The mediator who saw God's back and asked to be blotted out
Moses is the figure under whose name Israel reads its constitution. The five books at the head of the Hebrew Bible are *the Torah of Moses*. The covenant Israel lives under is *the Mosaic covenant*. The face of God Israel has been allowed to know is the face Moses was shown on the mountain. Even four hundred years after Moses' death, the prophets say *as Moses commanded* and Israel knows what they mean.
The narrative arc is severe. Born under Pharaoh's death decree against Hebrew boys, hidden in the bulrushes, drawn out of the water by Pharaoh's daughter, raised in the palace of the king who would kill him. The first deliverance is botched — Moses kills an Egyptian, the Hebrews don't accept him, he flees to Midian for forty years. The call at the burning bush brings him back as an old man with a stuttering mouth. The God who speaks from the fire does not ask him whether he is ready. The God who speaks gives a name — "I AM WHO I AM" — and sends him.
The ten plagues are not a magic contest. They are the systematic dismantling of every Egyptian god by the LORD they thought they had domesticated. Nile turned to blood — the river-god silenced. Darkness over the land for three days — the sun-god deposed. Death of the firstborn — Pharaoh's own divinity broken at the seat of his pride. The Exodus is, in the Hebrew narrative, the moment Israel's God is shown to be the only God who actually rules.
The Sinai covenant is where Moses becomes the mediator. He goes up the mountain. The people stay below. God speaks to Moses; Moses speaks to the people. The arrangement is asked for — the people, terrified at hearing God's voice, beg Moses to be the intermediary (Exodus 20:18–21). Moses agrees. The role becomes permanent. The Torah is dictated to Moses, written by Moses, taught by Moses, enforced by Moses. He is prophet, lawgiver, judge, and priest before there is yet a priesthood.
The scene the Christian tradition has not been able to read past is the intercession after the golden calf. Israel has, while Moses is still on the mountain receiving the Torah, made an idol and worshipped it. The LORD tells Moses he will destroy Israel and start over with Moses' line. Moses refuses. He pleads with God to relent. Then he goes back to the people, sees the calf, breaks the tablets in fury, and grinds the calf to powder. The next day he returns to the mountain and offers himself: "if you will only forgive their sin — but if not, please blot me out of the book that you have written." (Exodus 32:32) The mediator offers to be erased so the people can live.
The Hebrews-reading Christian tradition sees in Moses the figure Christ exceeds and fulfills. Christ is also a mediator. Christ also offers himself for the people. Christ's mediation is not declined. The Mosaic covenant gives the law; the new covenant gives the law written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Moses' face shines after meeting God but he veils it; Christ's face shines on the mount of Transfiguration and is not hidden (2 Corinthians 3:7–18). Moses sees God's back; Christ sees the Father.
Moses dies outside the land. He sees Canaan from Mount Nebo and is not allowed to enter. The reason — striking the rock instead of speaking to it (Numbers 20:8–12) — has been read as severe, and it is. The mediator under the old covenant cannot finally deliver the people into the rest the covenant pointed toward. Joshua leads them in. Joshua's Hebrew name is *Yeshua* — *Jesus*. The typology is patient and obvious.
Related entries: Sinai (Horeb), The Exodus, Tablets of the Testimony