The solitude of the wilderness gave Moses ample opportunity for
profound reflection. His previous experiences made such reflection
natural, indeed inevitable. Borne by the caravans over the great
highway from the land of the Nile or from desert tribe to tribe
came occasional reports of the cruel injustice to which his kinsmen
in Egypt were subjected. In these reports he recognized the divine
call to duty. When perhaps at last the report came that the mighty
despot Ramses II was dead, Moses like his later successor Isaiah
(Is. 6) saw that the moment had come for decision and action.
It looks to many scholars as if three originally distinct versions
of Moses' call have been welded together in the narrative of Exodus
3, 4 and 6. Each differs in regard to detail (Hist. Bible I,
161-5). According to the early Judean prophetic account Jehovah
spoke audibly to Moses from the flaming thorn bush. In the
Northern Israelite version the moment of decision came to him as he
stood with his flock on the sacred mountain Horeb. Like Isaiah in
his memorable vision of Jehovah's presence, the inner consciousness
of God and the compelling sense of duty led him to cry out: "Here
am I." Likewise in the late priestly story God's presence and
character were so deeply impressed upon him that he seemed to bear
an audible voice, according to the view of those who accept this
interpretation, even though the later priests believed and taught
that God was a spirit, not like man clothed in flesh and blood.
Thus the different groups of Hebrew narratives in their
characteristic way record the essential facts in Moses' call to
public service. Each has preserved certain important elements in
that call, and the late editor has done well to combine them. Even
as Isaiah caught his supreme vision of Jehovah and of duty in the
temple, so to Moses the prophetic call probably came on the lofty
heights of the mountain in which he, in common with the Kenites,
believed God dwelt. The wilderness with its flaming bush spoke to
him God's message. Recent writers have felt and forcibly
interpreted the fascination and the message of the desert and
plain, none more vividly than the Welsh writer Rhoscomyl in
describing the experience of one of his rough, self-reliant cowboy
heroes:
"Two days ago he was riding back, alone, in the afternoon, from an
unsuccessful search after strayed horses, and suddenly, all in the
lifting of a hoof, the weird prairie had gleamed into eerie life,
had dropped the veil and spoken to him; while the breeze stopped,
and the sun stood still for a flash in waiting for his answer. And
he, his heart in a grip of ice, the frozen flesh a-crawl with
terror upon his loosened bones, white-lipped and wide-eyed with
frantic fear, uttered a yell of horror as he dashed the spurs into
his panic-stricken horse, in a mad endeavor to escape from the
Awful Presence that filled all earth and sky from edge to edge of
vision.
"Then almost in the same flash, the unearthly light died out of the
dim prairie, the veil swept across into place again; and he managed
to check his wild flight, and look about him. His empty lips were
gibbering without a sound escaping them, and his very heart
shivered with cold, for all the brassy heat of the day. But the
breeze was wandering on again; under the great sun the prairie
spread dim to the southwest, and tawny to the northeast; only
between his own loose knees the horse trembled in every limb, and
mumbled the bit with dry mouth. All was as before in earth and
sky, apparently, but not in his own self. It was as if his spirit
stood apart from him, putting questions which he could not answer,
and demanding judgment upon problems which he dare not reason out.
"Then he remembered what this thing was which had happened. The
prairie had spoken to him, as sooner or later it spoke to most men
that rode it. It was a something well known amongst them, but
known without words, and as by a subtle instinct, for no man who
had experienced it ever spoke willingly about it afterwards. Only
the man would be changed; some began to be more reckless, as if a
dumb blasphemy rankled hidden in their breasts. Others, coming
with greater strength perhaps to the ordeal, became quieter,
looking squarely at any danger as they face it, but continuing
ahead as though quietly confident that nothing happened save as the
gods ordained."
The motive power in all of Moses' later work was that transforming,
vivid sense of Jehovah's presence that came to him on the barren
mountain peak.
Also fundamental to his call was the recognition of the crying need
of his disorganized, oppressed kinsmen in Egypt. This appealed to
all the instincts begotten by his shepherd training; for they were
a shepherdless flock in the midst of wolves. Through the ages the
inhabitants of the parched, stony wilderness had looked with hungry
eyes upon the tree-clad hills and green fields of Palestine. The
early traditions of his ancestors also glorified this paradise of
the wilderness wanderer and led Moses to look to it as the haven of
refuge to which he might lead his helpless kinsmen. Vividly and
concretely the ancient narrative tells of the struggle in the mind
of Moses between his own diffidence and consciousness of his
limitations on the one side and on the other his sense of duty and
the realization of Jehovah's power to accomplish what seemed to man
miraculous. Was Moses' inner experience like that of the other
great Hebrew prophets? Who? Like that of Jesus? Does every man
who undertakes a great service for humanity to-day pass through a
somewhat similar struggle? How about Grant on leaving his home at
Galena, Illinois? Lincoln at the great crisis of his life?