Ponder the word humble for a moment.

Scripture tells us that Moses was the most humble man on the earth.
Have you ever given that any consideration.

Many study and use him as  an example of a great leader. How does one equate greatness with humility?

He was raised in Egyptian royalty; Taught to the highest degree; Expected to be of noble character; And, probably arrogant.

Yes, we should all by now be aware that his Jewish family put him in basket, in a river, and watched him float away in an effort to save his life and in a round about way protect him. A scene which evokes humble beginnings, but that scene apparently produced no deep seeded feelings of rejection and seemed to have been the key to who Moses became.

As I write these things I am sure others will perceive my statements as ignorant or unfounded. I on the other hand am annoyed that church people will not read their Bibles, nor, if they do, apply any logical thought to what they read. I would not be logical for someone, having been raised by Queen Victoria, to be rude and ill mannered. I believe that woman would  have seen to it that you were educated, sophisticated, well spoken, introduced to heads of state, and given every advantage and opportunity associated with the royal title. The privileges associated with title would surely be backing anyone which had been raised in the castle, and given the rights to it.
How could Moses have been any different?

Moses had the potential to be full of himself, and he was.
When Moses understood that the slaves of the nation were his ancestral people, he decided to free them himself. I am not clear on how that inclination came to him, but when this process begins he is acting out of his "noble" training. I know, noble training and killing a man may not set well with our thinking, but get real, the Kennedy family has had more than it's fair share of dead people left by the wayside. What prompts them to step outside the boundaries of so called nobility? A broken human nature, Moses was no different.

"When Moses saw the Egyptian abusing the Jew." There is an oddity in that statement, for the Jews were slaves, forced to make bricks, and abused on a daily basis, an acceptable practice for Egyptian slave owners. A scene which Moses had seen many times, but suddenly this is a newly found, yet distant relative. Moses takes a quick look around, thinking that no one is looking, kills the Egyptian, then buries him in the sand. Where did that skill come from?

Moses must have felt that he could do it! What does that mean? Was it within his right?; it does not appear so for he is now running for his life. Was it his training, which you can be sure in a feudal society included hand to hand combat training. When Egypt goes in pursuit of Israel, now crossing the Red Sea, who is leading the charge? Pharaoh, a man trained in combat.

Think about this.
Don't you find it odd the value that we place upon certain people. A Jew, in this case is worth very little, and to abuse one, meaningless, but to kill an Egyptian, who may well have been a useless human being himself, is worthy of some huge penalty. We do this on a daily basis, that is give value to certain people and not others. It is called prejudice, and to be truthful I am no different, but I will tell you this, there are plenty of white people that are wasting good breathing air.

Moses flees for his life into the desert where he hooks up with the Midianites and spends the next forty years. Now what does any of that have to do with humility?

Consider: He runs away from the wrath of Egypt that raised him, and wanders (sort of) for forty years. The wandering does not necessarily mean he walked in big circles. It took him that long to get his head on straight. Wow, what a coincidence; Israel will soon wander for the same period of time. Wow, what a coincidence; Moses is taking these people on the same paths that he walked for forty years. You might think that he knew exactly what was out there, and maybe what it would do to your head.

When he leaves for the desert he is forty years old. Still a young man by our standards, but well aged by theirs. At forty you should be established, on the tail end of your career, capable, and married. Interesting that there is no mention of that.

How could I assume any of that?
A. What was their lifespan - about 120 years.
B. I can compare their lifestyle with known lifestyles, and this would be typical for the Jewish community around Jesus time period.
C. When Jesus started his road ministry, he was well established as a carpenter, and as a Rabbi.
D. It was tradition to be married, and by a certain age. True, marriage began at least a year before consummation, for the home had to be built and the young man had to have some form of income.
E. I understand that this is two differing cultures, but people are not that different.

Webster's dictionary has this as the definition for humble:
1: not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive
2: reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission humble apologyt;
3a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : insignificant, unpretentious


Prior to his life in the desert, none of these aspects could be used to describe who Moses was. He was anything but humble. We can only conjecture what his life was like between the basket in the river and the killing of the Egyptian.
What impact did it have to find that you were not an Egyptian, worthy of pushing Jewish slaves around, but a Jew yourself. Do you think for a second that he was going have someone push him around; I don't think so. I remember how the movie portrayed him as becoming one of them. Ask yourself, How difficult was it for any Jew to free themselves from the Nazi death camps once taken captive.

I suspect that he found out what his heritage truly was, and it was a shock to his system. Only God could have motivated him to do what he did beyond that. Scripture tells us that Moses choose to be like his people, total opposition to the lifestyle he had been used to.


Forty years in the wilderness and now he is eighty. A senior, with gray hair, and now considered wise.

Strange, how Moses whines at God about his inability to speak when God tells him he is go back and give Egypt the message. That makes no sense, unless forty years of talking to sheep has reduced your vocabulary.
When Moses finally takes God's case before Pharaoh, he was most certainly assertive.

We do not want to believe that he deferred to Pharaoh. It would only make sense that Moses deferred to the King's authority, for to do anything else could mean death. Try pushing your way into the White House and see where that gets you.


Taking the role of leadership over potentially a million people requires traits that would seem to work in oppostion to humility, therefore we have to make an assumption, humility then must have applied to the way Moses interacted with God.


Try to convince that many people that you are now their fearless leader. I am sure that the mighty acts of God helped that situation; especially when you tell someone that such and such is going to happen and then, with consistency, it does. I truly believe that people will move based more on fear than a deep respect for your leadership qualities. There is a saying "actions speak louder than words", well Moses certainly proved that. To the outsider there is no humility involved here, but there is, for every man answers to someone.


You cannot lead a bunch of whiners that want to turn around at every difficulty without having to step up and take a role of assertiveness. As we sat in the doctor's office waiting room with my girlfriend's 92 year old mother, she whined, "I just want to go home". She did not like being there, she did not like hearing all the noise in the room, there was plenty, and she did not remember why she was even there. She had recently had a ruptured appendix removed, a procedure which saved her life. This was Israel as well. All Israel seemed to do was say, "We want to go back, we like onions, at least we knew what our job was." Why am I here.


Here is my point. If I try to define what made Moses a humble man it was how quickly he turned to God.

The people complained, he turned to God; The people wanted him dead, he turned to God; the people spoke against his leadership, he turned to God; his brother and sister tried a mutiny, he turned to God; many among the people resorted to serving idols and other gods, he turned them over to God, and how do you feed so many people, by turning them over to God.

Many of those times he turned to God you see him on his face before God. He would talk with God like one talks with a friend that allows you to be open and honest.


Moses deferred his will to God, subjected himself to God's wisdom, applied new rules to his own life and the lives of the people - as God told him to do, and listened to God's counsel, doing what he told him to do, mostly. The few times that Moses choose to do things his own way, and we might call that letting his anger get the best of him, cost him the right to enter the land that was the hope of freedom that God had showed this leader. What leader would not want to partake of the same freedoms that his people would enjoy?