As you know, Divine teaching was first presented to the prophet Moses on Mount Sinai. It is curious that this tradition is present simultaneously in the Christian, Judaic and Muslim scriptures (in Islam, Moses is named Musa). According to the sources, this greatest prophet in the history of mankind lived in the XV-XIII centuries BC.
It is known that Moses belonged to the tribe of Levi and was the son of Amram and Jochebed. He was born in Egypt on the 7th adar in 2368 according to the Hebrew calendar (1392 BC). According to the Book of Exodus, at this time the number of the Hebrew people became so great that the then pharaoh (it could be, according to different points of view, Akhenaten, Ramses II or Merneptah), fearing a threat to Egypt, gave the order to drown all newborn boys in the Nile. The mother of the future prophet, Jochebed, hid the baby until the age of three months, and then, when she no longer had the opportunity to hide the boy, put him in a basket and left him in the reeds on the bank of the river in the hope that her child would be saved …
And so it happened: the basket was found by the daughter of Pharaoh, who came there for a bath. She took the baby to her and adopted him, despite the fact that she immediately understood: in front of her is one of the Jewish children … Moreover, she took Moses' own mother, Jochebed, as a nurse, who fed her son with her milk …
As a pupil of Pharaoh's daughter, Moses lived for a time with his own father and mother, but at the age of two or three they gave him to the princess. The boy began to be taught various sciences, including the management of state affairs. Moses was considered Pharaoh's adopted son.
As Moses grew up, he was shaken to the core by the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt. One day he stood up for the Israeli slaves and killed the overseer in a fit of anger. Fearing punishment, the young man fled from Egypt and crossed the Red Sea to the land of Midian, where he settled with the priest Jethro and soon married his daughter Sepphora, who bore him two sons - Girsam and Eliezer …
Once Moses was grazing cattle at the foot of Mount Horeb (Sinai) and suddenly heard a voice from a burning bush (burning bush). It was the voice of the Israelite God, who revealed to him his name - Yahweh, which in Hebrew means "I am who I am." God told Moses to go back to Egypt to free the Israelites. At first, the future prophet did not believe that Yahweh was really talking to him, and then, to prove it, God turned the staff in his hand into a snake, and then turned the snake into a staff again … After which he made Moses' hand turn white with leprosy, and immediately healed her …
Returning to Egypt, Moses, along with his brother Aaron, went to Pharaoh to petition for the release of the "sons of Israel." But the governor refused, and then God subjected Egypt to "ten plagues": the water in the Nile turned into blood; an invasion of toads, locusts and various insects happened; pestilence seized people and cattle; hail, fire and darkness fell on the country; the firstborn in Egyptian families began to die, and the first offspring in cattle …
Frightened by these events, Pharaoh allowed the Jews to go into the wilderness for three days to make sacrifices to Yahweh. Taking with them the cattle, the relics of Joseph the Beautiful and other patriarchs, as well as gold and silver, which they asked for from their Egyptian neighbors, the Israelites went into the desert of Sur. They never returned to Egypt, but went to look for the Promised Land (Canaan).
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The Israelites wandered with Moses in the desert of Sin for forty years, and God sent them food and water, including "manna from heaven." In the third month of the Exodus from Egypt, they came to Mount Sinai, and God again spoke to Moses, setting out to him the rules by which his people should live. Subsequently, God gave Moses the stone Tablets of the Covenant with the Ten Commandments, which became the basis of the Torah - the Pentateuch, and ordered to build a sanctuary - the Tabernacle, and also established the laws of worship.
Over the next forty years, Moses climbed twice more to the top of Sinai and remained there for forty days. The first time, while he was away, the Israelites made themselves an idol - the Golden Calf. Finding this, the prophet in anger destroyed both the Taurus and the Tablets. Then he returned to the mountain and began to pray to God to grant forgiveness to his people. When he came down, his face was shined with the light of God, and he had to hide him under a veil so that people would not go blind …
Although Moses taught and instructed his people, "chosen by God," and was also able to proclaim the future, he and his brother Aaron could not enter the Promised Land due to their lack of faith: in Kadesh, when the Jews were suffering from thirst, they struck a rock, to get water, instead of just telling her to give water.
Moses died on the 7th adar in 2488 according to the Hebrew calendar (1272 BC), at the age of 120, not long before his people reached the shores of Canaan …
Margarita Troitsyna