In the desert, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush on Mount Horeb (also known as Mount Sinai) and commissioned him to return to Egypt, deliver the Hebrews, and bring them back to this very mountain…After the spectacular escape from Egypt, Moses, by God’s leading, brought the people to Mount Sinai. There God established a covenant with them (Ex. 19), and He gave them his law…Moses was the greatest of the prophets of Israel…Most importantly, the life of Moses was a type or pointer to the Messiah who was to come.   

What’s in a name? In ancient Near Eastern cultures, the name of a person can carry significant weight. It can reflect an attribute of a person’s character, or it can be a key to understanding a person’s identity, or it can anticipate what a person might become. In Genesis 17:4–5, for example, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham: He was “exalted father” (Abram), but he will now be known as “father of a multitude” (Abraham). This name change reflects his new position in the covenant as the patriarchal father of the people of God. In biblical narrative, an incident of naming can be a noteworthy factor in the proper interpretation of a passage.

Another good example of this principle at work is in the birth account of Moses. After Pharaoh’s daughter rescued him from certain death in the Nile River, we read in Exodus 2:10 that “he became her son. She named him Moses, ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I drew him out of the water.’” The name Moses derives from a Hebrew verb that means “to draw out,” and so the name echoes the act of Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing the child from the Nile.

However, there is more to the account than meets the eye. The name Moses is also an Egyptian term that means “son of.” It appears in compound with other words in many Egyptian names, such as Thutmosis (“son of the god Thut”) or Ahmosis (“son of the god Ah”). When the Bible speaks of Moses, however, the genitive has no object; it simply means “son of” and, therefore, there is no designated relationship. This is probably a pun to emphasize that it was not clear at his birth whose son Moses really was. Was he the son of Pharaoh’s daughter? Was he a son of Egypt? Was he a son of Israel? Was he a son of Yahweh? What was his identity?

A Deliverer

At the time of Moses’ birth, the people of Israel had been under severe bondage for centuries. They needed a deliverer, one who would rescue them from their ruthless slavery. God responded by raising up a deliverer who was in the very court of Pharaoh. In the book of Acts, Stephen says that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22).

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