that the ancestors of the
Israelites were worshippers of Jehovah? Is it not probable that
Moses fled to the nomadic Midianites not only because they were
kinsmen but because they were also worshippers of Jehovah?

In any case Moses' life in Midian tended to intensify his faith in
Jehovah. The title of his father-in-law implies that this priest
ministered at some wilderness sanctuary. In the light of the
subsequent Biblical narrative was this possibly at the sacred
spring of Kadesh or on the top of the holy mountain Horeb
(elsewhere called Sinai) where Kenites and Hebrews believed that
Jehovah dwelt, or at least manifested himself? Moses, in the home
of the Midian priest, was brought into direct and constant contact
with the Jehovah worship. The cruel fate of his people and the
painful experience in Egypt that had driven him into the wilderness
prepared his mind to receive this training. His quest was for a
just and strong God, able to deliver the oppressed. The wilderness
with its lurking foes and the ever-present dread of hunger and
thirst, deepened his sense of need and of dependence upon a power
able to guide the destinies of men. The peasants of the vast
Antolian plain in central Asia Minor still call every life-giving
spring, "God hath given." The constant necessity of meeting the
dangers of the wilderness and of defending the flocks entrusted to
Moses' care developed his courage and power of leadership and
action. What other great leaders of Israel were trained in this
same school? What was the effect of their wilderness life upon the
early New England pioneers?

IV.

MOSES' CALL TO PUBLIC SERVICE.

The solitude of the wilderness gave Moses ample opportunity for
profound reflection. His previous experiences made such reflection
natural, indeed inevitable. Borne by the caravans over the great
highway from the land of the Nile or from desert tribe to tribe
came occasional reports of the cruel injustice to which his kinsmen
in Egypt were subjected. In these reports he recognized the divine
call to duty. When perhaps at last the report came that the mighty
despot Ramses II was dead, Moses like his later successor Isaiah
(Is. 6) saw that the moment had come for decision and action.

It looks to many scholars as if three originally distinct versions
of Moses' call have been welded together in the narrative of Exodus
3, 4 and 6. Each differs in regard to detail (Hist. Bible I,
161-5). Accordin