n, entrusting him to his
own mother to nurse, by which circumstance he was preserved
from being entirely separated from his own people. He was
probably educated at the Egyptian court, where he became
"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." At the age of
forty years Moses conceived the idea of freeing his Hebrew
brethren from their bondage in Egypt, and on one occasion,
seeing an Egyptian maltreating an Israelite, he interfered,
slew the Egyptian, and buried him in the sand. The next day,
upon his attempting to reconcile two Hebrews who had
quarrelled, his services were scornfully rejected, and he was
upbraided with the murder of the Egyptian. Finding that his
secret was known, he fled from Egypt, and took refuge with a
tribe of Midianites in Arabia Petraea, among whom he lived as a
shepherd forty years, having married the daughter of their
priest Jethro or Reuel.

As Moses led his father-in-law's flocks in the desert of Sinai,
God appeared to him at Mount Horeb in a bush which burnt with
fire, but was not consumed, and commanded him to return to
Egypt and lead out his people thence into the land of Canaan.
On his arrival in Egypt, the Israelites accepted him as their
deliverer and after bringing ten miraculous plagues upon the
land of Egypt before he could gain Pharaoh's consent to the
departure of the people, he led them out through the Red Sea,
which was miraculously divided for their passage, into the
peninsula of Sinai. While the people were encamped at the foot
of Sinai, God delivered to them through Moses the law which,
with some additions and alterations, was ever after observed as
their national code. After leading the Israelites through the
wilderness for forty years, Moses appointed Joshua as his
successor in the command over them, and died at the age of one
hundred and twenty years, on Mount Pisgah, on the east side of
the River Jordan, having first been permitted to view the land
of Canaan from its summit. God buried him in the valley of
Bethpeor, in the land of Moab, but his tomb was never made
known.]

To lead into freedom a people long crushed by tyranny; to discipline and
order such a mi