The Burning Bush: the Calling of Moses

Moses led the flock beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb, the mountain that a year later would be Sinai. There he saw something strange: a thornbush burning yet not consumed. He turned aside to look, and out of the fire his name was called twice. Remove your shoes, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. The voice named itself the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and said the essential thing: I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt and heard their cry, and I have come down to deliver them. Moses is sent to Pharaoh—and he refuses. He argues for seven days: who am I, they will not believe me, I am heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue. He asks for the Name and is answered Ehyeh asher ehyeh, I will be what I will be. He is given three signs—the staff that becomes a snake, the hand that turns leprous and heals, the water that becomes blood—and finally his brother Aaron as a spokesman.

Here the chronologies differ not by years but by a century. Seder Olam Rabbah places the Exodus in 1313 BCE. The prevailing academic date is the thirteenth century, the time of Ramesses II: its firm anchor is the stele of Pharaoh Merneptah of 1208 BCE, the first mention of Israel outside the Tanakh, where Israel is already in Canaan. A minority of scholars holds to the fifteenth century, reckoning by the plain count of I Kings 6:1 — four hundred and eighty years from the Exodus to Solomon's Temple. The timeline shows the prevailing dating.