Hello, I'm Gary Stevens, and welcome to the History in the Bible podcast.

All the history, in all the books, in all the Bibles.

Thank you. Episode 1.14, Leaving Egypt.

In the last episode, we left the Israelites oppressed in Egypt.

Exodus had just introduced Moses, the man who would lead them back to Canaan, the land promised to Abraham. In chapter 3, God first appears to Moses in one of the most famous

episodes in the whole Old Testament. Long quote. Exodus 3-1. Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro,

drove the flock into the wilderness and came to Horib, Horev, the mountain of God.

An angel of Yave 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. Moses said, I must turn aside to look at this marvellous sight.

Why doesn't the bush burn up? When Yave saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to him out of the bush.

Moses, Moses, he answered, here I am.

And he said, do not come closer.

Remove your sandals from your feet.

For the place on which you stand is holy ground.

I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Moses hit his face because he was afraid to look at God.

And Yave continued,

I have marked well the plight of my people in Egypt, and have

heeded their outcry because of their taskmasters. 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 Canaanites.

Come therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh, and you shall free my people, the Israelites, from Egypt.

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