Royal Motifs in the Pentateuchal Portrayal of Moses

Written by Danny Mathews Reviewed By Daniel S. Diffey

Moses is one of the most pivotal figures in all of biblical history. He is known primarily as both prophet and lawgiver. But Danny Mathews believes that there may be more to Moses than these designations. In his work Royal Motifs in the Pentateuchal Portrayal of Moses, Mathews believes that Exod 7:1, where Moses is said to be God to Pharaoh, raises “the question of the basic portrayal of Moses in the Pentateuch” (p. ix). He believes that the portrayal of Moses in the Pentateuch contains significant royal characterization. He argues that “royalty as it is generally understood in the ancient Near East provides a more appropriate category that can comprehend these fantastic and varied portrayals of Moses” (p. ix).

In the first chapter of the work, Mathews states,

Pentateuchal authors adapted tropes and traditions, well-attested elsewhere in biblical and ancient Near Eastern sources, to identify Moses as an exalted, even divinized figure. While other offices or vocations also find support in biblical descriptions of Moses (especially 'prophet', 'priest,' and 'judge'), the portrayal of Moses in the likeness of a 'king' serves to elevate Moses and to emphasize the preeminence of his work. (p. 2)

He finds support for this characterization in Deut 33:4-5, where he believes the implied subject is Moses. He does, however, qualify his thesis by stating that while Moses is described with royal motifs, this does not necessitate that he actually held the position of a king. The remainder of the first chapter surveys the history of interpretation of the character of Moses beginning with early Hellenistic sources through the modern portrayal of Moses within scholarship.

The second chapter overviews “the various ways Moses is portrayed in the Pentateuch in order to show that the view of Moses primarily as a prophet or covenant mediator cannot comprehend cogently the varied ways he is presented in the Pentateuch” (p. 44). Mathews discusses fifteen different motifs used to portray Moses: the birth and abandonment of Moses, beauty and health, Moses' name, flight and exile, shepherd, private commissioning, public emergence and controversy, divinity, military success, temple building, lawgiving and covenant-making, judge, humility, intercessor and appeaser, and succession by Joshua. After he analyzes these themes individually he shows how they are clustered in the presentation of four different ancient Near Eastern rulers: Hammurabi, Esarhaddon, Nabonidus, and Cyrus. His basic conclusions are that Pentateuchal authors used techniques common in other ancient Near Eastern sources and that they did so in order to portray Moses as an exalted royal figure.

The third chapter analyzes four of the motifs discussed in chapter two in more detail: “the birth, flight, private commissioning and divine empowerment, and public emergence of Moses as God's designated royal leader of Israel” (p. 87). These motifs are present and clustered in Exod 1:1-7:1, and they serve to portray Moses as an empowered deliverer who is affirmed by God.

Chapter four examines four more of the royal motifs in further detail: the exaltation of king and deity, the king as lawgiver and covenant-maker, the king as temple builder, and the death of the king and the succession of another. His discussion of the exaltation of king and deity concludes that Exodus portrays Moses in close association with God and that because of this he is able to speak for God to Israel. This is built upon in his discussion of Moses as lawgiver, where Israel is portrayed in a continued state of disobedience. Moses, however, is authenticated as the lawgiver and covenant-maker and his leadership demonstrates the Lord's power even in the midst of the nation's disobedience. Moses' royal presentation also appears through the temple-building motif. Mathews believes that this activity cannot be accounted for in any other presentation of Moses that is non-royal. He ends with a discussion of the contrasting characterization of Moses and Joshua and that Joshua serves as an epigone of Moses; he believes that Joshua's diminished qualities highlight Moses all the more.

The fifth and final chapter ends with a discussion of why Mathews does not believe that Moses should be viewed primarily as a prophet, but instead as a “man of God” and as a “servant.” The portrayal of Moses as a man of God “resembles the selection, exaltation, and empowerment of a ruler in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East” (p. 144). Likewise, the characterization of Moses as servant of the Lord serves as a common royal epithet. Mathews therefore concludes that Moses is depicted as a “'vice-regent' exercising temporal sovereignty on the Lord's behalf to establish Israel as a discrete nation” (pp.147-48). He ends his study with a short survey of his understanding of the composition of the Pentateuch, which follows the documentary hypothesis.

Mathews' work displays many good qualities. First, he brings to the fore a discussion of Moses' characterization of king that has not been discussed in this much detail in decades. Hopefully this study will not only invigorate a discussion into a royal portrayal of Moses, but also to the presence of strong royal elements throughout the Pentateuch that lead to a more robust discussion of the importance of the monarchy in ancient Israel and its importance for biblical theology.

A second strength of Mathews' work is his individual discussion of the royal motifs. While some of these motifs are stronger than others, the sum whole of them serves as a convincing argument that Moses is intentionally portrayed with royal elements.

This work also contains some weaknesses. First, this work begins with a discussion of the Hellenistic sources and then jumps to the present. It would benefit greatly from a discussion of the rabbinic sources and other ancient sources instead of just jumping to the present. There seems to be a gap in the history of interpretation.

Second, he assumes his interpretation of Deut 33:4-5 with little discussion of alternative interpretations. He fails to show exegetical support for why the subject in Deut 33:5 must be Moses. Though I agree that this is the most likely reading, some more exegetical work here and elsewhere could have been helpful.

Overall, Mathews provides a convincing case that Moses is portrayed with motifs that are common to that of royalty both elsewhere in the biblical text and throughout the ancient Near East. Mathews does, however, overstate his thesis by claiming that Moses should be primarily viewed through the lens of royalty, which is only explicitly stated one time in Deut 33:4-5 (and his interpretation of this text is not universally held). It needs to be noted that the royal characterization of Moses neither necessitates nor supports source-critical theories. As Meeks shows in his survey of Hellenistic and Rabbinic literature in The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (Brill, 1967), Moses was portrayed as a king well before the advent of source-critical theory. He could make a convincing case that Moses could be more broadly understood as the Lord's servant, which as he correctly notes is the standard designation of Moses throughout the rest of the OT. He does not, however, tie the role of servant closely enough to that of king to necessitate that the term servant be understood only or primarily as a royal designation. This book would be a helpful resource to a serious student or scholar working within the Pentateuch or interested in the characterization of Moses.


Daniel S. Diffey

Daniel S. Diffey
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, Kentucky, USA

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