Moses' demand that the people be released "three days' journey into the wilderness" brought only a smirk from Pharaoh: who is this Yahweh, that I should listen to Him? In such a situation the only way out became ...
Moses' demand that the people be released "three days' journey into the wilderness" brought only a smirk from Pharaoh: who is this Yahweh, that I should listen to Him? In such a situation the only way out became God's direct intervention in events. It came soon after Moses returned to Egypt. God appears to Moses, for the second time after Sinai, and reveals His name to him, the name Yahweh. The situation begins to resemble what took shape in ancient times, in the days of the fathers, or, as we usually call them, the patriarchs.
Back then God also first revealed Himself to one of them, made or renewed a covenant with him, and then, after a second appearance, began to act by intervening directly in the events taking place. The same thing happens with Moses: first God appears to him and gives him a commission that Moses will have to carry out; then, when Moses has arrived on the scene, God reveals Himself to him again in order to say that He, God, is beginning to act. This logic is fully understandable and is explained by the very essence of God's providence. In the fallen world God always acts according to the situation.
He, of course, has His own plan, but He has to take into account the free will and choices of those who are not participating in the fulfillment of His plan. After all, in order to accomplish His plan, God has to act not only in His own great world, but also in the worlds separated from it, the worlds of those who do not acknowledge His authority and do not want to submit to His will.
He must act in such a way that those who do not want to know Him and do not acknowledge His will are left, as people say, with what is their own, so that their right to a godless existence is not violated. In the fallen world, God has to act in such a way as to leave room in it for those who do not know Him and do not want to know Him. Meanwhile, people who do not know God inevitably produce chaos in their world separated from God, a chaos they themselves usually cannot understand.
God cannot simply put an end to it; more precisely, He can, but then the will of those who produced the chaos would be violated. Therefore God acts with precision, opening a path for those who follow His will. He acts in a specific place and at a specific moment in time, opening opportunities for His people to fulfill His will in an equally specific way, the way He has shown them. In this way God prepares the fallen world for return, for its transformation into the Kingdom, which sooner or later it will become in any case.
