Image Details

Manchester, John Rylands Library/MS. HEB. 6, Folio 13V

“Moses, tending the flock of his in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush. He gazed, and there was a bush all aflame, yet the bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:1–2). In this 14th-century illumination from the Rylands Spanish Haggadah, Moses appears twice—once with Jethro’s flock, and once removing his shoes out of respect as the voice of God speaks to him from the burning bush and commands him to return to Egypt. Until this point, Moses has never encountered the Hebrew God; he has acted only on his own initiative. From this point on, he will rarely act alone again.