  Thus far Ibn Ezra has reiterated, and endorsed, the view of the philosophers. Now, however, he parts ways with them; astrology plays a key role in this turn of thought. The intellectuals who follow this path, observes Ibn Ezra, deny divine intervention in worldly matters. Israel’s astral destiny was such that she should not have been freed from bondage at that particular time. God however can overrule the stars, and His doing so precisely at that astrally inauspicious moment is compelling proof, not only for His existence, but for the operation of the cosmos that He created.