Moses is to return to Egypt, free the Israelite slaves from bondage, and shepherd them back to their home in the Land of Canaan: “Thus will you say to the children of Israel, ‘Yahweh, the god of your fathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob, has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:15). This claim would have come as something of a surprise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because the fact of the matter is that these biblical patriarchs did not worship a Midianite desert deity called Yahweh. They worshiped an altogether different god—a Canaanite deity they knew as El.
