The Jewish Commentaries, seeking to fill some of the gaps in the biblical story, suggest that, after Moses flight into exile, he became a mercenary (Polano c1876, 135-137). This tradition suggests Moses joined the army of Kikanus, a deposed king of ‘Ethiopia’ who was fighting to regain his city. After the kings death, Moses was appointed in his place and succeeded in regaining the city where his predecessor had failed. He then secured his title by taking Kikanus’ widow as his wife, though in name only. When the Assyrians then rebelled against the Ethiopians, Moses crushed the rebellion and reimposed tribute. However, when the queen queried whether it was right for Moses’ to rule instead of a son of Kikanus, Moses voluntarily stepped down. Only then did he travel to Midian.
This story is typical of Judaism’s commentaries’ tendency to fill in gaps or suggest back stories for minor points in the Biblical text. Such unsubstantiated traditions were widely enough known for Matthew’s Gospel to allude to the Talmud’s traditions surrounding the birth of Moses in the telling of Jesus nativity.
Moses is Judaism’s foundational prophet.
The Bible portrays
his birth amidst a time of persecution. After miraculously surviving an
official Egyptian policy of massacring Israeli babies, he was equally
miraculously raised within an anonymous Pharaoh’s household. After
killing
of an Egyptian for harming an Israelite, he was forced to flee from
Egypt. He then lived in exile as part of a priestly family in Midian
where he
served as a shepherd.
Forty years later God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and sent him back to Egypt to deliver his people, in accord with a promise God had given several hundred years earlier. Accompanied by his brother, Aaron, and armed with three supernatural signs, Moses traveled back to Egypt to order the Pharaoh to release the Israelites. The Pharaoh’s unwillingness to release these valuable slaves then led to further spiritual signs in the form of catastrophic events. As these escalated, they increasingly affected only the Egyptians but not the Hebrews amongst them. The matter came to a head with the first Passover and the miraculous crossing of a body of water (precisely which is the subject of much debate).
On reaching Mount Sinai, Moses established a covenant with God, organised the Israelites into a nomadic nation and established a legal system for them. After a failed attempt to return to Canaan, the land from whence they had come, Moses then led them for forty years as they travelled through the wilderness. He died shortly before Israel achieved their objective of a return to Canaan.