Moses (c. 13th century BCE)

Birth and Upbringing

Moses's infancy is wondrous. To save her son from Pharaoh's decree that all male Hebrew infants be killed, Moses's mother floats him in a basket of reeds on the Nile River. Moses's sister points out the basket to Pharaoh's daughter, who adopts him and unknowingly makes his mother his nurse. Thus Moses grows up close to power in Pharaoh's palace, but aware of his heritage and identity. As a young man, he kills an Egyptian whom he sees mistreating a Hebrew. The next day, he tries to quell a fight between two Hebrews, but their defiance signals one of the story's major themes: “Who made you a prince and a judge over us?” (Exodus 2:14, RSV). After killing the Egyptian, Moses flees to the neighboring land of Midian, where he marries, fathers two sons, and lives for years as a shepherd. Thus the first two-thirds of Moses's life take place apart from the people he will eventually lead and transform.

Charismatic Authority

Moses's life turns when God appears to him in a burning bush and calls him to return to Egypt and liberate the Israelites. Moses is flabbergasted: “Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). He doubts his ability to speak and the people's willingness to be led. God promises to aid him, invests him with divine powers, and makes his brother Aaron his mouthpiece. Moses reluctantly agrees, but his skepticism—at least about the Israelites—will prove justified. Returning to Egypt, [Page 1030]Moses wins the Israelites' release after a long contest with Pharaoh. When Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues the departing Israelites, Moses, with God's help, first parts the waters to allow the Israelites to flee and then returns the waters, destroying the Egyptian army. Moses leads the Hebrews to Mount Sinai, where he communes with God for forty days and nights while the people wait below. He descends from the mountain with a new covenant between God and the Israelites and a new conception of their religion, embodied in the Ten Commandments. But in his absence, the people have lost faith and fashioned a new idol, the golden calf. (The role of Aaron, Moses's brother and deputy, in this debacle bears scrutiny, as do his blame-avoiding verbal gymnastics [Exodus 32:1–5 and 21–24].) Moses forcefully suppresses the revolt, killing about three thousand people (Machiavelli, in chapter 6 of The Prince, famously seizes on this episode as a key to understanding the nature of leadership). Moses must also pacify an angry God who considers blotting out the Israelites and starting over—a classic instance of “managing up,” or understanding and exploiting your superior's character, constraints, and goals to obtain the desired results (Exodus 32:9–14; see Gabarro and Kotter 1993). Here as so often, Moses's perseverance stands out: alone in the story, his vision never fades. The Israelites follow Moses through the desert for forty years, suffering hardships, meeting and fighting other peoples, and eventually making their way to the land of Canaan. Again and again during their journey, they doubt Moses's leadership and challenge his authority. His charisma, derived from his unique relationship to God, at first might seem to exempt him from the ordinary troubles of leadership, but a very modern tension lurks in the ancient text. Moses, in many ways an outsider, was imposed on the Israelites by God (or by Moses's own will, as many of the Israelites seem often to fear and suspect). The people's lack of consent repeatedly flares into opposition: “You have gone too far!” Korah tells Moses and Aaron during one of the most serious rebellions: “For all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” (Numbers 16:3). Korah's egalitarian challenge, so palatable in other contexts to modern ears, cannot be tolerated in this story, and Korah and his followers are destroyed by God.

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