A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

While he is keeping sheep for his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses crosses the desert and comes to the “mountain of God,” Horeb. There he sees a “flame of fire coming from the middle of a bush” and hears himself called by name. A few moments later the voice of God comes to him, saying, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). Nevertheless, Moses senses that he is in the presence of an unknown aspect of the divinity, or even of a new god. He accepts the order to go to the children of Israel and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you”; but, if they ask what God’s name is, “what am I to tell them?” (3:13). “And God said to Moses, I Am Who I am (eyeh ašer ehyeh).” And he teaches him to address the children of Israel in these terms: “I Am has sent me to you” (3:14).