For primitive man there are fertility gods, a sun god, and gods of luck and fortune. Indeed, people are also called gods – people who are more powerful than others are called gods, even in the Torah. “You will be to Pharaoh as gods.” (Ex. 4:16), and “The LORD replied to Moses, ‘See, I give you as a God to Pharaoh, with your brother Aaron as your prophet.’” (Ex. 7:1) In both these cases, G-d is explaining that to a normal person, having superior power makes you into a god in the eyes of the weaker person.
G-d Himself is willing to accommodate man’s need to acclaim power as its own justification. G-d tells Pharaoh, “I have spared you for this purpose: in order to show you My power, and in order that My fame may resound throughout the world.” (Ex. 9:16) The Ten Plagues on Egypt, followed with the Exodus, can be seen as a systemic attack on every prominent natural force that ancient peoples naturally worshipped: The Nile River, frogs, animals, dust, gods for healing, procreation and the pre-eminence of the first-born, the sun, the sea, the wind, storms and locust plagues. The plagues work through each force in turn, each deity in the pantheon, controlling each of them in turn. “I will mete out punishments to all the gods of Egypt, I the LORD.” (Ex. 12:12) Seen in this light, the entire story of the Exodus is G-d conducting a marketing campaign, creating his unique brand!
Why would He choose to do that? The answer is simple: prior to Egypt, mankind could not wrap their heads around the idea of a non-corporeal deity, a deity that cannot be found in a natural force, or a great man, or a powerful people. When first confronted with Moses’ demands, Pharoah’s words were “Who is this god that I am supposed to listen to him and let Israel go? I do not know this god.” In other words: there was no place in the pantheon of Egypt for any deity with the name of the Jewish god. G-d was literally unknown to the Egyptians. The Jewish G-d is not known to the Egyptians because He has no corporeal existence; a G-d who does not command His own natural force is a mere abstraction, not a god at all.
And so the entire branding campaign rolls out, with G-d pummeling the Egyptians and their deities. G-d has to best the other gods, making an irrefutable argument, making sure that nobody could ever again say, “The god of the Hebrews? Never heard of him.” Time after time, G-d repeats, “I am the Lord,” making the point. G-d very much wants mankind to grasp the concept of His existence. Moses tells Pharoah, “That you make know that there is none like the Lord our G-d.” (Ex. 8:6) Yet Pharoah does not ever really understand that the G-d of the Hebrews is somehow different (rather than merely more powerful) than other forces of nature.
The Jewish audience is given a distinctly different message. G-d is trying to explain to the Jewish people that the god of their forefathers is back in the scene – and He is FAR more powerful than he had ever showed them before. This culminates at the Song sung after the Egyptians are drowned in the waters: “Who is like you O Lord?” The Jews do not need to merely understand, as the Egyptians do, that G-d is powerful. They need to understand that there is a qualitative difference as well. The G-d of the Jews is not merely the master of nature; He is its creator, and service to Him is going to be different that the service to any of the pagan deities of the natural world.
Through the entire Exodus story, G-d is showing his power. He told of it in advance, to be sure, but people only believed what they actually saw and experienced. Even the Jewish people needed to be shown: “But when Moses told this to the Israelites, they would not listen to Moses, their spirits crushed by cruel bondage.” (Ex 6:9) Talk, after all, is cheap.
From our perspective, this seems foolish. When G-d Almighty tells you something, you had best believe it.
But here’s the kicker: G-d never told anyone before this point that He was Almighty! He never showed His power to mankind in Genesis (the Flood was the only exception, and even that only showed power over rain). G-d did not even tell anyone of it. Which is why, when G-d tells Avram and Sara that He can make an old woman fertile again, that they will have a son, they laugh at him! This only makes sense if they had no reason to think that G-d was all-powerful. G-d realizes that if Avram and Sara do not believe that G-d is powerful enough to override nature, then the rest of the world would prove to be an impossibly difficult audience. Indeed, Avram keeps asking how he can be sure that he will have a child (15:2 and 15:8) – G-d’s only advocate in the world is full of doubt, too!
At this point, G-d forges a new covenant (Gen 15) that Avraham’s descendants will be enslaved for 400 years, and then brought out through G-d’s force. It is here that the Exodus is forecast for the future, because G-d realizes that mankind will not recognize Him without a full and comprehensive demonstration of divine power.
Until the Exodus, G-d’s power is not specified. To our forefathers, He is essentially called a familial deity. Which is why Isaac calls G-d, “The G-d of my father,” and Jacob calls G-d, “The G-d of my fathers.” The tribal deity continues the conversation and the relationship through the generations, but neither the forefathers, nor their wives, nor their enemies, ever refer to G-d as somehow more powerful than “The G-d of my father/s.” (Gen 26:24, 28:13).
When Moses is first rebuffed in his attempts to free the people, G-d responds:
‘I am the LORD; and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as ‘El Shaddai,’ but by My name YKVK I made Me not known to them.
In other words: “You are about to see a facet of me that the forefathers never saw.” That is the G-d of the Exodus, the almighty god of the whole world. Which means that the entire Exodus is G-d’s big reveal.
Moses himself does not quite grasp the magnitude of G-d’s power, at least not when they first meet. G-d introduces Himself as “The God of the father, the God of Avraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” It is a good start, but it is not an argument for omnipotence.
G-d tells Moses to go talk to Pharoah, and Moses demurs, saying that he has a speech impediment. G-d replies, “‘Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh a man dumb, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? is it not I the LORD?’” (Ex. 4:11) Moses is unconvinced and unmoved; G-d loses the argument, and instead appoints Aaron to speak on Moses’ behalf. G-d knows that He is clearly not getting the respect He deserves. It is going to take a big demonstration to get there.
What is fascinating is that G-d does not even demand that the people worship Him exclusively until the Ten Commandments are given at Sinai! That event is often compared to a marriage between G-d and the people, and it makes sense that “forswearing all others” comes with the marriage ceremony. We are commanded to make and keep a clean break between worshipping G-d and even acknowledging the deities of others. Monotheism is introduced to the Jewish people at Sinai! From that point, we no longer bury idols (as Jacob did); we destroy them.
Thus, the Exodus is G-d’s revelation of Himself to the world. For the Egyptians, it suffices that G-d is understood as being more powerful than their own deities. But the Jews had to learn something that was even harder to grasp: notwithstanding all the tangible physical forces within nature, G-d is, in fact, the only deity in the world.