Moses brought forward the shield of his ministry

20 The experience of death touched also the righteous, and a plague came upon the multitude in the desert, but the wrath did not long continue.
21 For a blameless man was quick to act as their champion; he brought forward the shield of his ministry, prayer and propitiation by incense; he withstood the anger and put an end to the disaster, showing that he was your servant.
22 He conquered the wrath not by strength of body, not by force of arms, but by his word he subdued the avenger, appealing to the oaths and covenants given to our ancestors.
23 For when the dead had already fallen on one another in heaps, he intervened and held back the wrath, and cut off its way to the living.
24 For on his long robe the whole world was depicted, and the glories of the ancestors were engraved on the four rows of stones, and your majesty was on the diadem upon his head.
25 To these the destroyer yielded, these he feared; for merely to test the wrath was enough.

~ Wisdom 18:20-25 (Apocrypha)