Divine Identity, Miracles and Ritual, Essential Aspects in the Beginning of Moses' Mission Among the Jews from Egypt

Divine Identity, Miracles and Ritual, Essential Aspects in the Beginning of Moses' Mission Among the Jews from Egypt

11 October 2022

The present research focuses on three basic elements that formed the beginning of Moses' mission for his Jewish confreres in Egypt: 1. The divine identity of God, Who, through the burning fire, which burned but did not burn, is revealed to Moses by the name of "Yahweh" (I am the One I am, I am the One who is - Exodus 3, 14), an identity necessary for Moses when he justifies, both to the Jews and to the Egyptian pharaoh, the guide who entrusted him with the mission of freeing Israel from the slavery of Egypt. 2. Miracles, three in number (theoretically), two in number (practically), by which Moses demonstrates, before the Jews, first, and then before the Egyptians, the concrete divine nature of his mission: the staff turned into a serpent, the white hand of leprosy and the "reserve miracle": the transformation of water into blood. 3. An episode less addressed in the biblical exegesis of the book Exodus, but rather bizarre, at first sight: the attempt of God's angel to kill Moses and how his wife, Sephora, saved him by cutting him off around their youngest son, Eliezer (Exodus 4: 24-26).