Moses
The Christmas ball represents a figure of Moses and it is a part of an educational bauble figurine collection called “Old Testament”. It is designed to be hung on a Christmas Tree or exposed on a display stand. Moses is presented with the Tables of the Law, a staff, and a snake.
Attributes
The Tables
of the Law
The Tables of the Law that included the Ten Commandments were given to Moses by God himself at Mount Sinai.
A staff
The staff was a tool that Moses used to work miracles with. It changed into a snake, it made the Red Sea part its waters, and it made water spurt out of a rock.
A snake
The snake symbolises the disobedience of the Israelites which was punished with the plague of snakes but Moses fought the plague by making a copper statue of a snake.
What do we remember from the life of Moses:
- To save him from death, the mother placed him in the basket and concealed it by the riverbank where he was discovered by the Pharaoh’s daughter.
- Despite being raised in the royal family, he had to flee from home after he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew.
- God appeared to Moses as a burning bush and commanded him to led Israelites out of Egypt.
- Moses demanded freedom for his people by sending the ten plagues down on Egypt.
- He led Israelites chased by Pharaoh across the Red Sea which had parted its waters for them.
- For forty years he was wandering together with his people through the desert.
- He received from God the Ten Commandments and placed the stone tablets in the Ark of the Covenant.
- He many times interceded with God on behalf of ungrateful Israelites to save them from God’s wrath.
- He was an author of the first collection of laws for the Hebrews.
- He brought his people to the Promised Land, but he died before he could enter it.
The name Moses most probably means “child of the water” and refers to the story of the Pharaoh’s daughter who had found Moses in the Nile River and adopted him.
The Catholic Church relates to Moses in the Liturgy of the Word many times during a year.
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush and commanded him to led Israelites out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.
Moses could use the ten plagues for this purpose so he sent them one by one down on Egypt. Only after the last one- the death of the firstborns- the Pharaoh agreed to free the Hebrews.
The Pharaoh quickly regretted his decision and ordered a chase.
Then Moses led his people across the Red Sea. Its waters had parted before Israelites so they could cross but they drowned the Egyptians.
Despite many miracles like getting manna from heaven or water from the stone, the Hebrews did not trust Moses or God.
They were punished for their defiance- instead of forty days, the journey to the Promised Land lasted forty years.
What does the Bible tell us about Moses:
Moses was saved by two women- his mother and the Pharaoh’s daughter: “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.
His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.
Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank.
She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it.
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.” [Exodus 2, 3-6]
For the first time God appeared to Moses in the form of the burning bush: “There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.
Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.”
[Exodus 3,2]
Moses sent the ten plagues down on Egypt: “So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt.
Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.” [Exodus 11, 4-5]
He safely led his people across the Red Sea: “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, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.” [Exodus 14, 21-22].
He received the Tables of the Law with the Decalogue from God: “And the Lord said to Moses: “Come to me, to the mountain and stay there, and I shall give you the stone tablets with the laws and principles I wrote to teach them”.
He many times interceded with God on behalf of the Israelites to save them from God’s wrath: “But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?” [Exodus 32,11]
For his lack of faith he was punished with an inability to enter the Promised Land: “Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’
’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” [Deuteronomy 34,4]
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