At Mount Sinai, The Ten Commandments : Exodus 19-20

Exodus 19

At Mount Sinai

1 In the third month after the Israelites left Egypt—on the very day—they came to the Desert of Sinai. 2 After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.
3 Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you [a] will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."

7 So Moses went back and summoned the elders of the people and set before them all the words the LORD had commanded him to speak. 8 The people all responded together, "We will do everything the LORD has said." So Moses brought their answer back to the LORD.

9 The LORD said to Moses, "I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you." Then Moses told the LORD what the people had said.

10 And the LORD said to Moses, "Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes 11 and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. 12 Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. 13 He shall surely be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on him. Whether man or animal, he shall not be permitted to live.' Only when the ram's horn sounds a long blast may they go up to the mountain."

14 After Moses had gone down the mountain to the people, he consecrated them, and they washed their clothes. 15 Then he said to the people, "Prepare yourselves for the third day. Abstain from sexual relations."
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. 17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. 18 Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain [b] trembled violently, 19 and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. [c]

20 The LORD descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up 21 and the LORD said to him, "Go down and warn the people so they do not force their way through to see the LORD and many of them perish. 22 Even the priests, who approach the LORD, must consecrate themselves, or the LORD will break out against them."

23 Moses said to the LORD, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.' "

24 The LORD replied, "Go down and bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through to come up to the LORD, or he will break out against them."

25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

Footnotes:
Exodus 19:6 Or possession, for the whole earth is mine. 6 You
Exodus 19:18 Most Hebrew manuscripts; a few Hebrew manuscripts and Septuagint all the people
Exodus 19:19 Or and God answered him with thunder



Exodus 20

The Ten Commandments

1 And God spoke all these words:
2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 "You shall have no other gods before [a] me.

4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

13 "You shall not murder.

14 "You shall not commit adultery.

15 "You shall not steal.

16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.

17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

18 When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance 19 and said to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die."

20 Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."

21 The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

Idols and Altars

22 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites this: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: 23 Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver or gods of gold.
24 " 'Make an altar of earth for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, [b] your sheep and goats and your cattle. Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.

25 If you make an altar of stones for me, do not build it with dressed stones, for you will defile it if you use a tool on it. 26 And do not go up to my altar on steps, lest your nakedness be exposed on it.'

Footnotes:
Exodus 20:3 Or besides
Exodus 20:24 Traditionally peace offerings

Manna and Quail, Water From the Rock - Meribah : Exodus 16

Exodus 16

Manna and Quail

1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."
4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."

6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?" 8 Moses also said, "You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD."

9 Then Moses told Aaron, "Say to the entire Israelite community, 'Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.' "

10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.

11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, 'At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.' "

13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was.
Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer [a] for each person you have in your tent.' "

17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.
19 Then Moses said to them, "No one is to keep any of it until morning."

20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers [b] for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, "This is what the LORD commanded: 'Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.' "
24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 "Eat it today," Moses said, "because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any."
27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none. 28 Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you [c] refuse to keep my commands and my instructions? 29 Bear in mind that the LORD has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Everyone is to stay where he is on the seventh day; no one is to go out." 30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

31 The people of Israel called the bread manna. [d] It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. 32 Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the desert when I brought you out of Egypt.' "

33 So Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the LORD to be kept for the generations to come."
34 As the LORD commanded Moses, Aaron put the manna in front of the Testimony, that it might be kept. 35 The Israelites ate manna forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border of Canaan.
36 (An omer is one tenth of an ephah.)

Footnotes:
Exodus 16:16 That is, probably about 2 quarts (about 2 liters also in verses 18, 32, 33 and 36
Exodus 16:22 That is, probably about 4 quarts (about 4.5 liters)
Exodus 16:28 The Hebrew is plural.
Exodus 16:31 Manna means What is it? (see verse 15).




Exodus 17

Water From the Rock

1 The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink."
Moses replied, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?"
3 But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?"
4 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, "What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me."
5 The LORD answered Moses, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take with you some of the elders of Israel and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the place Massah [a] and Meribah [b] because the Israelites quarreled and because they tested the LORD saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

The Amalekites Defeated

8 The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. 9 Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands."
10 So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. 11 As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. 12 When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. 13 So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.

14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."

15 Moses built an altar and called it The LORD is my Banner. 16 He said, "For hands were lifted up to the throne of the LORD. The [c] LORD will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."

Footnotes:
Exodus 17:7 Massah means testing .
Exodus 17:7 Meribah means quarreling .
Exodus 17:16 Or "Because a hand was against the throne of the LORD , the



Exodus 18

Jethro Visits Moses

1 Now Jethro, the priest of Midian and father-in-law of Moses, heard of everything God had done for Moses and for his people Israel, and how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.
2 After Moses had sent away his wife Zipporah, his father-in-law Jethro received her 3 and her two sons. One son was named Gershom, [a] for Moses said, "I have become an alien in a foreign land"; 4 and the other was named Eliezer, [b] for he said, "My father's God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh."
5 Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, together with Moses' sons and wife, came to him in the desert, where he was camped near the mountain of God. 6 Jethro had sent word to him, "I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you with your wife and her two sons."
7 So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. They greeted each other and then went into the tent. 8 Moses told his father-in-law about everything the LORD had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel's sake and about all the hardships they had met along the way and how the LORD had saved them.

9 Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things the LORD had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians. 10 He said, "Praise be to the LORD, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. 11 Now I know that the LORD is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly." 12 Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses' father-in-law in the presence of God.

13 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, "What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?"
15 Moses answered him, "Because the people come to me to seek God's will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws."
17 Moses' father-in-law replied, "What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. 19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live and the duties they are to perform. 21 But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. 23 If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied."

24 Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. 25 He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 26 They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.

27 Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and Jethro returned to his own country.

Footnotes:
Exodus 18:3 Gershom sounds like the Hebrew for an alien there .
Exodus 18:4 Eliezer means my God is helper .

The Crossing, The Song of Moses and Miriam: Exodus 14-15

Exodus 14

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 3 Pharaoh will think, 'The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.' 4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD." So the Israelites did this.

5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, "What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services!" 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 7 He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with
all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. 8 The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. 9 The Egyptians—all Pharaoh's horses and chariots, horsemen [a] and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon.

10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. 11 They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"

13 Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."

15 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. 17 I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. 18 The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."

19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

21 Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, 22 and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

23 The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. 24 During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. 25 He made the wheels of their chariots come off [b] so that they had
difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt."

26 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward [c] it, and the LORD swept them into the sea.
28 The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

29 But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. 30 That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. 31 And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Footnotes:
Exodus 14:9 Or charioteers ; also in verses 17, 18, 23, 26 and 28
Exodus 14:25 Or He jammed the wheels of their chariots (see Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint and Syriac)
Exodus 14:27 Or from



Exodus 15

The Song of Moses and Miriam

1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD :
"I will sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.
2 The LORD is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
He is my God, and I will praise him,
my father's God, and I will exalt him.

3 The LORD is a warrior;
the LORD is his name.

4 Pharaoh's chariots and his army
he has hurled into the sea.
The best of Pharaoh's officers
are drowned in the Red Sea. [a]

5 The deep waters have covered them;
they sank to the depths like a stone.

6 "Your right hand, O LORD,
was majestic in power.
Your right hand, O LORD,
shattered the enemy.

7 In the greatness of your majesty
you threw down those who opposed you.
You unleashed your burning anger;
it consumed them like stubble.

8 By the blast of your nostrils
the waters piled up.
The surging waters stood firm like a wall;
the deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.

9 "The enemy boasted,
'I will pursue, I will overtake them.
I will divide the spoils;
I will gorge myself on them.
I will draw my sword
and my hand will destroy them.'

10 But you blew with your breath,
and the sea covered them.
They sank like lead
in the mighty waters.

11 "Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?

12 You stretched out your right hand
and the earth swallowed them.

13 "In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.

14 The nations will hear and tremble;
anguish will grip the people of Philistia.

15 The chiefs of Edom will be terrified,
the leaders of Moab will be seized with trembling,
the people [b] of Canaan will melt away;

16 terror and dread will fall upon them.
By the power of your arm
they will be as still as a stone—
until your people pass by, O LORD,
until the people you bought [c] pass by.

17 You will bring them in and plant them
on the mountain of your inheritance—
the place, O LORD, you made for your dwelling,
the sanctuary, O Lord, your hands established.

18 The LORD will reign
for ever and ever."

19 When Pharaoh's horses, chariots and horsemen [d] went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them, but the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. 20 Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. 21

Miriam sang to them:
"Sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted.
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea."

The Waters of Marah and Elim

22 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur. For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water. 23 When they came to Marah, they could not drink its water because it was bitter. (That is why the place is called Marah. [e] ) 24 So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What are we to drink?"
25 Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.
There the LORD made a decree and a law for them, and there he tested them. 26 He said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."

27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.

Footnotes:
Exodus 15:4 Hebrew Yam Suph; that is, Sea of Reeds; also in verse 22
Exodus 15:15 Or rulers
Exodus 15:16 Or created
Exodus 15:19 Or charioteers
Exodus 15:23 Marah means bitter .

The Passover & Crossing the Sea: Exodus 12-13

Exodus 12

The Passover

1 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in Egypt, 2 "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year. 3 Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month each man is to take a lamb [a] for his family, one for each household. 4 If any household is too small for a whole lamb, they must share one with their nearest neighbor, having taken into account the number of people there are. You are to determine the amount of lamb needed in accordance with what each person will eat. 5 The animals you choose must be year-old males without defect, and you may take them from the sheep or the goats. 6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the people of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire—head, legs and inner parts. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the LORD's Passover.
12 "On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD. 13 The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No destructive plague will touch you when I strike Egypt.

14 "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD -a lasting ordinance. 15 For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it from the first day through the
seventh must be cut off from Israel. 16 On the first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat—that is all you may do.

17 "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 18 In the first month you are to eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the evening of the
twenty-first day. 19 For seven days no yeast is to be found in your houses. And whoever eats anything with yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel, whether he is an alien or native-born. 20 Eat nothing made with yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread."

21 Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. Not one of you shall go out the door of his house until morning. 23 When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down.

24 "Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. 25 When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. 26 And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' 27 then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the
houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.' " Then the people bowed down and worshiped. 28 The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.

29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. 30 Pharaoh and all his officials and all the Egyptians got up during the night, and there was loud wailing in Egypt, for there was not a house without someone dead.

The Passover

31 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested. 32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me."
33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. "For otherwise," they said, "we will all die!" 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for
articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.

37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Succoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 Many other people went up with them, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. 39 With the dough they had brought from Egypt, they baked cakes of unleavened bread. The dough was without yeast because they had been driven out of Egypt and did not have time to prepare food for themselves.

40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt [b] was 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all the LORD's divisions left Egypt. 42 Because the LORD kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt, on this night all the Israelites are to keep vigil to honor the LORD for the generations to come.

Passover Restrictions

43 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "These are the regulations for the Passover:
"No foreigner is to eat of it. 44 Any slave you have bought may eat of it after you have circumcised him, 45 but a temporary resident and a hired worker may not eat of it.
46 "It must be eaten inside one house; take none of the meat outside the house. Do not break any of the bones. 47 The whole community of Israel must celebrate it.

48 "An alien living among you who wants to celebrate the LORD's Passover must have all the males in his household circumcised; then he may take part like one born in the land. No uncircumcised male may eat of it. 49 The same law applies to the native-born and to the alien living among you."

50 All the Israelites did just what the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron. 51 And on that very day the LORD brought the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.

Footnotes:
Exodus 12:3 The Hebrew word can mean lamb or kid ; also in verse 4.
Exodus 12:40 Masoretic Text; Samaritan Pentateuch and Septuagint Egypt and Canaan



Exodus 13

Consecration of the Firstborn

1 The LORD said to Moses, 2 "Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal."
3 Then Moses said to the people, "Commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the LORD brought you out of it with a mighty hand. Eat nothing containing yeast. 4 Today, in the month of Abib, you are leaving. 5 When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month: 6 For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day hold a festival to the LORD. 7 Eat unleavened bread during those seven days; nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. 8 On that day tell your son, 'I do this because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.' 9 This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand and a reminder on your forehead that the law of the LORD is to be on your lips. For the LORD brought you out of Egypt with his mighty hand. 10 You must keep this ordinance at the appointed time year after year.

11 "After the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites and gives it to you, as he promised on oath to you and your forefathers, 12 you are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD. 13 Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.

14 "In days to come, when your son asks you, 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal. This is why I sacrifice to the LORD the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.' 16 And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the LORD brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand."

Crossing the Sea

17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, "If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt." 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. [a] The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle.
19 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He had said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place." [b]

20 After leaving Succoth they camped at Etham on the edge of the desert. 21 By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Footnotes:
Exodus 13:18 Hebrew Yam Suph; that is, Sea of Reeds
Exodus 13:19 See Gen. 50:25.

Ten Plagues: Exodus 7:14-11

Exodus 7:14-25

The Plague of Blood
14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD : With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not be able to drink its water.' "
19 The LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—over the streams and canals, over the ponds and all the reservoirs'-and they will turn to blood. Blood will be everywhere in Egypt, even in the wooden buckets and stone jars."

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded. He raised his staff in the presence of Pharaoh and his officials and struck the water of the Nile, and all the water was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. Blood was everywhere in Egypt.

22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts, and Pharaoh's heart became hard; he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said. 23 Instead, he turned and went into his palace, and did not take even this to heart. 24 And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile to get drinking water, because they could not drink the water of the river.

The Plague of Frogs

25 Seven days passed after the LORD struck the Nile.




Exodus 8

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 2 If you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs. 3 The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and on your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. 4 The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.' "

5 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Stretch out your hand with your staff over the streams and canals and ponds, and make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.' "

6 So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt, and the frogs came up and covered the land. 7 But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

8 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the LORD."

9 Moses said to Pharaoh, "I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile."

10 "Tomorrow," Pharaoh said.
Moses replied, "It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the LORD our God. 11 The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile."

12 After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the LORD about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. 13 And the LORD did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. 14 They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.

The Plague of Gnats

16 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Tell Aaron, 'Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the ground,' and throughout the land of Egypt the dust will become gnats." 17 They did this, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, gnats came upon men and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats. 18 But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. And the gnats were on men and animals.
19 The magicians said to Pharaoh, "This is the finger of God." But Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the LORD had said.

The Plague of Flies

20 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning and confront Pharaoh as he goes to the water and say to him, 'This is what the LORD says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 21 If you do not let my people go, I will send swarms of flies on you and your officials, on your people and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of flies, and even the ground where they are.
22 " 'But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the LORD, am in this land. 23 I will make a distinction [a] between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.' "

24 And the LORD did this. Dense swarms of flies poured into Pharaoh's palace and into the houses of his officials, and throughout Egypt the land was ruined by the flies.

25 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "Go, sacrifice to your God here in the land."

26 But Moses said, "That would not be right. The sacrifices we offer the LORD our God would be detestable to the Egyptians. And if we offer sacrifices that are detestable in their eyes, will they not stone us? 27 We must take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, as he commands us."

28 Pharaoh said, "I will let you go to offer sacrifices to the LORD your God in the desert, but you must not go very far. Now pray for me."

29 Moses answered, "As soon as I leave you, I will pray to the LORD, and tomorrow the flies will leave Pharaoh and his officials and his people. Only be sure that Pharaoh does not act deceitfully again by not letting the people go to offer sacrifices to the LORD."

30 Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD, 31 and the LORD did what Moses asked: The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people; not a fly remained. 32 But this time also Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not let the people go.

Footnotes:
Exodus 8:23 Septuagint and Vulgate; Hebrew will put a deliverance



Exodus 9

The Plague on Livestock

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: "Let my people go, so that they may worship me." 2 If you refuse to let them go and continue to hold them back, 3 the hand of the LORD will bring a terrible plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses and donkeys and camels and on your cattle and sheep and goats. 4 But the LORD will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and that of Egypt, so that no animal belonging to the Israelites will die.' "
5 The LORD set a time and said, "Tomorrow the LORD will do this in the land." 6 And the next day the LORD did it: All the livestock of the Egyptians died, but not one animal belonging to the Israelites died. 7 Pharaoh sent men to investigate and found that not even one of the animals of the Israelites had died. Yet his heart was unyielding and he would not let the people go.

The Plague of Boils

8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of soot from a furnace and have Moses toss it into the air in the presence of Pharaoh. 9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on men and animals throughout the land."
10 So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on men and animals. 11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils that were on them and on all the Egyptians. 12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.

The Plague of Hail

13 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, 'This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let my people go, so that they may worship me, 14 or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. 15 For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. 16 But I have raised you up [a] for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. 17 You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go. 18 Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded till now. 19 Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every man and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field, and they will die.' "
20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside. 21 But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field.

22 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that hail will fall all over Egypt—on men and animals and on everything growing in the fields of Egypt." 23 When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the LORD sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt; 24 hail fell and lightning flashed back and forth. It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields—both men and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree. 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were.

27 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron. "This time I have sinned," he said to them. "The LORD is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. 28 Pray to the LORD, for we have had enough thunder and hail. I will let you go; you don't have to stay any longer."

29 Moses replied, "When I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands in prayer to the LORD. The thunder will stop and there will be no more hail, so you may know that the earth is the LORD's. 30 But I know that you and your officials still do not fear the LORD God."

31 (The flax and barley were destroyed, since the barley had headed and the flax was in bloom. 32 The wheat and spelt, however, were not destroyed, because they ripen later.)

33 Then Moses left Pharaoh and went out of the city. He spread out his hands toward the LORD; the thunder and hail stopped, and the rain no longer poured down on the land. 34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. 35 So Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the LORD had said through Moses.

Footnotes:
Exodus 9:16 Or have spared you


Exodus 10

The Plague of Locusts

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them 2 that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD."
3 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, "This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. 4 If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. 5 They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. 6 They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians—something neither your fathers nor your forefathers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.' " Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh.

7 Pharaoh's officials said to him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?"

8 Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. "Go, worship the LORD your God," he said. "But just who will be going?"

9 Moses answered, "We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the LORD."

10 Pharaoh said, "The LORD be with you—if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil. [a] 11 No! Have only the men go; and worship the LORD, since that's what you have been asking for." Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh's presence.

12 And the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts will swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail."

13 So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the LORD made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; 14 they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. 15 They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail—everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.

16 Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. 17 Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me."

18 Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD. 19 And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea. [b] Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt. 20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.

The Plague of Darkness

21 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt—darkness that can be felt." 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. 23 No one could see anyone else or leave his place for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived.
24 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, "Go, worship the LORD. Even your women and children may go with you; only leave your flocks and herds behind."

25 But Moses said, "You must allow us to have sacrifices and burnt offerings to present to the LORD our God. 26 Our livestock too must go with us; not a hoof is to be left behind. We have to use some of them in worshiping the LORD our God, and until we get there we will not know what we are to use to worship the LORD."

27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was not willing to let them go. 28 Pharaoh said to Moses, "Get out of my sight! Make sure you do not appear before me again! The day you see my face you will die."

29 "Just as you say," Moses replied, "I will never appear before you again."

Footnotes:
Exodus 10:10 Or Be careful, trouble is in store for you!
Exodus 10:19 Hebrew Yam Suph ; that is, Sea of Reeds



Exodus 11

The Plague on the Firstborn

1 Now the LORD had said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. 2 Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold." 3 (The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh's officials and by the people.)
4 So Moses said, "This is what the LORD says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. 5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. 6 There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. 7 But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any man or animal.' Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. 8 All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, 'Go, you and all the people who follow you!' After that I will leave." Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.

9 The LORD had said to Moses, "Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt." 10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

Bricks Without Straw, Aaron to Speak for Moses :Exodus 5-7:13

Exodus 5

Bricks Without Straw

1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.' "
2 Pharaoh said, "Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go."

3 Then they said, "The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword."

4 But the king of Egypt said, "Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!" 5 Then Pharaoh said, "Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working."

6 That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and foremen in charge of the people: 7 "You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. 8 But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don't reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, 'Let us go and sacrifice to our God.' 9 Make the work harder for the men so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies."

10 Then the slave drivers and the foremen went out and said to the people, "This is what Pharaoh says: 'I will not give you any more straw. 11 Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.' " 12 So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. 13 The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, "Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw." 14 The Israelite foremen appointed by Pharaoh's slave drivers were beaten and were asked, "Why didn't you meet your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?"

15 Then the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh: "Why have you treated your servants this way? 16 Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, 'Make bricks!' Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people."

17 Pharaoh said, "Lazy, that's what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, 'Let us go and sacrifice to the LORD.' 18 Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks."

19 The Israelite foremen realized they were in trouble when they were told, "You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day." 20 When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, 21 and they said, "May the LORD look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us."

God Promises Deliverance
22 Moses returned to the LORD and said, "O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? 23 Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all."



Exodus 6

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country."

2 God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, [a] but by my name the LORD [b] I did not make myself known to them. [c] 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

6 "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.' "

9 Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and cruel bondage.

10 Then the LORD said to Moses, 11 "Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country."

12 But Moses said to the LORD, "If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips [d] ?"

Family Record of Moses and Aaron
13 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he commanded them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
14 These were the heads of their families [e] :
The sons of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel were Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. These were the clans of Reuben.

15 The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. These were the clans of Simeon.

16 These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their records: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.

17 The sons of Gershon, by clans, were Libni and Shimei.

18 The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.

19 The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.
These were the clans of Levi according to their records.

20 Amram married his father's sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.

21 The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg and Zicri.

22 The sons of Uzziel were Mishael, Elzaphan and Sithri.

23 Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

24 The sons of Korah were Assir, Elkanah and Abiasaph. These were the Korahite clans.

25 Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas.
These were the heads of the Levite families, clan by clan.

26 It was this same Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, "Bring the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions." 27 They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt. It was the same Moses and Aaron.

Aaron to Speak for Moses

28 Now when the LORD spoke to Moses in Egypt, 29 he said to him, "I am the LORD. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you."
30 But Moses said to the LORD, "Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?"

Footnotes:
Exodus 6:3 Hebrew El-Shaddai
Exodus 6:3 See note at Exodus 3:15.
Exodus 6:3 Or Almighty, and by my name the LORD did I not let myself be known to them?
Exodus 6:12 Hebrew I am uncircumcised of lips ; also in verse 30
Exodus 6:14 The Hebrew for families here and in verse 25 refers to units larger than clans.


Exodus 7:1-13

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have made you like God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your prophet. 2 You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. 3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, 4 he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites. 5 And the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring the Israelites out of it."

6 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them. 7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

Aaron's Staff Becomes a Snake
8 The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 9 "When Pharaoh says to you, 'Perform a miracle,' then say to Aaron, 'Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,' and it will become a snake."
10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron's staff swallowed up their staffs. 13 Yet Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them, just as the LORD had said.

The Birth of Moses: Exodus 1-2

Exodus 1

The Israelites Oppressed

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy [a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt.
6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 but the Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous, so that the land was filled with them.

8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9 "Look," he said to his people, "the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country."

11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.

15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 "When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live." 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, "Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?"

19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, "Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive."

20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: "Every boy that is born [b] you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live."

Footnotes:
Exodus 1:5 Masoretic Text (see also Gen. 46:27 Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint (see also Acts 7:14 and note at Gen. 46:27) seventy-five
Exodus 1:22 Masoretic Text; Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint and Targums born to the Hebrews


Exodus 2

The Birth of Moses

1 Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
5 Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the river bank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. "This is one of the Hebrew babies," she said.

7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?"

8 "Yes, go," she answered. And the girl went and got the baby's mother. 9 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you." So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, [a] saying, "I drew him out of the water."

Moses Flees to Midian

11 One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. 12 Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?"
14 The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and thought, "What I did must have become known."

15 When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. 16 Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. 17 Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?"

19 They answered, "An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock."

20 "And where is he?" he asked his daughters. "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat."

21 Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. 22 Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, [b] saying, "I have become an alien in a foreign land."

23 During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24 God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. 25 So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

Footnotes:
Exodus 2:10 Moses sounds like the Hebrew for draw out .
Exodus 2:22 Gershom sounds like the Hebrew for an alien there .

Philo's view of Moses' birth and upbringing

Philo's view of Moses' birth and upbringing

Feldman, Louis H
(ProQuest Information and Learning: Foreign text omitted.)

ONE WOULD EXPECT that Philo's life of Moses (De Vita Mosis) would be similar in method and style to his biographies of Abraham and Josephus, but such is not the case. What distinguishes this biography from the other essays of Philo, including the biographies of Abraham and Joseph, is that he is here presenting a direct interpretation of the biblical text and avoiding allegory. In fact, the words ... ("allegory"), ... ("allegorical"), and ... ("to allegorize") do not occur even once in either of the two parts of the biography of Moses. Only once (Mos. 2.19.99), when he refers to the symbolism represented by the cherubim in the Tabernacle, does he say that they are allegorical representations ... of the two most august and highest potencies of God, the creative and the kingly. It is here proposed to rely as much as possible for biographical details on De Vita Mosis.

I. Moses' Genealogy

In the first book of his essay De Vita Mosis Philo's goal is to present Moses as the perfect representation of the ideal of the kingly character.1 Ancient biographies, as A. Momigliano has shown, regularly include discussion of the person's ancestry, childhood, and education.2 Examples are numerous: Isoc. Evagoras 12-19, 22; X. Cyr. 1.2.1-4.15; Pl. Mx. 237A; Arist. Rh. 1.9.33.1367B; Plutarch's Lives; and Suetonius's De Vita Caesarum.3 In particular, we may note in Suetonius discussions of the ancestry of the emperors Claudius (1-2), Nero (1-6), and Vespasian (1-2).

Accordingly, we must start with the genealogy of the king. When Plato (Hp. Mi. 285D) defines the term ... ("ancient history," "antiquarian lore"), the first subject that he says it includes is genealogies of heroes and of ordinary men. The importance of genealogy is seen in the Menexenus (237A) ascribed to Plato, where he says, "They were good because they sprang from good fathers." With regard to genealogy, the Greek rhetorician Theon of Alexandria declares that the first of the thirty-six stages of praising a person is to laud his ancestry. Indeed, the Greeks made a virtue of good birth in and of itself. In Homer, when Glaucus meets Diomedes they first exchange genealogies (Il. 6.123-231). Herodotus (7.204 and 8.131) makes a special point of tracing the individual genealogies of King Leonidas and Leotychides back twenty generations, naming all their ancestors going back to Heracles. He similarly traces the genealogy of Theras of Sparta (4.147), Laius of Thebes (5.59), Aristodemus of Sparta (6.52), and the Persians Abrocomes and Hyperanthes (7.224). Moreover, Antigone in Sophocles' play (Ant. 38) is described as well-born by nature (...) We see the same emphasis in Aristotle's description of the great-souled man (...) as well-born (...) (Eth. Nic. 4.3.1124A21-22). When Aristotle considers the gifts of fortune by which human character is affected, his first topic of discussion is good birth (Rh. 2.15.1390B 11-30). The well-born will look down, he says, even on those who are as good as their own ancestors. When Cornelius Nepos (Ep. 1) begins his life of Epaminondas, he speaks of his family and only then goes on to discuss his education and his personal qualities. Similarly, we may note the genealogies of famous heroes in the following: Plutarch, Thes. 3; Fab. 1; Brut. 1-2; Pyrrh. 1; Lyc. 1; Philostratus, VA 1.4; Historia Augusta, Hadrian 1.1-2; and Antoninus Pius 1.1-7.4 We can also see the importance of genealogy in Josephus's contemporary Tacitus (Ag. 4). And, of course, we should note the importance given to genealogies of Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew (1:2-16) and Luke (3:23-28). Furthermore, that the hero or heroine should be of lofty birth is one of the characteristic features of Hellenistic novels.5 So much stress was placed on genealogy that the matter became a fit subject for satire, as we see in the parody of Homer known as "The Battle of the Frogs and Mice," where (line 13) a frog asks a mouse: "Who are you, stranger? Whence do you come to this shore? And who is the one who begot you?"

Josephus actually begins his autobiography with a detailed account of his pedigree, tracing back both his priestly and his royal ancestry (Vita 1. 1-6). He also stresses that before marrying a woman, a priest must investigate her pedigree, "obtaining the genealogy from the archives and producing a number of witnesses" (Ap. 1.7.31-32). This emphasis on genealogy, he adds, is to be seen not merely in Judea but also wherever Jews are settled. He himself is particularly proud that the Cretan woman whom he married came of very distinguished parents, indeed the most notable people in Crete (Vita 76.427).6

In contrast, at approximately the time when Josephus was stressing the importance of distinguished ancestry, many rabbis had ancestors of no particular note, even if some of them, such as Judah Hanasi, were said to be of distinguished genealogy. Indeed, some rabbis, such as Shemaiah, Abtalion, and Meir, were declared to be descended from such notorious ancestors as Sisera, Sennacherib, Haman (b. Git. 57b), and Nero (b. Git. 56a)-an indication that the stress was placed not on glorious genealogy but on one's own learning and piety.

Philo, after his general introduction to the essay De Vita Mosis, begins his account of Moses (1.2.5) with the statement that Moses was by race (...) a Chaldean (...) In this treatise Philo uses the terms "Chaldean" and "Hebrew" interchangeably,7 as we see in the account of the discovery of the infant Moses by the pharaoh's daughter (Mos. 1.4.15), where we are told that she recognized that he belonged to the Hebrews (...) By denominating Moses a Chaldean Philo is accomplishing two purposes: in the first place, he is ascribing further antiquity to Moses, since the Chaldeans were more ancient than the Hebrews; and, in the second place, he is associating Moses with Chaldean astronomy, the greatest achievement of the Chaldeans (Migr. 32.178; Somn. 1.10.53; Abr. 15.69),8 in which the youthful Moses is said by Philo to have been instructed (Mos. 1.5.23) and which the Greeks prized so highly, as we see from its position in the curriculum of the higher education of the philosopher-kings in Plato (Resp. 7.528E-530C). Significantly, moreover, when Philo discusses the translation of the Pentateuch into Greek, again he appears to want to indicate its antiquity, since he refers to the language of the Pentateuch as Chaldean (Mos. 2.26, 31, 38, 40 [ter]).

Whereas the Bible (Exod 2:1) introduces the parents of Moses with the bland statement that "a man from the house of Levi went and took to wife a daughter of Levi," Philo (Mos. 1.2.5), realizing how much attention was given in antiquity to genealogy, says that he will start with what is necessarily the right place to begin. He then proceeds to note (Mos. 1.2.7) that Moses had for his father and mother the best of their contemporaries, members of the same tribe, whereas when Josephus first mentions Amram, the father of Moses, he is content merely to state that he was one of those well-born among the Hebrews (A.J. 2.9.3 (sec)210).9 Furthermore, whereas when the Bible finally does give the genealogy of Moses (Exod 6:16-20), it lists Moses as the fifth generation from Jacob, Philo, like Demetrius (apud Eusebius Praep. Evang. 9.29.2), Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)229),10 and the rabbis (Midr. Gen. Rab. 19.7; Midr. Cant. Rab. 5.1; Pesiq. Rb. Kah. 23.10 [ed. Mandelbaum, 2.343-44]), lists Moses as the seventh generation from Abraham, the founder of the whole Jewish nation.11 We may note that when Josephus attacks Lysimachus's account of the Exodus, he makes a point of stressing that Lysimachus should not have been content with mentioning Moses by name but should have indicated his descent and his parentage as well (Ap. 1.35.316).

Taking note of the report in Exod 2:19 that Jethro's daughters told their father that an Egyptian man had saved them from the shepherds, Philo (Mut. 20.117) emphasizes that Jethro's daughters called Moses an Egyptian, whereas Moses was not only a Hebrew but was of the purest race of the Hebrews, that is, the Levites, which alone is consecrated. Elsewhere, Philo (Congr. 24.131-32; Leg. 2.14.51-52), commenting on the statement of Exod 2:1 that a man from the tribe of Levi married a daughter of Levi, says that the child of this marriage, Moses, being from the tribe of Levi on both his father's and his mother's side, has a double link with truth in that the Levites, in their loyalty to God alone, did not show favoritism toward their own kin but slew all those who had worshiped the Golden Calf (Exod 32:26-29).

II. Moses' Birth

Both the biblical text (Exod 2:7) and Philo (Mos. 1.2.8) indicate that Pharaoh was afraid that the Israelites, who kept on increasing, might revolt against him, and that, consequently, he gave orders to put the male infants to death but to rear the females.12 Philo, however, has rearranged the order of events: he places the enslavement of the Israelites, which in the Bible appears before the issuance of the murder decree by the pharaoh, at the end of the narrative of Moses' birth.13 As J. Cohen remarks,14 the biblical account raises the question as to why the Egyptians, after enslaving the Israelites, would seek to decrease their population, inasmuch as a slave-owner's supreme interest normally is in increasing the number of his slaves. Moreover, if the pharaoh was interested in decreasing the number of the Israelites, it would have been more effective if he had done away with the females. Furthermore, if the pharaoh's concern was with decreasing the birth rate of the Israelites, it would seem strange that after the account of the birth of one child we hear nothing more about the pharaoh's decree. On the contrary, the center of attention is the pharaoh's desire that the Israelites remain in Egypt. Hence, Philo detaches the enslavement from the biblical explanation, which attributes it to the tremendous increase in population of the Israelites. In Philo's account, the Israelites are enslaved on account of the pharaoh's cruelty, which is thus emphasized; and his cruelty is highlighted by the contrast with the hospitality that the king should have granted to the Israelites as strangers and suppliants (Mos. 1.7.35-36).

Indeed, in treatise after treatise Philo presents a uniformly blackened picture of the Egyptian pharaohs. The pharaoh is the mind that is the king of the body, namely, Egypt (Conf. 19.88; Fug. 23.124; Migr. 29.160; Ebr. 50.208; Abr. 21.103; Jos. 26.151). He is steeped in greed, is licentious and unjust, and is the very antithesis of God (Somn. 2.27.183).15 On the other hand, the rabbis, while magnifying the pharaoh's brutality, depict God as telling Moses to treat the pharaoh with the deference and respect due to a sovereign.16 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.1 (sec)201) goes so far as to place the blame not on the pharaoh but on the Egyptians, who are described as a voluptuous and lazy people, and on the pharaoh's scribes (A.J. 2.9.2 (sec)205).17

In both the Bible and Philo, the pharaoh is fearful of the growing numbers of the Israelites. There is a difference, however, in that in the former (Exod 1:10) we read that it is the pharaoh's fear that because the Israelites are becoming more numerous they would join the enemies of the Egyptians and leave the land if a war should occur. In Philo's version (Mos. 1.2.8), the pharaoh's fear is that, far from leaving the country, the Israelites would try to take over the country. This would fit in with the view of such anti-Jewish writers as Manetho, Chaeremon, Lysimachus, and Apion (as we see in Josephus Ap. 1.228, 290, 306; 2.20) that the Israelites were actually expelled from Egypt. Josephus, however, strikingly omits all mention of the increase in numbers of the Israelites, presumably because he is sensitive to the tremendous increase in the number of Jews during the first century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., and to the implications of this.18 Instead, he contends that the Egyptians became bitterly disposed toward the Israelites through envy of their prosperity (A.J. 2.9.1 (sec)202).

Moreover, whereas the Hebrew text and the Septuagint version of Exod 1:15 specifically state that the midwives whom the pharaoh appointed to enforce his edict of the male children's slaughter were two Hebrews and give their names as Shifrah and Puah, Josephus (A.J. 2.9.2 (sec)206), without giving the women's number or their names, identifies them as Egyptians. He was apparently troubled by the question as to how two midwives could supervise so huge a population of Israelites, since according to Exod 12:37 the number of adult men alone who left Egypt was 600,000; and, moreover, it would seem unlikely that an Egyptian king would entrust Hebrew women with carrying out such a cruel decree against their own people. Philo (Her. 26.128), apparently untroubled by such considerations, remains true to the biblical text and gives the names of the two midwives, though not in De Vita Mosis, and identifies them as Hebrews. Presumably basing himself on the midwives' statement to Pharaoh in Exod 1:19 that the Hebrew women, unlike the Egyptian women, give birth before the midwife comes to them, Philo (Migr. 25.142) furnishes the extrabiblical detail that Jochebed, Moses' mother, gave birth to him without requiring a midwife's skill.19

Unlike Josephus (A.J. 2.9.2 (secs)205-6), who adds that one of the Egyptian sacred scribes had prophesied that someone would be born to the Israelites who would humble the Egyptians-a prophecy that resulted in the slaughter of innocent babes, and unlike Josephus's inclusion of Moses' father's dream confirming Moses' future greatness (A.J. 2.9.3 (secs)212-16), Philo's account of Moses, in accordance with his tendency to reduce or rationalize such miraculous elements, does not have such a prophecy. Moreover, he specifically says that Moses' parents were ignorant of the future (Mos. 1.4.12).

Josephus (A.J. 2.9.4 (sec)218) and the rabbis (b. Sot. 12a; Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.20) say that Moses' mother, Jochebed, miraculously gave birth to him without pain; but Philo, whether or not he knew it, does not report such a tradition. The rabbis have further miraculous details in connection with Moses' birth-that Jochebed was 130 years old at that time (Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.19; b. B. Bat. 120a); that when he came out of his mother's womb he was already circumcised; that when he was only three days old he not only walked but even talked with his parents; and that he actually refused to drink milk from his mother's breasts until she had received her payment from the pharaoh's daughter (Midr. Exod. Rab. 11.20; Midr. Deut. Rab. 11. 10)-but neither Philo nor Josephus gives such miraculous details. Whereas the Bible (Exod 2:2) says that Moses' mother hid him for three months, Philo (Mos. 1.3.9), without indicating that it was his mother who hid him, says that he was kept at home; and Josephus (A.J. 2. (sec)218), concerned that the father's role not be diminished, follows the Septuagint in saying that they, Moses' father and mother, hid him for three months.20 Josephus, indeed, places the spotlight to a much greater degree on Moses' father, Amram, reporting at great length, in an extrabiblical addition, God's words of assurance to him and prediction of Moses' greatness (A.J. 2.9.3-4 (secs)212-17), as well as the additional detail that Amram had fallen under the wrath of the pharaoh (A.J. 2.9.4 (sec)219).

Philo (Mos. 1.2.10) adds a unique extrabiblical detail in order to explain why Moses' parents ceased to conceal him and exposed him on the river. He records that, as is often the case under a monarch, there were persons prying into holes and corners, eager to report news to the king, so the parents realized that their continuing to save the child would cause even greater sorrow inasmuch as they themselves would forfeit their lives.21 Whereas in the Bible (Exod 2:3) it is Moses' mother who takes a wicker basket, smears it with clay and pitch, places the child in it, and puts it at the bank of the Nile River, in Philo (Mos. 1.2.10), as in Josephus (A.J. 2.9.4 (sec)221), both parents place the child on the bank of the river, perhaps because neither author wanted to ascribe to a woman alone the daring and heroic action and the concomitant complete faith in God that exposing the child on the river showed.

Philo delves into the human feelings of Moses' parents and presents a much more poignant scene, adding that when they exposed the baby they did so with tears and departed groaning, pitying themselves on being forced, as they said in self-reproach, to be the murderers of their own child, and pitying the child also on being left to perish in this unnatural way. Philo thus stresses apologetically that Moses' parents really had no other choice. He further adds an extrabiblical scene (Mos. 1.2.11) in which the parents accuse themselves, asking why they had not cast him away as soon as he was born. A child who has not survived to enjoy a normal nurture, they say, is not usually reckoned a human being; and by nurturing Moses for three months they had procured more abundant affliction for themselves and torture for him, inasmuch as he would die when he was fully capable of feeling pleasure and pain. In this Philo may be reflecting the tradition (Maimonides Mishneh Torah, Avel 1:6) which, we may suppose, goes back to an earlier time, that a child who died before living for thirty days is regarded as not viable and that the laws of mourning do not apply in such a case.

Philo (Mos. 1.4.12), realizing that the reader might well ask about the coincidence that the Egyptian princess just happened to be at the river when Moses was floating by in a basket, adds to the Bible and remarks that all that now happened was brought about by God's providential concern (...), though he is careful to qualify this with the phrase ... ("as it seems to me"). It is significant, as Cohen has remarked,22 that while Philo does not refrain from ascribing the wonderful confluence of events to God, nevertheless he makes few references to God, and when he does do so, as here, he is careful to defer to his sophisticated non-Jewish audience23 and to present the explanation of events as his own opinion or as a suggestion of others (Mos. 1.4.17; 1.5.19), the implication being that readers are entitled to draw their own conclusions.

Philo follows the biblical text (Exod 2:5) in stating that the pharaoh's daughter went down to the river to bathe; Josephus (A.J. 2.9.5 (sec)224) is more romantic in asserting that she played by the river. Philo (Mos. 1.4.13) adds several details concerning the pharaoh's daughter that serve to add drama to her rescue of Moses. Thus he adds that she was an only child of the pharaoh, that she had been married for a considerable time but had never conceived a child,24 and that she naturally desired a child, particularly of the male sex, to obtain the magnificent inheritance of her father's kingdom, which threatened to go to strangers if she did not give him a grandson. He supplies the romantic touch that she was always depressed and loud in lamentation, but that on this particular day, though she customarily remained at home, she had set off with her maids to the river, presumably to seek solace for her aching heart. A similar portrait of the pharaoh's daughter is found in Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.3) and Josephus (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)232), both of whom, like Philo, report that she was barren. This will explain why the pharaoh's daughter so quickly decided to adopt the Hebrew baby. Philo (Mos. 1.4.15) adds that when the sorrowing princess saw the baby weeping, her heart was moved to feel for him as a mother would for her own child. Whereas the Bible (Exod 2:6-7) and Philo report that she recognized that he was a Hebrew, and Miriam, who had been watching, offered to get a Hebrew woman to nurse the boy, Philo adds to the drama by remarking that the princess debated what to do, realizing that it would not be safe to take a Hebrew child to the palace (Mos. 1.4.16).

Josephus (A.J. 2.9.5 (sec)224) apparently asked the question as to how the princess could have recognized that the baby was a Hebrew; even if he was circumcised this would not prove that he was a Hebrew, inasmuch as Josephus is aware of the fact, noted by Herodotus (2.104), that the Egyptians had practiced circumcision from the beginning (...) and that it was from them that the "Syrians of Palestine" learned the practice (cf. Josephus A.J. 8.10.3 (sec)262; Ap. 1.22.168-70). Consequently, whereas Philo follows the biblical text in having the princess assert that the baby was a Hebrew, Josephus simply omits this detail. The rabbinic tradition (b. Sot. 12b) apparently posed the same question, and it asserts, in explanation, that Moses was born circumcised.

The Bible (Exod 2:7) immediately follows this with Miriam's question to the pharaoh's daughter whether to summon one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby. Philo (Mos. 1.4.16) again adds to the drama of the situation by stating that the pharaoh's daughter was debating with herself as to what to do, since she realized that it would not be safe to take him to the palace, whereupon Miriam, who guessed her difficulty, ran up to her and asked whether she would take as a foster-mother a Hebrew woman who had recently given birth to a child. Josephus (A.J. 2.9.5 (secs)225-26), apparently wondering how the pharaoh's daughter could have accepted such a bold and dangerous suggestion, adds that the princess first called many, presumably Egyptian, women,25 but that the baby refused to be nursed by them, whereupon Miriam approached the princess with her suggestion. Both Philo and Josephus were apparently troubled by the question as to how the princess would not have known that the woman brought by Miriam was Moses' mother. Philo adds that Miriam brought the baby's mother in the guise of a stranger who readily and gladly promised to nurse him (Mos. 1.4.17). Josephus (A.J. 2.9.5 (sec)227) is careful to add that Jochebed was known to no one. Philo, realizing that the reader might well wonder at the amazing coincidence that the nurse happened to be Moses' own mother, further explains (Mos. 1.4.17) that it was by God's design ... that it turned out that the child's first nursing came from the natural source.

Philo (Mos. 1.4.17) apparently realized the unlikelihood that an Egyptian princess would give a child a name derived from Hebrew, as we find in the Bible (Exod 2:10): "She called him Moses (...) for she said, "Because I drew him out (...) of the water.'" Hence, Philo has an Egyptian etymology, remarking that she called him Moses (...), "for Mou is the Egyptian word for water."26 Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.3) likewise states that she called him Moses and has a very similar spelling of the name (...). Elsewhere, Josephus (Ap. 1.31 (sec)286), in refuting Manetho's assertion that Moses' name was Osarsiph, insists that his name signifies "one saved out of the water," and repeats that "water is called by the Egyptians ... ."27

The Bible, in telling the story of the birth and the exposure of the infant Moses (Exod 2: 1-10), does not at this point mention by name Moses' father, mother, and sister, or the pharaoh's daughter, all of whom play crucial parts in the story. Josephus (A.J. 2.9.3-6 (secs)210-28), in elaborating the story, supplies the names of all of them: Amarames, locabele, Mariame, and Thermouthis; and Pseudo-Philo (L.A.B. 9.3; 12. 9) gives the names of the first three. What is significant in all of this is the fact that Philo never, in this whole pericope (Mos. 1.2.5-4.17), mentions the names of Moses' father Amram, his mother Jochebed, his sister Miriam, or of the pharaoh's daughter. One can hardly explain that their names are omitted because they play an insignificant role in the story, since they all, and especially Pharaoh's daughter, play a crucial role. Apparently, Philo wishes to keep the spotlight focused on Moses alone. Moreover, as Cohen has noted,28 "Moses' deliverance is not an end in itself, as in the biblical narrative, but is directed at the savior being raised and educated in the style of Hellenistic royalty."

III. Moses' Upbringing

One of the subjects with which an encomium had to deal was the celebrated person's nurture and training.29 Menander of Laodicea (2.371.17-372.2) cites as a topic to be covered whether the person was reared in a palace and was brought up from the very beginning in a royal setting. The encomium should speak of his "love of learning, his quickness, his enthusiasm for study, his easy grasp of what was taught him." In this respect, Josephus seems to have molded his biblical heroes in his own image (or vice versa), since he cites his own precocity, noting that while still a mere youth, at about fourteen years of age, he won universal applause for his love of letters, and that the chief priests and the leading men of Jerusalem used to come to him constantly for precise information with regard to the laws (Vita 2.9).

One of the typical motifs, alike of the Hellenistic, Roman, Christian, and rabbinic30 biography of a hero, was the subject's exceptional physical development, beauty, self-control, and precocious intellectual development as a child.31 In the case of a hero such as Romulus, it is his superiority of stature and strength of body that impress his grandfather Numitor when his identity is not yet known (Plutarch Rom. 7.3-4). Again, it is while he is still a boy that Alexander shows such remarkable self-restraint when it comes to pleasures of the body and keeps his spirit serious and lofty in advance of his years, despite his tendency to impetuosity and violence in other matters (Plutarch Alex. 4.8).

Similarly, Josephus remarks that Moses' growth in understanding (...) far outstripped his physical growth, and that even in his games he displayed his superiority (...), so that his achievements even at that tender age gave promise of greater deeds yet to come (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)230).32 According to Josephus (ibid.), Moses showed his mature superiority even in his childish amusements. Moreover, though he is only an infant, Josephus's Moses flings to the ground the crown that had been placed upon his head by Pharaoh (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)233), thus presaging his later leadership of the rebellion of the Hebrews.33 Such a picture is reminiscent of that of the ten-year-old future Persian king Cyrus, whose parentage was discovered through an incident that occurred while he was playing with the village boys, during which he ordered one of them to be beaten because he had disobeyed his command (Hdt. 1.114-16). Likewise, we may note that Josephus develops the theme of the precociousness of Solomon (A.J. 8.1.1 (sec)2; 8.7.8 (sec)211) and of Josiah (A.J. 10.4.1 (sec)50).34

Philo (Mos. 1.5.18) indicates, as a sign of Moses' precociousness, that he was weaned at an earlier date than his parents had reckoned. Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)230) goes even further and states that when he had attained the age of three, God gave him wondrous increase of his stature.35 At the very beginning of Philo's account of the upbringing of Moses (Mos. 1.3.8) we are told that he was deemed worthy (...) of a royal nurture (... ...); and Philo adds that it was by God's providence that he was given a royal nurture and service (... ..., Mos. 1.5.20) and that, since it was generally expected that he would succeed his grandfather as king, he was regularly called the young king (..., Mos. 1.7.32). At the very beginning of book 2 (Mos. 2.1.2) Philo, obviously indebted to Plato's formulation (Resp. 5.473D), states as a truism that a state cannot make progress in well-being unless its king is a philosopher or its philosopher is a king. His contention is that Moses combined these two faculties in his single person; and it is this side of Moses that he claims to have set forth in book 1 of his treatise, so that he may now concentrate in book 2 on Moses' capacity as lawgiver, high priest, and prophet.

Whereas the biblical text (Exod 2:11) is content to say merely that "one day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people," Philo, like Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6-10.2 (secs)230-53), adds many extrabiblical details to fill in this period of Moses' life, in particular about Moses' education. Josephus's additions, on the other hand, are concerned with presenting a background for Moses' political and (especially) military career, and with explaining the Egyptian jealousy that motivated his departure from Egypt.

In the first place, we are told by Philo (Mos. 1.5.18) that Moses was weaned at an earlier date than his mother had reckoned.36 As an infant, he was noble (..., "noble-minded, generous") and "charming" (..., "polite, elegant") to look upon; and the princess (Mos. 1.5.19), seeing that he was so precocious beyond his age, became ever more fond of him and, indeed, adopted him as her son,37 even going to the point of artificially enlarging the protrusion of her belly so as to make him appear to be her real and not her supposed child.38 At this point Philo, aware that readers might well wonder how it would be possible for the princess to deceive the public into thinking that she was pregnant when she was not, comments that "God makes all that He wills easy, however difficult be the accomplishment." Thus, Moses received a royal upbringing and service fit for a prince.39

Nevertheless, Moses did not behave like the infant that he was and did not take pleasure in scoffing and laughter and games.40 Teachers allowed him relaxation and were not strict with him. Modestly and seriously, he gave himself to hearing and seeing what was likely to help his soul. Teachers, we are told in an extrabiblical addition (Mos. 1.5.21), arrived at once, of their own accord, from neighboring countries and from the provinces of Egypt. In addition, some were sent for from Greece with promise of great rewards. It did not take long before the princely Moses surpassed their capacities due to his native gifts, so that he actually anticipated their instruction.41 He seemed to recall, in a manner reminiscent of Plato's theory of ..., what he had previously known42 rather than learning things afresh; the implication being that he was really self-taught, being in this respect like Isaac, whose usual epithet in Philo is ... .43 Such people, as Philo remarks (Sacr. 17.64) in connection with Jacob's reply to Isaac as to how he was able to find venison so quickly (Gen 27:20), acquire their knowledge rapidly because their source of wisdom is God himself, who does not need time for his work. Moreover, they acquire their knowledge without effort (Philo Sacr. 2.7).44 In fact, Moses even appeared, in addition, to devise problems that were difficult to understand. Indeed, Philo (Mos. 1.5.22) says that as soon as he grasped the first principles of knowledge he pressed forward like the proverbial horse to the meadow. As Mansfeld has pointed out,45 Philo could not have said that the Greeks had taught Moses philosophy, since all such philosophy, according to Philo, is later and, in fact, derived from Moses (Q.G. 4.152). Nor could he have said that Moses derived his knowledge from the study of the Torah since the Torah had not yet been revealed. Nor could he have said that Moses had derived such knowledge from Jewish teachers, inasmuch as that was not possible in the context of the education of an Egyptian prince. He could have said that Moses had derived such knowledge through the study of nature, as in the case of the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but he prefers to present Moses as, in effect, a Platonic philosopher-king, since this would give him a still higher stature in the eyes of the non-Jewish audience to whom, as we have suggested, the De Vita Mosis was addressed.

According to Philo (Mos. 1.5.23), learned (...) Egyptians instructed Moses in arithmetic, geometry, rhythms, harmony, metrical theory, and the whole subject of music,46 as these disciplines are attested in the use of instruments and in literary treatises and detailed descriptions of a more technical sort. Despite the fact that Philo here ascribes the education of Moses in these subjects to the Egyptians, it is surely striking that these are the very subjects, indeed in that very order, that Plato (Resp. 7.521C-531C)47 prescribes for the higher education of his philosopher-king.

Philo is very likely reflecting his own education here, as we can see from his statement, spoken in the first person, that in his youth he studied grammar, geometry, and music in that order (Congr. 14.74-76).48 He may have derived this information as to the scope of education in Egypt from his own experience, or perhaps also from Plato. Moreover, the Egyptian scholars are said to have taught Moses philosophy, as indicated in the symbols49 that they display in their socalled holy writings,50 and as conveyed in their regard for animals, which they worship with divine honors (Mos. 1.5.23).

As to the Greeks, they taught Moses the rest of the regular school course (...).51 Philo indicates in another place (Congr. 3.11) that the regular school course included grammar, geometry, astronomy, rhetoric, music, and all the other branches of intellectual study. Grammar, as he says elsewhere (Somn. 1.35.205), embraced reading, writing, poetic literature, and ancient history. Arithmetic and geometry inculcated absolute accuracy in making calculations and noting proportions. Music embraced rhythms, meters, and melodies. Rhetoric included conception, expression, arrangement, treatment, memory, and delivery. The other branches of intellectual study are subsumed under philosophy (ibid.).

One wonders how Philo, who elsewhere so vehemently ridicules the Egyptian worship of animals (Decal. 16.76-80),52 could have included this in his account of Moses' education without offering some specific objection or explanation. He does say (Mos. 1.5.24) that when Moses had mastered the lore of the Egyptians and the Greeks, both where they agree and where they differ, he avoided strife and contention and sought only for the truth, since his mind was incapable of accepting any falsehood. In this he differed from sectarians, who, Philo says, defend the doctrines that they have presented without considering whether they can pass critical examination. In stating that Moses accepted instruction from various sources, Philo, perhaps viewing himself as an eclectic, may be speaking autobiographically. Moses, according to Mos. 1.6.29, exemplified sincerity: his words expressed his feelings honestly, and his actions were in accord with his words, so that his speech and his life were in harmony and made, as it were, ajoint sound (...) as on a musical instrument.

In this connection, we may note that according to Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.4), Moses, whether or not he was of Jewish origin,53 bestowed on humanity many useful contributions, including the invention of philosophy. He is also said to have accorded to cats, dogs, and ibises the status of gods to be worshiped.54 In addition, according to Philo (Mos. 1.5.24), Moses acquired from the inhabitants of the neighboring countries a knowledge of Assyrian letters, as well as the Chaldean science of the heavenly bodies. The latter he also acquired from the Egyptians, who were especially skilled in astrology.55

As for the period between the birth of Moses and the time when he took up the leadership of the Israelites to get them out of Egypt, the Bible tells us only of Moses' slaying of the Egyptian overseer and his escape to Midian (Exod 2:11-22). Josephus (A.J. 2.9.7 (secs)232-36) adds a fascinating incident, presaging the leadership of Moses in defying the pharaoh, in which the princess placed the newborn child in the hands of her father. The pharaoh, in a manifestation of affection, placed his crown upon him, but Moses threw it down and stepped upon it. Thereupon the sacred scribe who had predicted that his birth would lead to the humiliation of the Egyptians rushed to kill him; but the princess snatched him away, and the king was hesitant to slay him. Both Philo (Mos. 1.7.32) and Josephus (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)232) add that the princess adopted Moses, and both assert that he was expected to succeed his grandfather as king, Philo adding that he was regularly called the young king. Moreover, in an extrabiblical addition, Philo (Mos. 1.5.20) asserts that Moses, already as a child and with a modest bearing, applied himself to hearing and seeing what was likely to profit his soul.

Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.7-19) and Josephus (Ant. 2.10.1-- 11.1 (secs)238-57) fill in the gap of these years with an account of the campaign of Moses on behalf of the Egyptians against the Ethiopians and of the jealousy that he encountered from the Egyptians. Philo (Mos. 1.8.45-9.47) has no mention of a campaign against the Ethiopians, but he does note that after Moses had killed the Egyptian overseer, those in authority in Egypt poured malicious suggestions into the ears of the pharaoh that Moses was highly ambitious, that he flattered some and threatened others, that he killed some without a trial (...), that he accused those who were especially well disposed to the pharaoh, and that he was eager to seize the kingship. As a result, Moses escaped to Arabia.

We would like to know how Moses related to his biological parents and to his adoptive family, and whether he experienced, in effect, the same kind of conflict that the Greek Oedipus felt. One would expect that he would feel considerable conflict. The Bible is silent about this possible conflict, and Josephus is likewise. It is Philo, sensitive to human issues, who states (Mos. 7.32-33) that Moses carefully balanced the claims of his real and his adoptive parents, that he requited the former with good feeling (...) and profound affection, and that he showed gratitude (...) toward the latter.56 On the other hand, Philo (Mos. 1.7.39) elaborates on the inhuman treatment meted out to the Israelites: "They died one after the other, as though they were the victims of a pestilence, to be flung unburied outside the borders by their masters, who did not allow the survivors even to collect dust to throw upon the corpses or even to shed tears for their kinsfolk or friends thus pitifully done to death." One would wonder how Moses could have continued to show such respect and warm feeling for a king who treated his fellow Israelites so harshly; and so Philo is quick to add that he would, indeed, have continued to show such deference had he not beheld in the pharaoh the greatly impious behavior (...) that the latter had newly adopted (...)--perhaps an allusion to the statement of Exod 1:8, "Now there arose a new king over Egypt."

The Bible has no discussion of Moses' adulthood before his escape to Midian beyond the incident in which he killed the Egyptian overseer (Exod 2:11-15); and Josephus omits this incident, presumably for apologetic reasons, since he did not want to portray the greatest leader of the Israelites as a murderer, even if the slaying may have been justified. He mentions only (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)237) that the Egyptians regarded Moses with suspicion, presumably because they thought that he had ambitions to overthrow the pharaoh and to establish himself as king. Philo (Leg. 3.12.37-39; Fug. 26.148), however, does include it, justifying Moses' action by the extrabiblical addition that the Egyptian had persecuted Hebrews to the point of death (Mos. 1.8.44). He also mentions the incident in order to allegorize the Egyptian as the equivalent of passion. Whereas the Bible states that after killing the Egyptian Moses hid his body in the sand, Philo again allegorizes and says that he hid the lover of pleasure in the Egyptian's mind. Moses then proceeds to take refuge in the God of those that are (Leg. 3.12.39). Philo, however, like Josephus, omits the account of the two Israelites fighting, presumably since such an account would not redound to the credit of the Israelites.

Philo offers, moreover, a lengthy extrabiblical discussion of the temperance and self-control (...) that Moses exercised during this period and the good sense (...) that he cultivated, taming and soothing his passions (Mos. 1.6.25-31). He notes especially that whereas palaces, such as the one in which Moses was brought up, gave numerous opportunities for fostering the flame of adolescent lust, Moses kept a tight reign on this. He likewise tamed (...) and calmed (..., "soothed") the other passions, reducing them utterly to mildness (..., "taming entirely"), chastising them, if they so much as stirred, more sternly than any rebuke of words could do, and watching for their first appearance as one would guard a restive horse, always making sure that his impulses obeyed the guidance of reason (...).

During this period of his youth Moses, whose ideal was apparently asceticism, gave only as much attention to the pleasures of food as nature required. Because this self-control was so novel, he amazed everyone to the point that they wondered whether his mind was human or divine, or was a mixture of both (Mos. 1.6.27).57 Philo (Mos. 1.6.29) says that Moses made a special practice of being content with little (...), scorning, as no one else did, the life of luxury, and longing to live with his soul alone and not with his body. Moses said what he thought and acted in harmony with his words. Unlike most people, he realized that nothing is more unstable than fortune, and so he did not boast of himself as bigger than those more obscure than he (Mos. 1.6.30-31). Unlike others, who look down on their relations and friends, forget the past, think only of the present, disregard their ancestral customs,58 and scoff at the law under which they were born and bred, Moses, even though he was the exceedingly prosperous heir apparent to the throne who was regularly called the young king, showed zeal (..., "desired emulously, strove after, admired") for the culture (...) of his kinsmen and ancestors. On the one hand, he regarded the good fortune of his adopters as spurious;59 and on the other hand, though his natural parents were less distinguished, he looked upon them as his own and genuine. Philo (Mos. 1.6.31-7.32) uses this opportunity to contrast Moses' zeal for the discipline and culture of his kinsmen and ancestors, in spite of his having reached the very pinnacle of human prosperity and being no less than heir apparent to the throne of Egypt, with those Jews of the author's day who, in their contentment with the present, lose all memory of the past and subvert the ancestral customs.60 Philo emphasizes the contrast that most people present to Moses' example in that, when they feel ever so small a breath of prosperity, they vaunt their own superiority while demeaning those who are less prosperous than they (Mos. 1.6.30). In stating such a contrast Philo seems to have in mind his own nephew, Tiberius Julius Alexander, who, as Josephus puts it (A.J. 20.5.2 (sec)100), did not stand by the practices of his people.

IV. Moses' Handsomeness

Philo (Mos. 2.1.2) notes that it has been said, "not without good reason, that states can only make progress in well-being if either kings are philosophers or philosophers are kings." This phrase, of course, comes from Philo's favorite source, Plato (Resp. 5.473D). Philo goes on to remark that Moses displayed, and indeed more than displayed, these two faculties-the kingly and the philosophical-together with his qualties as lawgiver, high priest, and prophet. Plato, who is Philo's source here, asserts (Resp. 7.535A) that the ideal rulers should be, as far as possible, very good-looking (..., "well-shaped," "comely," "beautiful"), since the Greeks apparently assumed that good looks were a reflection of inner worth-this despite the fact that Alcibiades compared his teacher, Socrates, to the busts of Silenus, which were not at all good-looking (Plato Symp. 215A), and despite the fact that Socrates himself (216E) utterly despised physical beauty.

At Moses' birth, according to Exod 2:2, his mother saw that he was good (...). At his birth, according to Philo (Conf. 22.106; Mos. 1.3.9), Moses was more than ordinarily ...,61 that is, "pretty, charming, handsome, graceful," so that his parents, as long as they could, disregarded the edict of the pharaoh requiring that male babies were to be put to death.62 Furthermore, we learn from an extrabiblical addition (Mos. 1.4.15) that when the baby Moses was brought to the pharaoh's daughter, she surveyed him from head to foot and approved of his beauty of form (...) and his good state of health (...). This observation is all the more effective since it comes from a non-Jew.

Similarly, Josephus (A.J. 2.9.5 (sec)224) notes that when the pharaoh's daughter first beheld the baby Moses, she loved him very much because of his size (...) and beauty (...). He also states (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)231) that no one was so indifferent to the beauty of the young Moses that, on beholding him, he was not astonished at his handsomeness. Indeed, Josephus continues, many people who happened to meet him as he was being borne along the road turned back at the sight of him and left aside their serious affairs and used their time to view him.63 One is reminded of the tale Herodotus tells (1.112) of how the wife of a cowherd who had been ordered to slay the infant Cyrus was so moved by the size and beauty of the child that she reared it as her own to replace the child whom she had borne dead.

As Moses grew, Philo claims (Mos. 1.5.18), he was noble (..., "well-- born") and goodly (...) to look upon.64 Apparently, this tradition of Moses' beauty had even reached the non-Jewish world, inasmuch as we find Pompeius Trogus (apud Justin Historiae Philippicae Epitoma 2.11), who lived at the end of the first century B.C.E. and the beginning of the first century C.E., stating that Moses' beauty of appearance (formae pulchritudo) recommended him. In connection with Jethro's first meeting with Moses after the latter had watered the sheep for his daughters, Philo (Mos. 1.11.59), in an extrabiblical addition, states that Jethro was immediately struck by his appearance (...) and a little later by his intent (...), because, Philo remarks, great natures are manifest and do not need much time to be recognized. Moreover, on Moses' descent from Mount Sinai after spending forty days communing with God, Philo (Mos. 2.14.70) describes his countenance (...) as far more beautiful than when he had ascended, so that those who saw him were astounded (...) and amazed (...), and they could no longer with their eyes endure the impact of the luster flashing forth like the sun.

V. Summary

Inasmuch as Philo's aim in his essay De Vita Mosis is to present Moses as the perfect example of the royal character, he follows the pattern found in other biographies, concentrating, in particular, on the subject's genealogy, birth, upbringing, and handsomeness. In denominating Moses a Chaldean, Philo emphasizes his antiquity and his association with the much admired Chaldean astronomy. He emphasizes, moreover, that Moses was of the purest race of the Hebrews, that is, the Levites. He keeps the spotlight on Moses himself, not mentioning by name Moses' father, mother, sister, and the pharaoh's daughter, all of whom play crucial parts in the story.

Philo's account would seem to be a response to contemporary issues in his own day. Thus, the pharaoh's fear is not that the Israelites would join the enemies of the Egyptians and leave the land but that they would attempt to take over the country. Furthermore, he delves into the human feelings of Moses' parents and paints a more poignant scene in order to save the parents from the charge of abandoning the baby. In general, in deference to his sophisticated non-Jewish audience, he allows the reader to draw his own conclusions as to the divine role in the events he recounts.

Philo follows the pattern, found in Hellenistic, Roman, Christian, and rabbinic biography, of ascribing to his hero exceptional physical development, beauty, self-control, and precocious intellectual development. Moses' teachers are from Egypt and Greece, but he is depicted as being really self-taught. The subjects of his higher education strikingly resemble those of the philosopher-king in Plato's Republic.

Philo, sensitive to human issues, states that Moses carefully balanced the claims of his real and adoptive parents. Unlike Josephus, who omits, for apologetic reasons, the account of Moses' slaying of the Egyptian overseer, Philo justifies Moses' action and adds an allegorical dimension to it. However, as an apologist, he omits the account of the two Israelites fighting. He contrasts Moses' zealous devotion to his Jewish kinsmen and ancestors, despite the fact that he had reached the pinnacle of power and prosperity, with the disregard of ancestral ties and practices by some of his own contemporaries, presumably such as his nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander.

Philo records that the pharaoh's daughter admired the beauty of Moses as a baby and notes that many people left aside their serious affairs merely to look at him.

1 So Erwin R. Goodenough, By Light, Light: The Mystic Concept of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1935) 181.

2 Arnaldo Momigliano, The Development of Greek Biography (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971) 82-83.

3 See Harold Remus, "Moses and the Thaumaturges: Philo's De Vita Mosis as a Rescue Operation," LTP 52 (1996) 665-80, here 676 n. 52; and Charles H. Talbert, "Prophecies of Future Greatness: The Contribution of Greco-Roman Biographies to an Understanding of Luke 1:5-4:15," in The Divine Helmsman: Studies on God's Control of Human Events, Presented to Lou H. Silberman (ed. James L. Crenshaw and Samuel Sandmel; New York: Ktav, 1980) 129-41, here 133-34.

4 Talbert, "Prophecies of Future Greatness," 129-41, here 135. Even so, the Egyptians, if we may judge from Plato (Ti. 22B), had sneered at the genealogies of the Greeks as being little better than nursery tales.

5 See Gareth L. Schmeling, Xenophon of Ephesus (Boston: Twayne, 1980) 21, who notes that genealogy would be the first thing in a Hellenistic author's mind as he begins his novel, and remarks

that this is true for Habrocomes and Anthia by Xenophon of Ephesus, as well as for the tale of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius's Metamorphoses (4.28) and for the anonymous novel of Apollonius of Tyre. Cf. T. R. Goethals, "The Aethiopica of Heliodorus: A Critical Study" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, New York, 1959).

6 Perhaps because Josephus himself was so proud of his ancestry, being descended from the first of the twenty-four courses of the priests, as well as (on his mother's side) from the Hasmoneans (Vita 1.1-2.8), he frequently adds such details when they are not found explicitly in the Bible. Thus, Josephus tells us that Abraham was the tenth generation after Noah (Scripture simply enumerates his ancestors) and adds to his antiquity by remarking that he was born 992 years after the flood (A.J. 1.6.5 148). He thereby increases by some 701 years the interval between the flood and the birth of Abraham. Josephus would thus seem to be answering such detractors of the Jews as Apollonius Molon (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.19.2-3), who had declared that Abraham was born only three generations after Noah. In an extrabiblical addition, Abraham's servant Eliezer commends Rebekah for her good birth (...) and goodness of heart (A.J. 1.16.2 (sec)247). When Jacob first meets Rachel, he gives his genealogy at some length (Ant. 1.19.4 (secs)288-90). In explaining why Jacob loved Joseph more than his brothers, Josephus adds the extrabiblical remark that he did so because of the beauty of person that was based not only on his excellence of character but also on his good birth (...), that is, the fact that his mother Rachel was exceptionally beautiful (A.J. 2.2.1 (sec)9). Again, Amram, Moses' father, is described as of noble birth (...) (A.J.. 2.9.3 (sec)210), whereas the Bible simply describes him as "a man from the house of Levi" (Exod 2:1). Korah also is described as being among the most eminent of the Hebrews by reason both of his birth (...) and of his riches (A.J. 4.2.2 (sec)14). Moses speaks of the nobility of birth of his brother Aaron as not being the factor that justifies the bestowal of the high priesthood upon him (A.J. 4.2.4 (sec)26), implying that others might think it is.

7 This is apparently true for the treatises, such as De Vita Mosis, which belong to the category of the exposition of the Law. Chan-Kan Wong ("Philo's Use of Chaldaioi," Studia Philonica Annual 4 [1992] 1-14) has argued, however, that Philo's trip to Rome resulted in a greater sensitivity to the politics in Rome and, in particular, to the attempt of the Roman government to restrain astrologers, as a result of which Philo made a deliberate attempt in the allegorical treatises, which were written later, to nuance his usage of the word "Chaldean" in order to avoid equating the Hebrews and the Hebrew language with astrology. See the passages cited in The Philo Index (ed. Peder Borgen, Kare Fuglseth, and Roald Skarsten; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) s.v. ..., ..., ..., ..., ..., and the note by J. W. Earp in Philo (trans. F. H. Colson et al.; 12 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929-53) 10. 298-99.

8 According to Philo (Abr. 18.82) the name "Abram" signifies one called astrologer and meterologist; and when Abram leaves Chaldea, he is told (Abr. 15.71) to dismiss "the rangers of the heavens and the science of Chaldea."

9 So also in rabbinic tradition (Sifre Num. 67; Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.8).

10 Henry St. J. Thackeray (in Josephus [trans. H. St. J. Thackeray et al.; 10 vols.; LCL; London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926-65] 4. 264 n. a) remarks that the

sentence stating that Moses was the seventh generation after Abraham and enumerating these seven generations has been rejected by some editors as an interruption of the narrative and suggests that it may be a postscript of the author; but in view of Josephus's emphasis elsewhere on genealogy, as we have noted, the greater likelihood is that it is authentic.

11 Pesiq. Rb. Kah. 23.10 states that every seventh generation is dearest and cites the fact that Moses was the seventh generation from Abraham. Moses Gaster (The Asatir: The Samaritan Book of the 'Secrets of Moses' together with the Pitron or Samaritan Commentary and the Samaritan Story of the Death of Moses [London: Oriental Translation Fund, N.S. 26, 1927] 74) notes that Moses' position in the seventh generation from Abraham is a distinct feature of Samaritan chronology.

12 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.2 (secs)205-6) adds an additional factor that brought on this decree, namely, that a certain Egyptian sacred scribe had predicted the birth of an Israelite who would humble the rule of the Egyptians; and this, in effect, shifts much of the blame to the scribe rather than to the pharaoh. For rabbinic parallels with regard to the birth of Moses see Renee Bloch, "Quelques aspects de la figure de Moise dans la tradition rabbinique," in Moise: L'homme de l'Alliance (ed. H. Gazelles et al.; Cahiers sioniens; Tournai: Desclee, [1955]) 102-18.

13 So also Pirqe R. El. 48. Cf. Mek. R. Sim, 1, which connects the murder of the sons with the enslavement: "After drowning their sons in water, they also immured them in the construction work."

14 Jonathan Cohen, The Origins and Evolution of the Moses Nativity Story (Studies in the History of Religions 58; Leiden: Brill, 1993) 10-11.

15 See Louis H. Feldman, "The Pharaohs," in Studies in Josephus' Rewritten Bible (JSJSup 58; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 74-90, here 75-78.

16 See ibid., 78-82.

17 See ibid., 82-88.

18 See L. H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World.- Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 288-341.

19 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.3-4 (secs)210-17) adds an extrabiblical account that when Jochebed was pregnant with Moses, God appeared to her husband, Amram, and assured him that he would reward their piety and that the child to be born would deliver the Hebrews from slavery. Josephus (A.J. 2.9.4 (sec)218) adds, moreover, that Jochebed did not feel any violent pain while she gave birth to Moses. The rabbinic tradition (b. Sot. 12a; Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.20) goes so far as to say that Jochebed gave birth without any pain-a proof, according to the second-century Rabbi Judah bar lai, that righteous women are not included in the decree pronounced upon Eve (Gen 3:16).

20 So also Heb 11:23.

21 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.4 219) similarly explains why Amram felt that he could no longer hide the child, i.e., lest he perish with the child, having himself fallen under the wrath of the king; and so he entrusted the preservation of the child to God Himself.

22 Cohen, Origins and Evolution, 41.

23 That Philo's De Vita Mosis is addressed to non-Jews is argued by Erwin R. Goodenough ("Philo's Exposition of the Law and His De Vita Mosis," HTR 27 [1933] 109-25; idem, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940] 37-38). Such is the conclusion also of William J. Robbins ("A Study in Jewish and Hellenistic Legend with Special Reference to Philo's Life of Moses" [Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1947] 47). An indication that Philo's De Vita Mosis was read by non-Jews may be seen in the third-century romance Aethiopica (9.9) of Heliodorus, who echoes Mos. 2.36.195 (cited by Arthur D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933] 286).

24 The princess's childlessness, not mentioned in the Bible, is also referred to in Josephus (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)232) and Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.3).

25 So also in the rabbinic tradition (b. Sot. 12b) it is asserted that at first Moses was given to all the Egyptian women, but that Moses refused to nurse from them.

26 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)228), like Philo, says that the Egyptians call water mou, but he adds a second element to the name, noting that the Egyptians call those who have been saved eses. This agrees with a Coptic etymology: mou, "water," ouaisi, "save." Erwin R. Goodenough (Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period [13 vols.; Bollingen series 37; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953] 9. 223 n. 196) suggests that Philo and Josephus reflect an account that originated in Hellenistic Egypt, and that this etymology was substituted by readers of the Septuagint, who also spoke Coptic, since the original Hebrew etymology became meaningless in Greek translation. The name may have an Egyptian origin: mw, "water," hsy, "exalted," which is transcribed in papyri as ..., hence the Greek spelling of Moses' name, ... (see John G. Griffiths, "The Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses," JNES 12 [1953] 225-31, here 225-26). In actuality, however, the name apparently comes from the Egyptian verb msy, "to give birth," and frequently appears as "Mose" with the name of a god-for example, Tuthmosis ("Toth is born") and Rameses ("Re is born"). According to Exod 2:10 and Philo, Pharaoh's daughter alone gave Moses his name, whereas Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)228) says that the Egyptians conferred the name upon Moses.

27 So also Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)228), who explains the second part of Moses' name as coming from the Egyptian word eses, referring to those who have been saved.

28 Cohen, Origins and Evolution, 44-45.

29 Jerome H. Neyrey, "Josephus' Vita and the Encomium: A Native Model of Personality," JSJ 25 (1994) 177-206, here 182-83.

30 See Charles Perrot ("Les recits d'enfance dans la Haggada anterieure au IIe siecle de notre sre," RSR 55 [1967] 481-518), who has collected the haggadic materials relating to the childhood of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Samson, Samuel, and Elijah. Thus we hear, for example, that Abraham in his third year recognized that all the idols of his father were naught and destroyed them (Midr. Gen. Rab. 38; Tg. Ps.-J. Gen 11:28).

31 One may note the examples, cited by Talbert ("Prophecies of Future Greatness," 129-41, here 135), from Plutarch's Lives (Thes. 6.4, Sol. 2, Them. 2.1, Dio 4.2, Alex. 5.1, Rom. 8, and Cic. 2.2), as well as from Q. Curtius Rufus History of Alexander 1; Philostratus Vita Apollonii 1.7.11; Ps.-- Callisthenes Alexander Romance; I Enoch 106:11 (where Noah blesses God while still in the hands of a midwife); Philo Mos. 1.5.20-24, 1.6.25-29; and Jubilees 11-12 (Abraham as a child prodigy). See Ludwig Bieler, ...; ANHP: Das Bid des 'gottlichen Menschen' in Sputantike and Fruhchristentum (2 vols.; Vienna: Hofels, 1935-36) 1. 34-38; and H. Karl Usener, Kleine Schriften (4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1912) 4. 127-28. The latter cites the examples of Evangelos of Miletus (Conon Narrationes 44), Amphoteos and Akarnan, the sons of Callirhoe (Apollodorus Bibliotheca 1.7.4). Cf. Luke 2:40, 52, where we are told that the child Jesus "grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him.... And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." See Hans Scherb, Das Motif vom starken Knaben in der Marchen der Weltliteratur: Seine religionsgeschichtliche Bedeutung and Entwicklung (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1930) 141 n. 4, citing Isidore Levy, La legende de Pythagore de Grece en Palestine (Paris: Champion, 1927).

32 To be sure, Moses' precocity is also recognized by Philo, who notes that the young Moses did not engage in fun, frolic, and sport like any infant, even though his guardians were utterly lenient, but "applied himself to learning and seeing what was sure to perfect the soul" (Mos. 1.5.20). His precocity is also recognized in rabbinic literature (e.g., Midr. Cant. Rab. 1.26).

33 There is a parallel in the rabbinic tradition (Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.26; Midr. Deut. Rab. 11.10).

34 See L. H. Feldman, "Josephus' Portrait of Josiah," LS 18 (1993) 110-30, here 115-16.

35 This was presumably after Moses had completed the standard nursing period of two years. Cf. m. Ned. 2:1; b. Ket. 60a.

36 Cf. Josephus (AJ. 2.9.6 230), who adds that when Moses had attained the age of three-- presumably, this was after he had completed the standard nursing period of two years-God gave him wondrous increase of his stature. In the rabbinic tradition we are told that since Exod 2:6 says that not the infant but the lad was crying, the child, though an infant, had a lad's voice (Tan. Shemot 8.9). Furthermore, we hear that when he was only three months old he prophesied and declared that he was destined to receive the law amid flames of fire (Midr. Deut. Rab. 11.10). Again, when Moses was but five years old he appeared as though he were eleven years of age (cf. Yal. 165 [ed. Heyman, p. 28]).

37 So also Josephus AJ. 2.9.7 232.

38 Similarly, Moses, in Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exodus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.28.3), speaks of himself "as though I had come out of her [the Egyptian princess's] womb."

39 Bieler (... ANHP, 1. 34-38) shows in how many respects Moses' character as described by Philo is typical of the Hellenistic "divine man."

40 In contrast, according to Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)230), Moses clearly showed his mature superiority in his childish amusements. To be sure, $tienne Nodet (Flavius Josephe, Les Antiquites Juives, vol. 1: Livres 16 111 [Paris: Cerf, 1990]) adopts, in his commentary ad loc., the reading ... with several manuscripts (OMSPAL) in place of ..., the word that Philo uses and the reading of a single manuscript (R) that has been adopted by all other editors, including Niese, Naber, and Thackeray. If Nodet is right, the meaning would be that Moses showed his maturer excellence in his educational activities rather than in his childish games. But the sixth-century Latin version ascribed to Cassiodorus, reading "infantia," clearly favors the reading adopted by the other editors, as does the context, which speaks of Moses' extraordinary precociousness in his early years.

41 Philo Abr. 1.6: "They [the forefathers, notably Enosh, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] were not scholars or pupils of others, nor did they learn under teachers what was right to say or do: they listened to no voice [..., "hearing oneself," "self-acquired"] or instruction but their own [..., "self-taught"]: they gladly accepted conformity with nature, holding that nature itself was, as indeed it is, the most venerable of statutes, and thus their whole life was one of happy obedience to law. They committed no guilty action of their own free will or purpose, and where chance led them wrong they besought God's mercy and propitiated Him with prayers and supplications, and thus secured a perfect life guided aright in both fields, both in their premeditated actions and in such as were not of freely-willed purpose." Similarly, Melchisedek's priesthood, says Philo (Congr. 18.99), was self-- taught (...) (cited by Robbins, Study in Jewish and Hellenistic Legend, 54-551.

42 Cf. Plato's theory, propounded in the Meno 81C-D: "The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, there is no difficulty in her eliciting or, as men say, learning, out of a single recollection all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection" (trans. Benjamin Jowett). Plato's theory is that one possesses perfect knowledge of the Forms in the womb before one's birth and that through skillful questioning this knowledge can be brought out. See also Plato Phd. 72A-78B; Tht. 150D.

43 Philo Sacr. 2.6, and many other citations in Borgen et al., Philo Index 56, s.v. Isaac is referred to as av, ... no fewer than 34 times, and as ... no fewer than 7 times. See J. W. Earp, "Index of Names," in Philo (LCL) 10. 326 nn. a-b.

44 See Walther V61ker, Fortschritt and Vollendung bei Philo von Alexandrien: Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Frommigkeit (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1938) 281.

45 Jaap Mansfeld, "Philosophy in the Service of Scripture: Philo's Exegetical Strategies," in The Question of "Eclecticism ": Studies in Later Greek Philosophy (ed. John M. Dillon and Anthony A. Long; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988) 70-102, here 95.

46 According to Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.3-4), Moses was called Musaios by the Greeks. This Musaios was a legendary Greek poet who is said to have been a pupil of Orpheus, the great legendary musician, though Artapanus speaks of him here as being a teacher of Orpheus. A collection of oracles and poems connected with Orphism was attributed to him. The second-century Neopythagorean Numenius of Apamea (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.8.2) also refers to Moses as Musaios. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.23.413) adds medicine to the list of subjects in which Moses was instructed.

47 In the Republic the order is arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Philo has omitted astronomy, which he says was taught to Moses by Chaldeans and the Egyptians. This reflects the well-founded belief that it was the Chaldeans and the Egyptians who pioneered in the field of astronomy and that the Greeks learned from them. On the encyclia studies in Philo, see Alan Mendelson, Secular Education in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1982) 1-46, especially 4-5.

48 F. H. Colson, in Philo (LCL) 6.286-87 n. c. So also Henry Chadwick, "Philo and the Beginnings of Christian Thought," in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (ed. Arthur H. Armstrong; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 137-57, here 137 n. 2. Cf. Cher 30.105, where Philo speaks, though not in the first person, of grammar, geometry, and music; and Q. E. 2.103, where he speaks of arithmetic, geometry, and music in that order. Indeed, Plato (Leg. 2.656D-657A) remarks that the Egyptian chants were said to have been composed by the goddess Isis and that because of their sacred character they have not changed in thousands of years. Because in Egypt the hymns and dances were consecrated to the gods, anyone who offered any other hymns or dances was subject to suits of impiety (ibid. 7.799A). Plato (ibid. 7.819A) also praises the Egyptians for devising pleasant and amusing arithmetical games in teaching chidlren. Philo (Somn.

1.35.205) says that he admires the lover of wisdom in that when he sees a multitude of different things he weaves them together. He then elaborates on the actual educational program of his own day, explaining the contents of grammar, arithmetic, geometry, music, rhetoric and philosophy-precisely the topics that he says constituted Moses' education (Mos. 1.5.23). For instance, he takes from the "grammar" taught to children the two first subjects, writing and reading; from the more advanced "grammar" he takes acquaintance with the poets and a learning of ancient history; from arithmetic and geometry he derives absolute accuracy in matters that require a making of calculations and noting of proportion; from music he derives rhythms and meters and melodies enharmonic, chromatic, diatonic, conjunct and disjunct; from rhetoric come conception, expression, arrangement, treatment, memory, delivery; and from philosophy he derives everything that has been omitted in the items given already, and all other things that constitute the whole life of people.

49 Mansfeld ("Philosophy in the Service of Scripture," 77) notes that Chaeremon, a notorious defamer of the Jews (see Josephus Ap. 1.32-33 288-303), was a Stoic who interpreted Egyptian religion in terms of Greek philosophy, just as Philo did for the Jewish religion. Mansfield suggests that Philo may have been familiar with Chaeremon's views, since he speaks here (Mos. 1.5.23) of Egyptian philosophy as being conveyed in symbols, as displayed in the so-called "holy letters," one of.Chaeremon's favorite themes (cf. Chaeremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher: The Fragments (ed. Pieter W. van der Horst; Etudes preliminaires aux religions orientales dans l'Empire romain 101; Leiden: Brill, 1984). More recently, Gregory E. Sterling ("Platonizing Moses: Philo and Middle Platonism," Studia Philonica Annual 5 [1993] 96-111, here 103-5), noting general similarities between Chaeremon and Philo, concludes that these point to the presence in first-century Alexandria of Egyptian priests and Jewish exegetes using Stoic and Platonic philosophy in seeking an accommodation between their ancestral traditions and Greek thought.

50 According to Eupolemus (aped Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.26.1), Moses was the first wise man and gave the alphabet to the Jews, who in turn gave it to the Phoenicians, who in turn gave it to the Greeks; and he was the first to write down laws. According to Artapanus (ibid. 9.27.4), he was the first philosopher. Cf. Acts 7:22: "Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians."

51 As Louis Ginzberg points out (The Legends of the Jews [7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909-38] 5. 402 n. 67), a similar description of Moses' education is to be found in Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1.23.155), which, he suggests, is very likely taken from Philo. Eusebius (Praep. evang. 9.28.3) quotes from a speech of Moses in the Exodus of Ezekiel the Tragedian, where Moses says that as a child he received a royal upbringing (...) and education (...), but he does not give details.

52 So also Post. 48.165;.Spec. 1.15.79; Contempl. 1.8-9; Legat. 20.139; 25.163-66.

53 See Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, vol. 1: Historians (ed. Carl R. Holladay; Texts and Translations, Pseudepigrapha series; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1983) 189, 194-95 nn. 6-8a.

54 On pagan, other Jewish, and Christian comments concerning the Egyptian worship of animals, see Holladay, Fragments, 234 n. 51.

55 Robbins (Study in Jewish and Hellenistic Legend, 55-56) notes the possibility of two separate schools of astrology and cites Franz Cumont (L'Egypte des Astrologues [Brussels: La Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1937] 14).

56 According to Heb 11:24, when Moses was grown up he refused to be called the son of the pharaoh's daughter.

57 Bieler (... ANHP, 1. 35) notes that these are the three possibilities in Aristotle's definition of the ... . As one who was apparently regarded as heir apparent to the throne of Egypt, Moses might well have been regarded as divine or as destined for divinity. According to Artapanus (apud Eusebius Praep. evang. 9.27.6), Moses was so loved by the masses because of the wonderful things that he did for them that he was deemed worthy of divine honor (...) by the priests and was called Hermes because of his ability to interpret the sacred writings. See Erwin R. Goodenough, "The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship," Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928) 55-102.

58 Philo is perhaps thinking here of the Jew, such as Dositheos the son of Drimylos, who in the third century B.C.E., "altered his customs and abandoned his ancestral beliefs" (3 Macc 1:3); or Jason the high priest, who in the second century B.C.E. sought to convert his countrymen to the Greek way of life (2 Macc 4:10); or his own nephew, Tiberius Julius Alexander, who in the first century c.E. "did not remain faithful to his ancestral customs" (Josephus A.J. 20.5.2 (sec)100). See John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE-117 CE) (Edinburgh: Clark, 1996) 104-6.

59 Heb 11:24-25 reflects Moses' dilemma: "By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin."

60 On the various degrees of assimilation, acculturation, accommodation, and apostasy among Jews in Egypt before, during, and after Philo's lifetime, see Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, 103-24.

61 So also Stephen, in Acts 7:20, refers to Moses' charming appearance; similarly Heb 11:23. Philo (Abr. 21.103) uses ... in a sense opposed to ... ("mean, common, bad"). Philo (Fug. 3.18) uses it as an antonym of ... ("wretched, inferior, knavish").

62 In Exod 2:2 it is Moses' mother who hides him for three months, whereas Philo, like Josephus (A.J. 2.9.4 (sec)218), here follows the Septuagint, which has it that they-that is, Moses' father and mother-hid him for three months. So also Heb 11:23.

63 Other references to Moses' beauty may be found in Acts 7:20 and Heb 11:23 (see Cohen, Origins and Evolution, 40 n. 23). So also Midr. Exod. Rab. 1.26: "Because he was handsome everyone would take him out in their eagerness to see him."

64 Josephus (A.J. 2.9.6 (sec)231) says that no one was so indifferent to his beauty (...) that on beholding Moses he was not astonished by his handsomeness (..., "beauty of form"). He adds that so vast and undiluted was the childish charm that enveloped him that it captivated those who saw him, and many people who happened to meet him as he was borne along the road turned back at the sight of the child and left aside their serious affairs, using their time to view him. So also Iamblichus (Vit. Pyth. 10) says that when Pythagoras was seen he turned everyone around to view him. Similarly, the rabbinic tradition (Midr Exod. Rab. 1.26 on Exod 2:10; Tan. Shemot 8 [p. 213]) states that because Moses was so beautiful everyone wished to look upon him, and whoever saw him could

not turn from him. Indeed, according to the Midrashic tradition (Tan. Shemot 8), such was Moses' beauty that Pharaoh's daughter did not allow him to leave the palace, since whoever saw him could not detach himself from the sight. In Josephus (A.J. 2.9.7 (sec)232) he is described by Pharaoh's daughter as divine in appearance. In fact, the rabbis (Pirqe R. El. 48.21) compare Moses' beauty to that of an angel.

LOUIS H. FELDMAN

Yeshiva University

New York, NY 10033

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