MOSES: THE SERVANT WHO STOOD BETWEEN, AND THE PROPHET LIKE HIM WHO CAME

Scripture presents Moses as the man through whom God delivered Israel from Egypt, gave the law at Sinai, and led a stiff-necked people through the wilderness to the edge of the land he himself would not enter, and in that whole arc the text traces a servant whose work points beyond itself to the Prophet like him whom God promised to raise up (Ex 3:10; Deut 18:15; Deut 34:10-12; Acts 3:22-23; Heb 3:5-6). Moses is called faithful in all God's house as a servant, for a testimony of the things to be spoken later, while Christ is faithful over God's house as a Son (Heb 3:5-6). The arrangement is the argument: birth under a death decree, a burning bush, plagues and Passover, a sea parted, a mountain smoking, a tabernacle patterned, forty years of rebellion, and a death on a mountain overlooking the promise — all declare that the law came through Moses, while grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).

A CHILD DRAWN FROM THE WATER UNDER A KING'S DEATH DECREE

A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph, and he feared the growth of the people of Israel (Ex 1:8-10). He set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens, and he commanded that every newborn Hebrew son be cast into the Nile (Ex 1:11,22). Into that decree a Levite man and woman bore a son, saw that he was beautiful, and hid him three months (Ex 2:1-2; Heb 11:23). When they could hide him no longer, his mother put him in a basket of bulrushes daubed with bitumen and pitch, and set it among the reeds by the river's bank (Ex 2:3). Pharaoh's daughter came down to bathe, found the child, took pity on him, and drew him from the water, naming him Moses, because she drew him out of the water (Ex 2:5-10).

The text sets the pattern at the start: the deliverer is delivered first. The child who would draw Israel out of Egypt is himself drawn out of the Nile. The decree of death is answered not by the parents' strength but by God's appointment, for the daughter of the very king who ordered the deaths becomes the instrument of the child's preservation (Ex 2:5-10). Moses grew up in Pharaoh's house, yet when he was forty years old he went out to his brothers, struck down an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew, and tried the next day to reconcile two Hebrews who were fighting; they answered by asking who had made him a prince and a judge over them (Ex 2:11-14; Acts 7:23-25). Moses fled from Pharaoh and settled in Midian, where he married Zipporah and kept the flock of Jethro (Ex 2:15-21). The man who would deliver Israel by God's hand first tried to deliver by his own hand, and failed. God would not use that arm. Forty more years passed in the wilderness before the call came (Acts 7:30).

THE BUSH THAT BURNED AND WAS NOT CONSUMED

After many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and their cry for rescue came up to God (Ex 2:23). God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob (Ex 2:24). God saw the people of Israel, and God knew (Ex 2:25). The deliverance begins not in man's cry earning an answer but in God's covenant remembering, for God acts according to His own promise, given before Israel existed (Gen 15:13-14; Ex 2:24).

Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro at the west side of the wilderness, and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God (Ex 3:1). The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and the bush burned with fire and was not consumed (Ex 3:2). Moses turned aside to see, and God called to him out of the bush, commanding him to remove his sandals, for the place was holy ground (Ex 3:3-5). Then God declared Himself the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and said He had seen the affliction of His people in Egypt, heard their cry, and known their sufferings, and had come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them to a good and broad land flowing with milk and honey (Ex 3:6-8). The commission followed: God would send Moses to Pharaoh to bring the people of Israel out of Egypt (Ex 3:10).

Moses answered with his own inability, asking who he was that he should go to Pharaoh (Ex 3:11). God answered not with Moses' fitness but with His own presence, promising, I will be with you (Ex 3:12). Moses asked what name he should give the people, and God said, I AM WHO I AM, commanding Moses to tell Israel that I AM had sent him (Ex 3:13-14). The name is the ground of the mission. The deliverer is not sent in his own name or strength. He is sent by the One who is, and the mission stands on that name alone. Moses pleaded his slowness of speech, and the LORD answered that He had made man's mouth, and that He would be with Moses' mouth and teach him what to speak (Ex 4:10-12). When Moses still asked that someone else be sent, Aaron the Levite was given as his mouthpiece (Ex 4:13-16). God commands what man cannot do, and then God supplies what the command requires. The pattern holds through the whole book: man's inability is exposed, and God's provision answers it (Matt 19:25-26).

PLAGUES, PASSOVER, AND A SEA PARTED BY THE HAND OF GOD

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh with the word, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness (Ex 5:1). Pharaoh answered that he did not know the LORD and would not let Israel go, and he increased their burdens (Ex 5:2,6-9). Then God sent the signs upon Egypt: waters became blood, frogs covered the land, swarms and disease struck, hail fell, locusts devoured, and darkness covered the land for three days (Ex 7:14-10:29). Through it all Scripture assigns the hardening to God Himself: God declared before Moses ever stood before Pharaoh that He would harden Pharaoh's heart, so that Pharaoh would not let the people go (Ex 4:21; Ex 7:3). Pharaoh hardened his own heart as well (Ex 8:15,32), but the text first places the hardening in God's declared purpose, and Paul draws the doctrine from it directly: God has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens whomever He wills (Rom 9:18). Judgment presupposes guilt, for Pharaoh was already an oppressor who had ordered infants drowned (Ex 1:16,22), and God remains perfectly just while He judges actively and at will (Rom 9:14; Jas 1:13).

The final plague was the death of the firstborn throughout Egypt (Ex 11:4-6). Before it fell, God instituted the Passover: each household was to take a lamb without blemish, kill it at twilight, put its blood on the doorposts and lintel, and eat it in haste, for the LORD would pass over the houses marked by blood (Ex 12:3-13). The blood was not a symbol of Israel's worthiness. It was the covering God appointed, and where God saw the blood He passed over (Ex 12:13). Paul later names the reality directly: Christ, the Passover lamb, has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5:7). The lamb without blemish, slain at twilight, whose blood shields from death, is the shadow; the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world is the substance (John 1:29; 1 Pet 1:19).

Israel went out of Egypt in haste, and Pharaoh pursued with chariots (Ex 12:31-33; Ex 14:5-9). Trapped between the sea and the army, the people feared and cried out, and Moses told them to fear not, to stand firm, and to see the salvation of the LORD (Ex 14:10-14). Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the LORD drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night, making the sea dry land, and the people passed through on dry ground with walls of water on their right and on their left (Ex 14:21-22). When the Egyptians pursued into the sea, the waters returned and covered them, and Israel saw the great power the LORD had used against Egypt, and the people feared the LORD and believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses (Ex 14:27-31). The deliverance was entirely God's act. Israel did not part the sea, did not defeat the army, and did not save itself. By faith the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, while the Egyptians who attempted the same were drowned (Heb 11:29).

THE MOUNTAIN, THE LAW, AND THE GOLDEN CALF

Three months after leaving Egypt, Israel came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped before the mountain (Ex 19:1-2). God told Moses that if Israel would obey His voice and keep His covenant, they would be His treasured possession among all peoples, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex 19:5-6). The people answered, all that the LORD has spoken we will do (Ex 19:8). Then the LORD descended on Mount Sinai in fire, with thunder and lightning and a thick cloud and a very loud trumpet blast, and the whole mountain trembled greatly (Ex 19:16-18). The people stood at a distance in terror, for no one could approach the mountain and live (Ex 19:12-13,21; Heb 12:18-21).

From the mountain God spoke the Ten Words, beginning, I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery (Ex 20:1-2). The law that followed was given as the covenant of a redeemed people, not as the ladder by which slaves might redeem themselves. The law was holy and righteous and good (Rom 7:12), and it was given to expose sin, for through the law comes knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20). No one is justified before God by works of the law (Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16). The law commands what fallen man cannot perform, and in that impossibility it drives the sinner to the mercy that the sacrifices prefigured and that Christ would accomplish (Gal 3:24).

While Moses was on the mountain forty days receiving the tablets written by the finger of God, the people below grew impatient, gathered gold, and made a calf, and they worshiped it and said it had brought them out of Egypt (Ex 31:18; Ex 32:1-6). The LORD told Moses that the people had corrupted themselves, and Moses came down, saw the calf and the dancing, burned with anger, and shattered the tablets at the foot of the mountain (Ex 32:7,15-19). Then Moses ground the calf to powder, scattered it on the water, and made the people drink it (Ex 32:20). The LORD sent a plague on the people (Ex 32:35). Yet Moses interceded, and the LORD relented from the disaster He had spoken of bringing on His people (Ex 32:11-14). The intercession of Moses at Sinai is the book's clearest picture of mediation: the servant stands between a holy God and a guilty people, and the people live because another pleads. The mediation is real, and it is partial, for Moses could plead but could not atone. There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Tim 2:5-6).

After the calf, God commanded Moses to make two new tablets like the first, and on the mountain God proclaimed His name before Moses: the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty (Ex 34:5-7). Moses' face shone after speaking with God, and he wore a veil when he came out to the people (Ex 34:29-35).

THE TABERNACLE, THE WILDERNESS, AND FORTY YEARS OF REBELLION

On the mountain God showed Moses the pattern of the tabernacle, and commanded that it be made exactly according to the pattern (Ex 25:9,40). The tabernacle, the ark, the mercy seat, the altar, the priesthood of Aaron and his sons, the sacrifices morning and evening — all of it was a copy and shadow of the heavenly things (Heb 8:5). The sacrifices could never take away sins, for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Heb 10:4). They were offered year after year as a reminder of sins (Heb 10:3), pointing forward to the single offering by which Christ has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified (Heb 10:14). The tabernacle taught Israel that God dwells among His people only through blood and mediation, and that access was restricted — into the Most Holy Place the high priest entered only once a year, and not without blood (Heb 9:7). Christ entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of His own blood, securing an eternal redemption (Heb 9:11-12).

From Sinai Israel marched toward the land, and at every stage the people complained: about water, about bread, about meat, about Moses' leadership (Ex 15:24; Ex 16:2-3; Num 11:1-6; Num 14:2-4). At Kadesh the spies returned with a report of giants, and the people refused to go up, and God swore that none of that generation, except Caleb and Joshua, would enter the land (Num 13:28-33; Num 14:26-35). They wandered forty years until that generation died in the wilderness (Num 14:33-35). Moses himself struck the rock at Meribah when God had commanded him to speak to it, and for that rebellion God told him he would not bring the assembly into the land (Num 20:7-12). The wilderness is the book's long demonstration of the heart's deceit (Jer 17:9). The same people who saw the sea parted, ate manna from heaven, and drank water from the rock still did not believe, and their bodies fell in the wilderness as an example, written down for the instruction of those on whom the end of the ages has come (1 Cor 10:1-11). The rock that followed them, Paul says, was Christ (1 Cor 10:4). The manna was the shadow of the true bread from heaven, for Jesus said, I am the bread of life, and whoever comes to me shall not hunger (John 6:35,48-51).

THE DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN AND THE PROPHET LIKE MOSES

Before his death Moses spoke the whole of Deuteronomy to Israel in the plains of Moab: a second giving of the law, a rehearsal of the wilderness, and a song that would witness against them when they turned away (Deut 31:19,26). In that final address Moses gave the promise that governs the whole series: the LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers — it is to him you shall listen (Deut 18:15). He set before them life and death, blessing and curse, and commanded, therefore choose life (Deut 30:15,19). That command is not a grant of neutral freedom; it is God's declared will with its consequences attached, for the heart is deceitful and man left to himself chooses death (Jer 17:9; Rom 6:16-22). God commands what is impossible for man in order to expose inability, and then God Himself supplies the choosing heart, for He promised to circumcise the heart so that His people would love Him (Deut 30:6).

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, and the LORD showed him all the land He had sworn to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob (Deut 34:1-4). Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD, and He buried him in the valley, and no one knows the place of his burial to this day (Deut 34:5-6). There has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, none like him for all the signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt, and for all the mighty power and all the great deeds of terror that Moses did in the sight of all Israel (Deut 34:10-12). The book ends with the servant's grave and the promise of a prophet like him still outstanding.

THE LATER WITNESSES TAKE MOSES UP, AND THE SON ANSWERS HIM

Scripture itself takes Moses up again and again, and each witness points past the servant to the Son. Stephen rehearsed Moses' life before the council, declaring that this Moses, whom they rejected, was the one God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush, and that Moses himself said God would raise up a prophet like him from among their brothers (Acts 7:35,37). The rejection of Moses prefigured the rejection of Christ, and the Son was sent nonetheless.

The author of Hebrews sets the comparison with precision: Moses was faithful in all God's house as a servant, but Christ is faithful over God's house as a Son, and Moses' whole ministry was a testimony to the things that would be spoken later (Heb 3:5-6). The law came through Moses as a servant's delivery; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ as the Son's own revelation (John 1:17). Moses wrote of Christ, for Jesus told the Jews who searched the Scriptures that if they believed Moses they would believe Him, because Moses wrote of Him (John 5:46). Beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus interpreted in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:27). The Scriptures bear witness about Him (John 5:39).

On the mountain of transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, talking with Him about His departure, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem (Luke 9:30-31; Matt 17:3). The voice from the cloud then commanded, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him (Matt 17:5). The lawgiver himself yields the hearing to the Son, for the disciples lifted their eyes and saw no one but Jesus only (Matt 17:8). In Revelation the song of the redeemed is called the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb, sung together, for the deliverance Moses led and the deliverance Christ accomplished are one story told in two acts, and the second act fulfills the first (Rev 15:3).

Moses did not enter the land, and that exclusion is itself the exposition. The servant who gave the law could lead Israel to the edge of the promise but could not bring them in, for the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do what it commanded (Rom 8:3). Another had to lead them in: Joshua, whose name is Jesus, brought them into the land (Heb 4:8), and Jesus the Son brings His people into the rest that remains (Heb 4:9-10). The mediator who pleaded at Sinai could not atone; the Mediator who gave Himself as a ransom has atoned once for all (1 Tim 2:5-6; Heb 9:12). Moses' face shone with a fading glory and needed a veil; the face of Jesus Christ shines with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, unveiled (2 Cor 4:6). The prophet like Moses has come, and He is greater than Moses, as the Son is greater than the servant, as the substance is greater than the shadow. The law was given through Moses; grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ (John 1:17). He who believes in Him has eternal life (John 6:47), and the bride He presents to Himself is without spot or wrinkle, because He washed her and kept her (Eph 5:25-27). From Him, through Him, and to Him are all things (Rom 11:36).