Image Details

Courtesy of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt. Photograph by Bruce White ©1997 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

ON THE COVER: Moses reverently removes his sandals as he approaches the burning bush, aware that he is in God’s presence. In this, Moses’ first encounter with God, the divine voice calls out to Moses from the bush, telling him to go to Pharaoh “to free my people, the Israelites, from Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). This 13th-century Byzantine icon, now in the Holy Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai, Egypt, portrays Moses looking on in awe—and perhaps with sadness. At this transitional moment, Moses begins his new life as a divine and public servant. It is this role that dominates the biblical account of Moses. But, as J. Daniel Hays points out in “Moses: The Private Man Behind the Public Figure,” Moses’ oft-ignored family life is equally revealing of the man who led Israel out of Egypt.