Moses and Jesus: A Divine Parallel in Redemption
I am grateful to discover Matthew in my read through the Bible plan today! While I am now in Deuteronomy and will finish the story of Moses in the next couple of weeks, I think it might be helpful to review Matthew’s presentation of Jesus against the story of Moses.
Bible scholars generally agree that Mathew’s gospel was written in a way to help Jewish readers connect with how Jesus fulfills the promises of the Old Testament about the Messiah who was to come. In the very first verse of this gospel, Matthew opens with this statement concerning the genealogy of Jesus as the son of David and the son of Abraham.
Throughout Matthew’s gospel there are images that help us see how the writer is connecting the similarities of Moses and Jesus. I will list a few of these connections and the historical similarities of the time period that both appeared on earth.
While not exactly the same, we should note that Moses came onto the scene toward the end of the 400 years of slavery the Hebrews experienced in Egypt. Sixty-three years before Christ was born, the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem. Jesus was on the earth for about 33 years before his death, burial, and resurrection. This means that Rome had oppressed the Jewish people for nearly a century when Jesus began his public ministry and began to teach about the kingdom of God.
The birth narratives of Moses and Jesus have some similarities as well. While the birth of Jesus was of immaculate conception, we do see that there was also divine intervention in the birth and early childhood of Moses. Moses is unique in being placed in a basket in the Nile River, discovered by a servant of Pharaoh’s daughter, weaned by his biological mother, and then raised in Pharaoh’s family. That was certainly not a coincidence but planned by the almighty God who was, and is always, weaving his grand story through his children on earth.
There are other similarities in that Pharaoh had Jewish male babies killed, as did Herod when he heard that a king was to be born in Bethlehem. And of course, we can make note of Moses fleeing Egypt and Mary and Joseph fleeing to Egypt and then back again later at the direction of God.
Matthew wrote in a way that the Jewish audience would automatically connect the teachings of the old covenant that Moses delivered to the new covenant that Jesus was establishing.
We can see God’s divine deliverance and renewal of all things weaved through the entire 66 books of the Bible. And in some unique way each book helps us see Jesus with fresh eyes. Just as Matthew was a Hebrew and wrote with a Jewish audience in mind, each New Testament writer had a unique way to connect the story of Jesus to an expanding audience so that everyone could see that Jesus came to save us all.
As we weave our way through the Old Testament and the New Testament scriptures this year, look for the thread of redemption and deliverance that is both historical and also working in our lives and in all the world. Every day we move closer to the day when Christ returns and we see how this grand story ends in glory!
Father, I pray that every reader of these devotions will seek to read your word with greater understanding and greater anticipation of how you are alive in your word and alive in our lives by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. We surrender our will to you, that you might use us to show your love to another person, even today, so that they might find Jesus and understand how you want to use their lives for your glory. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Matthew 1:18-25, 2:1-23 ESV
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
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