast, the lessons are "biblical stories and prophecies concerning water," among them the crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:15-18, 21-23, 27-29) and Exodus 15:22-27 with 16:1-4.[^theophany-readings]
At Vespers of the Transfiguration, in the same writer's account, three readings from the Old Testament are given: Moses on Sinai (Exodus 24:12-18), the Lord appearing to Moses (Exodus 33:11-23 and 34:4-8), and the Lord appearing to Elijah (1 Kings 19:3-16). A hymn of the feast's canon says to Christ, "Thou hast appeared to Moses both on the Mountain of the Law and on Tabor: of old in darkness, but now in the unapproachable light of the Godhead."[^tf-paremias]
The Epiphany hymns that bear Ephrem's name set Moses beside the Jordan in the same way. In the eighth hymn the poet says of the divine glory that "none could endure" it, "not Moses chief of deliverers — nor Elijah chief of zealots," and then, to those who have been baptized, "On Moses dwelt the Breath — and on you the Perfecting of Christ."[^ephrem-ep8]
The Jewish Reading
The Jewish Annotated New Testament marks out, from the Jewish side, the points where the New Testament and Jewish readers meet over Moses. The first is the sentence in Matthew 23: "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat. All things therefore whatever they tell you to observe, observe and do, but don't do their works" (Matthew 23.2-Matthew 23.3). The volume's note says that in this verse "Jesus acknowledges the Pharisees' Torah knowledge," and on the verses that follow it observes that "Jews traditionally look upon Torah as a blessing, not a burden."[^jant-seat]
Chrysostom, reading the same verse, finds in it a real authority that rests on Moses: "they speak not their own words, but God's, what He appointed for laws by Moses." He then limits what the authority covers. The hearer is not to understand "all the law, as, for instance, the ordinances about meats, those about sacrifices," which Christ "had taken away beforehand," but "all things that correct the moral principle, and amend the disposition." Homilies on Matthew — Homily 72 0.19 Homilies on Matthew — Homily 72 0.23 Homilies on Matthew — Homily 72 0.24[^chrys-matt72] The two readings give the seat a weight that comes from Moses, and they differ over how far that weight extends. The entries on the Pharisees, Rabinic Judaism, and Judaism give the wider picture.
In the volume's note at Second Corinthians 3:15, "Moses signifies the Torah," so that "when Moses is read" means when the Torah is read, and its note at Acts 6:11 calls the charge of speaking "against Moses and God" "an ironic statement," since in Acts it is those who reject Jesus who are against God and "Moses," that is, the Torah.[^jant-moses-torah]
In the essay "Paul and the Rabbis on Moses' Radiant Face," the volume shows that the rabbis read Exodus 34 in other ways than Paul did. The glow, in one saying, was Moses' reward for hiding his face from the presence of God at the burning bush (b. Ber. 7a), and that Moses did not know his face was shining teaches that one need not tell the recipient of a gift that he has been given it (b. Shabb. 10b). The essay adds that "rabbinic commentators hundreds of years after Paul found no need to respond to Paul's dismissal of Torah."[^jant-face] A fair account of the veil in Second Corinthians keeps both facts in view: Paul's use of it is a Christian reading of a text that the rabbis were reading for other lessons.
Matthew's Jesus, in the volume's introduction to the Gospel, is "the 'new Moses' who interprets Torah for the people of Israel," rescued in infancy, crossing water, fasting forty days, and giving his teaching on a mountain, and also "Moses' superior": "whereas Moses dies outside the Promised Land, Jesus returns," and "Jesus is the fulfillment of Torah as well as its authoritative interpreter."[^jant-matt-moses] Orthodox readers will recognize much of this, and the comparison between Moses and Christ at Hebrews 3 and Deuteronomy 18 draws on the same figure.
Difficult Questions
The killing of the Egyptian
Exodus reports that Moses "smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand" after looking round to see that no one was watching (Exodus 2.12), and the reader who comes to the story with his own moral sense has to decide what to make of it. Scripture itself gives two accounts of the act, Exodus's and Stephen's, which sees in it a defense of the oppressed (Acts 7.24-Acts 7.25), and Hebrews counts the leaving of Egypt as an act of faith (Hebrews 11.27); neither passage rules on the killing as such.
Basil never names the Egyptian, but in his portrait of Moses he speaks of a love of justice that Moses had from nature, so that "even before the leadership of the people of God was committed to him, he was impelled, by a natural horror of evil, to pursue malefactors even to the point of punishing them by death." Hexaemeron — Homily I 1.8[^basil-hex-kill] The clause stands in his list of what makes Moses a reliable witness, between the court of Pharao and the flight, which is where the killing falls in Exodus, so that a reader may fairly take Basil to mean it; if he does, he counts it a credit to Moses.
Augustine, replying to Faustus, is more guarded. He allows that "it might be shown" that the act "was divinely permitted, as, from the prophetic character of Moses, it prefigured something in the future," and then he drops the argument: "Now however, I do not use this argument." What is left is a plain judgment on the act itself, with no symbolic meaning laid over it, and the judgment is that it "was wrong for one who had no legal authority to kill the man, even though he was a bad character, besides being the aggressor."[^aug-cf22-70]
His account of what the act showed is a farmer's. "In minds where great virtue is to come, there is often an early crop of vices," he says, and Moses' readiness to take the law into his own hands, to protect his brother among strangers, "was not unfit for the production of virtue, but from want of culture gave signs of its productiveness in an unjustifiable manner."[^aug-cf22-70b]
Later in the same work Augustine does read the killing as a type: "Moses killing the Egyptian in defending one of his brethren reminds us naturally of the destruction of the devil, our assailant in this land of strangers, by our defender the Lord Christ."[^aug-cf22-90]
Chrysostom does not speak of the killing at all; he speaks of the flight that followed. "Even flight was [an act of] faith," he says. Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 26 5.8 Moses did not stay because he would not "cast himself into a foreseen danger," which would have been to tempt God, Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 26 5.10 and because "he could no longer be their champion when they who were receiving benefits were so ungrateful. It would therefore have been a foolish and senseless thing to remain there." Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 26 5.14 Homilies on Hebrews — Homily 26 5.15[^chrys-heb26-flight]
Neither of the two who speak of the killing calls it simply right. Basil honors the horror of evil behind it, Augustine judges it wrong in itself and sees the virtue it grew from, and Chrysostom, who leaves the killing aside, turns to what Moses did next.
The hardening of Pharaoh's heart
Moses is the one who is told beforehand. After the bush, while Moses is still in Madiam (Exodus 4.19) and before a single sign has been worked in Pharao's sight, the Lord says "I will harden his heart, and he shall certainly not send away the people" (Exodus 4.21). The moral difficulty of the phrase, and the three ways the Greek text states it, with the answers of Origen, Chrysostom, and Tertullian, belong to the section of Book of Exodus on the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. What belongs to Moses is that he is sent to speak to a man whose refusal the Lord has already named, and that he goes.
The land he was not allowed to enter
The Greek text gives the reason three times, in three voices. At the water of Strife the Lord says to Moses and Aaron, "Because ye have not believed me to sanctify me before the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them" (Numbers 20.12). The sentence is repeated on Moses' last day: "Because ye disobeyed my word among the children of Israel, at the waters of strife of Cades in the wilderness of Sin; because ye sanctified me not among the sons of Israel. Thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not enter into it" (Deuteronomy 32.51-Deuteronomy 32.52). Moses' own recollection in Deuteronomy gives a third account, "the Lord because of you did not regard me, and hearkened not to me; and the Lord said to me, Let it suffice thee, speak not of this matter to me any more" (Deuteronomy 3.26), and again, "the Lord God was angry with me for the things said by you" (Deuteronomy 4.21).
The act at the rock is described in Numbers 20. The people have no water and reproach Moses and Aaron; the Lord says, "speak ye to the rock before them, and it shall give forth its waters"; and Moses gathers them and says, "Hear me, ye disobedient ones; must we bring you water out of this rock?" and then "lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his rod twice" (Numbers 20.8; Numbers 20.10-Numbers 20.11). Earlier, at the rock in Choreb, the Lord had told him to strike (Exodus 17.6); at Cades the command was to speak. The Greek Psalter names the cost to him: "They provoked him also at the water of Strife, and Moses was hurt for their sakes; for they provoked his spirit, and he spoke unadvisedly with his lips" (Psalms 105.32-Psalms 105.33). The Orthodox Study Bible prints the Lord's reason in the words of the verse, "Because you did not believe Me, to sanctify Me before the children of Israel," and prints in Deuteronomy 34 the Lord's words, "I show it to your eyes, but you shall not go in there."[^osb-nu20]
Augustine takes the passage as an act of doubt, in his exposition of the Psalm that retells it. "He touched the rock with his rod with doubt, and thus distinguished this miracle from the rest, in which he had not doubted," he says, and "being disturbed by the murmurs of an unbelieving people, he held not fast that confidence which he ought to have held." He states the limit of the penalty in the same breath: "God gives unto him, as unto His chosen, a good testimony even after his death, so that we may see that this wavering of faith was punished with this penalty only, that he was not allowed to enter that land."[^aug-ps106]
In another work Augustine makes the same event a figure. Moses, he says, "represents and prefigures the Jewish people as placed under the law," and the rock he struck is Christ. The mountain is the one on which God commanded the death of Moses' flesh, and Augustine reads it too: "As the rock is Christ, so is the mountain. The rock is the fortitude of His humiliation; the mountain the height of His exaltation."[^aug-cf16-17] The Jewish Annotated New Testament makes a connection of its own to the same verse, noting that in Matthew's temptation story Jesus "is challenged to command stones (4.3; cf. Num 20.8)," and that Matthew's Jesus is shown "the kingdom" as Moses was shown the land.[^jant-stones] The two readings of Augustine are different kinds of reading, and he offers both.
Hebrews speaks of the people rather than of Moses. "Wasn't it all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?" the writer asks of those who rebelled, and concludes that "they weren't able to enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3.16-Hebrews 3.19). The people it names are those "led by Moses," and the same chapter says that Moses himself was "faithful in all his house" (Hebrews 3.5). Augustine, cited above, speaks most directly to what the exclusion meant for Moses: a single wavering of faith, punished with this penalty only, and then a "good testimony" from God after his death. The text lets him see the land, and "they buried him in Gai" (Deuteronomy 34.6). The same Moses, with Elijah, is shown "in glory" speaking with Christ about His departure to Jerusalem (Luke 9.31).
The Man on the Mountain
A reader who follows Moses from the basket to Nebo meets a man who is pulled out, sent back, talked into the work against his own protests, lets his anger break what God has written, begs God to spare people who had just abandoned him, and in the end is shown a land he cannot enter. The Fathers hear in that life a pattern larger than the man: Cyril sets him beside Christ as a servant sent beside the Son who sends, Gregory goes up his mountain to learn how little of God can be said, and the hymns hear his rod and his raised hands as the Cross. On the mountain of the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah stand beside the One whom the whole story had been preparing, and the voice that says "Listen to him" ends the long hearing that began at the bush. The Church's way of reading that story, in which Aaron, Joshua, the Passover, and the Tabernacle each become a figure of what came after, is the subject of Typology in Scripture and of The Transfiguration.
Sources
[^inq-birth]: Exodus 2.1-10 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^inq-flight]: Exodus 2.11-22 (Brenton's Septuagint); Acts 7.23-29. [^inq-call]: Exodus 3.1-4.17 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^inq-calf]: Exodus 32.19-20, 32.30-32 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^inq-friend]: Numbers 12.3 and Exodus 33.11 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^inq-death]: Deuteronomy 34.1-6 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^inq-christ]: John 5.46 and Matthew 17.1-8 (World English Bible); 2 Kings 2.11 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^sum-life]: Exodus 1.22, 2.3-10, 3.2, 4.14-16, 24.18, 32.19, 33.11; Numbers 20.12; Deuteronomy 34.1-4 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^sum-nt]: John 5.46; Luke 9.30-31; Hebrews 3.5-6 (World English Bible). [^sum-fathers]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 19.3; Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 28 (Second Theological Oration) 3. [^sum-hymns]: Orthodox Church in America, "Unburnt Bush Icon of the Mother of God," September 4; Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis, Canon for Mid-Pentecost, Ode 1, irmos; OrthodoxWiki, "Biblical Odes." [^ov-life]: Exodus 2.1-10, 3.1-4.17; Deuteronomy 34.1-7 (Brenton's Septuagint); OrthodoxWiki, "Moses." [^ov-names]: Exodus 2.10, 33.11; Numbers 12.6-8; Deuteronomy 33.1, 34.5, 34.10 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^ov-nt]: Matthew 17.1-8; John 5.46; Hebrews 3.1-6; Revelation 15.3 (World English Bible). [^ov-type]: Deuteronomy 18.15-19; Exodus 17.8-13; Numbers 21.4-9 (Brenton's Septuagint); John 3.14-15 (World English Bible); Orthodox Church in America, "Unburnt Bush Icon of the Mother of God," September 4. [^ov-lit]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," September 4; OrthodoxWiki, "Biblical Odes"; Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Saturday"; Bishop Alexander (Mileant), The Feast of the Theophany, Vespers of the eve; Bishop Alexander (Mileant), booklet on the Transfiguration of the Lord, Vespers. [^ov-date]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," life; OrthodoxWiki, "Moses." [^ex2-birth]: Exodus 2.1-10 (Brenton's Septuagint). [^ex2-kill]: Exodus 2.11-15 (Brenton's Septuagint); Acts 7.22-25 (World English Bible). [^clem17]: Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 17. [^names-moses]: Exodus 2.10 (Brenton's Septuagint); OrthodoxWiki, "Moses." [^names-friend]: Exodus 33.11 (Brenton's Septuagint); Orthodox Church in America, "The Law." [^theodoret-god]: Exodus 7.1 (Brenton's Septuagint); Theodoret of Cyrus, Eranistes (Dialogues), Part 4, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, vol. 3. [^god-seer]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," troparion and kontakion, September 4. [^basil-hex]: Basil the Great, Hexaemeron, Homily 1.1. [^lawgiver]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 14.19; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Second Corinthians, Hom. 7; Origen, On First Principles 4.1.1. [^chrys-matt56-why]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Hom. 56.3. [^chrys-matt56-pair]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Hom. 56.3. [^chrys-matt56-peter]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Hom. 56.4. [^origen-matt]: Origen, Commentary on Matthew, Book 12, on Matthew 16.28 and 17.8. [^osb-communion]: The Orthodox Study Bible, note at Matthew 17.1-8. [^ephrem-tf9]: Sermon on the Transfiguration attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, section 9, in Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis. [^ephrem-tf12]: Sermon on the Transfiguration attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, section 12, in Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis. [^osb-typology]: The Orthodox Study Bible, sidebar "Typology," at Numbers 21. [^behr-44]: John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (2006), 44. [^basil-hs31]: Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 14.31. [^basil-hs33]: Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 14.33. [^osb-typology2]: The Orthodox Study Bible, sidebar "Typology," at Numbers 21. [^chrys-heb5]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews, Hom. 5. [^chrys-heb26]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews, Hom. 26. [^jant-jude]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, note at Jude 8-13. [^jant-rev15]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, note at Revelation 15.1-4. [^osb-typology3]: The Orthodox Study Bible, sidebar "Typology," at Numbers 21. [^osb-dt18]: The Orthodox Study Bible, note at Deuteronomy 18.15-19. [^ephrem-dt]: Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on the Diatessaron 12.5, trans. Carmel McCarthy, as quoted in John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (2006), 121. [^aug-cf16-18]: Augustine, Against Faustus 16.18. [^jant-heb3]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, note at Hebrews 3.1-6. [^basil-hs14]: Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 14.33. [^cyril-myst1]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 19 (first Mystagogical Catechesis) 3. [^barn12-hands]: Epistle of Barnabas 12. [^justin-90]: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 90. [^justin-91]: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 91. [^cyril-10-11]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 10.11. [^jant-john3]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, note at John 3.14. [^justin-94]: Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 94. [^cyril-13-20]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 13.20. [^bush-dogmatikon]: Orthodox Church in America, "Unburnt Bush Icon of the Mother of God," September 4, quoting the Octoechos, Dogmatikon of the second tone. [^bush-lash]: Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis, Triodion, Sunday of the Prodigal Son, Matins, katavasia before Ode 9. [^bush-theophany]: Bishop Alexander (Mileant), The Feast of the Theophany, Matins canon, second canon. [^osb-bush]: The Orthodox Study Bible, sidebar "Typology," at Numbers 21, quoting Matins of the Nativity of the Theotokos. [^bush-icon]: Orthodox Church in America, "Unburnt Bush Icon of the Mother of God," September 4. [^ow-bush]: OrthodoxWiki, "Burning Bush." [^basil-hex-portrait]: Basil the Great, Hexaemeron, Homily 1.1. [^greg-or28-a]: Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 28 (Second Theological Oration) 3. [^greg-or28-b]: Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 28 (Second Theological Oration) 3. [^cyril-10-7]: Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 10.7. [^clem53]: Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 53. [^ephrem-ep4]: Hymns attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns for the Feast of Epiphany, Hymn 4, stanzas 15-16. [^origen-fp]: Origen, On First Principles 4.1.6. [^chrys-2cor7]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Second Corinthians, Hom. 7. [^behr-48]: John Behr, The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death (2006), 48. [^sept4-life]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," life, September 4. [^sept4-ladder]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," life, September 4. [^sept4-trop]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Prophet and God-seer Moses," troparion and kontakion, September 4. [^odes-ow]: OrthodoxWiki, "Biblical Odes." [^midpen-irmos]: Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis, Canon for Mid-Pentecost, Ode 1, irmos. [^aug1-cross]: Ephrem Lash, trans, Anastasis, Menaion, 1 August. [^holysat-oca]: Orthodox Church in America, "Holy Saturday." [^theophany-readings]: Bishop Alexander (Mileant), The Feast of the Theophany, Vespers of the eve. [^tf-paremias]: Bishop Alexander (Mileant), booklet on the Transfiguration of the Lord, Vespers and canon. [^ephrem-ep8]: Hymns attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, Hymns for the Feast of Epiphany, Hymn 8, stanzas 2-3. [^jant-seat]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, note at Matthew 23.1-36. [^chrys-matt72]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, Hom. 72. [^jant-moses-torah]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, notes at 2 Corinthians 3.13-18 and Acts 6.11. [^jant-face]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, "Paul and the Rabbis on Moses' Radiant Face" (2 Corinthians 3.12-18; Exodus 34.29-35). [^jant-matt-moses]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, introduction to Matthew. [^basil-hex-kill]: Basil the Great, Hexaemeron, Homily 1.1. [^aug-cf22-70]: Augustine, Against Faustus 22.70. [^aug-cf22-70b]: Augustine, Against Faustus 22.70. [^aug-cf22-90]: Augustine, Against Faustus 22.90. [^chrys-heb26-flight]: John Chrysostom, Homilies on Hebrews, Hom. 26. [^osb-nu20]: The Orthodox Study Bible, text of Numbers 20.12 and Deuteronomy 34.4. [^aug-ps106]: Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, on Psalm 106 (105 in the Latin numbering), 26. [^aug-cf16-17]: Augustine, Against Faustus 16.17. [^jant-stones]: The Jewish Annotated New Testament, ed. Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, introduction to Matthew.