God is known in this world by bringing judgment upon those who need it. This is Aggadat Bereshit's uncomfortable claim: "The Lord is known for executing judgment; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their own hands" (Psalm 9:17). Not the creation of the world, not the giving of Torah, not the miracles at the sea — God becomes known to the nations primarily through the mechanism of justice.
The rabbis did not mean this as praise of punishment. They meant it as a statement about how divine presence is made visible. In a world where good and evil often appear indistinguishable from outside, where the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer without apparent resolution, the moments of divine judgment are the moments where the hidden structure of reality becomes briefly visible. The wicked are ensnared by their own hands not because God intervenes dramatically but because the structure of the world — the moral fabric woven into creation — eventually catches up with those who violate it.
But the midrash adds a crucial qualifier: even in judgment, God is infusing the world with justice and mercy together. "The Lord, the Lord, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness and truth" (Exodus 34:6) — the same God who judges is the God who forgave Israel's idolatry at the golden calf immediately after pronouncing this very formula. God is known in Judah, in Israel, in the nations — through judgment that is never merely punitive but always, underneath, an expression of the covenant's demand that the world be made just.