Moses was born to Hebrew parents in Egypt during Pharaoh's edict to drown every Hebrew male child. Hidden three months, set in a basket of bulrushes on the Nile, he was found and raised by Pharaoh's daughter. He grew up in the Egyptian court but, seeing an Egyptian beat a Hebrew, killed the Egyptian and fled into the wilderness of Midian. There he married Zipporah and tended the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro.
At Mount Horeb the Lord appeared to him in the Burning Bush, revealing His Name — 'I AM WHO AM' — and commissioning him to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. With his brother Aaron as spokesman he stood before Pharaoh; through the ten plagues, the institution of the Passover, the parting of the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law on Sinai, he became the central figure of the Old Covenant.
Forty years he led the people through the wilderness — the manna, the water from the rock, the bronze serpent. Because of a single failure at Meribah he was not permitted to enter the Promised Land. From the summit of Mount Nebo he saw the whole land. He died there at one hundred twenty, and the Lord buried him in a valley in Moab; 'no man knoweth of his sepulchre to this day' (Deut 34:6).
On Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Christ, Moses appeared together with Elijah in glory and 'spoke of His exodus that He was to fulfill at Jerusalem' (Lk 9:31).