If you’re trying to keep the heavy hitters of the Old Testament straight, you aren't alone. It’s a lot. Honestly, the Bible doesn’t come with a handy color-coded timeline on page one, so people often get the big names mixed up. You’ve probably asked yourself: who was first Abraham or Moses? The short answer? Abraham. By a long shot.
We are talking about a gap of several centuries. It isn't just a matter of a few years or a single generation. Abraham is the literal "founding father," the guy who started the whole trajectory of the Hebrew people. Moses comes into the picture much later to deal with the mess that happened after Abraham’s descendants ended up in Egypt. If Abraham is the one who planted the seeds, Moses is the one who had to transplant the entire garden when the soil turned sour.
The Massive Gap Between the Patriarch and the Lawgiver
To really get why the question of who was first Abraham or Moses matters, you have to look at the math. Most biblical scholars and historians who study the Torah place Abraham somewhere around 2000 BCE to 1800 BCE. He’s a Middle Bronze Age figure. He’s wandering around Mesopotamia and Canaan, living in tents, making deals with local kings, and trying to figure out this new covenant with a single God.
Then you have Moses.
Moses doesn't show up until the 1300s or 1200s BCE. That is roughly 400 to 600 years after Abraham passed away. Think about that for a second. That is a longer stretch of time than the United States has even been a country. When Moses was leading people out of Egypt, Abraham was ancient history to them. He was a legendary ancestor, a name whispered in stories passed down through the generations of slavery.
Abraham lived a life of a nomad. He was wealthy in livestock and servants, but he didn't have a "nation" in the way we think of it. He had a family. By the time we get to Moses, that family had ballooned into millions of people. They weren't just a clan anymore; they were an ethnic group under the thumb of the most powerful empire on Earth.
💡 You might also like: Finding the most affordable way to live when everything feels too expensive
Why do we get them confused?
It's probably because they both hold the "Number One" spot for different things. Abraham is the first in terms of the Covenant. He’s the first person to receive the promise of a homeland and a massive lineage. Moses, however, is the "first" in terms of the Law. He brought down the Ten Commandments and established the actual religion of Judaism as a structured system of laws, festivals, and taboos.
In a Sunday school version of history, these two figures loom so large that they seem like neighbors. They aren't. They are bookends to a massive era of migration, famine, and eventual enslavement.
Abraham: The Pioneer of the Promise
Abraham (originally Abram) started out in Ur of the Chaldeans. That's modern-day Iraq. He wasn't looking to start a religion. According to the Genesis narrative, God just told him to "Go." So he went. He headed west toward Canaan.
What makes Abraham unique is that he represents the era of the "Patriarchs." This includes his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob (who was later named Israel). This whole period is characterized by personal relationships with the divine. There were no temples. No priests. No complex dietary laws. It was just a man, his family, and a promise that they would one day own the land they were currently trekking across as foreigners.
Abraham’s story is messy. He’s not a perfect hero. He lies about his wife being his sister (twice!), he has a child with Hagar because he doesn't think the "miracle baby" with Sarah is actually going to happen, and he argues with God about destroying cities like Sodom. But in the timeline of who was first Abraham or Moses, he is the indispensable foundation. Without Abraham’s initial move to Canaan, there is no "Promised Land" for Moses to lead anyone back to.
📖 Related: Executive desk with drawers: Why your home office setup is probably failing you
Moses: The Architect of the Nation
Fast forward through four centuries of silence. The descendants of Abraham—now called the Israelites—are stuck in Egypt. They went there because of a famine (the whole Joseph-and-the-multicolored-coat saga), stayed too long, and eventually got pressed into forced labor.
This is where Moses enters.
If Abraham is the pioneer, Moses is the revolutionary. He wasn't a nomad by choice; he was a fugitive from the Egyptian court who ended up leading a massive refugee crisis. The scale is totally different. While Abraham dealt with individual kings, Moses went toe-to-toe with Pharaoh, the man-god of the ancient world.
The legal framework Moses established during the 40 years in the desert is what actually defined the people. Before Moses, they were just "Abraham’s kids." After Moses, they were the "People of Israel" with a constitution (the Torah).
Key differences in their eras:
- Communication: Abraham heard God through visions and direct conversations. Moses had the "burning bush" and the terrifying thunder of Mount Sinai.
- The Goal: Abraham was looking for a home. Moses was looking to get his people out of a prison.
- The Result: Abraham left behind a family. Moses left behind a nation and a legal code that changed the world.
Why the Order Matters for History and Faith
If you flip the order, the whole story of Western civilization breaks. You can't have the Law before the Promise.
👉 See also: Monroe Central High School Ohio: What Local Families Actually Need to Know
In the theological framework of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the "Abrahamic" faiths—the sequence is vital. Abraham represents faith and grace. He believed before there were rules to follow. Moses represents structure and holiness. He provided the "how-to" guide for living as a distinct people.
Even from a strictly secular, historical perspective, the timeline reflects the evolution of the Near East. We see the shift from small tribal units (Abraham) to organized, complex societal structures (Moses) that could sustain a standing army and a priesthood.
Common Misconceptions to Clear Up
People often think Joseph (the one with the dreams) lived around the time of Moses because they are both in Egypt. Nope. Joseph is Abraham’s great-grandson. He’s the reason the family got to Egypt in the first place. Moses didn't arrive until much, much later, after "a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph."
Another weird one? The idea that they met. Obviously, they didn't. By the time Moses was born, Abraham had been dead for roughly half a millennium. When Moses speaks to God at the burning bush, God identifies himself as "the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." He has to remind Moses who the ancestors were because the connection had become so distant.
Putting the Timeline into Action
If you are trying to study this or just want to sound smart at your next trivia night, here is the easiest way to keep it straight.
- Check the "Firsts": Abraham is the first to be called by God to leave his home. He is the "First Patriarch."
- The Egypt Marker: If the story is in a desert or involves a sea parting, it's Moses. If it’s about a guy wandering with sheep and having babies at age 100, it's Abraham.
- The Alphabet Trick: A comes before M. Abraham comes before Moses. It’s a simple mnemonic that actually holds up to the historical and biblical chronology.
Understanding that who was first Abraham or Moses isn't just about dates; it's about the progression of a culture. You move from the individual (Abraham) to the family (Isaac/Jacob) to the tribes (Joseph) and finally to the nation (Moses).
To dig deeper, your next step should be looking into the Merneptah Stele. It's an ancient Egyptian stone slab dating to around 1208 BCE. It contains the earliest extra-biblical mention of "Israel" as a people. Comparing this archaeological find to the biblical timeline of Moses provides a fascinating look at how history and scripture overlap during the late Bronze Age. You might also want to research the Code of Hammurabi, which predates Moses and gives context to the kind of world Abraham wandered into when he left Ur. Knowing the surrounding cultures makes the distinction between these two men even clearer.