We don't know when or where they were written or who wrote them. We know very little about the ten commandments. No-one really knows if this is the Mountain of God. Every night of the year, pilgrims and tourists set off in the cool hours of the morning to make the arduous three hour climb to the top. One suggestion is that it's Mount Sinai, the highest peak in the southern desert. The precise location of the Mountain of God has always been a mystery. On the mountain, God appeared to Moses - and changed everyone's lives. Three months into the desert, the Hebrews camped at the foot of the Mountain of God. The book of Exodus says that after crossing the Reed Sea, Moses led the Hebrews into the Sinai, where they spent 40 years wandering in the wildnerness. These laws were the Ten Commandments which were given to Moses on two stone tablets, and they set out the basic principles that would govern the Israelites lives. God declared that the Israelites were his own people and that they must listen to God and obey His laws. There, God appeared to Moses and made an agreement or covenant with him. 600 chariots pursued them, but famously, the waters of the Red Sea parted the Israelites walked through, then the waters returned and destroyed the Pharaoh's army.Īfter travelling through the desert for nearly three months, the Israelites camped before Mount Sinai. The Pharaoh then changed his mind, and sent his army in pursuit of the Israelites. These are the origins of the Jewish Festival: Passover. They had to cook the lamb and eat it that night with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. It was announced that the first-born sons in every household would die, but the sons of the Israelites would be saved if they marked their door posts with the blood of a lamb killed in sacrifice. It was the tenth plague - the plague of the firstborn - which eventually persuaded the Pharaoh to let them go. God then gave Moses special powers and inspired by this, Moses returned to Egypt and demanded freedom for his people.Īt first, the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites leave, then God unleashed 10 plagues on the Egyptians.
Moses was at first reluctant, thinking that the Israelites would not believe he had heard the word of God.
God asked Moses to lead his people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. One day, when he was in the desert, Moses heard the voice of God speaking to him through a bush which flamed but did not burn. He married Zipporah, the daughter of the Priest of Midian, and worked as a shepherd for forty years. He was driven into exile in the land of Midian. Moses was then forced to flee from the wrath of the Pharaoh. The infant Moses was rescued by the Pharaoh's daughter and brought up in the palace as a royal prince.Īs an adult, Moses reacted against the unfair treatment of his own people and killed an Egyptian guard. In order to escape death, Moses' mother placed him in a basket when he was still a baby and set him adrift on the River Nile. The Bible says that the Israelites asked God for help and that he sent them a leader: Moses. The Egyptians began to see them as a threat and tightened their control on them, forcing them to work as slaves.Įventually, in an attempt to reduce their numbers, newborn Israelite babies were drowned in the River Nile. Most scholars date the beginning of Judaism as an organised and structured religion to this time.Īccording to the Bible, the descendants of Jacob had lived in Egypt for more than 450 years, during which time they grew into a nation: the nation of Israel. But there are actually 613 commandments covering every aspect of life including law, family, and personal hygiene and diet. The most famous of these commandments are the Ten Commandments.
This is not law in the modern sense but rather authoritative teaching, instruction, or guidance. On behalf of Israel, Moses received torah, traditionally translated 'law'. When they reached a Mount Sinai, in present day Egypt, God spoke to Moses high on the mountain slopes and made a deal (called a covenant) with the Jews that renewed the one he had made with Abraham.Īt the same time, God gave the Jews a set of rules that they should live by. God parted the Red Sea to help them escape and helped them in many other ways. The Jews were helped on their journey by God the same God who'd promised Abraham that he would look after the Jews. The escape of the Jews from Egypt is remembered by Jews every year in the festival of Passover. Moses led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt and led them to the Holy Land that God had promised them. Over a thousand years after Abraham, the Jews were living as slaves in Egypt. Moses is the channel between God and the Hebrews, through whom the Hebrews received a basic charter for living as God's people. The first five books of the Bible are traditionally ascribed to him. One of Judaism's great figures is the man called Moshe Rabbenu ('Moses our teacher') in Hebrew.
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