traditions were not matters of possible doubt to Moses, or indeed to any
Israelite. They were as well established facts to them as would be the
record of volcanic eruptions now. Therefore it would not have astonished
Moses more that the Lord should meet him on the slope of Horeb, than that
the Lord should have met his ancestor Abraham on the plain of Mamre.
Moses' doubts and perplexities lay in another direction. Moses did not
question, as did his great ancestress, that his god could do all he
promised, if he had the will. His anxiety lay in his doubt as to God's
steadiness of purpose supposing he promised; and this doubt was increased
by his lack of confidence in his own countrymen. The god of Abraham was a
requiring deity with a high moral standard, and the Hebrews were at least
in part somewhat akin to a horde of semi-barbarous nomads, much more
likely to fall into offences resembling those of Sodom than to render
obedience to a code which would strictly conform to the requirements which
alone would ensure Moses support, supposing he accepted a task which,
after all, without divine aid, might prove to be impossible to perform.

When the proposition which Moses seems, more or less confidently, to have
expected to be made to him by the Lord, came, it came very suddenly and
very emphatically. "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law,
the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert,
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.

"And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the
midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire,
and the bush was not consumed."

And Moses, not, apparently, very much excited, said, "I will now turn
aside, and see this great sight." But God called unto him out of the midst
of the bush, and said, "Moses, Moses." And he said, "Here am I." Then the