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Moses our teacher — and the miraculous signs given to him — I shall abbreviate without detailing them here, since they are expounded in the text of Exodus and other books and their interpretation.
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Those servants who believed in him and confirmed him are the righteous, as it says: 'And he performed the signs before the people and the people believed' (Exod. 4:30–31). Those who did not believe or confirm him are the wrongdoers.
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I must state here something that encompasses the facts: the Creator (mighty and exalted) does not overturn a perceptible reality until He has alerted the people that He is about to do so, and the reason for this is that they may confirm His prophet.
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Without such a cause there is no basis for overturning any perceptible reality, for if we believed otherwise, our grip on perceptible facts would be destroyed.
We must therefore believe that existing things remain as they are, and that their Lord does not alter them except after giving prior warning.
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I further say: wisdom does not permit that the messengers to humanity be angels, because people do not know the measure of the angels' power — what is within their capacity and what is beyond it.
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For if angels were to come with miraculous signs, people would think that all angels are naturally like this, and the sign could not be established as coming from the Creator.
But when the messengers are human beings like us, and we find them doing what is beyond our capacity — and what can only be the act of the Creator — their mission is validated by His very word.
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He made the messengers equal to other people in death, so that people would not think: since it would be possible for these to live forever unlike others, it must also be possible for them to perform miracles unlike others.
For the same reason He did not guard them from eating, drinking, and marrying — lest doubt fall on their signs and people think that their greatness was natural to them.
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Likewise He did not guarantee them permanent bodily health, great wealth, offspring, or protection from the wrongdoing of tyrants — whether by beating, verbal abuse, or killing.
For if He had done this, people could attribute it to some special constitution in them that set them apart from other people.
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I say: His wisdom surpasses all description. He left them in all their conditions like other people, and distinguished them from the whole by enabling them to do what is beyond all people — so that His sign would be clear and their mission established.
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For the same reason He did not have them perform miracles continuously or know the hidden continuously — lest ordinary people think they possessed a nature that required this.
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Rather He caused them to do this at certain times and to know this at certain moments, so that it would be clear that it came to them from the Creator and not from themselves.
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— rather, it became clear to me that the wisdom in what the Creator has done regarding His messengers resembles His other acts, as it says: 'For the word of the LORD is upright, and all His work is done in faithfulness' (Ps. 33:4).
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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.