Just BibleThe Life of Moses in 14 Days
Moses stands at the center of the Old Testament, and he is one of its most human figures: a rescued baby, a prince who killed a man, a shepherd who argued with God, a leader who carried a complaining people for forty years. These readings follow his life from Exodus to the last chapter of Deuteronomy, and end on another mountain, where he appears again, talking with Jesus.
- Day 1: Drawn Out of the Water
A new king fears Israel and orders every Hebrew son thrown into the Nile. Moses is saved by the courage of women: two midwives who fear God, a mother who hides him, a sister who watches, and the king's own daughter. Notice that the river meant for his death is where his rescue begins.
- Day 2: A Foreigner in a Foreign Land
Moses grows up in Pharaoh's house, goes out to see his own people, and tries to rescue one by killing an Egyptian. It fails, and he runs to Midian and names his son for how he feels: a foreigner in a foreign land. The chapter ends with a quiet turn: God heard, remembered, saw, and took notice.
- Day 3: The Burning Bush
Years later Moses is keeping his father-in-law's sheep when a bush burns without burning up, and God sends him back to Pharaoh. Moses asks, who am I? God never answers that question. He says I will surely be with you, and then gives His name: I AM WHO I AM.
- Day 4: Please, Send Someone Else
Moses runs through his objections, and God answers each one with a sign or a promise: who gave man his mouth? Still Moses asks Him to send someone else. God is angry, and sends him anyway, with his brother Aaron to speak for him.
- Day 5: Who Is the LORD?
Moses finally stands before Pharaoh, and Pharaoh answers with a question and more work: bricks without straw. The people blame Moses, and Moses takes it to God: why did You send me? God answers with promises (I will bring you out, I will redeem you, I will take you as My own people), spoken to people whose spirits are too broken to listen yet.
- Day 6: Let My People Go
Two of the ten plagues: the Nile turned to blood, and the hail. God says why He sends them: so that you may know there is no one like Me in all the earth. Watch Pharaoh, who says I have sinned while the thunder is loud and hardens his heart again as soon as it stops.
- Day 7: When I See the Blood
The last plague comes with a way of escape: a lamb for each household, and its blood on the doorframe. At midnight there is no Egyptian house without someone dead, and by morning Israel is walking out after 430 years. The New Testament calls Christ our Passover lamb, and He died at this feast.
- Day 8: The LORD Will Fight for You
Trapped between an army and the sea, the people turn on Moses. His answer is one of the great sentences of faith: the LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. Then God tells him to lift his staff and go forward, and the people walk through on dry ground and sing.
- Day 9: Bread From Heaven
A month out of Egypt the people already miss it, and God answers their grumbling with bread from heaven, enough for each day and no more. Then a battle is won while Moses holds up his hands, and lost when he lowers them, until Aaron and Hur hold them up for him. Even Moses cannot do this alone.
- Day 10: Into the Thick Darkness
At Sinai the mountain shakes, the people tremble and stand at a distance, and Moses goes up into the thick darkness where God was. Between the first two readings God speaks the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17). Then Moses stays on the mountain forty days and forty nights, while the people wait below.
- Day 11: The Golden Calf
While Moses is on the mountain, the people make a golden calf, and Aaron builds its altar. God offers to start over with Moses alone, and Moses refuses: he pleads for the people, and later asks to be blotted out of God's book if they cannot be forgiven. Watch both sides of Moses here, the anger that breaks the tablets and the love that will not give up on them.
- Day 12: Show Me Your Glory
The LORD speaks to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend, and Moses asks for more: show me Your glory. God hides him in the rock, passes by, and proclaims His name: compassionate and gracious, slow to anger. Moses comes down with a shining face and does not know it.
- Day 13: Forty Years in the Wilderness
At the edge of the land the people refuse to go in and talk of choosing a leader to take them back to Egypt. Moses prays for them again, in the words God spoke on the mountain, and God pardons them, but that generation will not see the land. Years later, at Meribah, Moses strikes the rock he was told to speak to, and learns that he will not bring them in either.
- Day 14: A Prophet Like Moses
From Mount Nebo God shows Moses the land he will not enter, and he dies there; no prophet has risen like him since. Moses had promised one would: a prophet like me, and you must listen to him. Centuries later Moses stands on a mountain in the land after all, talking with Jesus about the departure He will accomplish at Jerusalem, and a voice from the cloud says: Listen to Him!