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Section 5. I have established that the messenger could verify for himself that the speech he heard was from God, before attributing it to his Lord before his people.
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This verification came through a sign that appeared at the beginning of the speech and ceased at its end — either a pillar of fire, or a pillar of cloud, or a brilliant light unlike the familiar luminaries.
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When the prophet witnessed this, he was certain the speech was from God. And sometimes the people witnessed it too.
As Moses' people — when he departed from them toward the place of revelation — would rise and look toward the sky. It would be clear of all cloud, their eyes fixed on Moses,
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— and when he arrived at the place of revelation, the cloud descended like a pillar and remained until the address was complete, then rose again. Then he returned to them.
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If one asks: how did the magicians counter Moses' signs? — we say: the signs he performed were ten, the staff-turning and the nine others,
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and the Torah records that they countered him only in three. And even those three the Torah does not record in order to equate them with him —
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— rather, it recorded it to contrast his act with theirs. It made clear that Moses did something open and manifest, as God commanded, while they did something hidden and concealed.
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— when uncovered, the trick became apparent, as it says about the three: 'The sorcerers did likewise with their secret arts' (Exod. 7:22). That word in the language denotes purely the hidden, covered, and wrapped thing,
— so when the Torah used the expression 'with their secret arts,' it made clear that this was to refute them, not to validate them.
Having established this principle, I need not specify in detail how they may have used trickery with small portions of the water and altered its color by dye,
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— except that such tricks cannot apply to large bodies of matter. What Moses did was to change the entirety of the Nile — estimated at forty parasangs in length —
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— all of it, in which no trick or subtlety is possible; rather, it is the act of the Almighty, the Wise, the Powerful, as it says: 'To Him who alone does great wonders, for His steadfast love endures forever' (Ps. 136:4).
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Another question: how was Jonah chosen for the mission yet fled from it, given that the Wise One does not choose someone who would defy Him?
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I say: I have examined the story of Jonah carefully. I find no text that explicitly states he did not discharge the first mission; yet neither do I find that he discharged it.
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Yet I hold it obligatory to believe this on the model of all messengers, and on the principle that the Wise One does not choose someone who would not discharge His mission.
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Rather, Jonah fled from the possibility of being sent again — for he reasoned that the first mission was warning, and a second would be threatening and warning of punishment, and he feared that if he warned them they would repent, the threat would pass, and he would be attributed with falsehood.
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So he left the city where the Creator had promised the prophecy would occur. He was not blameworthy, for his Lord had not told him 'I am sending you a second time.'