Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Moses: Prefiguration - Sohn Gottes; Moses (als Gott) - Aaron; Tod Moses

Kurzinhalt: ... prefigured, but did not figurate himself, the Son of God; between the compactness of the Egyptian and the lucidity of the Christian order

Textausschnitt: 36/12 The unique position of Moses has resisted classification by type concepts, as well as articulation through the symbols of the Biblical tradition. He moves in a peculiar empty space between the old Pharaonic and the new collective sons of God, between the Egyptian empire and the Israelite theopolity. On the obscurities surrounding the position of Moses now falls a flood rather than a ray of light, if we recognize in him the man who, in the order of revelation, prefigured, but did not figurate himself, the Son of God. It is the compactness of this intermediate position which resists articulation and makes it impossible, even in symbols of his own time, to answer the question: Who was Moses? (398; Fs) (notabene)

37/12 Once we have become aware of the problem, however, we can search the Biblical text for attempts to overcome the difficulty and to break through, however imperfectly, to a symbolization of the man who stands between the compactness of the Egyptian and the lucidity of the Christian order. One or two passages suggest themselves, more or less clearly, as such attempts. (398; Fs)
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40/12 A second version of the episode, in Exodus 6:28-7:5, is pointed even more clearly toward the conflict between Moses and the Pharaonic order. Again Moses pleads his "uncircumcised lips" as the obstacle to successful negotiation (6:30), but this time Yahweh answers:
See, I give you to Pharaoh as a god,
And Aaron your brother shall be your revealer [nabi-prophet].
The language of the passage must not be mistaken for genuine symbolization which authentically expresses an experience of transcendence. Moses is not ontologically, but only metaphorically, a god. In spite of its inadequacies as a symbol, however, the language admirably expresses the feeling that Moses, while not God, is something more than man. In an undefinable manner the presence of God has become historical through Moses. (399; Fs) (notabene)
41/12 Another text, finally, cannot be omitted, though it resists conclusive interpretation, because its position in the narrative marks it especially relevant to the present complex of problems. It is the night episode of Exodus 4:24-26: (400; Fs)
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... In the parallel construction the night episode, in which Moses was almost killed, would correspond to the Red Sea disaster, in which the Pharaonic order was actually engulfed. Perhaps it was the Egyptian in Moses, the old Son of God, who rose for the last time and had to be "killed" in order to establish the new Son of God. From the last temptation, in which the Pharaoh was submerged, rose Moses to victory. The action of Zipporah would then have to be understood as the assurance of the sonship of the people through the mother of the people. The collective element of the sonship needed a special guaranty. (400f; Fs)
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43/12 Moses was barred from common humanity by his suffering of the solitude with God. As he had lived by the command of his God, he died by his command. The extraordinary destiny provided for him found its last symbol in the tradition of his death, on Pisgah, overlooking the promised land he was not permitted to enter: (401; Fs) (notabene)
Thus died Moses, the servant of Yahweh,
in the land of Moab, at the command of Yahweh,
and he buried him,
in the vale in the land of Moab, toward Beth-Peor, and no man knows his burial-place to this day.
44/12 The Hebrew text says literally that Moses died "at the mouth of Yahweh," a figure of speech which usually means "at the command." Perhaps the trope was used on this occasion intentionally: The man with the uncircumcised lips found his freedom at last at the lips of God. (402; Fs)