Moshe at the Mountain

Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (2) An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed. (3) Moses said: "I must turn aside to look at this marvelous sight; why doesn't the bush burn up?" (4) When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush: "Moses! Moses!" He answered, "Here I am." (5) And He said: "Do not come closer. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground." (6) "I am" He said, "the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. (7) And the Lord continued: "I have marked well the plight of My people in Egypt and have heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters; yes, I am mindful of their sufferings. (8) I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the region of the Cannanties, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivities, and the Jebusites. (9) Now, the cry of the Israelites has reached Me; moreover, I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them. (10) Come, therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free my people, the Israelites, from Egypt." (11) But Moses said to God: ‘Who am I that I should got to Pharaoh and free the Israelites from Egypt?"(12) And He said: "I will be with you; that shall be your sign that it was I who sent you. And when you have freed this people from Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain." (13) Moses said to God: "When I come to the Israelite and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they will as me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" (14) And God said to Moses: "Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh" [I am that I am]"; He continued: "Thus shall you say to the Israelites, 'Ehyeh [I am) sent me to you.'" (15) And God said further to Moses: ‘Thus shall you speak to the Israelites: The Lord, the God of you fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you: This shall be My name for ever, This My appellation for all eternity.

(1) And Moses spoke up and said: "What if they do not believe me and do not listen to me, but say, the Lord did not appear to you?" (2) The LORD said to him: "What is that in your hand?" And he replied: "A rod." (3) He said: "Cast it on the ground." He cast it on the ground and it became a snake; and Moses recoiled from it. (4) Then the Lord said to Moses: "Put out your hand and grasp it by the tail—he put out his hand and seized it, and it became a rod in his hand— (5) that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, did appear to you." (6) The Lord said him further: "Put your hand into your bosom." He put his hand into his bosom, and when he took it out, his hand was encrusted with snowy scales! (7) And He said: "Put your hand back into your bosom." He put his hand back into his bosom; and when he took it out of his bosom, there it was again like the rest of his body. (8) "And if they do not believe you or pay heed to the first sign, they will believe the second. (9) And if they are not convinced by both these signs and still do not heed you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground, and it -- the water that you take from the Nile -- will to blood on the dry ground."

(31) And when Israel saw the wondrous power which the Lord had wielded agains the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, they believed in the Lord and His servant Moses.

(1) On the third new moon after the Israelites had gone forth from the land of Egypt, on that very day, they entered the wilderness of Sinai. (2) Having journeyed from Rephidim, they entered the wilderness of Sinai and encamped in the wilderness. Israel encamped there in front of the mountain (3) and Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying: "Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: (4) You have seen what I did to the Egyptians,how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me. (5) Now then, if you will obey Me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be My treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is Mine, (6) but you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel." (7) Moses came and summoned the elders of the people and put before them all that the Lord had commanded him. (8) All the people answered as one, saying, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." And Moses reported the words of the people unto the LORD. (9) And the LORD said to Moses: ‘I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you, and also believe in you ever after. Then Moses reported the people's words to the Lord . . .

(15) All the people witnessed the thundering and lightning, the blare of the horn and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they fell back and stood at a distance. (16) "You speak to us," they said to Moses, "and we will obey; but let not God to speak us, lest we die." (17) Moses answered the people, "Be not afraid, for God has come only in order to test you, and in order that the fear of him may be ever with you, so you do not go astray." (18) So the people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

"And he said, "I will be with you . . ." Numerous explanations are offered for this verse. The most sound one, according to the plain way of its interpretation, is that the Holy One, Blessed be He, said two distinct things to Moses. The first was that He would descend to rescue the people from the hands of Egypt. But it would have been possible for God to rescue them from bondage and have them remain in Goshen or to take them to someplace close by. However, God additionally promised to bring the people up to the place of the Canaanites, etc. Now Moses was apprehensive about both these things. He said, who am I to go before Pharaoh? I am the lowest person, a shepherd, and he is a great king . . . And he said further, who am I to take these people out of Egypt and to bring them to the land of Canaan? These were the fears of Moses our Teacher, and concerning them God said, "Do not be afraid of Pharaoh for I will be with you to protect you. And your sign to the people that I have sent you to them is that after you take them out of Egypt, they will serve Me on this mountain, and from that point on they will accept the service of God and follow his commandments, and they will "believe in you ever after" (Ex., 19:9), and they will follow you running to any place that you command them to go. And I have revealed myself to you on this mountain in a flame of fire, for this is what will happen before the eyes of the people when they serve me on this mountain."

"So that the people may hear when I speak with you." . . . The correct interpretation in my opinion is that God was saying, "I will come to you in a thick cloud," meaning that you shall approach the thick cloud, so that the people will hear my words and they will themselves be prophets when I speak, not that they shall believe because of what they heard from others. As it is stated, "When God said to me, 'Gather the people to Me and I shall let them hear my words, so that they shall learn to fear Me all the days.'" (Deut. 4:10). And they will believe in you, Moses, eternally, throughout the generations, so that if one should arise in their midst claiming to be a prophet or a dreamer of dreams who says something in opposition to your words, they will immediately refute him, for they have already seen with their eyes and heard with their ears that you have reached the supreme heights of prophecy. And it will become clear to them what is written, "If there shall be a prophet among you, in a vision shall I make myself known to him; in a dream shall I speak to him. Not so my servant Moses; in my entire house, he is "ne'eman" [trusted, believed]. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him." (Num. 12:6-8). And therefore the text says, "So that the people may hear when I speak with you," so that when they hear My words from the mist of the fire and know that I, God, am speaking with them, they will believe My words "and also believe in you ever after." Similarly, that which the people said "This day we saw that God will speak to a person," (Deut. 5:21), was to say: Indeed, the truth of the matter has been established for us by the sight of our own eyes, as was the Divine will. So from now on, [the people will say] you [Moses] should approach, for we know about you that you have reached the greatest height of prophecy and you should hear whatever God will say, then we shall hear from your mouth and we shall do, for we believe that your prophecy has been proven greater than any other prophet's.

(1) Israel did not believe in Moses, our teacher, because of the signs he performed. For one who believes on the basis of signs has doubts in his heart, as it is possible that a sign was done through trickery and magic. Rather, all the signs that Moses did in the desert were done out of necessity, not to prove of his prophecy. It was necessary to drown the Egyptians, so he split the sea, and he made them sink in it. We needed to be fed, so the man was brought down [from the sky] for us. ... And so too by all the other signs. And on what basis did they believe [in Moses]? At Mt. Sinai, that which our eyes saw and not a stranger's, that which our ears heard and not another's, was the fire, the thunder, the lightning, and then [Moses] approached the fog and the voice [of God] spoke to him and we heard "Moses, Moses, go and say to them such and such." And so Moses said to Israel, "Face to face did God speak with you." (Deut. 5:4) And further it says, "God did not make this covenant with our fathers." (Deut. 5:3) From where [do we know] that Mt. Sinai alone is proof to [Moses'] prophecy of which there is no doubt? For it says, "I will come to you in a thick cloud in order so that the people may hear when I speak with you and also believe in you ever after." (Ex. 19:9). This implies that beforehand, the people did not have a belief in [Moses] that would last forever, rather it was a belief that was speculation and apprehension.

(2) Thus, Israel became witnesses to truth of Moses's prophecy, and he did not need to perform another sign for them. For he and they were witnesses to the matter, similar to two witnesses that see an occurrence together, that both of them are witnesses that the other is speaking the truth and neither of them have to bring proof to each other. ... This is what God said to him at beginning of his prophecy, at the time [God] gave him the signs that he was to perform in Egypt: And God said "They will listen to your voice." (Ex. 3:18). Moses our teacher knew that one who believes because of a sign has fault, suspicion and suspect in his heart. He [attempted to] be removed from going, saying (Exodus 4:1), "They will not believe me," until God informed him that these signs are only until the exodus from Egypt, and after they leave and stand at this mountain, I will remove the suspicion that they suspected after you for I will give you a sign here that it will be known that I really sent you from the beginning, and there will not remain in their hearts any suspicion. This is what the verse [means] when it says "That shall be your sign that it was I who sent you. And when you have freed this people from Egypt, you shall serve God at this mountain." (Ex. 3:12)