Exodus 5 · a question people ask
Was asking for "three days’ journey" honest, when God meant to bring Israel out for good?
The words weren't Moses' idea. At the bush God told him to say, "Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD, our God" (3:18), and Moses and Aaron say almost exactly that (5:3). God also told Moses, "I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go" (3:19). Everyone agrees on what the text shows: Pharaoh refused before the question of coming back ever came up, saying, "I don’t know the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go" (5:2). Christians read the request in more than one way.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
A true request that tested Pharaoh
Those who hold this view note that the request came from God himself (3:18) and asked for something small and true: time to worship. Pharaoh's answer showed what God had already said, that he would not let them go (3:19), since he would not give even three days (5:3-9).
Exodus 3:18-19 · Exodus 5:3-9
A first step toward the whole demand
Those who hold this view note that God had told Moses from the start that he would "bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt" (3:10) to "a land flowing with milk and honey" (3:8), so the three days was a first request, not the whole plan. The text never says they promised to come back.
Exodus 3:8 · Exodus 3:10 · Exodus 3:18
The verses
“I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.”
“Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.””
“They will listen to your voice. You shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD, our God.’ I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand. I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go.”
“Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go.” They said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD, our God, lest he fall on us with pestilence, or with the sword.””