Moses, the Educator

I’ve been contemplating (musing) on the life of Moses which covered 12 decades:  four in a palace, four shepherding, and four leading God’s people. You remember that the two year trip turned into 40 years due to the rebellion of the majority as they listened to men rather than to God (a warning to us?).  God put His people in timeout that He might raise up another generation to use as His discipline tool to punish the Amorites for their gross sinning (Gen 15:16).

So, for those 38 years, what was Moses doing?  Writing and teaching!  He was God’s great Educator.  He was tasked with educating a nation of illiterates who had for generations been slaves.  He had duty to organize them militarily, judicially (courts), religiously, socially (by tribes) AND to educate them!  I can imagine Moses laboring on manuscripts as God moved him to write which became the first five books of our Bible.  Consider:

Mark 12:26, …have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage,

John 5:46-47, For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 

Romans 10:5, For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law

Moses writes this himself:

Deuteronomy 31:9, So Moses wrote this law and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the elders of Israel.

31:24-26, So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished, that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying: “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you;”

[What God wrote (Exodus 34:1) was carried inside the Ark placed in the Holiest – thus called the Ark of the Covenant – the Ark of the Testimony (Exodus 40:20)].  Moses’ writings were extremely important -inspired by God Himself – so to be cherished and protected thus kept in a most special place beside the Ark.  God’s Word – WOW!  Do we understand what we have in the Bible?

Moses was a headmaster guiding teachers:

31:10, And Moses commanded them… 11, when all Israel comes to appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing… 31:12, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the Lord your God and carefully observe all the words of this law.

Then there was Moses as a musician – a music teacher/leader:

31:19, “Now therefore, write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel.

31:22, Therefore Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel.

32:1-2, “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew,
As raindrops on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass.”

And Moses’ education?  The best!  Consider:

Stephen says this of Moses during his four decades in Egypt:  Acts 7:21-22, But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son.  And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds. 

God prepared His educator with a world-class education!  Moses used that for decades and since his work was inspired and part of the Bible, he is even used by God to educate us today.