Given all that, I still must say that I have never had a “real” experience of the presence of God. I am hardly alone in my desire for some genuine evidence of God. 

As the old spiritual said of Jesus during his final trial and death, “he never said a mumblin’ word.” To the contrary, the newly-freed slaves from Egypt are just full of mumblin’, more traditionally “murmuring” or “grumbling,” words, as they find themselves facing the terrifying and unyielding deserts of the Sinai.