Moses משה רבנו
prophet, leader of the Exodus, who received the Torah at Sinai
Moshe was born in 2368, at the height of the decree against infants, was drawn from the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter and raised in the palace. Going out "to his brothers", he saw a beating and killed an Egyptian; he fled to Midian, married Tzipporah daughter of Yitro, and herded sheep for forty years.
At Chorev he sees the bush that burns without being consumed and receives a mission he refuses three times. In 2447 he returns to Egypt; after ten plagues he leads the people out in 2448. The sea, Sinai, forty days on the mountain, the shattered tablets after the golden calf, the second tablets on Yom Kippur, the Mishkan.
For forty years he leads a stubborn people, pleading for them again and again. For striking the rock instead of speaking to it he is denied entry to the Land. His final speeches become the book of Devarim.
He died on 7 Adar 2488, aged 120, on Mount Nevo, and no one knows his burial place. With him the chain of Torah transmission begins.
Chain of transmission
Moses → Joshua
On the timeline
Places
Related
Sources
Tanakh
- Bamidbar — the forty years of the journey: the spies, Korach, the waters of Merivah
- Devarim 34 — the death on Mount Nevo; “no prophet has arisen since like Moshe”
- Shemot 2–40 — the basket, the burning bush, the plagues, Sinai, the calf, the Mishkan
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Mishnah Avot 1:1 — “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai” — the beginning of the chain of transmission
- Sotah 12a–14a — the birth, the rescue, the humility, and the burial
Basis: stated in the Tanakh.