Moses, the Lawgiver Who Prefigures Christ Who Is to Come

This large-scale Byzantine icon (33″ x 26″) is preserved at Saint Catherine Monastery on Mount Sinai, where it was probably painted in the early 13^_th century. It is composed around a dynamic diagonal that ascends from right to left. This diagonal is drawn by the figure of Moses at the summit of Mount Sinai, who advances and stretches out his arms to grasp the Tables of the Law that God offers him. However, the painter respects the biblical prohibition against depicting God: all that appears is a hand emerging from ink-black skies, a color that signifies the impenetrable mystery of God, a mystery protected by a cloud which is suggested here by a pearl-gray band. The sleeve of the divine garment that can be glimpsed is made of gold. Gold is a precious substance, symbol of the divine: of God himself in the sleeve of the garment that can be glimpsed from the cloud, and of a sacred event taking place in the background of the icon, radiating divine power.

So as not to profane the holy ground that he walks on, symbolized by the color green, Moses has removed his sandals, thus obeying the order that God had already given him from the Burning Bush (Ex 3:5). He is covered with a large shawl with which he covers his shoulders and hands, so as to receive the sacred Tables with dignity. Likewise the priests of the New Covenant cover themselves with the humeral veil (from the Latin humerus: “shoulder”) in order to carry the Blessed Sacrament. Beneath the shawl we discern a dark blue tunic: in the Old Testament the cloth of the Tent of the Covenant was of this color, and so were the vestments of the high priest who was called to represent the people in God’s presence. 

The striking thing about this icon is that it repeats none of the conventional ways of depicting Moses. In fact, what it intends to present for our contemplation is Moses inasmuch as he is a figure of Christ, the Lawgiver who is to come, in this case Jesus whom Saint Matthew in his Gospel presents as the New Moses who comes to accomplish the Law in its fullness. The Moses depicted here plainly is thirty-three years old, the age of Jesus at his death, and he is covered prophetically with a rose-colored veil, signifying the Divine Sonship. 

How did Jesus fulfill the Law of Moses?

Saint Matthew ceaselessly insists: the ultimate purpose of the Law—of the ten commandments—was to prepare the hearts of the members of the chosen people to recognize the Messiah who was to be born in their midst, whereas this Messiah would be nothing less than the Son of God incarnate. Revelatory in this regard is Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees who seek to trap him by putting him in a delicate situation with regard to Moses by the question: What is the greatest commandment of the Law? (Mt 22:36). Jesus does not fall for the trap but quotes the Shema (Dt 6:4-5). But then he immediately goes on to cite a second commandment in the Law, which no longer concerns God but our neighbor: You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Lv 19:18). And he dares to say that this second commandment is like the first. Why? Because in him God has made himself their neighbor. Therefore keeping the second commandment of the Law is the only thing that can enable his interlocutors to recognize him as the Messiah and therefore in him, a true man, to love the true God in deed and in truth. Unfortunately the Pharisees will refuse to give in to the divine pedagogy. They boast of being faithful to the Law and of loving the Lord their God with their whole heart, with their whole soul, and with their whole mind, but they do not love their neighbor in the person of Jesus. That’s the whole point. They will end up condemning the Lord their God to death, in the name of the first and greatest commandment of the Law. 

In assigning equal value to the first commandment of the Law and to the second, Jesus intended through the Law to prepare hearts to recognize the perfect fulfillment of the Law in him. For in the New and Eternal Covenant it will no longer be a question of the greatest commandment of the Law, because then there will be only one commandment, the new commandment. My commandment, Jesus will say, is this: Love one another as I have loved you (Jn 13:34 etc.). In Jesus, to love God and to love one’s neighbor, to be loved by God and to be loved by one’s neighbor, it is all one. 
 

Pierre-Marie Dumont
The Prophet Moses receiving the tablets of the Law, early 13^_th-c. icon, Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai, Egypt. © 2024 by St Catherine’s Monastery at Mt Sinai.