Moses (lived c. 13th century BC)

Hebrew lawgiver and judge who led the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan. On Mount Sinai he claimed to have received from Jehovah the oral and written Law, including the Ten Commandments engraved on tablets of stone. The first five books of the Old Testament – in Judaism, the Torah– are ascribed to him.

According to the Torah, the infant Moses was hidden among the bulrushes on the banks of the Nile when the pharaoh commanded that all newborn male Hebrew children should be destroyed. He was found by a daughter of the pharaoh, who reared him. Eventually he became the leader of the Israelites in their Exodus from Egypt and their 40 years' wandering in the wilderness. He died at the age of 120, after having been allowed a glimpse of the Promised Land from Mount Pisgah.