"
Also God did not pretend to Moses that the King of Egypt would forthwith
let them go; whereupon he would work his wonders in Egypt and after that
Pharaoh would let them go.
Moreover, he promised, as an inducement to their avarice, that they should
not go empty away, for that the Lord God would give the Hebrews favor in
the sight of the Egyptians, "so that every woman should borrow of her
neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver,
jewels of gold, and raiment," and that they should spoil the Egyptians.
But all this time God did not disclose his name; so Moses tried another
way about. If he would not tell his name he might at least enable Moses to
work some wonder which should bring conviction to those who saw it, even
if the god remained nameless. For Moses appreciated the difficulty of the
mission suggested to him. How was he, a stranger in Egypt, to gain the
confidence of that mixed and helpless multitude, whom he was trying to
persuade to trust to his guidance in so apparently desperate an enterprise
as crossing a broad and waterless waste, in the face of a well-armed and
vigorous foe. Moses apprehended that there was but one way in which he
could by possibility succeed. He might prevail by convincing the
Israelites that he was commissioned by the one deity whom they knew, who
was likely to have both the will and the power to aid them, and that was
the god who had visited Abraham on the plain of Mamre, who had destroyed
Sodom for its iniquity, and who had helped Joseph to become the ruler of
Egypt.
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