Moses (Heb. Môsheh; LXX. and Vulgate, Môÿses), the great lawgiver and judge, under whose leadership Israel first began to be a nation. The whole subsequent course of Hebrew history and literature bears witness to the greatness of his fame and influence; but the details of his life preserved in that literature, though sometimes very minute, are not, as a whole, very full or satisfying. This was felt to be the case even when it was believed that the so-called 'Books of Moses' were written by him, and, therefore, so far autobiographical; and now that the Pentateuch (q.v.), or rather Hexateuch, is held not to have taken its present form till at least 800 years after his death, and the historical traditions which it embodies are seen to be of various dates and to represent various phases of growth, the outline of his life and character has become dimmer than ever. He still remains, nevertheless, a great historical figure. If we adopt the now very generally accepted belief that Meneptah or Merienptah was the Pharaoh of the Exodus (see EGYPT, Vol. IV. p. 240), Moses was born in the first half of the 14th century B.C. At the time of his birth the 'children of Israel' (B'ne Israel) were a pastoral people who had long dwelt on the eastern fringe of the Nile delta, where it begins to merge into the Arabian desert. His name—for which a Hebrew interpretation ('drawn;') the verb is the same as in Psalms, xviii. 16) is offered in Exodus, ii. 10—is now generally supposed to be really of Egyptian origin (perhaps mes or messu, 'son,' 'child'). His life divides itself into three periods of forty years each (a definite for an indefinite number), during two of which he had long and intimate experience, first of the civilised life of Egypt, and afterwards of the simple nomadic life of the desert. Ultimately he became the acknowledged leader of Israel in the movement for civil and religious freedom which led to the Exodus. Thenceforward the scenes of his activity were principally Sinai, 'the Olympus of the Hebrew peoples,' En-Mishpat or Kadesh (Gen. xiv. 7), a locality of which the site is not certainly known, and the plains of Moab to the east of Jordan. The greater part of the time was no doubt passed at Kadesh, which seems to have long been the national headquarters. Here his energy and force of character, combined with a conciliatory meekness (Numb. xii. 3) which has become proverbial, enabled him to establish the beginnings of the national organisation on an enduring basis. At the foundation of the commonwealth as outlined by him lay the theocratic idea, and the faith which had for its formula 'Jehovah is the God of Israel, and Israel is the people of Jehovah.' Although there is evidence that the name Jehovah was not unknown in pre-Mosaic times, it was not until now that it became a national watchword. Among the religious institutions possessed by Israel were some which their forefathers had carried with them in their early migrations from Chaldea, and others that had been more recently acquired in Egypt. To the former class belonged the fundamental institution of sacrifice, and also, possibly, that of the Sabbath; on the other hand it seems probable that the ideas connected with an ark and a separate priesthood had the later origin. The practices resting on these Moses, as a 'prophet,' extended, regulated, and reformed. It was as a member of the priestly caste (he belonged to the tribe of Levi) that at the sanctuary and oracle of Jehovah at the 'Well of Judgment' (En-Mishpat) he exercised the functions of law-maker and judge, and so laid the foundations of that 'Torah'—i.e. 'instruction' or 'law'—which, handed on by oral tradition and enriched by ever-broadening precedents, ultimately passed into writing in more than one form as the 'Mosaic legislation.' It does not appear that writing was much used in these early days; and most modern critics are agreed that the historical portions, as well as almost all the legislative documents, of the Pentateuch belong to a much later time. The poetical compositions which are attributed to Moses—the so-called 'Song of Moses' (Deut. xxxii.) and Psalm xc.—also give internal evidence of more recent authorship.
After the close of the Old Testament canon Jewish tradition still busied itself about the story of Moses; some of its later additions have been preserved in the writings of Philo and Josephus (cf. Acts, vii. 22), and many more in the Palestinian Targum on Exodus. For a good popular study of the life of Moses, see Rawlinson's Moses: his Life and Times (1887). A more critical point of view is represented in Wellhausen's History of Israel (1885), pp. 429-440; Reuss's Geschichte des Alten Testaments (2d ed. 1890); Renan's Histoire du Peuple d'Israël (vol. i. 1887; Eng. trans. 1887); and Kittel's Geschichte der Hebräer (1888). Ample references to the literature of the subject are given by Reuss.