Levi was the father of: Gershon, Kohath, Merari

Kohath was the father of: Amram = Jochebed

Amram = Jochebed was the father of: Hur = Miriam, Aaron = Elisheba, Moses = Zipporah

Aaron = Elisheba was the father of: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Ithamar

Eleazar was the father of: Phineas

Moses = Zipporah was the father of: Gershom, Eliezer

Gershom was the father of: Jonathan.

The history of Moses. Naturally. Divides itself into three periods of 40 years each. Moses was born at Goshen, in Egypt, B.C. 1571. The story of his birth is thoroughly Egyptian in its scene. His mother made extraordinary efforts for his preservation, from the general destruction, of the male children of Israel. For three months, the child was concealed in the house. Then, his mother placed him in a small boat or basket of papyrus, closed against the water by bitumen. This was placed among the aquatic vegetation, by the side of one of the canals, of the Nile. The sister lingered to watch her brother's fate.

The Egyptian princess, who, tradition says, was a childless wife, came down to bathe in the sacred river. Her attendant slaves followed her. She saw the basket in the flags, and despatched divers, who brought it. It was opened, and the cry of the child moved the princess to compassion. She determined to rear it as her own. The sister was at hand to recommend a Hebrew nurse, the child's own mother.

Here was the first part of Moses' training, -- a training, at home, in the true religion, in faith in God, in the promises to his nation, in the life of a saint, -- a training which he never forgot, even amid the splendors and gilded sin of Pharaoh's court. The child was adopted by the princess.

Seeing an Israelite suffering the bastinado [A sound beating with a stick or cudgel; the blows given with a stick or staff. This name is given to a punishment in use among the Turks, of beating an offender on the soles of his feet] from an Egyptian, and thinking that they were alone, he slew the Egyptian, and buried the corpse in the sand. But the people soon showed themselves unfitted as yet to obtain their freedom, nor was Moses yet fitted to be their leader.

Here, for forty years, Moses communed with God and with nature, escaping from the false ideas taught him in Egypt, and sifting out the truths that were there. This was the third process of his training for his work; and from this training, he learned infinitely more than from Egypt. Stanely well says, after enumerating what the Israelites derived from Egypt, that the contrast was always greater than the likeness. This process was completed when God met him on Horeb, appearing in a burning bush, and, communicating with him, appointed him to be the leader and deliverer of his people.

Now, begins the third period of forty years in Moses' life. He meets Aaron, his next younger brother, whom God permitted to be the spokesman, and together, they return to Goshen in Egypt. From this time, the history of Moses is the history of Israel, for the next forty years. Aaron spoke and acted for Moses, and was the permanent inheritor of the sacred staff of power. But Moses was the inspiring soul behind. He is, incontestably, the chief personage of the history, in a sense in which, no one else is described before or since. He was led into a closer communion with the invisible world, than was vouchsafed to any other in the Old Testament.

There are two main characters in which he appears -- as a leader and as a prophet.

(1) As a leader, his life divides itself into the three epochs -- the march to Sinai; the march from Sinai to Kadesh, and the conquest of the TransJordanic kingdoms. On approaching Palestine, the office of the leader becomes blended with that of the general or the conqueror. By Moses, the spies were sent to explore the country. Against his advice, took place the first disastrous battle at hormah. To his guidance is ascribed the circuitous route by which the nation approached Palestine from the east, and to his generalship, the two successful campaigns in which Sihon and Og were defeated. The narrative is told so briefly that we are in danger of forgetting that, at this last stage of his life, Moses must have been as much a conqueror and victorious soldier as was Joshua.

vii. The 90th Psalm, "A prayer of Moses, the man of God." The title, like all the titles of the psalms, is of doubtful authority, and the psalm has often been referred to a later author.

All that is told of him indicates a withdrawal of himself, a preference of the cause of his nation to his own interests, which makes him the most complete example of Jewish patriotism. (He was especially a man of prayer and of faith, of wisdom, courage and patience). In exact conformity with his life is the account of his end.

And then comes the mysterious close. He is told that he is to see the good land beyond the Jordan, but not to possess it himself. He ascends the mount of Pisgah and stands on Nebo, one of its summits, and surveys the four great masses of Palestine west of the Jordan, so far as it can be discerned from that height. The view has passesd into a proverb for all nations.

This is all that is said in the sacred record. (This burial was thus hidden probably --

(1) To preserve his grave from idolatrous worship or superstitious reverence; and

(2) Because it may be that God did not intend to leave his body to corruption, but to prepare it, as he did the body of Elijah, so that Moses could, in his spiritual body, meet Christ, together with Elijah, on the mount of transfiguration).

Moses is spoken of as a likeness of Christ; and as this is a point of view which has been almost lost in the Church, compared with the more familiar comparisons of Christ to Adam, David, Joshua, and yet, has as firm a basis in fact, as any of them, it may be well to draw it out in detail.

(a) Christ was, like Moses, the great prophet of the people -- the last, as Moses was the first.

(b) Christ, like Moses, is a lawgiver: "Him shall ye hear."

(c) Christ, like Moses, was a prophet out of the midst of the nation, "from their brethren." As Moses was the entire representative of his people, feeling for them more than for himself, absorbed in their interests, hopes and fears, so, with reverence, be it said, was Christ.