g to the early Judean prophetic account Jehovah
spoke audibly to Moses from the flaming thorn bush. In the
Northern Israelite version the moment of decision came to him as he
stood with his flock on the sacred mountain Horeb. Like Isaiah in
his memorable vision of Jehovah's presence, the inner consciousness
of God and the compelling sense of duty led him to cry out: "Here
am I." Likewise in the late priestly story God's presence and
character were so deeply impressed upon him that he seemed to bear
an audible voice, according to the view of those who accept this
interpretation, even though the later priests believed and taught
that God was a spirit, not like man clothed in flesh and blood.
Thus the different groups of Hebrew narratives in their
characteristic way record the essential facts in Moses' call to
public service. Each has preserved certain important elements in
that call, and the late editor has done well to combine them. Even
as Isaiah caught his supreme vision of Jehovah and of duty in the
temple, so to Moses the prophetic call probably came on the lofty
heights of the mountain in which he, in common with the Kenites,
believed God dwelt. The wilderness with its flaming bush spoke to
him God's message. Recent writers have felt and forcibly
interpreted the fascination and the message of the desert and
plain, none more vividly than the Welsh writer Rhoscomyl in
describing the experience of one of his rough, self-reliant cowboy
heroes:

"Two days ago he was riding back, alone, in the afternoon, from an
unsuccessful search after strayed horses, and suddenly, all in the
lifting of a hoof, the weird prairie had gleamed into eerie life,
had dropped the veil and spoken to him; while the breeze stopped,
and the sun stood still for a flash in waiting for his answer. And
he, his heart in a grip of ice, the frozen flesh a-crawl with
terror upon his loosened bones, white-lipped and wide-eyed with
frantic fear, uttered a yell of horror as he dashed the spurs into
his panic-stricken horse, in a mad endeavor to escape from the
Awful Presence that filled all earth and sky from edge to edge of
vision.

"Then almost in the same flash, the unearthly light died out of the
dim prairie, the veil swept across into place again; and he managed
to check his wild flight, and look about him. His empty lips were
gibbering without a sound escaping them, and his very heart
shivered with cold, for all the brassy heat of the day.