What did Moses mean when he told Pharoah he wanted to go a three days journey into the Wilderness? [duplicate]

Question

In Exodus 3:18; 5:1-3; 8:27 Moses tells Pharoah he wants to travel three days into the wilderness to sacrifice unto Jehovah.

EXODUS 3:

¹⁷ And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

¹⁸ And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

EXODUS 5:

¹ And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness.

² And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go.

³ And they said, The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the desert, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God; lest he fall upon us with pestilence, or with the sword.

EXODUS 8:

²⁷ We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God, as he shall command us.

Pharoah refuses. Why did Moses say only "three days" into the Wilderness when their goal was to sacrifice at Mount Sinai, which took them 45 days to travel to?

Did Moses really mean to go into the wilderness just three days, then just not return? Why did he seem to make Pharoah believe that the sacrificing would be done on the third day and then they would obediently return? Pharoah would be taking a big chance to let the slaves go on a three days trip into the wilderness. But we know that the Israelites did not have that in mind when they departed Egypt. They weren't coming back. Mt. Sinai though was more than three days' journey into the wilderness.

One other question is this: Was the three days journey in Numbers 10:33 the three day journey to which Moses referred? The words used in Numbers are the very words used by Moses in the Exodus passages above.

Numbers 10:

33 And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them.

Answer 1

[Numbers 33:3-8] recounts the 3-day Exodus from רַעְמְסֵס Rameses to "The Sea" Ha-Yam הַיָּם at פִּי הַחִירֹת Pi-hahiroth (informing the reader why in [Shemot 8:23] Moshe requested "three days into the wilderness" שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים נֵלֵךְ בַּמִּדְבָּר ).

• 1-day to סֻכֹּֽת Succoth.
• 1-day to אֵתָם Etham.
• 1-day to פִּי הַחִירֹת Pi hahiroth.

Finally 3-days after leaving Rameses, we are told in Numbers 33:8 "They journeyed from Penei hahiroth and crossed in the midst of the Sea to the desert." ( וַיִּסְעוּ מִפְּנֵי הַֽחִירֹת וַיַּעַבְרוּ בְתֽוֹךְ־הַיָּם הַמִּדְבָּרָה )

The allowance of this 3-day journey to The Sea is requested by מֹשֶׁ֗ה Moshe from Pharaoh in [the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 8:27 is actually found in Exodus 8 verse 23] - "So we must go a distance of three days into the wilderness and sacrifice to YHVH our-God as He may command us.” ( דֶּרֶךְ שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים נֵלֵךְ בַּמִּדְבָּר וְזָבַחְנוּ לַֽיהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ כַּאֲשֶׁר יֹאמַר אֵלֵינוּ )