Moving Masses

While engaged in his daily activity of tending the flocks, Moses received the momentous call from on high to liberate the people of Israel from slavery. Biblical interpreters viewed Moses' career as a shepherd as necessary preparation for his role as a leader of men. Philo of Alexandria asserts:

After the marriage, Moses took charge of the sheep and tended them, thus receiving his first lesson in command of others; for the shepherd's business is a training-ground and a preliminary exercise in kingship for one who is destined to command the herd of mankind, the most civilized of herds, just as also hunting is for warlike natures, since those who are trained to generalship practice themselves first in the chase...and therefore kings are called 'shepherds of their people,' not as a term of reproach but as the highest honor. And my opinion, based not on the opinions of the multitude but on my own inquiry into the truth of the matter, is that the only perfect king (let him laugh who will) is one who is skilled in the knowledge of shepherding, one who has been trained by management of the inferior creatures to manage the superior. For initiation in the lesser mysteries must precede initiation in the greater. (De Vita Moses I:60-62)