The respect of Moses in Hebrews
What does Hebrews think of Moses?
Many scholars think Hebrews “conforms” (e.g. D’Angelo), “converts” (e.g. Eisenbaum), or “criticizes” (e.g. Dunnill) him. Moffitt doesn’t. He suggests, rather, that Hebrews “respects”1 Moses, and makes him a “central model” and an “authoritative paradigm”2 for his understanding of Jesus and his salvific work.
In other words, Hebrews doesn’t project its understanding of Jesus back onto Moses, but explores the Scriptural presentation of Moses in order to understand Jesus. (Yesterday’s post began with Moffitt’s distinction between metaphor, which this isn’t, and analogy, which, again, this is.)
Here come some great observations about Moses in Hebrews, none of them mine:
First, at 2:5-9, Hebrews mentions a human figure being exalted above the angels, citing Psalm 8. This figure is named “Jesus” at 2:9 but, until then, the text recalls a tradition from Second Temple and rabbinic texts that, in ascending Sinai, Moses had, in fact, been elevated beyond the angels. Neat.
Then, more obviously, in ch. 3-4 Hebrews describes the general work of Moses and Jesus according to the same pattern:
M/J protected God’s people from a Destroyer;
M/J liberated God’s people from their slavery;
M/J led God’s people in the wilderness to worship their God; and
M/J brought God’s people to the edge of their inheritance.
But here’s some new juice: For one, Hebrews mentions the Passover one time, at 11:28, stating that Moses “performed the Passover and the aspersion of blood” so that “the one who destroys the firstborn” (ho olothreuōn ta prōtotoka) would not touch the people of Israel.
Notice that Moses’s performance of the Passover holds the Destroyer (ho olothreuōn) at bay.
What the Passover does
First, Moses’s.
There’s a tradition, from Jubilees, which retells the Genesis-Exodus narrative with a twist (It’s amazing. Read it.), which identifies the Destroyer as Mastemah, the leader of destroying spirits and the chief spiritual enemy of God’s people. Jubilees describes Mastemah as controlling a demonic horde that inspires idolatry, motivates Pharaoh to oppose Israel, and is ultimately sent to kill the firstborns: “All the forces of Mastemah were sent to kill every first-born in the land of Egypt—from the pharaoh’s first-born to the first-born of the captive slave-girl at the millstone and to the cattle as well” (Jub. 49:2).
This demonstrates a tradition that Moses’s performance of the first Passover effected both a permanent liberation from Pharaoh a temporary release from the dominion of Mastemah, who was at work in Pharaoh.
Now, Jesus’s.
At 2:14-15, Hebrews says that through his death, Jesus “destroyed the one having the power of death, that is, the devil, setting them free…” Then, at 12:23, Hebrews draws on Moses’s Passover again to identify them as “the congregation of the firstborn” (ekklēsia prōtotokōn). Jesus’s death leads the same people—the congregation of the firstborn—out of slavery to the same power—the Destroying spirit, Satan, Death, Mastemah.
Here’s a block quote from Moffitt, offering summary:
Jesus’s liberating work in Hebrews 2:14-16 is modeled on Moses’s key role in liberating God’s people from slavery (cf. Heb. 3:16). The figure of Moses is, therefore, central to the claim that Jesus defeated the Devil, for it was Moses who defeated the Destroyer when, by faith, he manipulated the blood at the first Passover. This conclusion not only sheds fresh light on the meaning and logic of the emancipation Jesus has effected in Hebrews 2:14-16, but also implies that the author respects the role of Moses in the Passover and the exodus. Moses’s performance of the Passover and his role as liberator of the people are not being critiqued, downplayed, or made to conform to Jesus. Rather, the author draws upon Moses’s act of blood manipulation at the first Passover and his leading the people into the wilderness to explain something about who Jesus is and how his death is salvific.3
These discoveries about Hebrews’s respect not only for Moses, the person, but also for the Pentateuch’s witness to Moses, and the Jewish exegetical traditions which developed that figure, offer Christian Bible readers an important lesson:
You don’t have to wade tentatively into the Old Testament’s foreign logics and systems, projecting the set list of things you already know about him, finding only the Easter eggs you’ve hidden yourself.
You can actually read the Old Testament to discover new things about Jesus. That’s what Hebrews did.
David Moffitt, Rethinking the Atonement: New Perspectives on Jesus’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension (Baker, 2022), 11.
Moffitt, 25.
Moffitt, 24.