Spying on the Bible 5 - 1526 BC to 1446 BC

Go Down Moses: The Effective Defector

Because Moses was adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, who was also the heiress of Egypt, he grew up in the royal family and lived there until he was forty years old. Being raised there, he would have been given a royal education, which would have comprised political and military training, including espionage tradecraft. This assumption is verified and affirmed by Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, Book II, Chapter 9).

Thermuthis therefore perceiving him to be so remarkable a child, adopted him for her son, having no child of her own. And when one time had carried Moses to her father, she showed him to him, and said she thought to make him her successor, if it should please God she should have no legitimate child of her own.... And the king was not hasty to slay him, God himself, whose providence protected Moses, inclining the king to spare him. He was, therefore, educated with great care.

When Moses had grown up, his adopted mother’s biological son and heir, Thutmosis III had become Pharaoh and began a war with Ethiopia. In fact, he has been called the Napoleon of Ancient Egypt for this and other campaigns. Josephus explains how Moses, because of his education and training became the General of the Army invading Ethiopia and that during that time, the Ethiopian king’s daughter fell in love with him because she admired his bravery and believed him to “be the author of the Egyptians’ success.” Moses agreed to marry her on the condition that she would help him “procure the delivering up of the city” which she did. The Bible also mentions Moses having an Ethiopian wife in Numbers 12:1. Moses agreeing to marry the Ethiopian for help with his conquest could be considered the earliest recorded instance of an espionage tactic known as a honey trap, which is involves sexual seduction, for short term gain, recruitment, or blackmail.

Even though Moses had faithfully served Egypt up to that point, when Moses was forty years old he became a defector-in-place, switching allegiances to his Israelite kinsmen, but retaining his position of authority in the royal household. Unfortunately, Pharaoh must have had informants who turned Moses in, forcing him to leave Egypt quickly and quietly (Exodus 2:11-15a).

[Moses] saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled....

After forty years in Exile, when Amenhotep II was Pharaoh, God told the eighty year old Moses to go back to Egypt and resume his role as an agent for the Israelites. This time God appointed Moses’ biological brother Aaron as his handler, or case agent with the Israelites. Aaron would vouch for his brother’s loyalty to the Israelites and act as a liaison between them. The Israelites would probably not have accepted Moses otherwise, thinking him a spy from the royal household. Moses, being a military general, would have known that his only resource was the people, but these people were poor, uneducated, superstitious, poorly equipped, not unified, and untrained. Leading this uprising Moses would have also known that his people would be antagonists against a vastly superior force and they had no allies. Therefore, Moses would have figured out that his only military advantage was to use God’s plan of deception and the element of surprise that it gave them. Of course following that plan also took faith that God would protect and preserve his chosen people (Exodus 5:1-5).

Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”

Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”

But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!” Then Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.”

Moses and Aaron asked Pharaoh to let the Israelites go on a three-day journey into the wilderness to let them hold a festival and make sacrifices and then return to Egypt. This was a cover story, because they had no intention of coming back to Egypt, but Pharaoh did not know that. This was a very good cover story, because saying they were required to make sacrifices would have been a good excuse to take their livestock with them, which were their most valuable possessions. Also, the wilderness they were going to was not a hospitable land and would be difficult to survive in, without God’s help. Lastly, from Pharaoh’s perspective, the Israelites would be crazy to run away, because the Egyptian army could chase them down and destroy them quite easily.