Israel

Then Moses asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ What should I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

God also told Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered in every generation.

Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

The elders of Israel will listen to what you say, and you must go with them to the king of Egypt and tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness, so that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’

“This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son,

Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites,

and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.

After that, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let My people go, so that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”

But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and I will not let Israel go.”

Then the Israelite foremen, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over the people, were beaten and asked, “Why have you not fulfilled your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as you did before?”

So the Israelite foremen went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why are you treating your servants this way?

The Israelite foremen realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You must not reduce your daily quota of bricks.”

I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by My name the LORD I did not make Myself known to them.

Furthermore, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered My covenant.

Therefore tell the Israelites: ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

And I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD!’”

Moses relayed this message to the Israelites, but on account of their broken spirit and cruel bondage, they did not listen to him.

“Go and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his land.”

But in the LORD’s presence Moses replied, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, then why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I am unskilled in speech?”

Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a charge concerning both the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, to bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.

These were the heads of their fathers’ houses: The sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel, were Hanoch and Pallu, Hezron and Carmi. These were the clans of Reuben.

It was this Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, “Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt by their divisions.”

Moses and Aaron were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt in order to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.