Moh´zis
The first and preeminent leader of the Israelites, who led the people out of Egypt to the threshold of the promised land; he is also the lawgiver and the archetypical prophet. He is the dominant individual character in the OT narrative from Exodus through Deuteronomy. Accounts there tell of his birth to a Hebrew slave in Egypt, his remarkable deliverance from the slaughter of infants under Pharaoh, his subsequent divine call (in an incident involving a burning bush), his confrontations with Pharaoh demanding the release of the Israelites from slavery, his leadership of the people in the exodus and subsequent wilderness wanderings, and his role as the great lawgiver in mediating the covenant between God and Israel at Mt. Sinai. In the NT Moses is mentioned principally in this latter context, in connection with the law (
