At the burning bush, Moses is commanded to lead Israel to the right concept of God (i.e. to lead the people out of the Egypt of this world). He meets Aron, who knows how to reduce the concept to a popular form. Already supported and imperceptibly opposed by Aron, Moses addresses the people, who believe him as a result of certain […] miracles and, entrusting themselves to his leadership, escape from Egypt with him.
On Mount Horeb, Moses receives the Tablets of the Law, the laws, which arise by themselves out of his own thoughts. A distinction is probably to be made between the human necessities of life in society and the purely abstract demands made by the idea. While Moses is listening (absorbed) to the word of God and trying to give it inalterable form in stone, tumult breaks out […], in which the most essential characteristic – the passionate eruption of a sensual need for God – must become clearly apparent. Thus noble, but human, passions reveal that this people is in all honesty not sufficiently mature for this grand idea. Finally, Moses is persuaded by Aron to make concessions.
Arnold Schönberg