daily java

Daily Java:

There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. The Lord sent him to perform all the miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, and all his servants, and his entire land. With mighty power, Moses performed terrifying acts in the sight of all Israel. (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

Moses was an anomaly. The Bible says that no one as good as Moses has ever lived nor will ever live. Yet, Moses didn’t want to do what he was doing in the first place. His people were terrified of him, yet they tried at every turn to unseat him from his position of leadership. In many ways, he didn’t care for his people yet he interceded for them time and again when God would be angry enough to destroy them.

He started off in a position that would enable him to be a great leader. Or so he thought. He was in the King’s court in Egypt, the most powerful country in the world at the time. He could have done great things with the Israelites. But God didn’t want an Egyptian leading them. And even though he tried to identify with them, he was still an Egyptian because he had been raised by Pharaoh’s daughter.

He probably looked Egyptian, he sounded Egyptian, all these things. When he came before his people, the Israelites, as far as they could see, he was an Egyptian. And they had grown to hate Egyptians.

When he had to leave Egypt on a murder charge, he hid in Midian, a backward country a long ways from Egypt. Little by little he lost his Egyptian-ness and became a Palestinian. By the time God came to him and told him to go back to Egypt, he was sunburned, dressed roughly and bearded probably like the average Israelite. Gone were all the Egyptian affectations. Now he was like them.

But he was never like them. his relationship to God was one on one. Theirs was through Moses. They kept God at an arm’s distance. All through their life as a nation wandering, it was Moses who fed them, who gave them water, who relayed to them the words of God. It was Moses who was in charge.

And every time someone would challenge Moses’ leadership, even if it were his brother and sister, things ended up badly. People became leprous, fell into cracks in the earth, it seemed the entire universe tilted every time they challenged Moses.

When he told them he was going to die, they didn’t know what to do. So Moses gave them Joshua, Moses’ right hand man. He was the man who accompanied Moses everywhere he went, who assisted Moses, who helped him talk to God. It was he alone, besides Moses, who went up on Mount Sinai to receive the law. God told the rest that if they even touched the base of the mountain, they would die.

Joshua was a man with authority. And since they needed someone strong enough to tell them to shut up, Joshua was it. But as great as Joshua was, he wasn’t Moses.

When Moses died, the human race peaked. Never again would someone like him come along. Even Elijah, who God took up in a flaming chariot so he wouldn’t suffer death, was not spoken of like Moses.

There was a man of power.