Moses Mendelssohn

Moses Mendelssohn in portrait by Anton Graff, 1773
Born	(1729-09-06)September 6, 1729
Died	January 4, 1786(1786-01-04) (aged 56)
Era	Age of Enlightenment
Region	Western philosophy
School	Haskalah
Influenced by Maimonides, Locke, Lessing, Fränkel
Influenced Friedländer, Maimon
Signature

Moses Mendelssohn's glasses, in the Berlin Jewish Museum

Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729^[1] – 4 January 1786) was a German Jewish philosopher to whose ideas Haskalah (the Jewish Enlightenment) is indebted. Although himself a practicing orthodox Jew, he has been referred to as the father of Reform Judaism.^[2]

Born to a poor Jewish family in Dessau and originally destined for a rabbinical career, Mendelssohn educated himself in German thought and literature and from his writings on philosophy and religion came to be regarded as a leading cultural figure of his time by both Germans and Jews. He also established himself as an important figure in the Berlin textile industry, which was the foundation of his family's wealth.

Moses Mendelssohn's descendants include the composers Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn and the founders of the Mendelssohn & Co. banking house.

Youth[link]

Moses Mendelssohn was born in Dessau. His father's name was Mendel and he later took the surname Mendelssohn ("Mendel's son"). Mendel Dessau was a poor scribe—a writer of torah scrolls—and his son Moses in his boyhood developed curvature of the spine. His early education was cared for by his father and by the local rabbi, David Fränkel, who besides teaching him the Bible and Talmud, introduced to him the philosophy of Maimonides. Fränkel received a call to Berlin in 1743. A few months later Moses followed him.

A refugee Pole, Zamoscz, taught him mathematics, and a young Jewish physician taught him Latin. He was, however, mainly self-taught. He learned to spell and to philosophize at the same time (according to the historian Graetz). With his scanty earnings he bought a Latin copy of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and mastered it with the aid of a Latin dictionary. He then made the acquaintance of Aaron Solomon Gumperz, who taught him basic French and English. In 1750, a wealthy silk-merchant, Isaac Bernhard, appointed him to teach his children. Mendelssohn soon won the confidence of Bernhard, who made the young student successively his bookkeeper and his partner.

Either Gumperz or Hess (it is not known which) introduced Mendelssohn to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in 1754, who became one of his greatest friends. The story goes that the first time Mendelssohn met Lessing, they played chess; therefore, in Lessing's play Nathan the Wise Nathan and Saladin first meet during a game of chess.

The Berlin of the day—the day of Frederick the Great—was in a moral and intellectual ferment. Lessing had recently produced the drama Die Juden, whose moral was that a Jew can possess nobility of character. This notion was then generally ridiculed as untrue. Lessing found in Mendelssohn the realization of his dream. Within a few months of the same age, the two became brothers in intellectual and artistic camaraderie. Lessing also brought Mendelssohn to public attention for the first time: Mendelssohn had written an essay attacking Germans' neglect of their native philosophers (principally Gottfried Leibniz), and lent the manuscript to Lessing. Without consulting the author, Lessing published Mendelssohn's Philosophical Conversations (Philosophische Gespräche) anonymously in 1755. In the same year there appeared in Danzig (Gdańsk) an anonymous satire, Pope a Metaphysician (Pope ein Metaphysiker), which turned out to be the joint work of Lessing and Mendelssohn.

Early prominence as philosopher and critic[link]

Mendelssohn became (1756–1759) the leading spirit of Friedrich Nicolai's important literary undertakings, the Bibliothek and the Literaturbriefe, and ran some risk (which Frederick's good nature mitigated) by criticizing the poems of the King of Prussia. In 1762 he married Fromet Guggenheim, who survived him by twenty-six years. In the year following his marriage Mendelssohn won the prize offered by the Berlin Academy for an essay on the application of mathematical proofs to metaphysics, On Evidence in the Metaphysical Sciences; among the competitors were Thomas Abbt and Immanuel Kant (who came second).^[3] In October 1763 the king granted Mendelssohn, but not his wife or children, the privilege of Protected Jew (Schutzjude)—which assured his right to undisturbed residence in Berlin.^[4]

As a result of his correspondence with Abbt, Mendelssohn resolved to write on the Immortality of the Soul. Materialistic views were at the time rampant and fashionable, and faith in immortality was at a low ebb. At this favourable juncture appeared the Phädon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele (Phädon or On the Immortality of Souls; 1767). Modelled on Plato's dialogue of the same name, Mendelssohn's work possessed some of the charm of its Greek exemplar and impressed the German world with its beauty and lucidity of style. The Phädon was an immediate success, and besides being often reprinted in German was speedily translated into nearly all the European languages, including English. The author was hailed as the "German Plato," or the "German Socrates"; royal and other aristocratic friends showered attentions on him, and it was said that "no stranger who came to Berlin failed to pay his personal respects to the German Socrates."

Lavater[link]

Mendelssohn, Lavater and Lessing, in an imaginary portrait by the Jewish artist Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1856). Collection of the Judah L. Magnes Museum

So far, Mendelssohn had devoted his talents to philosophy and criticism; now, however, an incident turned the current of his life in the direction of the cause of Judaism. In April 1763, Johann Kaspar Lavater, then a young theology-student from Zurich, made a trip to Berlin, where he visited the already famous Jewish philosopher with some companions. They insisted on Mendelssohn telling them his views on Jesus and managed to get from him the statement, that, provided the historical Jesus had kept himself and his theology strictly within limits of orthodox Judaism, Mendelssohn "respected the morality of Jesus' character".^[5] Six years later, in October 1769, Lavater sent Mendelssohn his German translation of Charles Bonnet's essay on Christian Evidences, with a preface where he publicly challenged Mendelssohn to refute Bonnet or if he could not then to "do what wisdom, the love of truth and honesty must bid him, what a Socrates would have done if he had read the book and found it unanswerable".^[6] Mendelssohn answered in an open letter in December 1769: "Suppose there were living among my contemporaries a Confucius or a Solon, I could, according to the principles of my faith, love and admire the great man without falling into the ridiculous idea that I must convert a Solon or a Confucius." The ongoing public controversy cost Mendelssohn much time, energy and strength.

Lavater later described Mendelssohn in his book on physiognomy, "Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe" (1775–1778), as "a companionable, brilliant soul, with piercing eyes, the body of an Aesop—a man of keen insight, exquisite taste and wide erudition [...] frank and open-hearted"—ending his public praise with the wish of Mendelssohn recognizing, "together with Plato and Moses... the crucified glory of Christ". When, in 1775 the Swiss-German Jews, faced with the threat of expulsion, turned to Mendelssohn and asked him to intervene on their behalf with "his friend" Lavater, Lavater, after receiving Mendelssohn's letter, promptly and effectively secured their stay.

Illness[link]

In March 1771 Mendelssohn's health deteriorated so badly that Marcus Elieser Bloch, his doctor, decided his patient had to give up philosophy, at least temporarily.^[7] After a short and restless sleep one evening, Mendelssohn found himself incapable of moving and had the feeling of something lashing his neck with fiery rods, his heart was palpitating and he was in an extreme anxiety, yet fully conscious. This spell was then broken suddenly by some external stimulation. Attacks of this kind recurred. The cause of his disease was ascribed to the mental stress due to his theological controversy with Lavater.^[8] However, this sort of attack, in milder form, had presumably occurred many years earlier. Bloch diagnosed the disease as due to 'congestion of blood in the brain' (a meaningless diagnosis in modern medical practice as such congestion is anatomically impossible), and after some controversy this diagnosis was also accepted by the famous Hanoverian court physician, Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann, an admirer of Mendelssohn.^[9] In retrospect, his illness might be diagnosed as a heart-rhythm-problem and/or a mild form of familial dysautonomia, a hereditary disease of Ashkenazi Jews, which often brings with it a curvature of the spine and epilepsy-like symptoms in times of stress.^[10]

Mendelssohn was treated with China bark, blood lettings on the foot, leeches applied to the ears, enemas, foot baths, lemonade and mainly vegetarian food. “No mental stress whatsoever” was ordered. However, although he remained subject to periods of setback, he eventually recovered sufficiently to write the major works of his later career.^[11]

Works on Religion and Civil Society[link]

Medal honoring Mendelssohn.

It was after the breakdown of his health that Mendelssohn decided to "dedicate the remains of my strength for the benefit of my children or a goodly portion of my nation"—which he did by trying to bring the Jews closer to "culture, from which my nation, alas! is kept in such a distance, that one might well despair of ever overcoming it". One of the means of doing this was by "giving them a better translation of the holy books than they previously had".^[12] To this end Mendelssohn undertook his German translation of the Pentateuch and other parts of the Bible. This work called was called the Bi'ur (the explanation) (1783) and also contained a commentary, only that on Exodus having been written by Mendelssohn himself. The translation was in an elegant High German, designed to allow Jews to learn the language faster. Most of the German Jews in that period spoke Yiddish and many were literate in Hebrew (the original language of the scripture). The commentary was also thoroughly rabbinic, quoting mainly from medieval exegetes but also from Talmud-era midrashim. Mendelssohn is also believed to be behind the foundation of the first modern public school for Jewish boys, "Freyschule für Knaben", in Berlin in 1778 by one of his most ardent pupils, David Friedländer, where both religious and worldly subjects were taught.

Mendelssohn also tried to better the Jews' situation in general by furthering their rights and acceptance. He induced Christian Wilhelm von Dohm to publish in 1781 his work, On the Civil Amelioration of the Condition of the Jews, which played a significant part in the rise of tolerance. Mendelssohn himself published a German translation of the Vindiciae Judaeorum by Menasseh Ben Israel.

The interest caused by these actions led Mendelssohn to publish his most important contribution to the problems connected with the position of Judaism in a Gentile world. This was Jerusalem (1783; Eng. trans. 1838 and 1852). It is a forcible plea for freedom of conscience, described by Kant as "an irrefutable book". Mendelssohn wrote:

Brothers, if you care for true piety, let us not feign agreement, where diversity is evidently the plan and purpose of Providence. None of us thinks and feels exactly like his fellow man: why do we wish to deceive each other with delusive words?^[13]

Its basic thrust is that the state has no right to interfere with the religion of its citizens, Jews included. While it proclaims the mandatory character of Jewish law for all Jews (including, based on Mendelssohn's understanding of the New Testament, those converted to Christianity), it does not grant the rabbinate the right to punish Jews for deviating from it. He maintained that Judaism was less a "divine need, than a revealed life". Jerusalem concludes with the cry "Love truth, love peace!"—in a quote from Zacharias 8:19.

Kant called this "the proclamation of a great reform, which, however, will be slow in manifestation and in progress, and which will affect not only your people but others as well." Mendelssohn asserted the pragmatic principle of the possible plurality of truths: that just as various nations need different constitutions—to one a monarchy, to another a republic, may be the most congenial to the national genius—so individuals may need different religions. The test of religion is its effect on conduct. This is the moral of Lessing's Nathan the Wise (Nathan der Weise), the hero of which is undoubtedly Mendelssohn, and in which the parable of the three rings is the epitome of the pragmatic position.

To Mendelssohn his theory represented a strengthening bond to Judaism. But in the first part of the 19th century, the criticism of Jewish dogmas and traditions was associated with a firm adhesion to the older Jewish mode of living. Reason was applied to beliefs, the historic consciousness to life. Modern reform in Judaism has parted to some extent from this conception.

Later years and legacy[link]

Moses Mendelssohn's (reconstructed) grave in Berlin. Translation of Hebrew inscription: H[ere] R[ests] / THE WISE R[eb] MOSES of DESSAU / BORN ON THE 12TH OF ELUL 5489 [(August 12, 1729)] / DIED ON WEDNESDAY THE 5TH OF SHVAT [(January 4)] / AND BURIED THE NEXT MORNING, ON THURSDAY THE 6TH / 5546 [(January 5, 1786)] / M[ay] H[is] S[oul be] B[ound up in the] B[ond of eternal] L[ife]^[14]

Mendelssohn grew ever more famous, and counted among his friends many of the great figures of his time. But his final years were overshadowed and saddened by the so called pantheism controversy. Ever since his friend Lessing had died, he had wanted to write an essay or a book about his character. When Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, an acquaintance of both men, heard of Mendelssohn's project, he stated that he had confidential information about Lessing being a "Spinozist", which, in these years, was regarded as being more or less synonymous with "atheist"—something which Lessing was accused of being anyway by religious circles.^[15] This led to an exchange of letters between Jacobi and Mendelssohn which showed they had hardly any common ground. Mendelssohn then published his Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen über das Dasein Gottes (Morning hours or lectures about God's existence), seemingly a series of lectures to his oldest son, his son-in-law and a young friend, usually held "in the morning hours", in which he explained his personal philosophical world-view, his own understanding of Spinoza and Lessing's "purified" ("geläutert") pantheism. But almost simultaneously with the publication of this book in 1785, Jacobi published extracts of his and Mendelssohn's letters as Briefe über die Lehre Spinozas, stating publicly that Lessing was a self confessed "pantheist" in the sense of "atheist". Mendelssohn was thus drawn into a poisonous literary controversy, and found himself attacked from all sides, including former friends or acquaintances such as Johann Gottfried von Herder and Johann Georg Hamann. Mendelssohn wrote a reply addressed To Lessing's Friends (An die Freunde Lessings) and died on January 4, 1786 as the result of a cold contracted while carrying this manuscript to his publishers on New Year's Eve; Jacobi was held by some to have been responsible for his death.^[16] He was buried in Jüdischer Friedhof cemetery in Berlin.^[17]

Family[link]

Mendelssohn had six children, of whom only his second-oldest daughter, Recha, and his eldest son, Joseph, retained the Jewish faith. His sons were: Joseph (founder of the Mendelssohn banking house, and a friend and benefactor of Alexander von Humboldt), Abraham (who married Lea Salomon and was the father of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn); and Nathan (a mechanical engineer of considerable repute). His daughters were Dorothea, the mother of Philipp Veit (and subsequently the consort, and then wife, of Friedrich von Schlegel), Recha and Henriette, all gifted women. Recha's only grandson (son of Heinrich Beer, brother of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer), was born and educated as a Jew, but died very young, together with his parents, apparently from an epidemic. Joseph Mendelssohn's son Alexander (d. 1871) was the last male descendant of Moses Mendelssohn to practice Judaism.

See also[link]

• Biurists
• Fridolin Friedmann

References[link]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Sources[link]

Mendelssohn's complete works have been published in 19 volumes (in the original languages) (Stuttgart, 1971 ff., ed. A. Altmann and others)

• Altmann, Alexander. Moses Mendelssohn: A Biographical Study, 1973. ISBN 0-8173-6860-4.
• (German) Bloch, Marcus, Medicinische Bemerkungen. Nebst einer Abhandlung vom Pyrmonter-Augenbrunnen. Berlin 1774
• Brand, Aron, The Illness of Moses Mendelssohn, "Koroth" 6, 421-426, 1974
• Dahlstrom, Daniel, Moses Mendelssohn, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)
• (German) Kayserling, Meyer Moses Mendelssohn, sein Leben und seine Werke. Nebst einem Anhange ungedruckter Briefe. Leipzig, 1862.
• (German) Lavater, J. K., Sammlung derer Briefe, welche bey Gelegenheit der Bonnetschen philosophischen Untersuchung der Beweise für das Christenthum zwischen Hrn. Lavater, Moses Mendelssohn, und Hrn Dr. Kölbele gewechselt worden [Collection of those letters which have passed between Mr. Lavater, Moses Mendelssohn, and Mr. Dr. Kölbele on occasion of Bonnet's investigation concerning the evidence of Christianity], Frankfurt am Main 1774 (Google Books).
• Mendelssohn, Moses, tr. A. Arkush, intr. A. Altmann: Jerusalem, or, on religious power and Judaism, 1983. ISBN 0-87451-263-8.
• Mendelssohn, Moses, tr., intr., comm. B. Rosenstock: Last Works, 2012. Includes Morning Hours: Lectures on the Existence of God (Morgenstunden, 1785) and To the Friends of Lessing (An die Freunde Lessings, 1786). ISBN 978-0-252-03687-3.
• Arnaldo Momigliano, On Pagans, Jews, and Christians, Weslyan University Press, 1987 ISBN 0-8195-6218-1
• (German) Schoeps, Julius H. Das Erbe der Mendelssohhns, Frankfurt 2009. ISBN 978-3-10-073606-2
• (German) Tree, Stephen. Moses Mendelssohn. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek, 2007. ISBN 3-499-50671-8.
• Wein, Berel, Triumph of Survival: The Story of the Jews in the Modern Era 1650-1995, 1997

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Mendelssohn, Moses.

Media related to Moses Mendelssohn at Wikimedia Commons

• Moses Mendelssohn's books at Google Books
• Translation of Moses Mendelssohn's Sache Gottes, The Case for God, a work unpublished in his lifetime dealing with questions related to theodicy, including Mendelssohn's denial of the doctrine of eternal punishment
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Ohr Le-Netivah (introduction to the 'Biur') on HebrewBooks.org
• Contains Mendelssohn's Jerusalem, slightly modified for easier reading
• Moses Mendelssohn In_Our_Time_(BBC_Radio_4) stream (original broadcast 22 March 2012) discussion with Christopher Clark (University of Cambridge), Abigail Green (University of Oxford), Adam Sutcliffe (King's College London), hosted by Melvyn Bragg, and including a list of further readings.

Moses
Moses pleading with the Children of Israel, lithography from a Bible card published in 1907
Prophet, Lawgiver
Born	Goshen, Lower Egypt
Died	Mount Nebo, Moab
Honored in	Judaism Christianity Islam Bahá'í Faith
Influenced	Many Jews, Christians and Muslims

Moses (Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה‎, Modern Moshe Tiberian Mōšéh ISO 259-3 Moše; Greek: Mωϋσῆς Mōüsēs; Arabic: موسىٰ Mūsa) was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a 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] and is also considered an important prophet in Christianity and Islam, as well as a number of other faiths.

The existence of Moses as well as the veracity of the Exodus story is disputed amongst archaeologists and Egyptologists, with experts in the field of biblical criticism citing logical inconsistencies, new archaeological evidence, historical evidence, and related origin myths in Canaanite culture.^[3][4][5] Other historians maintain that the biographical details, and Egyptian background, attributed to Moses imply the existence of a historical political and religious leader who was involved in the consolidation of the Hebrew tribes in Canaan towards the end of the Bronze Age.

According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was born in a time when his people, the Children of Israel, were increasing in number and the Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that they might help Egypt's enemies. Moses' Hebrew mother, Jochebed, hid him when the Pharaoh ordered all newborn Hebrew boys to be killed, and the child was adopted as a foundling by the Egyptian royal family. After killing an Egyptian slave-master, Moses fled across the Red Sea to Midian where he encountered the God of Israel in the form of a "burning bush". God sent Moses to request the release of the Israelites. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died within sight of the Promised Land.

Rabbinical Judaism calculated a lifespan of Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 BCE;^[6] Christian tradition has tended to assume an earlier date.^[7]

Name[link]

Moses and the tablets of law

The biblical text explains the name Mošeh משה as a derivation of the root mšh משה "to draw", in Exodus 2:10:

"[...] she called his name Moses (משה): and she said, Because I drew him (משיתהו) out of the water." (KJV).^[8]

The name is thus suggested to relate to drawing out in a passive sense, "the one who was drawn out". Those who depart from this tradition derive the name from the same root but in an active sense, "he who draws out", in the sense of "saviour, deliverer".^[9] The form of the name as recorded in the Masoretic text is indeed the expected form of the Biblical Hebrew active participle.^[10] Josephus argued for an Egyptian etymology, and some scholarly suggestions have followed this in deriving the name from Coptic terms mo "water" and `uses "save, deliver", suggesting a meaning "saved from the water".^[11]

Another suggestion has connected the name with the Egyptian ms, as found in Tuth-mose and Ra-messes, meaning "born" or "child".^[8][12]

Biblical narrative[link]

Moses rescued from the Nile, 1638, by Nicolas Poussin

In the Hebrew Bible, the narratives of Moses are in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. According to the Book of Exodus, Moses was a son of Amram, a member of the Levite tribe of Israel descended from Jacob, and his wife, Jochebed.^[13] Jochebed (also Yocheved) was kin to Amram's father Kehath (Exodus 6:20). Moses had one older (by seven years) sister, Miriam, and one older (by three years) brother, Aaron.^[13] According to Genesis 46:11, Amram's father Kehath immigrated to Egypt with 70 of Jacob's household, making Moses part of the second generation of Israelites born during their time in Egypt.^[14]

In the Exodus account, the birth of Moses occurred at a time when an unnamed Egyptian Pharaoh had commanded that all male Hebrew children born be killed by drowning in the river Nile. Jochebed, the wife of the Levite Amram, bore a son and kept him concealed for three months.^[13][15][16] When she could keep him hidden no longer, rather than deliver him to be killed, she set him adrift on the Nile River in a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch.^[15] Moses' sister Miriam observed the progress of the tiny boat until it reached a place where Pharaoh's daughter (Bithiah,^[13] Thermuthis ^[17]) was bathing with her handmaidens. It is said that she spotted the baby in the basket and had her handmaiden fetch it for her. Miriam came forward and asked Pharaoh's daughter if she would like a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby.^[13] Thereafter, Jochebed was employed as the child's nurse. He grew up and was brought to Pharaoh's daughter and became her son and a younger brother to the future Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses would not be able to become Pharaoh because he was not the 'blood' son of Bithiah, and he was the youngest.^{[18][better source needed]}

Shepherd in Midian[link]

After Moses had reached adulthood, he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses killed the Egyptian and buried his body in the sand.^[15] Moses soon discovered that the affair was known, and that Pharaoh was likely to put him to death for it; he then fled from Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula.^[15] In Midian he stopped at a well where he protected seven shepherdesses from a band of rude shepherds. The shepherdesses' father Hobab adopted him as his son. Hobab gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage, and made him the superintendent of his herds.^[15][19][20] Moses lived in Midian for forty years as a shepherd, during which time his son Gershom was born.^[15][21] One day, Moses led his flock to Mount Horeb (Exodus 3), usually identified with Mount Sinai — a mountain that was thought in the Middle Ages to be located on the Sinai Peninsula. There he saw a bush that burned, but was not consumed. When Moses came to look more closely, God spoke to him from the bush, revealing his name to Moses.^[15]

Egypt: the Plagues and the Exodus[link]

Moses before the Pharaoh, a 6th century miniature from the Syriac Bible of Paris.

Moses strikes water from the stone, by Francesco Bacchiacca

Moses with the tablets of the Ten Commandments, painting by Rembrandt (1659)

A unique portrayal of Moses with a New Testament summary of the Old Testament law inscribed on the tablets. A stained glass window at St. Matthew's German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Charleston, SC

Moses holding up his arms during the battle, assisted by Aaron and Hur. Painting by John Everett Millais

God commanded Moses to go to Egypt and deliver his fellow Hebrews from bondage.^[22] On the way Moses was nearly killed by God because his son was not circumcised. He was met on the way by his elder brother, Aaron, and gained a hearing with his oppressed kindred after they returned to Egypt, who believed Moses and Aaron after they saw the signs that were performed in the midst of the Israelite assembly.^[23] Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him that the Lord God of Israel wanted Pharaoh to permit the Israelites to celebrate a feast in the wilderness. Pharaoh replied that he did not know their God and would not permit them to go. They gained a second hearing with Pharaoh and changed Moses' rod into a serpent, but Pharaoh's magicians did the same with their rods. Moses and Aaron met Pharaoh at the Nile riverbank, and Moses had Aaron turn the river to blood, but Pharaoh's magicians could do the same. Moses obtained a fourth meeting, and had Aaron bring frogs from the Nile to overrun Egypt, but Pharaoh's magicians were able to do the same thing. Pharaoh asked Moses to remove the frogs and promised to let the Israelites go observe their feast in the wilderness in return. Pharaoh decided against letting the Israelites leave to observe the feast.^[24] Eventually Pharaoh let the Hebrews depart after Moses' God sent ten plagues upon the Egyptians. The third and fourth were the plague of gnats and flies. The fifth was diseases on the Egyptians' cattle, oxen, goats, sheep, camels, and horses. The sixth was boils on the skins of Egyptians. Seventh, fiery hail and thunder. The eighth plague was locusts. The ninth plague was total darkness. The tenth plague was the slaying of the Egyptian male first-born children, whereupon such terror seized the Egyptians that they ordered the Hebrews to leave. The events are commemorated as Passover, referring to how the plague "passed over" the houses of the Israelites while smiting the Egyptians.^[25]

The crossing of the Red Sea[link]

Moses then led his people eastward, beginning the long journey to Canaan. The procession moved slowly, and found it necessary to encamp three times before passing the Egyptian frontier — some believe at the Great Bitter Lake, while others propose sites as far south as the northern tip of the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Pharaoh had a change of heart, and was in pursuit of them with a large army. Shut in between this army and the sea, the Israelites despaired, but Exodus records that God divided the waters so that they passed safely across on dry ground. There is some contention about this passage, since an earlier incorrect translation of Yam Suph to Red Sea was later found to have meant Reed Sea.^[26] When the Egyptian army attempted to follow, God permitted the waters to return upon them and drown them.

The people then continued to Marsa marching for three days along the wilderness of the Shur ^[27] without finding water. Then they came to Elim where twelve water springs and 70 Palm trees greeted them.^[28] From Elim they set out again and after 45 days they reached the wilderness of Sin between Elim and Sinai.

From there they reached the plain of Rephidim, completing the crossing of the Red Sea.

Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments[link]

According to the Bible, after crossing the Red Sea and leading the Israelites towards the desert, Moses was summoned by God to Mount Sinai, also referred to as Mount Horeb, the same place where Moses had first talked to the Burning Bush, tended the flocks of Jethro his father-in-law, and later produced water by striking the rock with his staff and directed the battle with the Amalekites.

Moses stayed on the mountain for 40 days and nights, a period in which he received the Ten Commandments directly from God. Moses then descended from the mountain with intent to deliver the commandments to the people, but upon his arrival he saw that the people were involved in the sin of the Golden Calf. In terrible anger, Moses broke the commandment tablets^[29] and ordered his own tribe (the Levites) to go through the camp and kill everyone, including family and friends,^[30] upon which the Levites killed about 3,000 people.^[31] God later commanded Moses to inscribe two other tablets, to replace the ones Moses smashed,^[32] so Moses went to the mountain again, for another period of 40 days and nights, and when he returned, the commandments were finally given.

In Jewish tradition, Moses is referred to as "The Lawgiver" for this singular achievement of delivering the Ten Commandments.

The years in the wilderness[link]

A statue of Moses smiting the rock stands in Washington Park, Albany, New York.

When the people arrived at Marah, the water was bitter, causing the people to murmur against Moses. Moses cast a tree into the water, and the water became sweet.^[33][34] Later in the journey the people began running low on supplies and again murmured against Moses and Aaron and said they would have preferred to die in Egypt, but God's provision of manna from the sky in the morning and quail in the evening took care of the situation.^[35][36] When the people camped in Rephidim, there was no water, so the people complained again and said, "Wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" Moses struck a rock with his staff, and water came forth.^[37][38]

Amalekites arrived and attacked the Israelites. In response, Moses bade Joshua lead the men to fight while he stood on a hill with the rod of God in his hand. As long as Moses held the rod up, Israel dominated the fighting, but if Moses let down his hands, the tide of the battle turned in favor of the Amalekites. Because Moses was getting tired, Aaron and Hur had Moses sit on a rock. Aaron held up one arm, Hur held up the other arm, and the Israelites routed the Amalekites.^[39][40]

Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, came to see Moses and brought Moses' wife and two sons with him. After Moses had told Jethro how the Israelites had escaped Egypt, Jethro went to offer sacrifices to the Lord, and then ate bread with the elders. The next day Jethro observed how Moses sat from morning to night giving judgement for the people. Jethro suggested that Moses appoint judges for lesser matters, a suggestion Moses heeded.^[41]

When the Israelites came to Sinai, they pitched camp near the mountain. Moses commanded the people not to touch the mountain. Moses received the Ten Commandments orally (but not yet in tablet form) and other moral laws. He then went up with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders to see the god of Israel. Before Moses went up the mountain to receive the tablets, he told the elders to direct any questions that arose to Aaron or Hur. While Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving instruction on the laws for the Israelite community, the Israelites went to Aaron and asked him to make gods for them. After Aaron had received golden earrings from the people, he made a golden calf and said, "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." A "solemnity of the Lord" was proclaimed for the following day, which began in the morning with sacrifices and was followed by revelry.

After Moses had persuaded the Lord not to destroy the people of Israel, he went down from the mountain and was met by Joshua. Moses destroyed the calf and rebuked Aaron for the sin he had brought upon the people. Seeing that the people were uncontrollable, Moses went to the entry of the camp and said, "Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me." All the sons of Levi rallied around Moses, who ordered them to go from gate to gate slaying the idolators.^[42][43]

Following this, according to the last chapters of Exodus, the Tabernacle was constructed, the priestly law ordained, the plan of encampment arranged both for the Levites and the non-priestly tribes, and the Tabernacle consecrated. Moses was given eight prayer laws that were to be carried out in regards to the Tabernacle. These laws included light, incense and sacrifice.^[44]

Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses on account of his marriage to an Ethiopian, Josephus explains the marriage of Moses to this Ethiopian in the Antiquities of the Jews^{[45][better source needed]} and about him being the only one through whom the Lord spoke. Miriam was punished with leprosy for seven days.^[46]

The people left Hazeroth and pitched camp in the wilderness of Paran.^[47] (Paran is a vaguely defined region in the northern part of the Sinai peninsula, just south of Canaan) Moses sent twelve spies into Canaan as scouts, including most famously Caleb and Joshua. After forty days, they returned to the Israelite camp, bringing back grapes and other produce as samples of the regions fertility. Although all the spies agreed that the land's resources were spectacular, only two of the twelve spies (Joshua and Caleb) were willing to try to conquer it, and are nearly stoned for their unpopular opinion. The people began weeping and wanted to return to Egypt. Moses turned down the opportunity to have the Israelites completely destroyed and a great nation made from his own offspring, and instead he told the people that they would wander the wilderness for forty years until all those twenty years or older who had refused to enter Canaan had died, and that their children would then enter and possess Canaan. Early the next morning, the Israelites said they had sinned and now wanted to take possession of Canaan. Moses told them not to attempt it, but the Israelites chose to disobey Moses and invade Canaan, but were repulsed by the Amalekites and Canaanites.^[48]

The Tribe of Reuben, led by Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and 250 Israelite princes accused Moses and Aaron of raising themselves over the rest of the people. Moses told them to come the next morning with a censer for every man. Dathan and Abiram refused to come when summoned by Moses. Moses went to the place of Dathan and Abiram's tents. After Moses spoke the ground opened up and engulfed Dathan and Abiram's tents, after which it closed again. Fire consumed the 250 men with the censers. Moses had the censers taken and made into plates to cover the altar. The following day, the Israelites came and accused Moses and Aaron of having killed his fellow Israelites. The people were struck with a plague that killed 14,700 persons, and was only ended when Aaron went with his censer into the midst of the people.^[49] To prevent further murmurings and settle the matter permanently, Moses had each of the chief princes of the non-Levitic tribes write his name on his staff and had them lay them in the sanctuary. He also had Aaron write his name on his staff and had it placed in the tabernacle. The next day, when Moses went into the tabernacle, Aaron's staff had budded, blossomed, and yielded almonds.^[50]

After leaving Sinai, the Israelites camped in Kadesh. After more complaints from the Israelites, Moses struck the stone twice, and water gushed forth. However, because Moses and Aaron had not shown the Lord's holiness, they were not permitted to enter the land to be given to the Israelites.^[51] This was the second occasion Moses struck a rock to bring forth water; however, it appears that both sites were named Meribah after these two incidents.

Moses lifts up the brass serpent, curing the Israelites from poisonous snake bites.

Now ready to enter Canaan, the Israelites abandoned the idea of attacking the Canaanites head-on in Hebron, a city in the southern part of Canaan. Having been informed by spies that they were too strong, it was decided that they wwould flank Hebron by going further East, around the Dead Sea. This required that they pass through Edom, Moab, and Ammon. These three tribes were considered Hebrews by the Israelites as descendants of Lot, and therefore could not be attacked. However they werealso rivals, and did not therefore give permission to allow the Israelites to pass openly through their territory. So Moses lead his people carefully along the eastern border of Edom, the southernmost of these territories. While the Israelites were making their journey around Edom, they complained about the manna. After many of the people had been bitten by serpents and died, Moses made the brass serpent and mounted it on a pole, and if those who were bitten looked at it, they did not die.^[52] According to the Biblical Book of Kings this brass serpent remained in existence until the days of King Hezekiah, who destroyed it after persons began treating it as an idol.^[53] When they reached Moab, it was revealed that Moab had been attacked and defeated by the Amorites led by a king named Sihon. The Amorites were a non-Hebrew Canaanic people who once held power in the Fertile Crescent. When Moses asked the Amorites for passage and it was refused, Moses attacked the Amorites (as non-Hebrews, the Israelites had no reservations in attacking them), presumably weakened by conflict with the Moabites, and defeated them.^[54] The Israelites, now holding the territory of the Amorites just north of Moab, desired to expand their holdings by acquiring Bashan, a fertile territory north of Ammon famous for its oak trees and cattle. It was led by a king named Og. Later rabbinical legends made Og a survivor of the flood, suggesting the he had sat on the Ark and was fed by Noah. The Israelites fought with Og's forces at Edrei, on the southern border of Bashan, where the Israelites were victorious and slew every man, woman, and child of his cities and took spoil for their bounty.^[54]

Balak, king of Moab, having heard of the Israelites' conquests, feared that his territory might be next. Therefore he sent elders of Moab, and of Midian, to Balaam (apparently a powerful and respected prophet), son of Beor (Bible), to induce him to come and curse the Israelites. Balaam's location is unclear. Balaam sent back word that he could only do what God commands, and God has, via a dream, told him not to go. Moab consequently sent higher ranking priests and offers Balaam honours, and so God tells Balaam to go with them. Balaam thus set out with two servants to go to Balak, but an Angel tried to prevent him. At first the Angel is seen only by the ass Balaam is riding. After Balaam started to punish the ass for refusing to move, it is miraculously given the power to speak to Balaam, and it complains about Balaam's treatment. At this point, Balaam was allowed to see the angel, who informed him that the ass is the only reason the Angel did not kill Balaam. Balaam immediately repented, but is told to go on.^[55]

Russian Orthodox icon of the prophet Moses, gesturing towards the burning bush. 18th century (Iconostasis of Transfiguration Church, Kizhi Monastery, Karelia, Russia).

Balak met with Balaam at Kirjath-huzoth, and they went to the high places of Baal, and offered sacrifices at seven altars, leading to Balaam being given a prophecy by God, which Balaam relates to Balak. However, the prophecy blesses Israel; Balak remonstrated, but Balaam reminded him that he can only speak the words put in his mouth, so Balak taook him to another high place at Pisgah, to try again. Building another seven altars here, and making sacrifices on each, Balaam provided another prophecy blessing Israel. Balaam was finally taken by a now very frustrated Balak to Peor, and, after the seven sacrifices there, decided not to seek enchantments but instead looked on the Israelites from the peak. The spirit of God came upon Balaam and he delivered a third positive prophecy concerning Israel. Balak's anger rose to the point where he threatened Balaam, but Balaam merely offered a prediction of fate. Balaam then looked on the Kenites, and Amalekites and offered two more predictions of fate. Balak and Balaam then go to their respective homes. Later, Balaam informed Balak and the Midianites that, if they wished to overcome the Israelites for a short interval, they needed to seduce the Israelites to engage in idolatry.^{[56][better source needed]} The Midianites sent beautiful women to the Israelite camp to seduce the young men to partake in idolatry, and the attempt proved successful.^[57]

God then commanded Moses to kill and hang the heads of everyone who had engaged in idolatry, and Moses ordered the judges to carry out the mass execution. At the same time, one of the Israelites brought home a Midianitish woman in the sight of the congregation. Upon seeing this, Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, took a javelin in his hand and thrust through both the Israelite and the Midianitish woman, which turned away the wrath of God. By that time, however, the plague inflicted on the Israelites had already killed about twenty-four thousand persons. Moses was then told that because Phinehas had averted the wrath of God from the Israelites, Phinehas and his descendents were given the pledge of an everlasting priesthood.^[58] After Moses had taken a census of the people, he sent an army to avenge the perceived evil brought on the Israelites by the Midianites. Numbers 31 says Moses instructed the Israelite soldiers to kill every Midianite woman, boy, and non-virgin girl, although virgin girls were shared amongst the soldiers.^[59] The Israelites killed Balaam, and the five kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba.^[60]

Moses appointed Joshua, son of Nun, to succeed him as the leader of the Israelites.^[61] Moses then died at the age of 120.^[62]

Death[link]

Bust of Moses at Earl Hall at Columbia University in New York City

Moses was warned that he would not be permitted to lead the Israelites across the Jordan river, because of his trespass at the waters of Meribah (Deut. 32:51) but would die on its eastern shores (Num. 20:12).^[63] He therefore assembled the tribes, and delivered to them a parting address, which is taken to form the Book of Deuteronomy.^[63]

When Moses finished, he sang a song and pronounced a blessing on the people. He then went up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, looked over the promised land of Israel spread out before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty, according to Talmudic legend on 7 Adar, his 120th birthday exactly.^[64] God Himself buried him in an unknown grave in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor (Deut. 34:6).^[16][63]

Moses was thus the human instrument in the creation of the nation of Israel by communicating to it the Torah.^[63] More humble than any other man (Num. 12:3), he enjoyed unique privileges, for "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom YHWH knew face to face" (Deut. 34:10).^[63] See also Jude 1:9 and Zechariah 3.

Mosaic law[link]

The Book of Kings relates how a "law of Moses" was discovered in the Temple during the reign of King Josiah (r. 641–609 BC). This book is mostly identified as an early version of the Book of Deuteronomy, perhaps chapters 5-26 and chapter 28 of the extant text. This text contains a number of laws, dated to the 8th century BC kingdom of Judah, a time when a minority Yahwist faction was actively attacking mainstream polytheism, succeeding in establishing official monolatry of the God of Israel under Josiah by the late 7th century BC.

The law attributed to Moses, specifically the laws set out in Deuteronomy, as a consequence came to be considered supreme over all other sources of authority (the king and his officials), and the Levite priests were the guardians and interpreters of the law.^[65]

The Book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 31:9 and Deuteronomy 31:24–26) describes how Moses writes "torah" (instruction) on a scroll and lays it beside the Ark of the Covenant.^[66] Similar passages include, for example, Exodus 17:14, "And YHWH said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven;" Exodus 24:4, "And Moses wrote all the words of YHWH, and rose up early in the morning, and built an altar under the mount, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel;" Exodus 34:27, "And Yahweh said unto Moses, Write thou these words, for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel;"^[67] and Leviticus 26:46 "These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the LORD established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses."

Based on this tradition, "Mosaic law" came to refer to the entire legal content of the Pentateuch, not just the Ten Commandments explicitly connected to Moses in the biblical narrative. The content of this law was excerpted and codified in Rabbinical Judaism as the 613 Mitzvot. By Late Antiquity, the tradition of Moses being the source of the law in the Pentateuch also gave rise to the tradition of Mosaic authorship, the interpretation of the entire Torah as the work of Moses.

Moses in Hellenistic literature[link]

The Moses Window at the Washington National Cathedral depicts the three stages in Moses' life.

Non-biblical writings about Jews, with references to the role of Moses, first appear at the beginning of the Hellenistic period, the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world, from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE. Shmuel notes that "a characteristic of this literature is the high honour in which it holds the peoples of the East in general and some specific groups among these peoples."^[68]:1102 In addition to the Judeo-Roman or Judeo-Hellenic historians Artapanus, Eupolemus, Josephus, and Philo, a few non-Jewish historians including Hecataeus of Abdera (quoted by Diodorus Siculus), Alexander Polyhistor, Manetho, Apion, Chaeremon of Alexandria, Tacitus and Porphyry also make reference to him. The extent to which any of these accounts rely on earlier sources is unknown.^[68]:1103 Moses also appears in other religious texts such as the Mishnah (c. 200 AD), Midrash (AD 200 - 1200),^[69] and the Qur'an (c. 610—653).

The figure of Osarseph in Hellenistic historiography is a renegade Egyptian priest who leads an army of lepers against the pharaoh and is finally expelled from Egypt, changing his name to Moses.

In Hecataeus

The earliest existing reference to Moses in Greek literature occurs in the Egyptian history of Hecataeus of Abdera (4th century BC). All that remains of his description of Moses are two references made by Diodorus Siculus, wherein, writes historian Arthur Droge, "he describes Moses as a wise and courageous leader who left Egypt and colonized Judaea."^[70]:18 Among the many accomplishments described by Hecataeus, Moses had founded cities, established a temple and religious cult, and issued laws:

After the establishment of settled life in Egypt in early times, which took place, according to the mythical account, in the period of the gods and heroes, the first . . . to persuade the multitudes to use written laws was Mneves [Moses], a man not only great of soul but also in his life the most public-spirited of all lawgivers whose names are recorded.^[70]:18

Droge also points out that this statement by Hecataeus was similar to statements made subsequently by Eupolemus^[70]:18

In Artapanus

The Jewish historian Artapanus of Alexandria (2nd century BCE), portrayed Moses as a cultural hero, alien to the Pharaonic court. According to theologian John Barclay, the Moses of Artapanus "clearly bears the destiny of the Jews, and in his personal, cultural and military splendor, brings credit to the whole Jewish people."^[71]

Jealousy of Moses' excellent qualities induced Chenephres to send him with unskilled troops on a military expedition to Ethiopia, where he won great victories. After having built the city of Hermopolis, he taught the people the value of the ibis as a protection against the serpents, making the bird the sacred guardian spirit of the city; then he introduced circumcision. After his return to Memphis, Moses taught the people the value of oxen for agriculture, and the consecration of the same by Moses gave rise to the cult of Apis. Finally, after having escaped another plot by killing the assailant sent by the king, Moses fled to Arabia, where he married the daughter of Raguel [Jethro], the ruler of the district." ^[72]