Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law or brother-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to an area west of the wilderness district and came to Mount Horeb, also known as the Mountain of God. Commentators discuss the relationship between Jethro, Reuel and Moses, and the location and significance of Mount Horeb/Sinai.

1. EXODUS 3 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
Moses and the Burning Bush
1 ow Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his
father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the
flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to
Horeb, the mountain of God.
BAR ES, "Jethro his father-in-law - Or “brother-in-law.” The word in the
Hebrew is a word signifying relative by marriage. When Moses arrived in Midian, Reuel
was an elderly man Exo_2:16; 40 years later (Exo_2:23 note), Reuel’s son, Jethro, had
probably succeeded him.
The backside - i. e. “to the west of the district.” Among the Hebrews the East is
before a man, the west behind him, the south and north on the right and left hand.
Desert - Or wilderness, not a barren waste, but a district supplying pasturage. The
district near Sherm, on the west of the gulf of Akabah, where Jethro may have resided, is
described as barren and parched; on the west and east are rocky tracts, but to the
northwest lies the district of Sinai, where the pasturage is good and water abundant. The
Bedouins drive their flocks there from the lowlands at the approach of summer. From
this it may be inferred that the events here recorded took place at that season.
To Horeb - More exactly, toward Horeb. Moses came to the mountain of God, i. e.
Sinai, on his way toward Horeb, a name given to the northern part of the Sinaitic range.
Moses calls Sinai “mountain of God” by anticipation, with reference to the manifestation
of God. There is no authority for assuming that the spot was previously held sacred (see
Exo_5:5); but it has been lately shown that the whole Peninsula was regarded by the
Egyptians as specially consecrated to the gods from a very early time.
CLARKE, "Jethro his father-in-law - Concerning Jethro, see Clarke’s note on
Exo_2:18. Learned men are not agreed on the signification of the word ‫חתן‬ chothen,
which we translate father-in-law, and which in Gen_19:14, we translate son-in-law. It
seems to be a general term for a relative by marriage, and the connection only in which it
stands can determine its precise meaning. It is very possible that Reuel was now dead, it
being forty years since Moses came to Midian; that Jethro was his son, and had

2. succeeded him in his office of prince and priest of Midian; that Zipporah was the sister
of Jethro; and that consequently the word ‫חתן‬ chothen should be translated brother-in-
law in this place: as we learn from Gen_34:9, Deu_7:3, Jos_23:12, and other places, that
it simply signifies to contract affinity by marriage. If this conjecture be right, we may
well suppose that, Reuel being dead, Moses was continued by his brother-in-law Jethro
in the same employment he had under his father.
Mountain of God - Sometimes named Horeb, at other times Sinai. The mountain
itself had two peaks; one was called Horeb, the other Sinai. Horeb was probably the
primitive name of the mountain, which was afterwards called the mountain of God,
because God appeared upon it to Moses; and Mount Sinai, ‫,סיני‬ from ‫סנה‬ seneh, a bush,
because it was in a bush or bramble, in a flame of fire, that this appearance was made.
GILL, "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of
Midian,.... Who was either the same with Reuel or Raguel, spoken of in the preceding
chapter; or, as others think, a son of his, the father being now dead; seeing it was now
forty years since Moses came into Midian, Act_7:30. Demetrius (c), an Heathen writer,
expressly says that Jothor a son of Raguel, and Zipporah or Sepphora, as he calls her,
was his daughter, whom Moses married: now this was the business Moses was chiefly
concerned in during his stay in Midian; keeping the sheep of his father-in-law, in which
great personages have have employed, and who have afterwards been called to the kingly
office, as David; and this was an emblem of his feeding and ruling the people of Israel,
and in it he was an eminent type of Christ, the great shepherd and bishop of souls: no
doubt there were other things besides this in which Moses exercised himself in this
course of time, and improved himself in the knowledge of things, natural, civil, and
religious, and which the more qualified him for the important work he was designed for:
it is thought that in this interval he wrote the book of Genesis, and also the book of Job:
and he led the flock to the backside of the desert; of Sinai or Arabia, on the back
part of which, it seems, were goodly pastures; and hither he led his flock to feed, which
was about three days' journey from Egypt, Exo_5:3 or rather into the desert (d), for
Horeb or Sinai was not behind the desert, but in it:
and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb; so called either because of the
appearance of God at this time, after related, or because of his giving the law and making
the covenant with the people of Israel there; and it should be observed that that
transaction was past when Moses wrote this book. Hither he led the sheep, they
delighting in mountains, hence sometimes mountainous places are called οιοπολα, (e),
because sheep delight to feed upon them (f).
HE RY, "The years of the life of Moses are remarkably divided into three forties: the
first forty he spent as a prince in Pharaoh's court, the second a shepherd in Midian, the
third a king in Jeshurun; so changeable is the life of men, especially the life of good men.
He had now finished his second forty, when he received his commission to bring Israel
out of Egypt. Note, Sometimes it is long before God calls his servants out of that work
which of old he designed them for, and has been graciously preparing them for. Moses
was born to be Israel's deliverer, and yet not a word is said of it to him till he is eighty
years of age. Now obverve,

3. I. How this appearance of God to him found him employed. He was keeping the flock
(tending sheep) near mount Horeb, Exo_3:1. This was a poor employment for a man of
his parts and education, yet he rests satisfied with it, and thus learns meekness and
contentment to a high degree, for which he is more celebrated in sacred writ than for all
his other learning. Note, 1. In the calling to which we are called we should abide, and not
be given to change. 2. Even those that are qualified for great employments and services
must not think it strange if they be confined to obscurity; it was the lot of Moses before
them, who foresaw nothing to the contrary but that he should die, as he had lived a great
while, a poor despicable shepherd. Let those that think themselves buried alive be
content to shine like lamps in their sepulchres, and wait till God's time come for setting
them on a candlestick. Thus employed Moses was, when he was honoured with this
vision. Note, (1.) God will encourage industry. The shepherds were keeping their flocks
when they received the tidings of our Saviour's birth, Luk_2:8. Satan loves to find us
idle; God is well pleased when he find us employed. (2.) Retirement is a good friend to
our communion with God. When we are alone, the Father is with us. Moses saw more of
God in a desert than ever he had seen in Pharaoh's court.
JAMISO , Exo_3:1-22. Divine appearance and commission to Moses.
Now Moses kept the flock — This employment he had entered on in furtherance of
his matrimonial views (see on Exo_2:21), but it is probable he was continuing his service
now on other terms like Jacob during the latter years of his stay with Laban (Gen_
30:28).
he led the flock to the backside of the desert — that is, on the west of the desert
[Gesenius], assuming Jethro’s headquarters to have been at Dahab. The route by which
Moses led his flock must have been west through the wide valley called by the Arabs,
Wady-es-Zugherah [Robinson], which led into the interior of the wilderness.
Mountain of God — so named either according to Hebrew idiom from its great
height, as “great mountains,” Hebrew, “mountains of God” (Psa_36:6); “goodly cedars,”
Hebrew, “cedars of God” (Psa_80:10); or some think from its being the old abode of
“the glory”; or finally from its being the theater of transactions most memorable in the
history of the true religion to Horeb - rather, “Horeb-ward.”
Horeb — that is, “dry,” “desert,” was the general name for the mountainous district in
which Sinai is situated, and of which it is a part. (See on Exo_19:2). It was used to
designate the region comprehending that immense range of lofty, desolate, and barren
hills, at the base of which, however, there are not only many patches of verdure to be
seen, but almost all the valleys, or wadys, as they are called, show a thin coating of
vegetation, which, towards the south, becomes more luxuriant. The Arab shepherds
seldom take their flocks to a greater distance than one day’s journey from their camp.
Moses must have gone at least two days’ journey, and although he seems to have been
only following his pastoral course, that region, from its numerous springs in the clefts of
the rocks being the chief resort of the tribes during the summer heats, the Providence of
God led him thither for an important purpose.
K&D, "When Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, he drove them
on one occasion behind the desert, and came to the mountains of Horeb. ‫ה‬ ֶ‫ּע‬‫ר‬ ‫ה‬ָ‫י‬ ָ‫,ה‬ lit. “he
was feeding:” the participle expresses the continuance of the occupation. ‫ר‬ ָ ְ‫ד‬ ִ ַ‫ה‬ ‫ר‬ ַ‫ח‬ፍ does
not mean ad interiora deserti (Jerome); but Moses drove the sheep from Jethro's home
as far as Horeb, so that he passed through a desert with the flock before he reached the

4. pasture land of Horeb. For “in this, the most elevated ground of the peninsula, you find
the most fertile valleys, in which even fruit-trees grow. Water abounds in this district;
consequently it is the resort of all the Bedouins when the lower countries are dried up”
(Rosenmüller). Jethro's home was separated from Horeb, therefore, by a desert, and is
to be sought to the south-east, and not to the north-east. For it is only a south-easterly
situation that will explain these two facts: First, that when Moses returned from Midian
to Egypt, he touched again at Horeb, where Aaron, who had come from Egypt, met him
(Exo_4:27); and, secondly, that the Israelites never came upon any Midianites on their
journey through the desert, whilst the road of Hobab the Midianite separated from
theirs as soon as they departed from Sinai (Num_10:30).
(Note: The hypothesis, that, after the calling of Moses, this branch of the
Midianites left the district they had hitherto occupied, and sought out fresh pasture
ground, probably on the eastern side of the Elanitic Gulf, is as needless as it is
without support.)
Horeb is called the Mount of God by anticipation, with reference to the consecration
which it subsequently received through the revelation of God upon its summit. The
supposition that it had been a holy locality even before the calling of Moses, cannot be
sustained. Moreover, the name is not restricted to one single mountain, but applies to
the central group of mountains in the southern part of the peninsula (vid., Exo_19:1).
Hence the spot where God appeared to Moses cannot be precisely determined, although
tradition has very suitably given the name Wady Shoeib, i.e., Jethro's Valley, to the
valley which bounds the Jebel Musa towards the east, and separates it from the Jebel ed
Deir, because it is there that Moses is supposed to have fed the flock of Jethro. The
monastery of Sinai, which is in this valley, is said to have been built upon the spot where
the thorn-bush stood, according to the tradition in Antonini Placent. Itinerar. c. 37, and
the annals of Eutychius (vid., Robinson, Palestine).
CALVI , "1. ow Moses kept the flock. We have already said that he was occupied
as a shepherd for a long time (viz., about forty years) before this vision appeared to
him. The patience, then, of the holy man is commended by his continuance in this
work; not that Moses had any intention of boastfully celebrating his own virtues,
but that the Holy Spirit dictated what would be useful to us, and, as it were,
suggested it to his mouth, that what he did and suffered might be an example for
ever. For he must have had much mental struggle at this tedious delay, when old
age, which weakens the body, came on, since even in those days few retained their
activity after their eightieth year; and although he might have lived frugally, yet
temperance could not protect even the most robust body against so many hardships,
because it is given to very few persons to be able thus to live in the open air, and to
bear heat, and cold, and hunger, constant fatigue, the care of cattle, and other
troubles. God, indeed, miraculously supported the holy man in the performance of
his arduous duties; but still the internal conflict must have gone on, — why does
God so long delay and suspend what he so long ago determined? It was, then, no
ordinary virtue which overcame these distracting assaults, which were constantly
renewing his anxiety; whilst, in the mean time, he was living poorly, in huts and
sheds, as well as often wandering over rough and desert places, though from
childhood to mature manhood he had been accustomed to luxury; as he here relates,

5. that, having led his flock across the Desert, he came to Horeb, which certainly could
not have been effected without his experiencing the cold as he lay on the ground by
night, and burning heat by day. The title of “the mountain of God” refers (35) by
anticipation to a future period, when the place was consecrated by the promulgation
of the Law there. It is well known that Horeb is the same mountain which is also
called Sinai, except that a different name is given to its opposite sides, and, properly
speaking, its eastern side is called Sinai, its western, Horeb. (36) Since, then, God
appeared there and gave so many manifest signs of his heavenly glory, when he
renewed his covenant with his people, and furnished them with a rule of perfect
holiness, the place became invested with peculiar dignity.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:1 ow Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the
priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the
mountain of God, [even] to Horeb.
Ver. 1. To the backside of the desert,] Here it was that Moses wrote the book of
Genesis, and that of Job too, as some conceive, (a) for the comfort of his poor
oppressed countrymen in Egypt, that they might lean upon, and live by faith in, the
promises made to the fathers.
ELLICOTT, "(1) Moses kept the flock.—The natural occupation of one who had
thrown in his lot with the Midianites.
Jethro, his father-in-law.—Rather, his relation by marriage. The word is one of very
wide use, corresponding with the Latin affinis. It is even applied to a husband, as in
Exodus 4:25. The supposition that it means “father-in-law” has led to the
identification of Jethro with Reuel, which is very unlikely. He was more probably
Reuel’s son, and Moses’s brother-in-law. His father having died, he had succeeded
to his father’s position, and was at once priest and sheikh of the tribe.
To the backside of the desert.—Heb., behind the desert—i.e., to the fertile tract
which lay behind the sandy plain stretching from the Sinaitic range to the shore of
the Elanitic gulf.
The mountain of God—i.e., Sinai. See Exodus 18:5; Exodus 19:2-23, &c.
Even Horeb.—Rather, towards Horeb, or Horeb way. Horeb seems to have been the
name of the entire mountain region; Sinai of the group or mass known now as Jebel
Musa.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:1. ow Moses — The years of Moses’s life are remarkably
divided into three forties; the first forty he spent as a prince in Pharaoh’s court, the
second a shepherd in Midian, the third a king in Jeshurun. He had now finished his
second forty when he received his commission to bring Israel out of Egypt.
Sometimes it is long before God calls his servants out to that work which of old he

6. designed them for. Moses was born to be Israel’s deliverer, and yet not a word is
said of him till he is eighty years of age. To the mountain of God — So called, either
from the vision of God here following, (see Acts 7:30,) or by anticipation, from
God’s glorious appearance there, and his giving the law from thence. Even to Horeb
— Called also Sinai, Exodus 19:1. Probably Horeb was the name of the whole tract
of mountains, and Sinai the name of that particular elevation where the vision
happened, and the law was delivered: or Horeb and Sinai were two different
summits of the same mountain.
COKE, "Exodus 3:1. Jethro his father-in-law, &c.— See note on ch. Exodus 2:18.
What we render, the back-side of the desert, the Vulgate has the inner parts of the
desert; where, probably, there was the best pasture: and so the Chaldee renders it,
the best pastures of the desert. Horeb might be called the mountain of GOD, either
from God's appearance there now, or because of his giving the law from it
afterwards. Some suppose that it is so called, from its great height; as, Psalms 36:6
the great mountains are called in the original, the mountains of God. Josephus has
preserved a tradition, that it was given out in the times before Moses, that a Divinity
had often appeared on this mount. Horeb and Sinai were two tops of the same
mountain; which accounts for their being so frequently named the one for the other;
as, Acts 7:30. St. Stephen calls that Sinai, which Moses here calls Horeb. Some
suppose, that Moses, during his forty years' continuance with Jethro, wrote the
book of Genesis, as well as that of Job.
COFFMA , "Introduction
Exodus is an accurate historical record of the founding of the nation of Israel.
Whatever questions may arise from such a view derive either from man's ignorance
of the entire historical period when these events occurred, or from
misunderstanding the Sacred Text. This account is the only historical record of
what happened.
The Biblical account up to here has been brief, having an account of those things
alone that were considered absolutely necessary to be related, but with this chapter
there begins an account of many minute details, enumerated with all the care and
precision of an eye-witness. The catastrophic deliverance of Israel from Egyptian
bondage has a significance and importance, which in their immediate and ultimate
consequences, "stand alone in the world's history."[1] This chapter is the record of
a truly great moment for Moses, for Israel, and for all mankind - "one of the truly
significant watersheds of history."[2]
The fullness of time indeed had come. The wickedness of the Canaanites had run its
course, and the time for the sword of judgment to fall upon them had arrived. Israel
had become mighty, prepared, and disciplined through hardship, and as Jamieson
noted:
"The period of Israel's sojourn and affliction in Egypt had been predicted (Genesis
15:13), and it was during the last year of the term that had still to run that the Lord

7. appeared in the burning bush."[3]
Verse 1
" ow Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian:
and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to the mountain of God,
unto Horeb."
"Jethro his father-in-law ..." This is surprising in view of the fact that Reuel
appeared in Exodus 2:18, both as the "priest of Midian," and as "father-in-law" of
Moses. However, forty years had intervened, and Jethro, probably the son of Reuel,
had inherited the office, as was the custom. This would have meant that Jethro was
brother-in-law to Moses, the same word in Hebrew meant either. "The word here
rendered father-in-law is used of almost any relation by marriage."[4] The
phenomenal blindness that causes men to find evidence of contradictory sources in a
passage like this is equaled only by that of those who are deceived by such false
allegations. How true to life this narrative really is. How many things are changed
when one revisits a site familiar to him forty years earlier!
"Keeping the flock ..." This humble occupation had been followed by Moses for
forty years, and it shows how submissive and humble Moses was in the long
discipline imposed upon him by the Lord. "He led the flock ..." The foolish and
superstitious notion that Moses was led by the sheep to the sacred mountain
evaporates in this statement that Moses led the sheep!
"To the back of the wilderness ..." This means to the west or northwest of the area.
"Among the Hebrews the east is before a man, the west behind him, and the south
and the north on the right and left hand."[5]
"And came to the mountain of God, unto Horeb ..." The "mountain of God" could
be nothing other than Sinai. Moses was writing perhaps near the end of his life, and
the whole nation of Israel would have understood this as a reference to the
mountain where the Law was given. Thus, its being called the "mountain of God"
here was proleptic. ote that it is identified with Horeb. "Horeb ..." "This name is
not restricted to one single mountain, but applies to the central group of mountains
in the southern part of the (Arabian) peninsula."[6]
evertheless, there was also a peak called Horeb, and, in the O.T., "Horeb and Sinai
are used as equivalent terms."[7] We shall not bother with all the conflicting
opinions with regard to the location of Sinai. The tradition is eighteen centuries old
that places the location at, "Jebul Musa (Mount of Moses)." The monastery of St.
Catherine is at the foot of it.[8] We fully agree with Fields who knew of no reason
why this old tradition should be set aside.[9]
CO STABLE, "Verses 1-12
Horeb is another name for Sinai ( Exodus 3:1). It probably indicates a range of
mountains rather than a particular mountain peak. The writer called it "the
mountain of God" because it was the place where God later gave the Mosaic Law to
Israel. The traditional site of Mt. Sinai and the Horeb range is in the southern Sinai

8. Peninsula. However some Scripture references cast this location into question (cf.
Deuteronomy 33:2; Galatians 4:25). These references suggest that the site may have
been somewhere on the east side of the Gulf of Aqabah. [ ote: However, see Gordon
Franz, "Mt. Sinai Is ot Jebel El-Lawz in Saudi Arabia," a paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, 15 ovember2001 ,
Colorado Springs, Colo.]
Here the Angel of the Lord is clearly God (Yahweh, Exodus 3:2; cf. Exodus 3:4;
Exodus 3:6-7). He was not an angelic messenger but God Himself.
A burning thorn-bush was and is not uncommon in the Sinai desert. [ ote: Cassuto,
p31.] These bushes sometimes burst into flame spontaneously. This bush was
unusual, however, because even though it burned it did not burn up ( Exodus 3:3).
The monastery of St. Catherine is supposed to be on the exact site of the burning
bush, according to ancient tradition. [ ote: See Philip C. Johnson, " Exodus ," in
The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, p54.]
Jewish and Christian interpreters have long seen the bush in this incident as a
symbol of the nation of Israel ignoble in relation to other nations (cf. Judges 9:15).
The fire probably symbolized the affliction of Egyptian bondage (cf. Deuteronomy
4:20). The Israelites suffered as a result of this hostility, but God did not allow them
to suffer extinction as a people from it. Because Israel has frequently been in the
furnace of affliction throughout history, though not consumed, Jews have identified
the burning bush as a symbol of their race. This symbol often appears on the walls
of synagogues or in other prominent places not only in modern Israel but also in
settlements of Jews around the world. The fire also probably symbolized the
presence of God dwelling among His people (cf. Genesis 15:17; Exodus 19:18;
Exodus 40:38). God was with His people in their affliction (cf. Deuteronomy 31:6;
Joshua 1:5; Daniel 3:25; Hebrews 13:5).
This was the first time God had revealed Himself to Moses, or anyone else as far as
Scripture records, for over430 years ( Exodus 3:4). Later in history God broke
another400-year long period of prophetic silence when John the Baptist and Jesus
appeared to lead an even more significant exodus.
The custom of removing one"s shoes out of respect is very old ( Exodus 3:5). It was
common at this time in the ancient world and is still common today. [ ote: Keil and
Delitzsch, 1:437-40.] For example, when one enters a Moslem mosque he must
remove his shoes.
"God begins his discourse with Moses by warning him not to come near to him
because he is holy ( Exodus 3:5). As we will later see, the idea of God"s holiness is a
central theme in the remainder of the book. Indeed, the whole structure of Israel"s
worship of God at the tabernacle is based on a view of God as the absolutely Holy
One who has come to dwell in their midst. We should not lose sight of the fact,
however, that at the same time that God warns Moses to stand at a distance, he also
speaks to him "face to face" (cf. umbers 12:8). The fact that God is a holy God

9. should not be understood to mean that he is an impersonal force-God is holy yet
intensely personal. This is a central theme in the narratives of the Sinai covenant
that follow." [ ote: Sailhamer, The Pentateuch . . ., p245.]
God proceeded to explain the reason for His revelation ( Exodus 3:7-10). The
suffering of His people had touched His heart. He had heard their cries and seen
their affliction. ow He purposed to deliver them. The compassion of God stands
out in these verses.
"The anthropomorphisms (i.e, the descriptions of God"s actions and attributes in
words usually associated with mankind) in Exodus 3:7-8 of God"s "seeing,"
"hearing," "knowing" (= "be concerned about"), and "coming down" became
graphic ways to describe divine realities for which no description existed except for
partially analogous situations in the human realm. But these do not imply that God
has corporeal and spatial limitations; rather, he is a living person who can and does
follow the stream of human events and who can and does at times directly intervene
in human affairs." [ ote: Kaiser, p316.]
"Is there no discrepancy between these two announcements ["I have come down to
deliver," Exodus 3:8, and "I will send you," Exodus 3:10]? If God has Himself come
down to do the work of redemption, what need of Moses? Would not a word from
those almighty lips be enough? Why summon a shepherd, a lonely and unbefriended
Prayer of Manasseh , a man who has already failed once, and from whom the
passing years have stolen his manhood"s prime, to work out with painful
elaboration, and through a series of bewildering disappointments, the purposed
emancipation? But this is not an isolated case. Throughout the entire scheme of
Divine government, we meet with the principle of mediation. God ever speaks to
men, and works for them, through the instrumentality of men. Chosen agents are
called into the inner circle, to catch the Divine thought and mirror the Divine
character, and then sent back to their fellows, to cause them to partake." [ ote:
Meyer, p43.]
The description of Canaan as a land "flowing with milk and honey" ( Exodus 3:8;
Exodus 3:17) is a common biblical one. It pictures an abundance of grass, fruit
trees, and flowers where cows, goats, and bees thrive and where the best drink and
food abound. The operative word in the description is "flowing." This is a picture of
a land in contrast to Egypt, where sedentary farming was common. In Canaan the
Israelites would experience a different form of life, namely, a pastoral lifestyle.
Canaan depended on rainfall whereas Egypt did not; it depended on the ile River.
[ ote: Barry J. Beitzel, The Moody Atlas of Bible Lands, p49.]
"This formula was at first coined by the nomadic shepherds to denote a land blessed
with pastures for cattle producing milk and with trees whose boughs afforded
Prayer of Manasseh , without the necessity for hard toil, food as nourishing and as
sweet as bees" honey. In the course of time the signification of the phrase was
extended to include also land that yielded rich harvests as a result of human
labour." [ ote: Cassuto, p34.]

10. Often Moses listed seven tribes as possessing Canaan (e.g, Deuteronomy 7:1), but he
also named six ( Exodus 3:8), 10 ( Genesis 15:19-21), and12 ( Genesis 10:15-18) as
the inhabitants in various Scripture passages.
The Pharaoh to whom Moses referred here ( Exodus 3:10) was very likely
Amenhotep II who succeeded Thutmose III and ruled from1450 to1425 B.C. He
ruled during the very zenith of Egypt"s power, prestige, and glory as a world
government.
Moses had become genuinely humble during his years as a mere shepherd in Midian
( Exodus 3:11). Earlier an Israelite had asked Moses, "Who made you a prince or a
judge over us?" ( Exodus 2:14). ow Moses asked the same thing of God: "Who am
I that I should ... bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?"
"Some time before he had offered himself of his own accord as a deliverer and
judge; but now he had learned humility in the school of Midian, and was filled in
consequence with distrust of his own power and fitness. The son of Pharaoh"s
daughter had become a shepherd, and felt himself too weak to go to Pharaoh."
[ ote: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:440-41. See Frederick Holmgren, "Before the temple,
the thornbush: an exposition of Exodus 2:11-3:12 ," The Reformed Journal33:3
(March1983):9-11; and Robert J. Voss, "Who Am I That I Should Go? Exodus 3:11
( Exodus 2:25-4:18)," Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly80:4 (Fall1983):243-47.]
"In these verses 11-12], the presentation of the tetragrammaton is only introduced.
Moses objected, ... "Who am I, ... that I ... that I ...?" and God answers, ... "the point
is I AM with you." Who Moses is is not the question; it is rather, who is with
Moses?" [ ote: Durham, p33.]
"As long as a man holds that he is easily able to do some great deed of heroism and
faith, he is probably incompetent for it, but when he protests his inability, and puts
away the earliest proposals, though made by the Almighty Himself, he gives the first
unmistakable sign that he has been rightly designated." [ ote: Meyer, p45.]
God gave Moses a sign to inspire his courage and confidence that God would make
his mission a success ( Exodus 3:12; cf. Genesis 37:5-11). This sign was evidently the
burning bush. God also gave Moses a promise that he would return with the
Israelites to the very mountain where he stood then. This promise required faith on
Moses" part, but it was also an encouragement to him. As surely as God had
revealed Himself to Moses there once, He promised to bring Moses back to Horeb to
worship Him a second time with the Israelites. The punctuation in the ASB may be
misleading.
". . . the experience of Moses in Exodus 3:1-12 is an exact foreshadowing of the
experience of Israel, first in Egypt, then in the deprivation of the wilderness, and
finally at Sinai." [ ote: Durham, p30.]

11. LA GE, "Exodus 3:1. “Jethro’s residence therefore was separated from Horeb by a
wilderness, and is to be sought not north-east, but south-east of it. For only by this
assumption can we easily account for the two-fold fact that (1) Moses, in his return
from Midian to Egypt, again touches Horeb, where Aaron, coming from Egypt,
meets him ( Exodus 4:27), and that (2) the Israelites, in their journey through the
wilderness, nowhere come upon Midianites, and in leaving Sinai the ways of Israel
and of the Midianite Hobab separate” (Keil). Horeb here is used in the wider sense,
embracing the whole range, including Sinai, so that the two names are often
identical, although Horeb, strictly so called, lay further north.—Mountain of God.—
According to Knobel, it was a sacred place even before the call of Moses; according
to Keil, not till afterwards, and is here named according to its later importance. But
there must have been something which led the shepherd Moses to drive his flock so
far as to this mountain, and afterwards to select Sinai as the place from which to
give the law. The more general ground for the special regard in which this majestic
mountain-range is held is without doubt the reverence felt for the mountains of God
in general. The word ‫ָר‬‫בּ‬ְ‫ִד‬‫מּ‬ַ‫ה‬ might be taken as = pasture, and the passage understood
to mean that Moses, in profound meditation, forgetting himself as shepherd, drove
the flock far out beyond the ordinary pasture-ground. Yet Rosenmüller observes:
“On this highest region of the peninsula are to be found the most fruitful valleys, in
which also fruit trees grow. Water in abundance is found in this district, and
therefore it is the refuge of all the Bedouins, when the lower regions are dried up.”
Tradition fixes upon the Monastery of Sinai as the place of the thorn-bush and the
calling of Moses.
PULPIT, "THE CALL A D MISSIO OF MOSES.
EXPOSITIO
Exodus 3:1-22
THE MISSIO OF MOSES. After forty years of monotonous pastoral life,
affording abundant opportunity for meditation, and for spiritual communion with
God, and when he had attained to the great age of eighty years, and the hot blood of
youth had given place to the calm serenity of advanced life, God at last revealed
Himself to Moses "called him" (Exodus 3:4), and gave him a definite mission. The
present chapter is' intimately connected with the next. Together, they contain an
account of that extraordinary and indeed miraculous interchange of thought and
speech between Moses and God himself, by which the son of Amram was induced to
undertake the difficult and dangerous task of freeing his people, delivering them
from their bondage in Egypt, and conducting them through the wilderness to that
"land flowing with milk and honey," which had been promised to the seed of
Abraham more than six centuries previously (Genesis 15:18). Whatever hopes he
had entertained of being his people's deliverer in youth and middle life, they had
long been abandoned; and, humanly speaking, nothing was more improbable than
that the aged shepherd, grown "slow of speech and of a slow tongue" (Exodus
4:10)—his manners rusticised—his practical faculties rusted by disuse—his physical
powers weakened—should come forth from a retirement of forty years' duration to

12. be a leader and king of men. othing less than direct supernatural interposition
could—one may well believe—have sufficed to overcome the natural vis inertiae of
Moses' present character and position. Hence, after an absolute cessation of miracle
for more than four hundred years, miracle is once more made use of by the Ruler of
the Universe to work out his ends. A dignus vindice nodus has arisen; and the
ordinary laws of that ature which is but one of his instruments are suspended by
the Lord of All, who sees what mode of action the occasion requires, and acts
accordingly.
Exodus 3:1
Moses kept the flock. The Hebrew expresses that this was his regular occupation.
Understand by "flock" either sheep or goats, or the two intermixed. Both anciently
and at the present day the Sinaitic pastures support these animals, and not horned
cattle. Of Jethro, his father-in-law. The word translated "father-in-law" is of much
wider application, being used of almost any relation by marriage. Zipporah uses it
of Moses in Exodus 4:25, Exodus 4:26; in Genesis 19:12, Genesis 19:14, it is applied
to Lot's "sons-in-law;" in other places it is used of "brothers-in-law." Its
application to Jethro does not prove him to be the same person as Reuel, which the
difference of name renders improbable. He was no doubt the head of the tribe at
this period, having succeeded to that dignity, and to the priesthood, when Reuel
died. He may have been either Reuel's son or his nephew. The backside of the
desert, i.e. "behind" or "beyond the desert," across the strip of sandy plain which
separates the coast of the Elanitic Gulf from the mountains, to the grassy regions
beyond. He came to the mountain of God, even Horeb. Rather, "the mountain of
God, Horeb-way," or "towards Horeb." By "the mountain of God" Sinai seems to
be meant. It may be so named either by anticipation (as "the land of Rameses" in
Genesis 47:11), or because there was already a sanctuary there to the true God,
whom Reuel and Jethro worshipped (Exodus 18:12).
SBC 1-14, "This narrative is a chain of glorious wonders. We see here—
I. An old man called to go out on the great errand of his life. The education of Moses for
the great mission of his life lasted eighty years. God never sends forth fruit until the
season is fitted for the fruit, and the fruit for the season; when the hour was ready for the
man, and the man for the hour, then God sent forth Moses.
II. The burning bush from which that call was sounded. (1) This was a sign to indicate
the peculiar presence of God. (2) It was also a symbol of His people, eminently adapted
to encourage the prophet in undertaking their cause.
III. The angel who uttered this call. We see at the first glance that He is Divine; we next
learn that He is an angel; we further find, from a chain of Scripture proofs, that He is
Christ.
IV. The covenant under which the Angel gave him his commission. It was the same
covenant that had been given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
V. The Angel’s name. That name asserts (1) His real existence, (2) His underived
existence, (3) His independent existence, (4) His eternity.

13. VI. The effect to be wrought by the remembrance of His name. (1) It was intended to
inspire profoundest reverence for the Being to whom it belongs. (2) It reveals the infinite
sufficiency of a Christian’s portion. (3) It gives encouragement to Evangelical enterprise.
C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 61.
2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in
flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that
though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.
BAR ES, "The angel of the Lord - See the note at Gen_12:7. What Moses saw was
the flame of fire in the bush; what he recognized therein was an intimation of the
presence of God, who maketh a flame of fire His angel. Compare Psa_104:4. The words
which Moses heard were those of God Himself, as all ancient and most modern divines
have held, manifested in the Person of the Son.
Of a bush - Literally, of the bush or “seneh,” a word which ought perhaps to be
retained as the proper name of a thorny shrub common in that district, a species of
acacia.
CLARKE, "The angel of the Lord - Not a created angel certainly; for he is called
‫יהוה‬ Jehovah, Exo_3:4, etc., and has the most expressive attributes of the Godhead
applied to him, Exo_3:14, etc. Yet he is an angel, ‫מלאך‬ malach, a messenger, in whom
was the name of God, Exo_23:21; and in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily, Col_2:9; and who, in all these primitive times, was the Messenger of the
covenant, Mal_3:1. And who was this but Jesus, the Leader, Redeemer, and Savior of
mankind? See Clarke’s note on Gen_16:7.
A flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush - Fire was, not only among the
Hebrews but also among many other ancient nations, a very significant emblem of the
Deity. God accompanied the Israelites in all their journeying through the wilderness as a
pillar of fire by night; and probably a fire or flame in the holy of holies, between the
cherubim, was the general symbol of his presence; and traditions of these things, which
must have been current in the east, have probably given birth, not only to the pretty
general opinion that God appears in the likeness of fire, but to the whole of the
Zoroastrian system of fire-worship. It has been reported of Zoroaster, or Zeradusht, that
having retired to a mountain for the study of wisdom, and the benefit of solitude, the
whole mountain was one day enveloped with flame, out of the midst of which he came
without receiving any injury; on which he offered sacrifices to God, who, he was

14. persuaded, had then appeared to him. M. Anquetil du Perron gives much curious
information on this subject in his Zend Avesta. The modern Parsees call fire the off-
spring of Ormusd, and worship it with a vast variety of ceremonies. Among the
fragments attributed to Aeschylus, and collected by Stanley in his invaluable edition of
this poet, p. 647, col. 1, we find the following beautiful verses:
Χωριζε θνητων τον Θεον, και µη δοκει
ᆍµοιον αυτሩ σαρκινον καθεσταναι.
Ουκ οισθα δ’ αυτον· ποτε µεν ᆞς πυρ φαινεται
Απλαστον ᆇρµᇽ· ποτε δ’ ᆓδωρ, ποτε δε γνοφος.
“Distinguish God from mortal men; and do not suppose that any thing fleshly is like
unto him. Thou knowest him not: sometimes indeed he appears as a formless and
impetuous Fire, sometimes as water, sometimes as thick darkness.” The poet proceeds:
Τρεµει δ’ ορη, και γαια, και πελεριος
Βυθος θαλασσης, κωρεων ᆓψος µεγα,
ᆍταν επιβλεψᇽ γοργον οµµα δεσποτου.
“The mountains, the earth, the deep and extensive sea, and the summits of the highest
mountains tremble whenever the terrible eye of the Supreme Lord looks down upon
them.”
These are very remarkable fragments, and seem all to be collected from traditions
relative to the different manifestations of God to the Israelites in Egypt, and in the
wilderness. Moses wished to see God, but he could behold nothing but an indescribable
glory: nothing like mortals, nothing like a human body, appeared at any time to his eye,
or to those of the Israelites. “Ye saw no manner of similitude,” said Moses, “on the day
that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb, out of the midst of the Fire,” Deu_4:15. But
sometimes the Divine power and justice were manifested by the indescribable, formless,
impetuous, consuming flame; at other times he appeared by the water which he brought
out of the flinty rock; and in the thick darkness on Horeb, when the fiery law proceeded
from his right hand, then the earth quaked and the mountain trembled: and when his
terrible eye looked out upon the Egyptians through the pillar of cloud and fire, their
chariot wheels were struck off, and confusion and dismay were spread through all the
hosts of Pharaoh; Exo_14:24, Exo_14:25.
And the bush was not consumed - 1. An emblem of the state of Israel in its
various distresses and persecutions: it was in the fire of adversity, but was not
consumed. 2. An emblem also of the state of the Church of God in the wilderness, in
persecutions often, in the midst of its enemies, in the region of the shadow of death - yet
not consumed. 3. An emblem also of the state of every follower of Christ: cast down, but
not forsaken; grievously tempted, but not destroyed; walking through the fire, but still
unconsumed! Why are all these preserved in the midst of those things which have a
natural tendency to destroy them! Because God Is In The Midst Of Them; it was this that
preserved the bush from destruction; and it was this that preserved the Israelites; and it
is this, and this alone, that preserves the Church, and holds the soul of every genuine
believer in the spiritual life. He in whose heart Christ dwells not by faith, will soon be
consumed by the world, the flesh, and the devil.

15. GILL, "And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him,.... Not a created angel,
but the Angel of God's presence and covenant, the eternal Word and Son of God; since
he is afterwards expressly called Jehovah, and calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, which a created angel would never do: the appearance was:
in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush; not in a tall, lofty, spreading oak or
cedar, but in a low thorny bramble bush, which it might have been thought would have
been consumed in an instant of time:
and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed; this was not imaginary, but a real thing; there wassuch a bush, and
Jehovah appeared in it in this manner, and though it was all on fire yet was not
consumed, but remained entire after it: reference is frequently had to it as a matter of
fact, Deu_33:16. Artapanus (g), an Heathen writer, had got some hint of it; his account
is this, that while Moses was praying to God, and entreating the afflictions of his people
might cease, he was propitious to him, and on a sudden fire broke out of the earth and
burned, when there was no matter nor anything of a woody sort in the place: nor need
this account Moses gives be thought incredible, when so many things similar to it are
affirmed by Heathen writers, who speak of a whole forest in flames without fire, and of a
spear that burned for two hours, and yet nothing of it consumed; and of a servant's coat
all on fire, and yet after it was extinguished no trace or mark of the flames were to be
seen on it; and several other things of the like kind are related by Huetius (h) out of
various authors: as to the mystical signification of this bush, some make it to be a type of
Christ, and of his manifestation in the flesh; of the union of the two natures in him, and
of their distinction of the glory of the one, and of the meanness of the other; of his
sustaining the wrath of God, and remaining fearless and unhurt by it; and of his
delivering and preserving his people from it: the Jews commonly interpret it of the
people of Israel, in the furnace of affliction in Egypt, and yet not consumed; nay, the
more they were afflicted the more they grew; and it may be a symbol of the church and
people of God, in all ages, under affliction and distress: they are like to a thorn bush both
for their small quantity, being few, and for their quality, in themselves weak and
strengthless, mean and low; have about them the thorns of corruptions and temptations,
and who are often in the fire of afflictions and persecutions, yet are not consumed; which
is owing to the person, presence, power, and grace of Christ being among them; See Gill
on Act_7:30.
HE RY, "What the appearance was. To his great surprise he saw a bush burning,
when he perceived no fire either from earth or heaven to kindle it, and, which was more
strange, it did not consume, Exo_3:2. It was an angel of the Lord that appeared to him;
some think, a created angel, who speaks in the language of him that sent him; others, the
second person, the angel of the covenant, who is himself Jehovah. It was an
extraordinary manifestation of the divine presence and glory; what was visible was
produced by the ministry of an angel, but he heard God in it speaking to him. 1. He saw a
flame of fire; for our God is a consuming fire. When Israel's deliverance out of Egypt
was promised to Abraham, he saw a burning lamp, which signified the light of joy which
that deliverance should cause (Gen_15:17); but now it shines brighter, as a flame of fire,
for God in that deliverance brought terror and destruction to his enemies, light and heat
to his people, and displayed his glory before all. See Isa_10:17. 2. This fire was not in a

16. tall and stately cedar, but in a bush, a thorny bush, so the word signifies; for God
chooses the weak and despised things of the world (such as Moses, now a poor
shepherd), with them to confound the wise; he delights to beautify and crown the
humble. 3. The bush burned, and yet was not consumed, an emblem of the church now
in bondage in Egypt, burning in the brick-kilns, yet not consumed; perplexed, but not in
despair; cast down, but not destroyed.
JAMISO 2-3, "the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire
— It is common in Scripture to represent the elements and operations of nature, as
winds, fires, earthquakes, pestilence, everything enlisted in executing the divine will, as
the “angels” or messengers of God. But in such cases God Himself is considered as really,
though invisibly, present. Here the preternatural fire may be primarily meant by the
expression “angel of the Lord”; but it is clear that under this symbol, the Divine Being
was present, whose name is given (Exo_3:4, Exo_3:6), and elsewhere called the angel of
the covenant, Jehovah-Jesus.
out of the midst of a bush — the wild acacia or thorn, with which that desert
abounds, and which is generally dry and brittle, so much so, that at certain seasons, a
spark might kindle a district far and wide into a blaze. A fire, therefore, being in the
midst of such a desert bush was a “great sight.” It is generally supposed to have been
emblematic of the Israelites’ condition in Egypt - oppressed by a grinding servitude and
a bloody persecution, and yet, in spite of the cruel policy that was bent on annihilating
them, they continued as numerous and thriving as ever. The reason was “God was in the
midst of them.” The symbol may also represent the present state of the Jews, as well as
of the Church generally in the world.
K&D 2-5, "Here, at Horeb, God appeared to Moses as the Angel of the Lord “in a
flame of fire out of the midst of the thorn-bush” (‫ה‬ֶ‫נ‬ ְ‫,ס‬ βάτος, rubus), which burned in the
fire and was not consumed. ‫ל‬ ָⅴ ֻ‫,א‬ in combination with ‫וּ‬ ֶ‫ינ‬ ֵ‫,א‬ must be a participle for ‫ל‬ ָⅴ ֻ‫א‬ ְ‫.מ‬
When Moses turned aside from the road or spot where he was standing, “to look at this
great sight” (‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬ ְ‫ר‬ ַ‫,)מ‬ i.e., the miraculous vision of the bush that was burning and yet not
burned up, Jehovah called to him out of the midst of the thorn-bush, “Moses, Moses (the
reduplication as in Gen_22:11), draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (‫ה‬ ָ‫מ‬ ָ‫ד‬ ֲ‫.)א‬ The symbolical meaning of
this miraculous vision, - that is to say, the fact that it was a figurative representation of
the nature and contents of the ensuing message from God, - has long been admitted. The
thorn-bush in contrast with the more noble and lofty trees (Jdg_9:15) represented the
people of Israel in their humiliation, as a people despised by the world. Fire and the
flame of fire were not “symbols of the holiness of God;” for, as the Holy One, “God is
light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (1Jo_1:5), He “dwells in the light which no man
can approach unto” (1Ti_6:16); and that not merely according to the New Testament,
but according to the Old Testament view as well, as is evident from Isa_10:17, where “the
Light of Israel” and “the Holy One of Israel” are synonymous. But “the Light of Israel
became fire, and the Holy One a flame, and burned and consumed its thorns and
thistles.” Nor is “fire, from its very nature, the source of light,” according to the
scriptural view. On the contrary, light, the condition of all life, is also the source of fire.
The sun enlightens, warms, and burns (Job_30:28; Sol. Son_1:6); the rays of the sun
produce warmth, heat, and fire; and light was created before the sun. Fire, therefore,
regarded as burning and consuming, is a figurative representation of refining affliction

17. and destroying punishment (1Co_3:11.), or a symbol of the chastening and punitive
justice of the indignation and wrath of God. It is in fire that the Lord comes to judgment
(Dan_7:9-10; Eze_1:13-14, Eze_1:27-28; Rev_1:14-15). Fire sets forth the fiery
indignation which devours the adversaries (Heb_10:27). He who “judges and makes war
in righteousness' has eyes as a flame of fire (Rev_19:11-12). Accordingly, the burning
thorn-bush represented the people of Israel as they were burning in the fire of affliction,
the iron furnace of Egypt (Deu_4:20). Yet, though the thorn-bush was burning in the
fire, it was not consumed; for in the flame was Jehovah, who chastens His people, but
does not give them over unto death (Psa_118:18). The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
had come down to deliver His people out of the hand of the Egyptians (Exo_3:8).
Although the affliction of Israel in Egypt proceeded from Pharaoh, yet was it also a fire
which the Lord had kindled to purify His people and prepare it for its calling. In the
flame of the burning bush the Lord manifested Himself as the “jealous God, who visits
the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them
that hate Him, and showeth mercy unto thousands of them that love Him and keep His
commandments” (Exo_20:5; Deu_5:9-10), who cannot tolerate the worship of another
god (Exo_34:14), and whose anger burns against idolaters, to destroy them (Deu_6:15).
The “jealous God” was a “consuming fire” in the midst of Israel (Deu_4:24). These
passages show that the great sight which Moses saw not only had reference to the
circumstances of Israel in Egypt, but was a prelude to the manifestation of God on Sinai
for the establishment of the covenant (Exo 19 and 20), and also a representation of the
relation in which Jehovah would stand to Israel through the establishment of the
covenant made with the fathers. For this reason it occurred upon the spot where
Jehovah intended to set up His covenant with Israel. But, as a jealous God, He also
“takes vengeance upon His adversaries” (Nah_1:2.). Pharaoh, who would not let Israel
go, He was about to smite with all His wonders (Exo_3:20), whilst He redeemed Israel
with outstretched arm and great judgments (Exo_6:6). - The transition from the Angel
of Jehovah (Exo_3:2) to Jehovah (Exo_3:4) proves the identity of the two; and the
interchange of Jehovah and Elohim, in Exo_3:4, precludes the idea of Jehovah being
merely a national God. The command of God to Moses to put off his shoes, may be
accounted for from the custom in the East of wearing shoes or sandals merely as a
protection from dirt. No Brahmin enters a pagoda, no Moslem a mosque, without first
taking off at least his overshoes (Rosenm. Morgenl. i. 261; Robinson, Pal. ii. p. 373); and
even in the Grecian temples the priests and priestesses performed the service barefooted
(Justin, Apol. i. c. 62; Bähr, Symbol. ii. 96). when entering other holy places also, the
Arabs and Samaritans, and even the Yezidis of Mesopotamia, take off their shoes, that
the places may not be defiled by the dirt or dust upon them (vid., Robinson, Pal. iii. 100,
and Layard's Nineveh and its Remains). The place of the burning bush was holy because
of the presence of the holy God, and putting off the shoes was intended to express not
merely respect for the place itself, but that reverence which the inward man (Eph_3:16)
owes to the holy God.
CALVI , "2.And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto him. It was necessary that
he should assume a visible form, that he might be seen by Moses, not as he was in
his essence, but as the infirmity of the human mind could comprehend him. For thus
we must believe that God, as often as he appeared of old to the holy patriarchs,
descended in some way from his majesty, that he might reveal himself as far as was
useful, and as far as their comprehension would admit. The same, too, is to be said
of angels, who, although they are invisible spirits, yet when it seemed good to the

18. Almighty, assumed some form in which they might be seen. But let us inquire who
this Angel was? since soon afterwards he not only calls himself Jehovah, but claims
the glory of the eternal and only God. ow, although this is an allowable manner of
speaking, because the angels transfer to themselves the person and titles of God,
when they are performing the commissions entrusted to them by him; and although
it is plain from many passages, and (37) especially from the first chapter of
Zechariah, that there is one head and chief of the angels who commands the others,
the ancient teachers of the Church have rightly understood that the Eternal Son of
God is so called in respect to his office as Mediator, which he figuratively bore from
the beginning, although he really took it upon him only at his Incarnation. And Paul
sufficiently expounds this mystery to us, when he plainly asserts that Christ was the
leader of his people in the Desert. (1 Corinthians 10:4.) Therefore, although at that
time, properly speaking, he was not yet the messenger of his Father, still his
predestinated appointment to the office even then had this effect, that he manifested
himself to the patriarchs, and was known in this character. or, indeed, had the
saints ever any communication with God except through the promised Mediator. It
is not then to be wondered at, if the Eternal Word of God, of one Godhead and
essence with the Father, assumed the name of “the Angel” on the ground of his
future mission. There is a great variety of opinions as to the vision. It is too forced
an allegory to make, as some do, the body of Christ of the bush, because his
heavenly majesty consumed it not when he chose to inhabit it. It is also improperly
wrested by those who refer it to the stubborn spirit of the nation, because the
Israelites were like thorns, which yield not to the flames. But when the natural sense
is set forth, it will not be necessary to refute those which are improbable. This vision
is very similar to that former one which Abraham saw. (Genesis 15:17.) He saw a
burning lamp in the midst of a smoking furnace; and the reason assigned is, that
God will not permit his people to be extinguished in darkness. The same similitude
answers to the bush retaining its entireness in the midst of the flame. The bush is
likened to the humble and despised people; their tyrannical oppression is not unlike
the fire which would have consumed them, had not God miraculously interposed.
Thus, by the presence of God, the bush escaped safely from the fire; as it is said in
Psalms 46:1, that though the waves of trouble beat against the Church and threaten
her destruction, yet “shall she not be moved,” for “God is in the midst of her.” Thus
was the cruelly afflicted people aptly represented, who, though surrounded by
flames, and feeling their heat, yet remained unconsumed, because they were
guarded by the present help of God.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of
fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with
fire, and the bush [was] not consumed.
Ver. 2. And the Angel of the Lord.] Christ, that Angel of the Covenant, and of the
great council.
And the bush was not consumed.] o more is the Church, whereof this is an
excellent emblem, by the fire of tribulation, [Isaiah 43:2] because of "the goodwill of

19. him that dwelt in the bush." [Deuteronomy 33:16]
ELLICOTT, "(2) The angel of the Lord.—Heb., an angel of Jehovah. In Exodus 3:4
the angel is called both “Jehovah and “Elohim,” whence it is concluded, with
reason, that it was the Second Person of the Trinity who appeared to Moses.
Out of the midst of a bush.—Literally, out of the midst of the acacia. As the seneh,
or acacia, is very common in the Sinaitic region, we can scarcely suppose that a
special tree, growing alone, is intended. Probably the article is one of reference, and
the meaning is, “the bush of which you have all heard.” (Comp. John 3:24.)
BE SO , "Exodus 3:2. The Angel of the Lord appeared to him — ot a created
angel, but the Angel of the covenant, Christ, who then and ever was God, and was to
be man, and a messenger from God to man. He, termed the Angel of God’s presence,
(Isaiah 63:9,) had wrestled with Jacob, (Genesis 32:24;) and had redeemed him from
all evil, (Genesis 48:16;) and afterward conducted his posterity through the
wilderness, 1 Corinthians 10:4. These his temporary appearances were presages of
his more solemn mission and coming, on account of which he is fitly called the Angel
or Messenger. That this angel was no creature, appears from his saying, I am the
Lord, a language which angels never speak; but, I am sent from God — I am thy
fellow-servant. In a flame of fire — Representing God’s majesty, purity, and power,
and showing that he was about to bring terror and destruction to his enemies, and
light and comfort to his people, and to display his glory before all. The bush burned
and was not consumed — An emblem of the church now in bondage in Egypt,
burning in the brick-kilns, yet not consumed; cast down, but not destroyed; for God
was in the burning bush, was and always will be present with his people in their
sufferings; Isaiah 43:2; Daniel 3:25.
COFFMA , "Verse 2-3
"And the angel of Jehovah appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a
bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed. And Moses said, I will turn aside OW, and see this great sight, why the
bush is not burnt."
"The angel of Jehovah ..." As the context proves, "The Angel of Jehovah is not a
created angel but Jehovah himself in his act of self-revelation."[10] This is merely
another name for God, of which there are many in the Bible. Although this verse
does not indicate it, there is reason to believe that the Angel of Jehovah should be
identified with our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Godhead; he is also
called the Angel of the Covenant.[11]
"Flame of fire out of the midst of a bush ..." It is necessary to point out that this was
an actual, objective event. It was not some KI D of "vision" on Moses part, nor his
mistaken thought that some kind of bush in full bloom was actually on fire. Men
who do not believe the Bible have many fanciful perversions of what is written here.
o, it happened, exactly as related here. Rylaarsdam CALLED it a "vision."[12]
Ellison said, "It was the spontaneous ignition of some dry thorn bush."[13] Ellison

20. also added that such an example of spontaneous combustion "was nothing
unusual," for which wisdom (?) we are thankful; because it makes it absolutely
unnecessary to contradict anything that such a writer says!
To this point, Moses had never seen any kind of supernatural event in his entire life
of about eighty years. His conclusion, therefore, was that it was some unusual
natural phenomenon that he had encountered. Therefore, he turned aside to
investigate it. Wonder of wonders! Although the bush was on fire, it was not being
consumed. Such a contradiction of all that could have been expected required
further investigation, so Moses went nearer.
COKE, "Verse 2
Exodus 3:2. The angel of the Lord— In the note on Genesis 16:7 we have delivered
our opinion at large, concerning the Angel of the Lord, which, with the generality of
Christian interpreters, we conceive to have been the Messiah, the Angel, or
Messenger of the Covenant, It is very evident from this chapter, that the Person here
appearing to Moses was no created Angel, but Jehovah himself, the second Divine
Person in the Trinity; see Exodus 3:4; Exodus 3:6; Exodus 3:14, &c. the same who
conducted the Israelites in the wilderness, and that was Christ, ACCORDI Gto St.
Paul, 1 Corinthians 10:4. Fire was one of the emblems of the Shechinah, or Divine
appearance; see Genesis 15:17-18 and of the other appearances which follow in the
course of the sacred Scriptures. This flame must have been exceedingly lambent and
pure, for Moses to discover the bramble-bush (for so the original word ‫סנה‬ seneh,
signifies) unconsumed in the midst of it. The mount and the wilderness of Sinai are
thought to be so called, from sene, on account of the brambles which abounded
there.
Bush burned with fire, &c.— Many interpreters have thought, that, as fire, in
Scripture, is often used as an emblem of calamity, Lamentations 2:3; Lamentations
2:22 therefore, the bush burning with fire, but not consumed, represented, that
however the Israelites might be distressed, yet their afflictions should not entirely
consume them, nor make an end of them: God signifying by his appearance in the
midst of the bush, that he was present with his people in the midst of their
tribulations. The heathens, it is certain, had some notice of this HISTORY; see
Eusebius, praep. Evang. lib. ix. c. 27. Dion Prusaeus too, Orat. 36 has something like
this, where he says, "The Persians relate concerning Zoroaster, that the love of
wisdom and virtue leading him to a solitary life upon a mountain, he found it one
day all in a flame, shining with celestial fire; out of the midst of which he came
without any harm, and instituted certain sacrifices to God, who then, he was
persuaded, appeared to him." This seems to be only a corruption of the present
history.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:2. The Angel of Jehovah.—According to Exodus 3:4, it is
Jehovah Himself, or even God Himself, Elohim.[F 9]—The Bush.—Representing
the poor Israelites in their low estate in contrast with the people that resemble lofty
trees, Judges 9:15. According to Kurtz, the flame of fire is a symbol of the holiness
of God; according to Keil, who observes that God’s holiness is denoted by light (e.g.

21. Isaiah 10:17), the fire is rather, in its capacity of burning and consuming, a symbol
of purifying affliction and annihilating punishment, or of the chastening and
punitive justice of God. But this is certainly not the signification of the sacrificial
fire on the altar of burnt-offering, the “holy” fire, or of the fiery chariot of Elijah, or
of the tongues of fire over the heads of the apostles on the day of Pentecost. Fire, as
an emblem of the divine life, of the life which through death destroys death, of
God’s jealous love and authority, has two opposite sides: it is a fire of the jealous
love which visits, brings home, purifies, and rejuvenates, as well as a fire of
consuming wrath and judgment. This double signification of fire manifests itself
especially also in the northern mythology. That light has the priority over fire, Keil
justly observes. While then the fire here may symbolize the Egyptian affliction in
which Israel is burning, yet the presence of Jehovah in the fire signifies not
something contrasted with it, meaning that he controls the fire, so that it purifies,
without consuming, the Israelites; but rather the fire represents Jehovah himself in
His government, and so the oppression of the Egyptians is lifted up into the light of
the divine government. This holds also prophetically of all the future afflictions of
the theocracy and of the Christian Church itself. The Church of God is to appear at
the end of the world as the last burning thorn-bush which yet is not consumed.
“The ‫ָא‬‫נּ‬ַ‫ק‬ ‫ל‬ֵ‫א‬ is ‫ָה‬‫ל‬ְ‫כ‬ֹ ‫א‬ ‫שׁ‬ֵ‫א‬ ( Deuteronomy 4:24) in the midst of Israel ( Deuteronomy
6:15).” Keil.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:2
It is the office and function of the imagination to renew life in lights and sounds and
emotions that are outworn and familiar. It calls the soul back once more under the
dead ribs of nature, and makes the meanest bush burn again, as it did to Moses,
with the visible presence of God.
—J. Russell Lowell.
References.—III:2.—A. M. Mackay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv1893 , p20. G.
F. Browne, ibid. vol. liv1898 , p76. P. McAdam Muir, ibid. vol. lviii1900 , p246. E. E.
Cleal, ibid. vol. lxvi1904 , p267; see also ibid. vol. lxviii1905 , p44. A. Maclaren,
Expositions of Holy Scripture, the Books of Exodus , etc, p19. R. J. Campbell,
Sermons Addressed to Individuals, p207. J. M. eale, Sermons For Some Feast Days
in the Christian Year, p83; see also Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel,
vol. iv. p251. III:2 , 3.—J. M. eale, Sermons For Some Feast Day in the Christian
Year, p74. A. G. Mortimer, The Church"s Lessons for the Christian Year, Part II.
p299.
PULPIT, "The angel of the Lord. Literally, "an angel of Jehovah." Taking the
whole narrative altogether, we are justified in concluding that the appearance was
that of "the Angel of the Covenant" or" the Second Person of the Trinity himself;"
but this is not stated nor implied in the present verse. We learn it from what follows.
The angel "appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of the thorn-bush"—not out
of "a thorn-bush—which may be explained by there being only one on the spot,

22. which however seems improbable, as it is a common tree; or by Moses having so
often spoken of it, that, when he came to write to his countrymen, he naturally
called it "the bush," meaning "the bush of which you have all heard." So St. John
says of the Baptist (John 3:24) that "he was not yet cast into the prison, meaning,
prison into which you all know that he was cast. Seneh, the word translated "bush,"
is still the name of a thorny shrub, a species of acacia, common in the Sinaitic
district.
PULPIT, "The Burning Bush.
All nations have seen in fire something emblematic of the Divine nature. The Vedic
Indians made Agni (fire) an actual god, and sang hymns to him with more fervour
than to almost any other deity. The Persians maintained perpetual fires on their
fire-altars, and supposed them to have a divine character. Hephaistos in the Greek
and Vulcan in the Roman mythology were fire-gods; and Baal, Chemosh, Moloch,
Tahiti, Orotal, etc; represented more or less the same idea. Fire is in itself pure and
purifying; in its effects mighty and terrible, or life-giving, and comforting. Viewed
as light—its ordinary though not universal concomitant—it is bright, glorious,
dazzling, illuminative, soul-cheering. God under the Old Covenant revealed himself
in fire, not only upon this occasion, but at Sinai (Exodus 19:18; Exodus 24:17), to
Manoah ( 13:20), to Solomon (2 Chronicles 7:1-3), to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4-28), to
Daniel (Daniel 7:9, Daniel 7:10); under the ew Covenant, he is declared to be "a
consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29), "the Light of the world" (John 8:12), "the True
Light" (John 1:9), "the Sun of Righteousness." Of all material things nothing is so
suitable to represent God as this wonderful creation of his, so bright, so pure, so
terrible, so comforting, To Moses God reveals himself not merely in fire, but in a
"burning bush." In this respect the revelation is abnormal—nay, unique, without a
parallel. Surely this was done, not merely to rouse his curiosity, but to teach him
some lesson or other. It is well to consider what lesson or lessons may have been
intended by it. First, Moses would see that "the ways of God were not as man's
ways;" that, instead of coming with as much, he came with as little, display as
possible; instead of showing all his glory and lighting up all Sinai with unendurable
radiance, he condescended to appear in a small circumscribed flame, and to rest
upon so mean, so poor, so despised an object as a thorn-hush. God "chooseth the
weak things of the world to confound the strong;" anything is sufficient for his
purpose. He creates worlds with a word, destroys kingdoms with a breath, cures
diseases with clay and spittle or the hem of a garment, revolutionises the earth by a
group of fishermen. Secondly, he would see the spirituality of God. Even when
showing himself in the form of fire, he was not fire. Material fire would have burnt
up the bush, have withered its fair boughs and blasted its green leaves in a moment
of time; this fire did not scathe a single twig, did not injure even the most delicate
just-opening bud. Thirdly, he might be led on to recognise God's tenderness. God's
mercy is "over all his works," he will not hurt one of them unnecessarily, or without
an object. He "careth for cattle" (Jonah 4:11), clothes the lilies with glory (Matthew
6:28-30), wilt not let a sparrow fall to the ground needlessly (Matthew 10:29).
Lastly, he might learn that the presence of God is "consuming" only of what is evil.
Of all else it is preservative. God was present with his people in Egypt, and his

23. presence preserved them in that furnace of affliction. God was present in each
devout and humble heart of his true followers, and his presence kept them from the
fiery darts of the Wicked One. God would be present through all time with his
Church and with his individual worshippers, not as a destroying, but as a
sustaining, preserving, glorifying influence. His spiritual fire would rest upon them,
envelop them, encircle them, yet would neither injure nor absorb their life, but
support it, maintain it, strengthen it.
GREAT TEXTS, "The Burning Bush
And the angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of
a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not
consumed.—Exo_3:2.
1. It was a very sharp descent from Pharaoh’s palace to the wilderness; and a
shepherd’s life was a strange contrast to the brilliant future that once seemed likely
for Moses. But God tests His weapons before He uses them, and great men are
generally prepared for great deeds by great sorrows. Solitude is “the mother-
country of the strong,” and the wilderness, with its savage crags, its awful silence,
and the unbroken round of its blue heaven, was a better place to meet God in than
the heavy air of a palace, or the profitless splendours of a court.
2. Among the desolate solitudes of Horeb, occasional fertile spots are to be found. A
thin alpine turf covers the soil, whose verdure forms a delightful contrast to the
awful sterility of the naked rocks around. A perennial spring oozes up in some
shady cleft, and sends its scanty rill down the mountain-side, marking its course
among the crags by a green streak of moss and grass which its life-giving waters
have nourished. To one of these little oases Moses led the flock of Jethro, his father-
in-law, at the close of his sojourn in this secluded region. He had probably given up
all thought of Israel’s deliverance, which had been the dream of his youth; and in
the peaceful and monotonous occupation of a shepherd hoped to end his days. But
God had a higher destiny in view for him, for which he had been insensibly trained
by his meditative employment amid the solemn influences of the lonely hills. This
was, unknown to himself, to be the last day of his shepherd life. The skill and
fidelity which had been exerted in tending sheep were to find nobler scope for their
exercise in guiding and training men.
I
The Preparation of Moses
1. “In process of time the king of Egypt died,” probably the great Rameses, no other
of whose dynasty had a reign which extended over the indicated period of time. If
so, he had while living every reason to expect an immortal fame as the greatest
among Egyptian kings, a hero, a conqueror on three continents, a builder of

24. magnificent works. But he has won only an immortal notoriety. “Every stone in his
buildings was cemented with human blood.” The cause he persecuted has made
deathless the banished refugee, and has gibbeted the great monarch as a tyrant,
whose misplanned severities wrought the ruin of his successor and his army. Such
are the reversals of popular judgment; and such the vanity of fame.
ought but a gust of wind is earthly fame,
Which blows from this side now, and now from that,
And, as it changes quarter, changes name.
Renown of man is like the hue of grass,
Which comes and goes; the same sun withers it,
Whereby from earth the green plant raised was.1 [ ote: Dante, Purg. xi. 100–2,
115–17 (trans. by Paget Toynbee).]
2. “The children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried.” Another
monarch had come at last, a change after sixty-seven years, and yet no change for
them! It filled up the measure of their patience, and also of the iniquity of Egypt.
We are not told that their cry was addressed to the Lord; what we read is that it
reached Him, who still overhears and pities many a sob, many a lament, which
ought to have been addressed to Him, and is not. Indeed, if His compassion were not
to reach men until they had remembered and prayed to Him, who among us would
ever have learned to pray to Him at all? Moreover He remembered His covenant
with their forefathers for the fulfilment of which the time had now arrived. “And
God saw the children of Israel, and God took knowledge of them.”
3. While this anguish was being endured in Egypt, Moses was maturing for his
destiny. Self-reliance, pride of place, hot and impulsive aggressiveness, were dying
in his bosom. To the education of the courtier and scholar was now added that of
the shepherd in the wilds, amid the most solemn and awful scenes of nature, in
solitude, humiliation, disappointment, and, as we learn from the Epistle to the
Hebrews, in enduring faith. Wordsworth has a remarkable description of the effect
of a similar discipline upon the good Lord Clifford. He tells—
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.
Love had he found in huts where poor men lie,

25. His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.
In him the savage virtues of the Race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts were dead:
or did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.
There was also the education of advancing age, which teaches many lessons, and
among them two which are essential to leadership—the folly of a hasty blow, and of
impulsive reliance upon the support of mobs. Moses the man-slayer became
exceeding meek; and he ceased to rely upon the perception of his people that God by
him would deliver them. His distrust, indeed, became as excessive as his temerity
had been, but it was an error upon the safer side. “Behold, they will not believe me,”
he says, “nor hearken unto my voice.”
It is an important truth that in very few lives the decisive moment comes just when
it is expected. Men allow themselves to be self-indulgent, extravagant, and even
wicked, often upon the calculation that their present attitude matters little, and they
will do very differently when the crisis arrives, the turning-point in their career, to
nerve them. And they waken up with a start to find their career already decided,
their character already moulded. As a snare shall the Day of the Lord come upon all
flesh; and as a snare come all His great visitations meanwhile. When Herod was
drinking among bad companions, admiring a shameless dancer, and boasting loudly
of his generosity, he was sobered and saddened to discover that he had laughed
away the life of his only honest adviser. Moses, like David, was “following the ewes
great with young,” when summoned by God to rule His people Israel. either did
the call arrive when he was plunged in moody reverie and abstraction, sighing over
his lost fortunes and his defeated aspirations, rebelling against his lowly duties. The
humblest labour is a preparation for the brightest revelations, whereas discontent,
however lofty, is a preparation for nothing. Thus, too, the birth of Jesus was first
announced to shepherds keeping watch over their flock. Yet hundreds of third-rate
young persons in every city in this land to-day neglect their work, and unfit
themselves for any insight, or any leadership whatever, by chafing against the
obscurity of their vocation.1 [ ote: G. A. Chadwick.]
4. When the hopes of his youth were dead, buried, and forgotten, when his fiery
spirit was tamed into patience, and his turbulent passion stilled into solemn

26. repose—at last, Moses came out of school. Then, but not until then, was he openly
consecrated as God’s missionary to rescue the Israelites from their grinding
bondage and their great despair; to organize them into a nation, to give them their
holy laws, and to be their leader along a pathway of miracle to the Promised Land.
ot a lesson had been left, not a moment had been lost, for he needed the weary
discipline and gathered force of all those quiet years before he could obey his high
vocation and do his great work well.
In darkness, underneath the January rime and frost, God is getting ready the royal
glories of June. The flower that is to burst open to the sun at a certain hour six
months hence, He has even now in hand. By silent and mystical touches He is
already educating the tree to bear its autumnal clusters, and it is His ordination that
there shall be eleven months of husbandry for one month of harvest. In the spiritual
field you may trace the action of the same law. Man is often in haste; God never. We
would give the largest measure of time to results; He gives the largest measure to
preparations. We burn with eagerness to bring our instrumentalities into action, for
we are apt to value that agent most whose work makes most show in a report, or
whose life is longest before the public eye. He, on the contrary, often brings His most
honoured servants through a long strain of trial and a long path of obscurity to fit
them for some short service that is, after all, unknown to human fame; for a single
word spoken in a breath, or a single deed, over and done in a day, may heighten the
joy of heaven, and break into issues that will flow on for ever. Years may be needful
to prepare you for saying “Yes” or “ o” in some one critical moment, and many a
man may be in training all his life for the work of life’s last hour. We sometimes try
to reap in sowing time, but He never sends forth fruit until the season is fitted for
the fruit, and the fruit for the season.1 [ ote: C. Stanford.]
Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The Master’s lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what need’st thou with earth’s wheel?
But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I,—to the wheel of life

27. With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:
So, take and use Thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!2 [ ote: Browning, Rabbi
Ben Ezra.]
II
The Approach of God
1. When in this or in any other scene of holy story we meet with One who wears the
supreme name, yet holds a subordinate office; who is God, yet sent by God; God, yet
seen; God, yet heard—who is this “Traveller unknown”? ot the Divine Father,
“for he dwelleth in secret.” Besides, in the economy of grace the Father is evermore
the sender, the Son the sent. It must, therefore, be the Son. This thought is our only
outlet from a maze of contradictions. Through all time, at first by His visits to our
world as a celestial stranger; at last by His life as a man, Christ has been “the angel
of the Lord.”
It would be absurd to seek the ew Testament doctrine of the Logos full-blown in
the Pentateuch. But it is mere prejudice, unphilosophical and presumptuous, to shut
one’s eyes against any evidence which may be forthcoming that the earliest books of
Scripture are tending towards the last conclusions of theology; that the slender
overture to the Divine oratorio indicates already the same theme which thunders
from all the chorus at the close.1 [ ote: G. A. Chadwick.]
Too often the term “angel” has for us a cloudy and indeterminate meaning; but we
should resolve to make it clear. We are apt to use it as a term of race, and to
distinguish the natives of heaven as angels, just as we distinguish the natives of earth
as men. But it is in reality a term of office, simply meaning an envoy, a messenger,
one who is sent. Doubtless any heavenly being who is sent on an errand of love to
this globe is for the time an angel; but One there is above all others who deserves the
name of angel. Sent not only out from the unknown heavens, but out from the very
essence and depth of the unknown God; sent to reveal God’s heart; sent to translate
the Divine nature into the conditions of human nature, and to make the Divine
Being not only conceivable by that which is finite, but approachable by that which is

28. fallen; sent to discover and accomplish the Father’s purposes of grace, and to fetch
home to Him each lost and wandering child—Jesus is the Prince of Missionaries,
“the Envoy extraordinary, the Evangelist supreme,” the angel whom all other angels
worship, and round whose throne thunders at this moment the mingled music of a
numberless company, ceasing not day or night to ascribe to Him all the glory of
redemption.2 [ ote: C. Stanford.]
2. “Behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.” Here we
approach a study in symbols. The vision of a bush burning with fire which did not
consume it was full of symbolic meaning to Moses. What he saw outwardly with the
natural eye, he was able to discern inwardly with the spiritual eye, because he was
ready to see and hear what God would teach him.
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
A bush on fire with no human hand to set it alight, no fuel to keep it burning—it
was just a picture to Moses of what God could do with him, and a picture to the
people of God for all time, of the grace of Him who is willing to dwell in human
beings as lowly, as insignificant, as the little thorn bush on the Mount of Horeb.1
[ ote: Mrs. Penn-Lewis, Face to Face, 39.]
It needed no great flame to reduce a bush quickly into a heap of white ashes. If, as in
that arid region might well have been the case, the bush was scorched and
withered—its leaves dead and limp, its branches dry and sapless—the flame would
make all the speedier work with it. But the thorn was not consumed; no branch or
twig or leaf was even scorched or singed; the flame played round it as innocuously
as the sunset glory burns in a belt of wood. The Alpine traveller is familiar with one
of the most beautiful sights of that beautiful region. At sunrise the serried pines
projected against the sky on some mountain-ridge appear robed in dazzling
brightness. The stems and branches lose their opacity, and shine with a transparent
glory; while the leaves are burnished till they seem like angel’s wings or fragments
of the sun itself. As harmlessly as the sunrise glows in the Alpine pines, so
harmlessly did the mysterious flame envelop the bush in the desert, because the
Angel of the Covenant dwelt in it. His presence restrained the devouring fire, as
afterwards it held in leash the stormy winds and waves of Gennesaret. The law of
nature was subject to the stronger law of the Divine will. He made His minister here
a flame of fire, and the fire fulfilled His word.2 [ ote: H. Macmillan.]
III
The Symbolism of the Burning Bush
“Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight why the bush is not

29. burnt.” We must, like Moses, turn aside to discern the symbols which lie beneath
the vision. The symbolism of the Burning Bush has been variously explained.
1. Some regard it as typical of the incarnation and the sufferings of Christ, and the
glory that should follow. The thorny bush represents the humiliation and
degradation of the Son of God when He came into our world and assumed the
likeness of sinful flesh; the flame that enveloped it is an emblem of the intensity of
suffering which He endured in our room and stead from men and devils, and from
the Father Himself; while the fact that the bush was unconsumed shadows forth His
triumph over all His sufferings—over death and the grave. In visionary form we
have here pictured to us the altar, the victim, and the sacrifice of the great
atonement.
2. But the Burning Bush has also been taken to represent the condition of the
Church. It was exactly suited to the circumstances of the children of Israel at the
time. It was the true likeness of their sufferings in the furnace of affliction in Egypt.
The thorny bush was a fit emblem of their character and position. As the plant was
stunted and depressed by the ungenial character of its situation, creeping over the
barren rock, scorched by the sun, and seldom visited by the kindly dew and rain
and breeze, its stems producing thorns instead of graceful leaf and blossom-laden
branches; so the Hebrew slaves, in their dreary bondage, were morally and
intellectually dwarfed, and developed, under the influence of these unfavourable
circumstances, the baser and more abject aspects of their nature. The thorn in the
wilderness recalls the primeval curse upon man; and we have in the sufferings of
Israel a repetition of the sufferings of our first parents after their expulsion from
Paradise. The same cause which produced the one produced the other. The thorns
of Adam’s lot were the very same as those that stung the Hebrews in Egypt. And, by
God’s appearance in the thorn bush, we have the great fact of redemption shadowed
forth, that God Himself has gone with us into the wilderness to be the sharer of our
doom while redeeming us from it. It is a striking thought that in the very thorn of
man’s curse appeared the shining Angel of the Covenant to bless him; that out of
the very wood of the thorn bush, which was the symbol of man’s degradation, was
constructed the tabernacle which was the symbol of his exaltation through the
incarnation of the Son of God.
Thou art burning on, thou ancient tree,
With unabated flame;
The fires of earth have beat on thee,
And thou art still the same:
Thou art not lessened in degree,
or tarnished in thy name.

30. Thou hast two sides of thy life on earth;
One has in dust its share,—
It blends with scenes of pain and dearth,
It touches common care:
The other seeks a higher birth,
And branches arms of prayer.
Oh, Church of the living Lord of all,
Like Him to thee is given
A common life with those that fall,
And an upper life in heaven;
A being with the weak and small,
And a path where stars are driven.
Thy starlight’s glow shall put out the fires
That check thine earthly way;
The burning of thy pure desires
Shall burn thy dross away,
And in the love thy Christ inspires
Thou shalt endure for aye.1 [ ote: G. Matheson, Sacred Songs, 138.]
3. Another aspect in which we may consider the parable of the Burning Bush is in
the light it casts upon the nature of God. That light has been broadening and
brightening from the time of Moses down even to our own age. Consider how God
reveals Himself here, as the fire which burns, but does not consume.

31. (1) In the world of matter.—To the careless eye it seems that the fire of decay is for
ever burning up and destroying the material things we see around us; but science
teaches us that this is quite false, and that there is no such thing as destruction
possible in God’s universe. You may grind a stone to the finest powder and dissipate
it to all the winds of heaven, but it is not in your power to annihilate the finest atom
of it; it is conceivably possible to gather together all the infinitesimal fragments,
when the weight would be found to be exactly what it was before its cohesion was
interfered with. You may take solid iron and heat it till it becomes first soft as wax,
then fluid like water, and next is changed into vapour; but by so doing you only
alter its condition; you cannot destroy the least particle of it. The pool of water,
when the sun has dried it all away, is not non-existent, it is only expanded into mist:
it becomes part of the cloud which anon will descend again upon the earth in the
shape of rain. The tree which after standing for centuries slowly dies and crumbles
beneath the withering finger of decay, though it disappears from the visible
universe, is not really destroyed; in the shape of carbon and silica and of various
gases every particle of it is as certainly in the universe as ever it was, and will be
worked up anew into flower and pebble and living thing. And so it is with all that is
to be found in God’s creation. In his popular lecture on the burning of a candle,
Faraday shows that when the candle has burnt to its socket and apparently been
annihilated altogether, every particle of its constituent elements can be gathered
together again and weighed and measured.
When Goethe makes ature sing—
Here at the roaring loom of time I ply
And weave for God the garment thou seest Him by;
and when Tennyson asks—
The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains—Are not these, O
soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?
they are only putting into poetic form that which is a distinct truth of revelation.
And if the material universe is thus a manifestation of God, science has made it
abundantly evident that the fire which burns but does not consume, is the aptest
possible symbol by which its nature, and the nature of the God who made it, can be
set forth to Man_1:1 [ ote: A. M. Mackay.]
(2) Amid the play of the forces that are in the world.—Almost the most important
truth which science has demonstrated is that which is known as the Conservation of
Energy; it establishes the fact that force, like matter, is indestructible, and that it is
a fixed quantity in the universe. To the uninstructed mind it seems that energy is
always being not only dissipated but destroyed; but this is just as impossible as that
matter should be destroyed. When the blacksmith strikes his anvil till his arm grows
weary, the force expended is not lost; it has simply changed its form from animal
energy to heat, as is proved by the anvil growing hot. The energy residing in the

32. steam which drives our locomotives and our machinery existed in the shape of heat
in the glowing fires which created the steam; and before that it lay for centuries
latent or hidden in the coal, which was dug out of the bowels of the earth; and
earlier still, long, long ages ago, it manifested itself in vegetable energy, for what is
now coal was once living forest; and earlier still it was manifested in the heat of the
sun, which was taken up into the growing trees: so that in one sense the light and
heat which our fires give forth are just the sunbeams which have been for ages
imprisoned and hoarded up for the use of man. And while we can thus trace
backward the force which drives the engine, we can follow it after it has done its
work. It is neither lost nor destroyed. It is dissipated into the atmosphere in the
form of heat, and perhaps will next manifest itself in an electrical form, in the
tempest which rends the air and wraps the heavens in flame. All this is not mere
conjecture. Just as it can be shown by delicate experiment that the candle which has
burnt to its socket is still in existence in its every atom, so it is shown by the
dynamometer that force never is and never can be lost. There is always the
appearance of the annihilation of energy; there is never the reality. Force also
resembles the bush which Moses saw; it is ever burning, yet it is never consumed.
And when we remember that all energy, as all matter, comes from God and is a
manifestation of God, we perceive how truly the vision which Moses saw was a
symbol of the nature and the mode of operation of the Great “I AM” who creates
and sustains all things.
There is unity amid all diversity, persistence amid all the ebb and flow of the visible
universe. Let us once truly grasp this truth, and we shall no longer be moved to
melancholy by the reflection that “change and decay in all around we see.” We shall
be able believingly to say to God—
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee:
There is not room for Death,
or atom his might could render void;
Thou, Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.
(3) In the sphere of life.—Life, we know, comes from God. His is the Spirit which
animates all living things; in Him we live and move and have our being. In fact, He

33. is the Life: it is only when He letteth His breath go forth that the face of the earth is
renewed, and men and the lower creatures are created. And of life we may make
exactly the same statement as we have made of matter and of force: it is
indestructible. It may change its form and its mode of manifestation: but it cannot
be annihilated or destroyed. Life in the universe—like matter and like force—seems
to the uninstructed mind to burn to the socket and to go out; there seems to be such
a thing as death: but in sober reality we may well accept the poet’s dictum that
“There is no death; what seems so is transition.” ature herself gives us a hint of
this. In autumn there seems to be a final decay and dissolution, but it is only life
disguising herself and going into hiding; spring shows that there has been no real
diminution of the vital forces in our world, but probably rather an increase.
ature gives us no such unassailable proof of the indestructibility of life as she does
of the indestructibility of force and of matter. Rather, at first glance, she would
seem to show us that the individual life can be destroyed, for we cannot trace it as
we can the individual atom of matter and of force; its place in this world knows it no
more. But this only points us to the fact that there is an invisible, a spirit world,
which we cannot reach by our material senses. For the analogy of ature will not let
us for one moment suppose that life can really be annihilated. If science teaches one
thing more clearly than another it is this, that there is Unity in ature. If matter
cannot be destroyed, if force cannot be destroyed, we may feel certain that neither
can life. If it be objected that we cannot see what has become of the soul after death,
it is a sufficient reply to say that neither could men in Moses’ time have known what
became of material substances when they were burned with fire and disappeared
from all human cognizance.
The flame may rise, the bush may burn
In deserts lone and bare:
There is no waste of any bloom
While God is present there.
The sun of human joy may set
Behind the stormy Cross:
While faith within the twilight kneels
There is not any loss.
Some homeless prayer may be at night

34. A wanderer on the moor,
But while it names the Blessed ame
It never can be poor.
(4) We find a meaning for the vision in history.—This vision would teach Moses,
and surely it should teach us, that—in spite of all appearances to the contrary—
there is permanence underlying God’s purposes and will, and the love which
informs those purposes. Moses may have heard of the promises made to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, concerning their descendants, that they should become a great
nation and should be a blessing to all the world. How had God kept His promises?
The Israelites for centuries had been degraded and ill-used as hardly any other
nation before or since. Would it not seem that God had changed His intentions and
had forgotten to be gracious? But no, it was in appearance only—as the bush
burned but was not consumed. And now at last the time had come which was to
explain the past and make glorious the future.
Let us believe that God’s will is unchangeable, and at the very moment of seeming
frustration is completing itself. Exercise this faith with regard to any question that
perplexes. It is not the will of our Heavenly Father that one of earth’s little ones
should perish. He willeth that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of
the truth. Believe that He will have His will. If it is written that “our God is a
consuming fire,” it must be a fire that consumes only the chaff, only the evil in men.
This is the meaning of all sorrow and discipline on earth, and I believe it will one
day be seen to be the meaning of what we speak of as eternal punishment. So far as
there is a spark of good left in a bad man, the fire of God’s love will burn, but not
consume. Believe that God’s purpose will not be frustrated in the accomplishment of
that “one far-off Divine event to which the whole creation moves.” And believe
meanwhile
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
MACLARE , "THE BUSH THAT BUR ED, A D DID OT BUR OUT
Exodus 3:2.
It was a very sharp descent from Pharaoh’s palace to the wilderness, and forty years
of a shepherd’s life were a strange contrast to the brilliant future that once seemed
likely for Moses. But God tests His weapons before He uses them, and great men are
generally prepared for great deeds by great sorrows. Solitude is ‘the mother-

35. country of the strong,’ and the wilderness, with its savage crags, its awful silence,
and the unbroken round of its blue heaven, was a better place to meet God than in
the heavy air of a palace, or the profitless splendours of a court.
So as this lonely shepherd is passing slowly in front of his flock, he sees a strange
light that asserted itself, even in the brightness of the desert sunshine. ‘The bush’
does not mean one single shrub. Rather, it implies some little group, or cluster, or
copse, of the dry thorny acacias, which are characteristic of the country, and over
which any ordinary fire would have passed like a flash, leaving them all in grey
ashes. But this steady light persists long enough to draw the attention of the
shepherd, and to admit of his travelling some distance to reach it. And then-and
then-the Lord speaks.
The significance of this bush, burning but not consumed, is my main subject now,
for I think it carries great and blessed lessons for us.
ow, first, I do not think that the bush burning but not consumed, stands as it is
ordinarily understood to stand, for the symbolical representation of the
preservation of Israel, even in the midst of the fiery furnace of persecution and
sorrow.
Beautiful as that idea is, I do not think it is the true explanation; because if so, this
symbol is altogether out of keeping with the law that applies to all the rest of the
symbolical accompaniments of divine appearances, all of which, without exception,
set forth in symbol some truth about God, and not about His Church; and all of
which, without exception, are a representation in visible and symbolical form of the
same truth which was proclaimed in articulate words along with them. The symbol
and the accompanying voice of God in all other cases have one and the same
meaning.
That, I think, is the case here also; and we learn from the Bush, not something about
God’s Church, however precious that may be, but what is a great deal more
important, something about God Himself; namely, the same thing that immediately
afterwards was spoken in articulate words.
In the next place, let me observe that the fire is distinctly a divine symbol, a symbol
of God not of affliction, as the ordinary explanation implies. I need not do more
than remind you of the stream of emblem which runs all through Scripture, as
confirming this point. There are the smoking lamp and the blazing furnace in the
early vision granted to Abraham. There is the pillar of fire by night, that lay over
the desert camp of the wandering Israelites. There is Isaiah’s word, ‘The light of
Israel shall be a flaming fire.’ There is the whole of the ew Testament teaching,
turning on the manifestation of God through His Spirit. There are John the
Baptist’s words, ‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.’ There is
the day of Pentecost, when the ‘tongues of fire sat upon each of them.’ And what is
meant by the great word of the Epistle to the Hebrews, ‘Our God is a consuming
fire’?
ot Israel only, but many other lands-it would scarcely be an exaggeration to say,
all other lands-have used the same emblem with the same meaning. In almost every
religion on the face of the earth, you will find a sacred significance attached to fire.
That significance is not primarily destruction, as we sometimes suppose, an error
which has led to ghastly misunderstandings of some Scriptures, and of the God

36. whom they reveal. When, for instance, Isaiah 33:14 asks, ‘Who among us shall dwell
with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’ he
has been supposed to be asking what human soul is there that can endure the
terrors of God’s consuming and unending wrath. But a little attention to the words
would have shown that ‘the devouring fire’ and the ‘everlasting burnings’ mean
God and not hell, and that the divine nature is by them not represented as too fierce
to be approached, but as the true dwelling-place of men, which indeed only the holy
can inhabit, but which for them is life. Precisely parallel is the Psalmist’s question,
‘Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy place?’
Fire is the source of warmth, and so, in a sense, of life. It is full of quick energy, it
transmutes all kinds of dead matter into its own ruddy likeness, sending up the fat
of the sacrifices in wreathes of smoke that aspire heavenward; and changing all the
gross, heavy, earthly dullness into flame, more akin to the heaven into which it rises.
Therefore, as cleansing, as the source of life, light, warmth, change, as glorifying,
transmuting, purifying, refining, fire is the fitting symbol of the mightiest of all
creative energy. And the Bible has consecrated the symbolism, and bade us think of
the Lord Himself as the central fiery Spirit of the whole universe, a spark from
whom irradiates and vitalises everything that lives.
or should we forget, on the other side, that the very felicity of this emblem is, that
along with all these blessed thoughts of life-giving and purifying, there does come
likewise the more solemn teaching of God’s destructive power. ‘What maketh
heaven, that maketh hell’; and the same God is the fire to quicken, to sanctify, to
bless; and resisted, rejected, neglected, is the fire that consumes; the savour of life
unto life, or the savour of death unto death.
And then, still further, notice that this flame is undying-steady, unflickering. What
does that mean? Adopting the principle which I have already taken as our guide,
that the symbol and the following oral revelation teach the same truth, there can be
no question as to that answer. ‘I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob. ‘I AM THAT I AM.’
That is to say, the fire that burns and does not burn out, which has no tendency to
destruction in its very energy, and is not consumed by its own activity, is surely a
symbol of the one Being whose being derives its law and its source from Himself,
who only can say-’I AM THAT I AM’-the law of His nature, the foundation of His
being, the only conditions of His existence being, as it were, enclosed within the
limits of His own nature. You and I have to say, ‘I am that which I have become,’ or
‘I am that which I was born,’ or ‘I am that which circumstances have made me.’ He
says, ‘I AM THAT I AM.’ All other creatures are links; this is the staple from which
they all hang. All other being is derived, and therefore limited and changeful; this
Being is underived, absolute, self-dependent, and therefore unalterable for
evermore. Because we live we die. In living the process is going on of which death is
the end. But God lives for evermore, a flame that does not burn out; therefore His
resources are inexhaustible, His power unwearied. He needs no rest for
recuperation of wasted energy. His gifts diminish not the store which He has to
bestow. He gives, and is none the poorer; He works, and is never weary; He operates
unspent; He loves, and He loves for ever; and through the ages the fire burns on,
unconsumed and undecayed.
O brethren! is not that a revelation-familiar as it sounds to our ears now, blessed be

37. God!-is not that a revelation of which, when we apprehend the depth and the
preciousness, we may well fix an unalterable faith upon it, and feel that for us, in
our fleeting days and shadowy moments, the one means to secure blessedness, rest,
strength, life, is to grasp and knit ourselves to Him who lives for ever, and whose
love is lasting as His life? ‘The eternal God, the Lord . . .fainteth not, neither is
weary. They that wait upon Him shall renew their strength.’
The last thought suggested to me by this symbol is this. Regarding the lowly thorn-
bush as an emblem of Israel-which unquestionably it is, though the fire be the
symbol of God-in the fact that the symbolical manifestation of the divine energy
lived in so lowly a shrine, and flamed in it, and preserved it by its burning, there is a
great and blessed truth.
It is the same truth which Jesus Christ, with a depth of interpretation that put to
shame the cavilling listeners, found in the words that accompanied this vision: ‘I am
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He said to the
sneering Sadducees, who, like all other sneerers, saw only the surface of what they
were sarcastic about, ‘Did not Moses teach you,’ in the section about the bush, ‘that
the dead rise, when he said: I AM the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.’
A man, about whom it can once be said that God is his God, cannot die. Such a bond
can never be broken. The communion of earth, imperfect as it is, is the prophecy of
Heaven and the pledge of immortality. And so from that relationship which
subsisted between the fathers and God, Christ infers the certainty of their
resurrection. It seems a great leap, but there are intervening steps not stated by our
Lord, which securely bridge the gulf between the premises and the conclusion. Such
communion is, in its very nature, unaffected by the accident of death, for it cannot
be supposed that a man who can say that God is His God can be reduced to
nothingness, and such a bond be snapped by such a cause. Therefore Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob are still living, ‘for all’ those whom we call dead, as well as those
whom we call living, ‘live unto Him,’ and though so many centuries have passed,
God still is, not was, their God. The relation between them is eternal and guarantees
their immortal life. But immortality without corporeity is not conceivable as the
perfect state, and if the dead live still, there must come a time when the whole man
shall partake of redemption; and in body, soul, and spirit the glorified and risen
saints shall be ‘for ever with the Lord.’
That is but the fuller working out of the same truth that is taught us in the symbol
‘the bush burned and was not consumed.’ God dwelt in it, therefore it flamed; God
dwelt in it, therefore though it flamed it never flamed out. Or in other words, the
Church, the individual in whom He dwells, partakes of the immortality of the
indwelling God. ‘Every one shall be salted with fire,’ which shall be preservative
and not destructive; or, as Christ has said, ‘Because I live ye shall live also.’
Humble as was the little, ragged, sapless thorn-bush, springing up and living its
solitary life amidst the sands of the desert, it was not too humble to hold God; it was
not too gross to burst into flame when He came; it was not too fragile to be gifted
with undying being; like His that abode in it. And for us each the emblem may be
true. If He dwell in us we shall live as long as He lives, and the fire that He puts in
our heart shall be a fountain of fire springing up into life everlasting.

38. SIMEO 2-3, "
DISCOURSE: 63
THE BUR I G BUSH
Exodus 3:2-3. The angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the
midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the
bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great
sight, why the bush is not burnt.
IF God have on some occasions revealed himself to persons, when, like Saul, they
have been in the very act of committing the most heinous sins [ ote: Acts 9:4.], he
has more generally favoured them when they have been occupied, like the
shepherds, in their proper calling [ ote: Luke 2:8-9.]. Moses was keeping the flock
of Jethro his father-in-law, when God appeared to him in a burning bush, and gave
him a commission to deliver Israel from their bondage in Egypt. By this
extraordinary appearance God not merely awakened the curiosity of Moses, but
conveyed to him some very important instruction; to elucidate which we shall,
I. Shew what was intended by the burning bush—
It was intended to represent the state and condition—
1. Of the Israelites in Egypt—
[They were cruelly oppressed, and every effort was made to destroy them [ ote:
Exodus 1:9-22.]. or had they in themselves any more ability to withstand their
enemies, than a thorny bush has to resist the action of fire. Yet not only were they
preserved from destruction, but they even multiplied in proportion as means were
used to prevent their increase.]
2. Of the church of God in the world—
[The church, whose state was typified by that of Israel, has at all times suffered by
persecution, though it has enjoyed some intervals of comparative rest. And,
considering that all the powers of the world have been confederate against it, we
may well be amazed that it has not been utterly consumed. But it has endured the
fiery trial to this hour, and still defies the impotent attacks of all its adversaries.]
3. Of every individual in the church—
[The declaration that “all who would live godly in Christ Jesus should suffer
persecution,” has been verified in every place and every age: “the third part are,
and ever will be, brought through the fire.” And it is no less than a miracle, that,
when the believer has so many enemies, both without and within, he does not “make
shipwreck of faith and of a good conscience.” But the furnace, instead of destroying,
purifies and refines him; and his very graces are perfected by the trials that

39. endanger their existence [ ote: Romans 5:3-5.].]
Having pointed out both the primary and more remote signification of this
phenomenon we shall,
II. Account for the miracle which it exhibited—
Well might the sight of a bush burning, but not consumed, excite the astonishment
of Moses: but his wonder would cease when he found that God was in the bush.
The person here called “the angel of the Lord” was Christ—
[The angel expressly called himself “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob;” which sufficiently proves that he could not be a created angel, seeing
that it would be the most daring blasphemy in any creature to assume that
incommunicable title of Jehovah: yet it was not God the Father: for St. Stephen,
recording this history, informs us, that “God sent Moses by the hand of the angel
[ ote: Acts 7:30-35.]:” consequently the angel was God the Son, and not God the
Father. Indeed Christ, who is elsewhere called “The angel of the covenant,” was the
person, who, in all the appearances of God to man, assumed the human or angelic
shape; thereby preparing the world for the fuller manifestation of himself in his
incarnate state. And it is on this account that he is called “The image of the invisible
God [ ote: Colossians 1:15.].”]
It was his presence with the Israelites that prevented their destruction—
[He was in the bush, and therefore the bush was not consumed: so he was in the
midst of his oppressed people; and therefore the Egyptians could not prevail against
them. Christ was among them before he gave them any symbol of his presence; for it
was he who rendered the assistance of the midwives unnecessary, and emboldened
them to withstand the commands of Pharaoh. He was afterwards with them in the
pillar and the cloud, protecting them from the Egyptian hosts, and stopping the
progress of their enemies till they were overwhelmed in the sea. When, for the
punishment of their sins, he refused to go with them, they were sure to be
overpowered [ ote: umbers 14:42-45; Joshua 7:4-5.]: but whenever he returned in
mercy to them, they prospered and prevailed.]
It is that same presence that preserves the church and every member of it—
[Christ has said, “Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world;” and hence
it is that “the gates of hell have never prevailed against the church;” yea, we are
assured, they never shall prevail. We are also told that “he dwelleth in the hearts” of
all his people [ ote: Ephesians 3:17.], and is “their life [ ote: Colossians 3:4.] ;” and
that, whereinsoever they live and act, it is not so much they, as Christ in them [ ote:
Galatians 2:20.]. It is by this consideration that he encourages them to “go through
fire and water,” persuaded that no evil shall happen to them [ ote: Psalms 46:5.].
And to his continued interposition and support they must ascribe their preservation

40. in every danger, and their deliverance from every enemy [ ote: Psalms 124:1-5.].]
Let us now “turn aside and behold this great sight” (let us turn from every worldly
thought, and inspect this wonderful appearance, not with curiosity, but profoundest
reverence); let us observe herein,
1. To what state God’s most favoured people may be reduced—
[Your afflictions may be heavy. But are any discouraged by reason of their great
trials? Be it known that tribulation is the way to the kingdom; and all, who arrive
there, have trodden the same path [ ote: Acts 14:22; Revelation 7:14.]. or need we
be alarmed at any fire that is kindled for us, since Christ will be with us in the midst
of it [ ote: Isaiah 41:10.], and “bring us out of it purified as gold.”]
2. What they may expect at God’s hands—
[In seasons of great trial we are tempted to think that God has forsaken us: but he
never was more immediately present with the Hebrew youths, than when they were
cast into the furnace; nor did he ever feel more love to his own Son, than in the hour
when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Let us then learn to
trust God, and expect that, when we walk through the fire, we shall not be burned
[ ote: Isaiah 43:2.].]
3. What in the midst of all their trials should be their chief concern—
[Moses in his valedictory address to the twelve tribes, congratulates Joseph on “the
good-will of Him who dwelt in the bush [ ote: Deuteronomy 33:16.].” And most
truly are they blessed who are thus interested in the divine favour. To them God is
“a wall of fire” for their protection [ ote: Zechariah 2:5.]: but to others he is “a
consuming fire” for their destruction [ ote: Hebrews 12:29.]. Alas! alas! in what a
fearful state are they, who shall be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone,” into “a
fire that never shall be quenched,” and in which they shall continue unconsumed to
all eternity! Oh! “who can dwell with everlasting burnings [ ote: Isaiah 33:14.] ?”
But, if we are reconciled to him in the Son of his love, we have nothing to fear: we
have nothing to fear either in time or eternity: for, however painful our state in this
world may be, he will support us with his presence; and in the world to come, we
shall be for ever beyond the reach of harm, even in “his immediate presence, where
is the fulness of joy for evermore.” Seek then his favour; yea, seek it with your
whole hearts — — —]
3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this

41. strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
GILL, "And Moses said, I will now turn aside,.... From the place where he was,
and the flock he was feeding, and get nearer to the bush, which seems to have been on
one side of him and not directly before him:
and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt; inquire into, and find out, if
he could, the reason of this strange and amazing sight; how it could be that a bush
should be on fire and yet not burnt up, which might have been expected would have been
destroyed at once; for what is a thorn or bramble bush to devouring flames of fire, as
these appeared to be?
HE RY, "The curiosity Moses had to enquire into this extraordinary sight: I will
turn aside and see, Exo_3:3. He speaks as one inquisitive and bold in his enquiry;
whatever it was, he would, if possible, know the meaning of it. Note, Things revealed
belong to us, and we ought diligently to enquire into them.
CALVI , "3.And Moses said, I will now turn aside. It is certain that his mind was
disposed to reverence from no rashness, but by divine inspiration. Although not yet
accustomed to visions, he still perceives that, this is no unmeaning spectacle, but that
some mystery was contained in it, which he must by no means neglect, and to the
knowledge of which he was divinely called. In this, too, we must observe his
tractableness, in turning aside to learn. For it often happens that God presents
himself to us in vain, because we presumptuously reject such great mercy. Let us
learn, then, by the example of Moses, as often as God invites us to himself by any
sign, to give diligent heed, lest the proffered light be quenched by our own apathy.
But from his calling it a “great sight,” we gather that he was taught by secret
inspiration the depth of the mystery, though it was as yet unknown. In this way God
prepared his mind to reverence, (38) that he might the sooner profit by it.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight,
why the bush is not burnt.
Ver. 3. I will now turn aside, and see.] Moses came out of curiosity, but was called
by God: so do many to the ordinances for novelty, as the Jews did to John Baptist;
or for some other minister respect; to catch, it may be, and are caught, as those in
John 7:46. Or as Austin, who coming to Ambrose to have his ears tickled, had his
heart touched. It is good to hear, howsoever. Come, said Latimer, to the public
meetings, though thou comest to sleep; it may be, God may take thee napping.
Absence is without hope. What a deal lost Thomas by being but once absent!

42. This great vision.] Great indeed. There was a flame of fire, else how was the bush
burning? There was light, else how did Moses see it? There was no heat, else how
was not the bush consumed? Yet in every of God’s afflicted, saith one, you may see
this great vision. The voice of the Lord in his affliction, as in this fire, divideth the
heat from the light, so that he is not consumed by the heat - nay, rather his
infirmities and carnal concupiscences are consumed thereby - but only illuminated
by the light. {See Trapp on "Exodus 2:15"}
ELLICOTT, "(3) I will now turn aside.—A minute touch, in dicating that Moses is
the writer. He remembers that the bush did not grow on the track which he was
pursuing, but lay off it, and that he had to “turn aside,” in order to make his
inspection.
This great sight.—The phenomenon was strange and unusual—worthy of note,
whatever might be the cause.
BE SO , "Verse 3-4
Exodus 3:3-4. I will turn aside and see — He speaks as one inquisitive and bold in
his inquiry: whatever it was, he would, if possible, know the meaning of it. God
called to him, and said, Moses, Moses — Probably there had been no appearance of
God to any one since Jacob’s descent into Egypt, above two hundred years before:
and Moses, being addressed thus by name, must have been much more surprised by
what he heard than by what he saw. Divine calls are then effectual when the Spirit
of God makes them particular, and calls us as by name. He said, Here am I — ot
only to hear what is spoken, but to do what is commanded.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARYK, "Exodus 3:3
It is good to come to the place of God"s presence, howsoever; God may perhaps
speak to thy heart, though thou come but for novelty. Even those who have come
upon curiosity have been oft taken.
—Bishop Hall.
See also Keble"s lines on the Fifth Sunday in Lent.
What we mean by wondering is not only that we are startled or stunned—that I
should call the merely passive element of wonder.... We wonder at the riddles of
nature, whether animate or inanimate, with a firm conviction that there is a solution
to them all, even though we ourselves may not be able to find it. Wonder, no doubt,
arises from ignorance, but from a peculiar kind of ignorance, from what might be
called a fertile ignorance.
—Max Müller.
What must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, in the train of a million
thoughts, has wandered to all things under the sun, to all the permanent objects or

43. vanishing appearances in the creation, but never fixed its thought on the supreme
reality; never approached like Moses "to see this great sight"?
—John Foster.
Burning But ot Burnt
Exodus 3:3
The story of Moses is the story, at first, of failure. Two great streams of influences
moulded his life: one drawn from the Egyptian surroundings of his early days, the
other from his mother"s teaching. On the one side he had the speechless-eyed deities
of Egypt looking for ever into his face; on the other he had his belief in the
governing providence of God. He looked to find amongst his own people aspirations
after better things, and responsiveness to his own spirit; he met only with coldness,
and refusal to follow. Then came his exile in Midian—an exile from all his early
dreams and hopes, from the position he had in Egypt, from the future which flowed
before him.
I. The Vision and its Results.—The vision was the revelation that restored him to
faith and energy. The revelation was threefold. It was a revelation (a) of
permanence, (b) of purity, (c) of personal power.
(a) A revelation of permanence, for the bush was not consumed; it held its own life
amidst the devouring flame.
(b) A revelation of purity, for before he could enter into the deep meaning of that
vision, a Voice had bidden him "put his shoes from off his feet, for the place on
which he stood was holy".
(c) A revelation of personal power and love, for out of the distance, out of the
background of the vision, giving it its heart and life, came the voice of Him who
proclaimed Himself through all the changes and vicissitudes of the life of Israel as
the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
II. A Vision for all Time.—The revelation was not for Moses alone. ote:—
(a) There is in every common bush the light of God, and only those see it who draw
off their shoes.
(b) We forget to turn aside to see the great sights about us.
(c) If we give our hearts leisure and earnestly seek to meet with God, God will meet
with us.
The egative Side

44. Exodus 3:3
I have broken up the text in this way that we may see more vividly the special point
and largest meaning. Many men turn aside to see why things are; here is a man who
turns aside to see why things are not. God disturbs our little law of continuity—as if
we knew anything about continuity! We were born yesterday, and are struggling
today, and tomorrow will be forgotten, and we shape our mouths to the utterance of
this great word continuity! We spoil ourselves by using long words instead of short
ones.
"I will turn aside, and see why not." If you saw a river flowing up a hill, perhaps
you would turn aside and see why it does not, like all other rivers, flow downhill. If
you saw an eagle build ing its nest in the middle of the Atlantic, perhaps even you
and I might be wakened out of our vulgar narrowness and startled by the ministry
of surprise. God has a great surprise ministry.
I. I will turn aside, and see why the wicked are not consumed, and I find an answer
in the fact that God"s mercy endureth for ever, of His love there is no end, and that
men may be in reality better than they themselves suppose. ot what we see in
ourselves, but what God sees in us is the real standard of judgment. We are never so
near the realization of the great blessing as when we see nothing in ourselves to
deserve it.
II. I will turn aside, and see and inquire why the departed ones do not speak to us
and tell us about the other and upper side of things. Who shall say that the departed
never speak to us? What is speaking? Which is the true ear, the ear of the body or
the ear of the soul? What are these unexplained noises? What are these sudden
utterances of the summer wind? Who can interpret this gospel of fragrance, this
apocalypse of blossom, this mystery of resurrection? Who knows what voices sweep
through the soul, and what tender fingers touch the heart-strings of the life? Who is
it that whispers things to the heart? Who is it that said, Be brave, take up your
work, never stand still till the Master appear? Who is it, was it, how could it be? I
will turn aside, and see this great sight, and I will believe that more is spoken to us
than the ear of the body can hear.
III. What a rebuke this is as a text to all our little notions about cause and effect!
The Lord is always surprising people by unexpected revelations; the Lord is always
perplexing the mind by tearing human calculations to rags; again and again
through Pentecostal winds there roars this glorious gospel, The Lord reigneth.
Personality is greater than law; consciousness is the true continuity; God is the
Master, and if He pleases to turn the sun into darkness He will do it, aye, and the
moon into blood, and she shall be melted as into a crimson flame.
—Joseph Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vol1. p239.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:3-5. Turn aside.—Comp. Genesis 19:2.—Moses, Moses.—
Comp. Genesis 22:11. An expression of the most earnest warning and of the deepest

45. sense of the sacredness and danger of the moment. The address involves a two-fold
element. First, Moses must not approach any nearer to Jehovah; and, secondly, he
must regard the place itself on which he is standing as holy ground, on which he
must not stand in his dusty shoes. The putting off of the shoes must in general have
the same character as the washing of the feet, and is therefore not only a general
expression of reverence for the sacred place and for the presence of God, like the
taking off of the hat with us, but also a reminder of the moral dust which through
one’s walk in life clings to the shoes or feet, i.e. of the venial sins on account of which
one must humble himself in the sacred moment. On the custom of taking off the
shoes in the East upon entering pagodas, mosques, etc., see Keil, p439.
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to
look, God called to him from within the bush,
“Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
BAR ES, "The Lord saw - The interchange of the two divine names is to be
observed; “Jehovah” (Yahweh) saw, “God” called.
GILL, "And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see,.... Who is before
called the Angel of the Lord, here Jehovah, the omniscient and omnipresent Being, who
observing Moses turning aside and going onward to gratify his curiosity, by examining
more narrowly this strange phenomenon:
God called unto him out of the midst of the bush; with an articulate voice, being
the eternal Word:
and said, Moses, Moses; for the Lord knows his people distinctly, and can call them
by name; and the repetition of his name not only shows familiarity and a strong
vehement affection for him, but haste to stop him, that he might proceed no further; and
this was done in order to stir him up to hearken to what would be said to him:
and he said, here am I; ready to hear what shall be said, and to obey whatever is
commanded.

46. HE RY 4-5, "The invitation he had to draw near, yet with a caution not to come too
near, nor rashly.
1. God gave him a gracious call, to which he returned a ready answer, Exo_3:4. When
God saw that he took notice of the burning bush, and turned aside to see it, and left his
business to attend it, then God called to him. If he had carelessly neglected it as an ignis
fatuus - a deceiving meteor, a thing not worth taking notice of, it is probable that God
would have departed, and said nothing to him; but, when he turned aside, God called to
him. Note, Those that would have communion with God must attend upon him, and
approach to him, in those ordinances wherein he is pleased to manifest himself, and his
power and glory, though it be in a bush; they must come to the treasure, though in an
earthen vessel. Those that seek God diligently shall find him, and find him their
bountiful rewarder. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. God called him by
name, Moses, Moses. This which he heard could not but surprise him much more than
what he saw. The word of the Lord always went along with the glory of the Lord, for
every divine vision was designed for divine revelation, Job_4:16, etc.; Job_32:14-15.
Divine calls are then effectual, (1.) When the Spirit of God makes them particular, and
calls us by name. The word calls, Ho, every one! The Spirit, by the application of that,
calls, Ho, such a one! I know thee by name, Exo_33:12. (2.) When we return an obedient
answer to them, as Moses here, “Here am I, what saith my Lord unto his servant? Here
am I, not only to hear what is said, but to do what I am bidden.”
2. God gave him a needful caution against rashness and irreverence in his approach,
(1.) He must keep his distance; draw near, but not too near; so near as to hear, but not so
near as to pry. His conscience must be satisfied, but not his curiosity; and care must be
taken that familiarity do not breed contempt. Note, In all our approaches to God, we
ought to be deeply affected with the infinite distance there is between us and God, Ecc_
5:2. Or this may be taken as proper to the Old Testament dispensation, which was a
dispensation of darkness, bondage, and terror, from which the gospel happily frees us,
giving us boldness to enter into the holiest, and inviting us to draw near. (2.) He must
express his reverence, and his readiness to obey: Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, as a
servant. Putting off the shoe was then what putting off the hat is now, a token of respect
and submission. “The ground, for the present, is holy ground, made so by this special
manifestation of the divine presence, during the continuance of which it must retain this
character; therefore tread not on that ground with soiled shoes.” Keep thy foot, Ecc_5:1.
Note, We ought to approach to God with a solemn pause and preparation; and, though
bodily exercise alone profits little, yet we ought to glorify God with our bodies, and to
express our inward reverence by a grave and reverent behaviour in the worship of God,
carefully avoiding everything that looks light, and rude, and unbecoming the awfulness
of the service.
JAMISO , when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see — The
manifestations which God anciently made of Himself were always accompanied by clear,
unmistakable signs that the communications were really from heaven. This certain
evidence was given to Moses. He saw a fire, but no human agent to kindle it; he heard a
voice, but no human lips from which it came; he saw no living Being, but One was in the
bush, in the heat of the flames, who knew him and addressed him by name. Who could
this be but the Divine Being?
CALVI , "4.God called unto him out of the midst of the bush. In the first place, my

47. readers will observe that, as is the case in almost all visions, it was not a voiceless
spectacle to alarm the holy man, but that instruction accompanied it by which his
mind might obtain encouragement. For there would be no use in visions, if the
senses of those who see them were kept in alarm. But although God was unwilling to
terrify his servant, yet, in two ways, he claims authority and reverence for his
intended address; first, by calling Moses twice by name, he makes his way into the
depths of his heart, that, as if cited before the tribunal of God, he may be more
attentive in listening; and, again, by commanding him to put off his shoes, he
prepares him to humility, by admiration and fear. There is much discussion with
respect to the latter clause amongst many, who delight in allegory. (39) I will not
recite their various opinions, because a simple exposition of the true meaning will
dispose of the whole of their subtle triflings. Moses is commanded to put off his
shoes, that by the very bareness of his feet his mind might be disposed to reverential
feelings; and on this account, too, he is reminded of the holiness of the ground,
because, in our prayers, the bending of the knees, and the uncovering of the head,
are helps and excitements to the worship of God. And this, I think, is made
sufficiently clear by the reason which is immediately added, that the place on which
Moses stood was “holy ground,” and, therefore, not rashly, or in a profane manner
to be trodden on. Whence we gather, that he was instructed by the outward sign of
adoration to enter into the presence of God as a trembling suppliant. He had,
indeed, said, “Here am I,” (which was a testimony that his mind was teachable, and
prepared to obey,) yet it was good that he should be more actively aroused, in order
that he might come before God with greater fear. But if this most noble Prophet of
God had need of such a preparation, no wonder that God stirs up our unwilling
hearts, by many aids, in order that we may worship him in truth. And although the
same command is not given to all which was given to Moses, still let us learn, that
this is the object of all ceremonies, that the majesty of God, being duly and seriously
perceived in our minds, may obtain its rightful honor, and that he may be regarded
in accordance with his dignity. If any prefer the deeper meaning (anagoge,) that
God cannot be heard until we have put off our earthly thoughts, I object not to it;
only let the natural sense stand first, that Moses was commanded to put off his
shoes, as a preparation to listen with greater reverence to God. If the question be
now raised as to the holiness of the place, the reply is easy, that it received this
honorable title on account of the vision. Mount Sinai did not, therefore, naturally
possess any peculiar sanctity; but because God, who sanctifies all things, deigned to
give there the sign of his presence. Thus Bethel was dignified by Jacob with high
and honorable titles. (Genesis 28:17.)
“How dreadful is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the
gate of heaven;”
because it had been consecrated by a special revelation. For, wherever we see any
sign of the glory of God, piety awakens this feeling of admiration in our hearts. In
the meantime, however, since we are too prone to superstition, these two errors must
be avoided; lest, in our gross imaginations, we should, as it were, draw down God
from heaven, and affix him to places on earth; and, also, lest we should account that
sanctity perpetual which is only temporary. The remedy of the first evil is to reflect

48. on the nature of God; of the second, to observe his design, how far, and for what use
he sanctifies places. For since the nature of God is spiritual, it is not allowable to
imagine respecting him anything earthly or gross; nor does his immensity permit of
his being confined to place. Again, the sanctity of a place must be restricted to the
object of the manifestation. Thus Mount Horeb was made holy in reference to the
promulgation of the law, which prescribes the true worship of God. If the
descendants of Jacob had considered this, they would never have set up Bethel as a
holy place in opposition to Sion; because, although God once appeared there to the
patriarch, He had never chosen that place; therefore they were wrong in proceeding
from a particular instance to a general conclusion.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God
called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said,
Here [am] I.
Ver. 4. And when the Lord saw, &c.] God "meeteth him that rejoiceth and worketh
righteousness." [Isaiah 64:5] Acti; agimus. The miller cannot command a wind; yet
he will spread his sails, be in the way to have it, if it come. As our liberty, in external
acts, is still some - as to come to church, to hear, to repeat, &c. - so must our
endeavours be answerable.
ELLICOTT, "(4) When the Lord saw . . . God called.—Heb., When Jehovah saw,
Elohim called. The German theory of two authors of Exodus, one Jehovistic and the
other Elohistic, is completely refuted by this passage; for it is impossible to ascribe
one clause of a sentence to one author, and the next to another. If originally the
same term had been used in both places, a reviser would not have altered one
without altering both.
Moses, Moses.—Comp. Genesis 26:11; 1 Samuel 3:10; and Acts 9:4. The repetition
marks extreme urgency.
COFFMA , "Verse 4-5
"And when Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the
midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said
Draw not nigh hither: PUToff thy SHOES from off thy feet, for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground."
"God called to him ..." This makes it necessary to view the Angel of Jehovah
(Exodus 3:2) as none other than God Himself.
"Moses, Moses ..." Such double use of a man's name always implied very unusual
urgency and importance. It was the case with Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10), and with Saul
of Tarsus (Acts 9:4).
"Put off thy shoes ..." The holiness of that location was not due to the location there
of some ancient shrine. If so, Moses would already have known all about it; he had

49. lived in the vicinity for forty years. It was God's presence only that endowed the
vicinity with holiness and REQUIRED Moses to take off his shoes.
"And when Jehovah saw ... God called ..." Rawlinson has an important comment on
the use of two different names for God in this same sentence:
"This collocation of words is fatal to the entire Elohistic and Jehovistic theories. o
one can suppose that TWO different writers wrote the two clauses, nor that if the
same term was originally used in both, that any reviser would have altered one
without altering both."[14]
We shall pay less and less attention to the alleged sources of Genesis, and the
endless, tedious postulations about "doublets" and "documents," which never
existed. All of that was thoroughly discussed in the commentary on Genesis. The
greatest O.T. analyst of this century said:
"It is true and is acknowledged that the advocates of this hypothesis (that of various
sources in such documents as "E," "J," "P," etc.) have far more difficulties to
overcome in Exodus than in Genesis, in which latter book, too, there are insufficient
grounds for accepting this view."[15]
In such a passage as this, such things as the infinite holiness of the Eternal, the sin
and unworthiness of mortal men to approach him, unless invited or commanded,
and the condescension of the Father who stoops to make any kind of revelation to
His creatures are easily visible.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:4
"I think, Sirach ," says Dinah Morris in Adam Bede (ch. VIII.), "when God makes
His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any
heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord."
The more the microscope searches out the molecular structure of matter, the thinner
does its object become, till we feel as if the veil were not being so much withdrawn as
being worn away by the keen scrutiny, or rent in twain, until at last we come to the
true Shekinah, and may discern through it, if our shoes are off, the words I Amos ,
burning, but not consumed.
—Dr. John Brown on Art and Science.
PULPIT, "When the Lord saw … God called. This collocation of words is fatal in
the entire Elohistic and Jehovistic theory, for no one can suppose that two different
writers wrote the two clauses of the sentence. or, if the same term was originally
used in both clauses, would any reviser have altered one without altering both. Out
of the midst of the bush. A voice, which was the true voice of God, appeared to
Moses to proceed out of the midst of the fire which enveloped the thorn-bush. An
objective reality is described, not a vision. Moses, Moses. The double call implies
urgency. Compare the call of Samuel (1 Samuel 3:10).

50. 5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off
your sandals, for the place where you are standing
is holy ground.”
BAR ES, "Put off thy shoes - The reverence due to holy places thus rests upon
God’s own command. The custom itself is well known from the observances of the
temple, it was almost universally adopted by the ancients, and is retained in the East.
Holy ground - This passage is almost conclusive against the assumption that the
place was previously a sanctuary. Moses knew nothing of its holiness after some 40 years
spent on the Peninsula. It became holy by the presence of God.
CLARKE, "Put off thy shoes - It is likely that from this circumstance all the
eastern nations have agreed to perform all the acts of their religious worship barefooted.
All the Mohammedans, Brahmins, and Parsees do so still. The Jews were remarked for
this in the time of Juvenal; hence he speaks of their performing their sacred rites
barefooted; Sat. vi., ver. 158:
Observant ubi festa mero pede sabbata reges.
The ancient Greeks did the same. Jamblichus, in the life of Pythagoras, tells us that
this was one of his maxims, Ανυποδητος θυε και προσκυνει, Offer sacrifice and worship
with your shoes off. And Solinus asserts that no person was permitted to enter into the
temple of Diana, in Crete, till he had taken off his shoes. “Aedem Numinis (Dianae)
praeterquam nudus vestigio nulles licito ingreditur.” Tertullian observes, de jejunio,
that in a time of drought the worshippers of Jupiter deprecated his wrath, and prayed
for rain, walking barefooted. “Cum stupet caelum, et aret annus, nudipedalia,
denunciantur.” It is probable that ‫נעלים‬ nealim, in the text, signifies sandals, translated
by the Chaldee ‫סנדל‬ sandal, and ‫סנדלא‬ sandala, (see Gen_14:23), which was the same as
the Roman solea, a sole alone, strapped about the foot As this sole must let in dust,
gravel, and sand about the foot in travelling, and render it very uneasy, hence the custom
of frequently washing the feet in those countries where these sandals were worn. Pulling
off the shoes was, therefore, an emblem of laying aside the pollutions contracted by
walking in the way of sin. Let those who name the Lord Jesus Christ depart from
iniquity. In our western countries reverence is expressed by pulling off the hat; but how
much more significant is the eastern custom! “The natives of Bengal never go into their

51. own houses with their shoes on, nor into the houses of others, but always leave their
shoes at the door. It would be a great affront not to attend to this mark of respect when
visiting; and to enter a temple without pulling off the shoes would be an unpardonable
offense.” - Ward.
The place whereon thou standest is holy ground - It was not particularly
sanctified by the Divine presence; but if we may credit Josephus, a general opinion had
prevailed that God dwelt on that mountain; and hence the shepherds, considering it as
sacred ground, did not dare to feed their flocks there. Moses, however, finding the soil to
be rich and the pasturage good, boldly drove his flock thither to feed on it - Antiq., b. ii.,
c. xii., s. 1.
GILL, "And he said, draw not nigh hither,.... Keep a proper distance:
put off thy shoes from off thy feet; dust and dirt cleaving to shoes, and these being
ordered to be put off from the feet, the instrument of walking, show that those that draw
nigh to God, and are worshippers of him, ought to be of pure and holy lives and
conversations:
for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground; not that there was any
inherent holiness in this spot of ground more than in any other, which ground is not
capable of; but a relative holiness on account of the presence of God here at this time,
and was not permanent, only while a pure and holy God was there: hence, in after times,
the temple being the place of the divine residence, the priests there performed their
services barefooted, nor might a common person enter into the temple with his shoes on
(k); and to this day the Jews go to their synagogues barefooted on the day of atonement
(l), to which Juvenal (m) seems to have respect; and from hence came the Nudipedalia
among the Heathens, and that known symbol of Pythagoras (n), "sacrifice and worship
with naked feet": in this manner the priests of Diana sacrificed to her among the
Cretians and other people (o); and so the priests of Hercules did the same (p); the
Brahmans among the Indians never go into their temples without plucking off their
shoes (q); so the Ethiopian Christians, imitating Jews and Gentiles, never go into their
places of public worship but with naked feet (r), and the same superstition the Turks and
Mahometans observe (s).
JAMISO , put off thy shoes — The direction was in conformity with a usage which
was well known to Moses, for the Egyptian priests observed it in their temples, and it is
observed in all Eastern countries where the people take off their shoes or sandals, as we
do our hats. But the Eastern idea is not precisely the same as the Western. With us, the
removal of the hat is an expression of reverence for the place we enter, or rather of Him
who is worshipped there. With them the removal of the shoes is a confession of personal
defilement and conscious unworthiness to stand in the presence of unspotted holiness.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off
thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest [is] holy ground.
Ver. 5. Draw not nigh.] Be not rash, but reverent. Heathens could say, on
loquendum de Deo sine lumine. God will be sanctified of all that draw nigh unto

52. him. [Leviticus 10:2]
Put off thy shoes.] Of sensuality and other sins. Quid pedes, saith Erasmus, nisi
affectus? Quid pedes calceamentorum onere liberi nisi animus nullis terrenis
cupiditatibus oneratus? Affections are the feet of the soul; keep them unclogged.
ELLICOTT, "(5) Put off thy shoes.—Rather, thy sandals. It is doubtful whether
shoes were known at this early date. They would certainly not have been worn in
Midian. Egyptians before the time of Moses, and Orientals generally, in ancient (as
in modern) times, removed their sandals (or their shoes) from their feet on entering
any place to which respect was due, as a temple, a palace, and even the private
house of a great man. It is worthy of notice that God Himself orders this mark of
respect to be shown to the place which His Presence has hallowed. On the reverence
due to holy places, see the ote on Genesis 28:16-17.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:5. Draw not nigh hither — Keep thy distance. Thus God
checks his curiosity and forwardness, and disposes his mind to the greater reverence
and humility. Put off thy shoes from thy feet — This is required as a token of his
reverence for the Divine Majesty, then and there eminently present; of his
humiliation for his sins, which rendered him unworthy to appear before God; of his
putting away all sin in his walk or conversation; and of his submission and
readiness to obey God’s will; for which reason slaves were wont to approach their
masters barefooted. We find the same direction given to Joshua, for the same
reason, Joshua 5:15. And it seems not improbable that putting off the shoes, as a
sign of humiliation and veneration, was a ceremony observed by the patriarchs in
their religious worship. Buxtorf says, that to this day the Jews go to their
synagogues barefoot on the day of atonement, (Jud. Synag., c. 30, p. 57,) and many
learned men suppose that the priests officiated barefoot in the tabernacle and
temple. The custom of treading barefoot in holy places seems to have been general in
the East: the Egyptians used it: and Pythagoras, who recommends to his disciples to
worship, putting off their shoes, ( ανυποδητος προσκυνει,) is thought to have
learned this rite from them. The Mohammedans observe this ceremony at the
present time, as do also the Christians of Abyssinia. The truth seems to be, as Henry
observes, that putting off the shoes was then what putting off the hat is now, a token
of respect and submission. The ground is holy — ot absolutely, but in relation to
him who sanctified it by this peculiar manifestation of his presence. We ought to
approach to God with a solemn pause and preparation; and to express our inward
reverence by a grave and reverent behaviour in the worship of God, carefully
avoiding every thing that looks light or rude.
COKE, "Exodus 3:5. And he said, Draw not nigh— Soon as Moses discerned this
astonishing sight, his curiosity was raised, and he turned aside to contemplate it;
doing which, as some suppose, with too much boldness, he was immediately given to
understand, that this was a Divine manifestation, and was admonished to approach
with due reverence; particularly by putting off his SHOES: put off thy shoes: the
reason for which is immediately subjoined, for the place whereon thou standest is

53. holy ground. This custom of treading barefoot in holy places, seems to have been
general in the East: the Egyptians used it; and Pythagoras is THOUGHT to have
learned the rite from them, for he recommends to his disciples, ( Ανυποδητος θυε
και προσκυνει, ) offer sacrifice, and worship, putting off your shoes. The
Mahomedans observe this ceremony to the present day, as do the Christians of
Abyssinia. Whence it is originally derived, it is not easy to determine. God speaks
here to Moses in such terms, as would lead one to believe the custom then familiar;
and, consequently, of very high antiquity. The same direction, urged by the same
reason, is given to Joshua, Joshua 5:15 and in the service of the tabernacle and
temple the priests officiated bare-foot. Juvenal remarks, that this was the practice of
the Jews in his time:
Observant ubi festa mero pede sabbata reges. "———Judeah's tribe:
Where, bare-foot, they approach the sacred shrine." DRYDE , Sat. III.
Some have supposed the rite to have been originally derived from slaves, who went
bare-foot, in token of MEA ESS and subjection: hence it was used as a sign of
mourning and humiliation, 2 Samuel 15:30. Isaiah 2:4. Ezekiel 17:23. However, as
the custom prevailed so early, and spread so universally, it is probable, as Mede and
others remark, that it was one of the religious ceremonies observed by the
patriarchs, as a sign of that awful respect, with which mortals ought to approach
their Maker. Something of this kind has been usual among other nations: and, as in
the East, they uncovered their feet, so we uncover our heads, in token of the same
respect, when we approach the presence of the Almighty.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Holy Ground
Exodus 3:5
The biography of great men is not confined to public events. It relates the incidents
which are private, and describes the experiences which are spiritual and account for
visible results. Thus it was with Moses; we must be with him in the wilderness in
order that we may understand his conduct at the court of Pharaoh and at the head
of the host of Israel.
I. True Sanctity Confined to o Place.—To Moses the desert was a temple, and the
acacia thorn a shrine. A spot before indistinguishable from any other in that waste,
where the flocks found their pasture or the wild beast his lair, became henceforth
holy in the memory of this servant of the Lord.
II. The Presence of the Lord Imparts True Holiness.—It needs not that princes
should lavish their wealth, that architects should embody the conceptions of their
genius, that priests should celebrate magnificent rites, that psalms should echo and
incense float through aisle and dome, in order that a place should become
consecrated and sacred to the service of the Eternal. Where God meets with any soul
of Prayer of Manasseh , reveals the majesty of His attributes, the righteousness of

54. His law, the tenderness of His love, there is a holy place.
III. A Divinely Consecrated Service.—True holiness is not so much in the place as in
the heart. A man"s mission in the world is determined by the counsels and
commands received by him in solitude and silence. The holy ground of communion
from which God"s servants start imparts its holiness to the long path of their
pilgrimage, to the varied scenes of their ministry. Moses could never forget the day
of Divine fellowship and revelation from which dated his conscious devotion, his
holy service to Israel and to God. In how many great men"s lives do we trace this
same connexion between holy communion and holy ministry! Work acceptable to
God and beneficial to men would not have been achieved had not the power to
perform it sprung from the holy point of contact where the Creator and the created
meet.
IV. We may Make a Holy Place.—There is no spot which may not become the point
of contact between the human spirit and the Divine. In the lonely desert or the
crowded city, in the peaceful home or the consecrated church, the Divine presence
may be realized and the Divine blessing may be obtained. Earth may be filled with
holy places and life with holy service.
Exodus 3:5
We must not only have our hearts bubbling over with thanksgiving and joy in our
Father"s presence; we must also take off our shoes from our feet, because we are on
holy ground. There is a danger in the emotions being too much aroused unless the
prayer be truly one of real adoration.
—Father Dolling in The Pilot (4May, 1901).
All concentrates; let us not rave; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us strive and
astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions, by a simple
declaration of the Divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for
God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law
demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.
—Emerson on Self-Reliance.
The Call to Reverence
Exodus 3:5
God demanded all the outward forms of a rigid reverence as the first step in that
fellowship with Himself to which He was about to summon Moses and the nation
Moses was destined to lead and to mould.
I. The fact that the name Jehovah is revealed in immediate connexion with this
incident seems to warrant us in reading some reference in this symbol to God"s

55. essential and unsustained existence. Self-origination, unwasting spontaneity, self-
sufficing, absolute, and eternal life, that can only be known by contrast to the finite
life of the creature—these are the meanings of the striking object-lesson.
And the vision perhaps indirectly intimates that God"s mysterious love, like His life,
was selfderived, inexhaustible, above all outward conditions. The flame of its
unearthly beauty was maintained by an infinite spontaneity of its own. It did not
depend for its strength or fervour upon the things it clasped in the embrace of its
fidelity and tenderness.
The vision, with its solemn lessons, had probably a most vital bearing upon the
future character and history of Moses. It was no unimportant step in training him to
that spiritual aptitude for seeing the things of God which made him the foremost of
the prophets. Do not think of reverence as one of the second-rate sentiments of the
soul, to which no great promises are made. This sense of awe was the threshold to
those apocalyptic experiences which brought such privilege and enrichment to his
after life.
II. When the ew Testament is compared with the Old, it may seem to some minds
that the grace of reverence has passed more or less into the background. But if we
look beneath the surface a little we shall find that the ew Testament is just as
emphatic in its presentation of this obligation as the Reverence is the comely
sheltering sheath within which all the vital ew Testament virtues are nurtured.
Only the lower orders of plants produce their seeds upon the surface of the leaf
without the protection of floral envelopes and seed vessels. The religious faith is of
the rudest and most elementary type, and will bear only ignoble fruit, where faith is
without this protecting sheath of reverence for its delicate growths.
Faith without reverence is a pyramid resting upon its apex.
There can be no Obedience that is entirely sincere in its qualities without reverence.
There can be no Resignation to the Divine will apart from habitual tempers of
reverence and godly fear.
Irreverence implies partial ignorance of God, and where there is partial ignorance
of God the possession of eternal life cannot be rich, free, firmly assured.
—T. G. Selby, The Lesson of a Dilemma, p123.
ISBET, "REVERE CE
‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy
ground.’
Exodus 3:5
The text is a call to reverence. I need hardly say how much that duty is dwelt upon
in Scripture, both in the way of precept and of example.

56. We must all have been struck with the feeling expressed towards God in the Old
Testament. What a profound awe! what a prostrate yet loving adoration! what an
admiring sense of His goodness! what a longing, what a hungering and thirsting,
after the knowledge, after the sight, of Him!
What is reverence? What are its ingredients, its component parts? What hinders
and what helps it in us? And what are some of its blessings?
I. I need not say—for all agree in it—that Gospel reverence must be a thing of the
heart. It seems to be compounded of two things: the knowledge of God, and the
knowledge of ourselves. It is the contact between the sinful and the Sinless. It is the
access of a conscious transgressor to One who is altogether holy. It is the mind of a
created being, who has also fallen, towards One whom he desires above all things
still to belong to, still to return to, still to be with, and still to serve.
II. The hindrances to a spirit of reverence lie on the very surface of our life. Things
that are seen obscure the things that are not seen. We cannot help feeling earthly
things to be very real. ‘What can be so real,’ we all say to ourselves,’ as this work,
this person, this house and garden, this bright sun, this fair world, which is here
before my eyes?’ Compared with these things, all other knowledge, we think, can be
but guessing. The reality even of the Maker is put out of sight by the thing made.
Irreverence is fostered by everything approaching to unreality of expression in
prayer. It is one of the many advantages of our Church Prayers that they are for the
most part extremely simple, and (what is not less important for a mixed
congregation) perfectly level to humble spiritual attainments. There is little or
nothing in them which it is hypocrisy for a very humble Christian to use. An
advanced and devoted Christian finds them enough for him, but a backward and
very failing Christian can use them without feeling them unreal. There is something
perhaps in the mere fact of their being prescribed to us which gives us confidence in
using them. It is not so always with other prayers. It is not so always even with our
own private prayers: we are apt, some of us, to use expressions which, if we examine
them, we shall find to be beyond our mark; beyond the mark of our desire, I mean,
and not only of our experience. All such prayers are irreverent. They do not express
the mind of a poor sinner kneeling before his holy God. They are more or less the
prayers of one who thinks wickedly that God is such a one as himself, and can be
misled by words, when the heart is not in them.
III. We all of us, more or less, mourn over a want of reverence. There are times
when we terribly miss it.
But God would not have us left here, left thus. Reverence may, by His gracious help
through Christ by the Holy Spirit, be gained—yes, regained. We bless Him for that
hope. We do believe that He desires not our death but our life: O let us come to
Him! We must practise reverence, as well as pray for it. We must always recollect
ourselves thoroughly before we begin to worship. In private, we must, if I might so
express it, meditate and study God’s presence. We must not begin our prayers

57. without trying to set God clearly before us a living Person to whom we are coming,
to whom we are about to speak.
—Dean Vaughan.
Illustration
(1) ‘One sometimes fears that the power to see great sights is dying out of our eyes.
Reverence is the hush that falls upon the spirit which beholds such sights and
understands, at least, something of their significance. The vision of God is the
greatest of sights; reverence has its source in the cleft of the rock upon the mount of
vision. See God in Christ and you fall at His feet in worship and surrender. See God
in your own heart, and you will
… Still suspect and still revere yourself
In lowliness of heart.
See God in the flower that blossoms in the hedge, and it will stir—
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Reverence is the mother of many graces: considerateness, courtesy, self-respect,
humility are among her children.’
(2) ‘To take off one’s sandals was simply the Oriental sign of respect as of those who
are entering the presence-chamber of a great king. Translated into Christian
language, this command to Moses reminds us that an outward decorum belongs to
the worship of God. And though the spirit of reverence can express itself in more
than one way, yet devout stillness and humble attention play no mean part in the
services of the Christian Church—most of all when they betoken the whole gesture
and attitude of the inward man.’
PULPIT, "Draw not nigh. The awful greatness of the Creator is such that his
creatures, until invited to draw near, are bound to stand aloof. Moses, not yet aware
that God himself spoke to him, was approaching the bush too close, to examine and
see what the "great thing" was. (See Exodus 3:3.) On the general unfitness of man to
approach near to holy things, see the comment on Exodus 19:12. Put off thy shoes.
Rather, "thy sandals." Shoes were not worn commonly, even by the Egyptians, until
a late period, and would certainly not be known in the land of Midian at this time.
The practice of putting them off before entering a temple, a palace, or even the
private apartments of a house, was, and is, universal in the East—the rationale of it
being that the shoes or sandals have dust or dirt attaching to them. The command
given to Moses at this time was repeated to Joshua (Joshua 5:15). Holy ground.
Literally, "ground of holiness "—ground rendered holy by the presence of God
upon it—not "an old sanctuary," as some have thought, for then Moses would not
have needed the information.

58. 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a]
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the
God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face,
because he was afraid to look at God.
BAR ES, "Our Saviour adduces this passage as a proof that the doctrine of the
Resurrection was taught in the Old Testament Mat_22:32, and He calls this book “the
Book of Moses” Mar_12:26, two points to be borne in mind by readers of the
Pentateuch.
CLARKE, "I am the God of thy father - Though the word ‫אבי‬ abi, father, is here
used in the singular, St Stephen, quoting this place, Act_7:32, uses the plural, ᆍ Θεος
των πατερων σου, The God of thy Fathers; and that this is the meaning the following
words prove: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. These were
the fathers of Moses in a direct line. This reading is confirmed by the Samaritan and by
the Coptic. Abraham was the father of the Ishmaelites, and with him was the covenant
first made. Isaac was the father of the Edomites as well as the Israelites, and with him
was the covenant renewed. Jacob was the father of the twelve patriarchs, who were
founders of the Jewish nation, and to him were the promises particularly confirmed.
Hence we see that the Arabs and Turks in general, who are descendants of Ishmael; the
Edomites, now absorbed among the Jews, (see Clarke’s note on Gen_25:23), who are the
descendants of Esau; and the Jewish people, wheresoever scattered, who are the
descendants of Jacob, are all heirs of the promises included in this primitive covenant;
and their gathering in with the fullness of the Gentiles may be confidently expected.
And Moses hid his face - For similar acts, see 1Ki_19:13; Isa_6:1, Isa_6:5; Neh_
9:9; Psa_106:44; Act_7:34. He was afraid to look - he was overawed by God’s presence,
and dazzled with the splendor of the appearance.
GILL, "Moreover he said, I am the God of thy fathers,.... Of every one of his
fathers next mentioned:
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; with whom the
covenant respecting the land of Canaan, and the promise of the blessed seed the
Messiah, was made: this again shows that the Angel of the Lord that now appeared was
God himself, Jehovah the Son of God. Our Lord makes use of this text to prove the
resurrection of the dead against the Sadducees, God being not the God of the dead, but

59. of the living; Mar_12:26.
and Moses hid his face; wrapped it in his mantle or cloak, as Elijah did, 1Ki_19:13,
because of the glory of the divine Majesty now present, and conscious of his own
sinfulness and unworthiness:
for he was afraid to look upon God; even upon this outward appearance and
representation of him in a flame of fire; otherwise the essence of God is not to be looked
upon and seen at all, God is invisible; but even this external token and symbol of him
was terrible to behold; the thought that God was there filled him with fear, considering
the greatness and awfulness of his majesty, and what a poor, weak, and sinful creature
he was.
HE RY, "The solemn declaration God made of his name, by which he would be
known to Moses: I am the God of thy father, Exo_3:6. 1. He lets him know that it is God
who speaks to him, to engage his reverence and attention, his faith and obedience; for
this is enough to command all these: I am the Lord. Let us always hear the word as the
word of God, 1Th_2:13. 2. He will be known as the God of his father, his pious father
Amram, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, his ancestors, and the ancestors of
all Israel, for whom God was now about to appear. By this God designed, (1.) To instruct
Moses in the knowledge of another world, and to strengthen his belief of a future state.
Thus it is interpreted by our Lord Jesus, the best expositor of scripture, who from this
proves that the dead are raised, against the Sadducees. Moses, says he, showed it at the
bush (Luk_20:37), that is, God there showed it to him, and in him to us, Mat_22:31, etc.
Abraham was dead, and yet God is the God of Abraham; therefore Abraham's soul lives,
to which God stands in relation; and, to make his soul completely happy, his body must
live again in due time. This promise made unto the fathers, that God would be their God,
must include a future happiness; for he never did anything for them in this world
sufficient to answer to the vast extent and compass of that great word, but, having
prepared for them a city, he is not ashamed to be called their God, Heb_11:16; and see
Act_26:6, Act_26:7; Act_24:15. (2.) To assure Moses of the fulfillment of all those
particular promises made to the fathers. He may confidently expect this, for by these
words it appears that God remembered his covenant, Exo_2:24. Note, [1.] God's
covenant-relation to us as our God is the best support in the worst of times, and a great
encouragement to our faith in particular promises. [2.] When we are conscious to
ourselves of our own great unworthiness we may take comfort from God's relation to our
fathers, 2Ch_20:6.
VI. The solemn impression this made upon Moses: He hid his face, as one both
ashamed and afraid to look upon God. Now that he knew it was a divine light his eyes
were dazzled with it; he was not afraid of a burning bush till he perceived that God was
in it. Yea, though God called himself the God of his father, and a God in covenant with
him, yet he was afraid. Note, 1. The more we see of God the more cause we shall see to
worship him with reverence and godly fear. 2. Even the manifestations of God's grace
and covenant-love should increase our humble reverence of him.
JAMISO 6-8, "I am the God ... come down to deliver — The reverential awe of
Moses must have been relieved by the divine Speaker (see Mat_22:32), announcing
Himself in His covenant character, and by the welcome intelligence communicated.
Moreover, the time, as well as all the circumstances of this miraculous appearance, were
such as to give him an illustrious display of God’s faithfulness to His promises. The

60. period of Israel’s journey and affliction in Egypt had been predicted (Gen_15:13), and it
was during the last year of the term which had still to run that the Lord appeared in the
burning bush.
K&D, "Jehovah then made Himself known to Moses as the God of his fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, reminding him through that name of the promises made to
the patriarchs, which He was about to fulfil to their seed, the children of Israel. In the
expression, “thy father,” the three patriarchs are classed together as one, just as in Exo_
18:4 (“my father”), “because each of them stood out singly in distinction from the nation,
as having received the promise of seed directly from God” (Baumgarten). “And Moses
hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.” The sight of the holy God no sinful
man can bear (cf. 1Ki_19:12).
CALVI , "6.I am the God of thy father. He does not merely proclaim himself as
some heavenly power, nor claim for himself only the general name of God, but
recalling to memory his covenant formerly made with the patriarchs, he casts down
all idols and false gods, and confirms Moses in the true faith. For hence he knew
surely, that he had not set his hopes in vain in the God whom Abraham and the
other patriarchs had worshipped, and who, by the privilege of adoption, had
separated their race from all other nations. And lest, through the long lapse of time,
Moses might think that what had been handed down concerning Abraham was
obsolete, He expressly asserts that His faithfulness still held good, by calling Himself
“the God of his father.” But since, in setting forth the hope of redemption, He
renews the memory of His covenant, we gather that it was not obliterated from the
heart of Moses; because it would have been absurd so to speak of a thing unknown;
nor would it have been of any use to make mention of promises of which no
recollection existed in the heart of Moses. Since, therefore, the hope of the
redemption of the chosen people depended on the covenant which God had formerly
made with the patriarchs, He shews that He had not been trusted to in vain, because
His engagement would not be ineffectual. It was not so much a sign of reverence as
of terror that Moses covered his face; yet must we take both feelings into account,
that he felt sudden alarm at the sight of God, and voluntarily adored his majesty. It
was necessary that his mind should be affected, and impressed with reverential
feelings, that he might be more ready to obey. We read in Isaiah, (Isaiah 6:2,) that
even the angels veil their faces, because they cannot bear the infinite glory of God;
no wonder then that a mortal man dared not to look upon him. The name of God is
appropriated to the visible appearance in which his majesty was concealed.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:6 Moreover he said, I [am] the God of thy father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he
was afraid to look upon God.
Ver. 6. Hid his face.] So did the seraphims, with a double scarf, as it were. [Isaiah
6:2] Let a man but see God, and his plumes will soon fall.
For he was afraid.] Yea, he "trembled, and durst not behold." [Acts 7:32] This was

61. his first meeting with God: when better acquainted, he grew more bold.
ELLICOTT, "(6) The God of thy father.—It is generally agreed that “father” is put
collectively here for “forefathers.” (Comp. Genesis 31:42.) Hence St. Stephen,
quoting the passage, renders it, “I am the God of thy fathers” (Acts 7:32).
The God of Abraham.—Primarily, no doubt, the meaning was, the God who was
worshipped by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; but the form of the expression, “the
God of Abraham,” &c., indicated the continued existence of the patriarchs after
death, since He can only be the God of existent, and not of nonexistent things. (See
Matthew 22:32.)
Moses hid his face, with the same feeling which made Jacob exclaim, “How dreadful
is this place” (Genesis 28:17). Though nothing was to be seen but an appearance as
of material fire, the knowledge that God was there rendered the fire awful.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:6. I am, &c. — He lets him know it is God that speaks to him,
to engage his reverence, faith, and obedience. The God of thy father — Thy pious
father Amram, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thy ancestors: engaged
to them by solemn covenant, which I am now come to perform. And Moses hid his
face, for he was afraid to look upon God — The more we see of God, the more cause
we shall see to worship him with reverence and godly fear. And even the
manifestations of God’s grace should increase our humble reverence of him.
COFFMA , ""Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to
look upon God."
Of the greatest importance is the AMES God applied to Himself in this message
out of the burning bush. Highlighting the designations is that of His identification as
"The God of Abraham ... Isaac ... and Jacob." These names of the great patriarchs
are again repeated by God Himself in Exodus 3:15. (We shall return to this in our
discussion there.) Jesus Christ himself made the great argument for immortality to
rest upon this single verse, indeed upon a single verb in it, and even the tense of that
verb! "I AM" was said by our Savior to prove that there is a resurrection, that the
departed saints are indeed not dead in the final sense, for "God IS the God of the
living!" (Matthew 22:32).
COKE, "Exodus 3:6. The God of thy father— In Acts 7:32 it is the God of thy
fathers; which the following words prove to be the true meaning. Moses, terrified at
the Divine appearance, hid his face: for what sinful mortal can dare to LOOK upon
God, before whom the VERY angels themselves cover their faces? Isaiah 6:2. See
Genesis 17:3. 1 Kings 19:13. What we read, to look upon God, the Chaldee renders
very properly, to look upon the glory of God.
The God of Abraham, &c.— See Matthew 22:32.

62. REFLECTIO S.—Moses seems as if he had forgotten Egypt; and Israel, as if no
more remembered of their God; but this is the day of salvation. Moses, as usual, was
attending his father's flocks, buried in obscurity, and humbly acquiescing in his
employment. Learn, 1. When we can see God's call, to retire from the world
becomes our duty, and the meanest occupation should be welcome. 2. If God be long
before he calls us forth, it is because he is preparing us for what he hath prepared
for us.
1. God appears to him in a flame of fire in a bush; and Moses, struck with the
uncommon appearance, draws near to see this sight, a bush burning, yet
unconsumed. The church of Christ is like this bush, frequently in affliction, but not
destroyed.
2. God speaks to him out of the fire, and Moses answers. He is hereupon directed
how to approach, with reverence and godly fear, in order to hear the revelation
which God is about to make to him. ote; (1.) Attention to providences is a great
means of keeping up communion with God. (2.) An obedient ear is ever OPE to
instruction. (3.) In our appearances before God, the posture of our body should
comport with the deep abasement and sacred awe which is upon our mind.
3. He makes himself known to him, as the Covenant-God of his fathers, to encourage
his faith, and to engage his obedience. All the saints live to God. Those whom we
reckon among the dead, are only removed into that better world, where life eternal
reigns, Luke 20:37.
4. Moses is deeply affected with what he sees and hears. A sense of our own great
unworthiness may well cover our faces with shame when we appear before God;
and the more a saint of God experiences of his love, the deeper will be his
humiliation before him.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:6. Of thy father.—The singular doubtless comprehends the
three patriarchs as first existing in Abraham.[F 10] Moses, in his religion of the
second Revelation, everywhere refers to the first Revelation, which begins with
Abraham; and thus the name of Jehovah first acquires its new specific meaning.
The revelation of the law presupposes the revelation of promise ( Romans 4;
Galatians 3).—And Moses covered his face.—In addition to the two commands:
draw not nigh, put off thy shoes, comes this Acts, as a voluntary expression of the
heart. Vid. 1 Kings 19:13. “Sinful man cannot endure the sight of the holy God”
(Keil). Also the eye of sense is overcome by the splendor of the manifestation which
is inwardly seen, somewhat as by the splendor of the sun. Vid. Revelation 1.
PULPIT, "The God of thy father. "Father" here is used collectively, meaning
forefathers generally, a usage well known to Hebraists. (Compare Exodus 15:2, and
Exodus 18:4.) The God of Abraham, etc; i.e. the God who revealed himself to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and entered into covenant with them (Genesis 15:1-21;
Genesis 26:2-5; Genesis 35:1-12). The conclusion which our Blessed Lord drew from
this verse (Matthew 22:32) is not directly involved in it, but depends on his minor

63. premiss, "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." Moses hid his face. A
natural instinctive action. So Elijah, on the same site (1 Kings 19:13) and the holy
angels before God's throne in heaven (Isaiah 6:2). In the religious system of Rome,
the augurs when discharging their office, and all persons when offering a sacrifice,
veiled their heads. (See Liv. 1.18; Virg. Aen. 3.405; Juv. 6.390.)
7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of
my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out
because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned
about their suffering.
BAR ES, "Taskmasters - Oppressors. A different word from that in Exo_1:11.
I know - The expression implies personal feeling, tenderness, and compassion
(compare Exo_2:25 margin).
CLARKE, "I have surely seen - ‫ראיתי‬ ‫ראה‬ raoh raithi, seeing, I have seen - I have
not only seen the afflictions of this people because I am omniscient, but I have
considered their sorrows, and my eye affects my heart.
GILL, "And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people
which are in Egypt,.... Or, "in seeing I have seen", which not only denotes the
certainty of it, as we express it; but the clear, distinct, and full sight he had of it, with
sympathy towards them, an affectionate concern for them, and a fixed, settled,
determination in his mind to deliver them; he had long took notice of, and had
thoroughly observed their affliction, and was afflicted with them in it, and was bent
upon their deliverance out of it:
and have heard their cry, by reason of their taskmasters; who were set over
them to see that they did their work, and to lay heavy burdens on them, and afflict them
by all manner of ways and methods they could devise; and who abused and beat them
for not doing what was not to be done, which made them cry out because of their
barbarous usage of them, and cry unto God for help and deliverance:
for I know their sorrows; the pains of body they were put unto, and the inward grief
and trouble of their minds on account of them.

64. HE RY 7-9, "Now that Moses had put off his shoes (for, no doubt, he observed the
orders given him, Exo_3:5), and covered his face, God enters upon the particular
business that was now to be concerted, which was the bringing of Israel out of Egypt.
Now, after forty years of Israel's bondage and Moses's banishment, when we may
suppose both he and they began to despair, they of being delivered and he of delivering
them, at length, the time has come, even the year of the redeemed. Note, God often
comes for the salvation of his people when they have done looking for him. Shall he find
faith? Luk_18:8.
Here is, I. The notice God takes of the afflictions of Israel (Exo_3:7, Exo_3:9): Seeing
I have seen, not only, I have surely seen, but I have strictly observed and considered the
matter. Three things God took cognizance of: - 1. Their sorrows, Exo_3:7. It is likely
they were not permitted to make a remonstrance of their grievances to Pharaoh, nor to
seek relief against their task-masters in any of his courts, nor scarcely durst complain to
one another; but God observed their tears. Note, Even the secret sorrows of God's people
are known to him. 2. Their cry: I have heard their cry (Exo_3:7), it has come unto me,
Exo_3:9. Note, God is not deaf to the cries of his afflicted people. 3. The tyranny of their
persecutors: I have seen the oppression, Exo_3:9. Note, As the poorest of the oppressed
are not below God's cognizance, so the highest and greatest of their oppressors are not
above his check, but he will surely visit for these things.
II. The promise God makes of their speedy deliverance and enlargement: I have come
down to deliver them, Exo_3:8. 1. It denotes his resolution to deliver them, and that his
heart was upon it, so that it should be done speedily and effectually, and by methods out
of the common road of providence: when God does something very extraordinary he is
said to come down to do it, as Isa_64:1. 2. This deliverance was typical of our
redemption by Christ, in which the eternal Word did indeed come down from heaven to
deliver us: it was his errand into the world. He promises also their happy settlement in
the land of Canaan, that they should exchange bondage for liberty, poverty for plenty,
labour for rest, and the precarious condition of tenants at will for the ease and honour of
lords proprietors. Note, Whom God by his grace delivers out of a spiritual Egypt he will
bring to a heavenly Canaan.
K&D 7-10, "Jehovah had seen the affliction of His people, had heard their cry under
their taskmasters, and had come down (‫ד‬ ַ‫ר‬ָ‫,י‬ vid., Gen_11:5) to deliver them out of the
hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up to a good and broad land, to the place of the
Canaanites; and He was about to send Moses to Pharaoh to bring them forth. The land
to which the Israelites were to be taken up is called a “good” land, on account of its great
fertility (Deu_8:7.), and a “broad” land, in contrast with the confinement and
oppression of the Israelites in Egypt. The epithet “good” is then explained by the
expression, “a land flowing with milk and honey” (‫ת‬ ַ‫ב‬ָ‫,ז‬ a participle of ‫זוּב‬ in the construct
state; vid., Ges. §135); a proverbial description of the extraordinary fertility and
loveliness of the land of Canaan (cf. Exo_3:17; Exo_13:5; Exo_16:14, etc.). Milk and
honey are the simplest and choicest productions of a land abounding in grass and
flowers, and were found in Palestine in great abundance even when it was in a desolate
condition (Isa_7:15, Isa_7:22; see my Comm. on Jos_5:6). The epithet broad is
explained by an enumeration of the six tribes inhabiting the country at that time (cf.
Gen_10:15. and Gen_15:20, Gen_15:21).

65. CALVI , "7.And the Lord said. Before he delegates to Moses the office of
delivering his people, God encourages him in a somewhat lengthened address to the
hope of victory and success; for we know how doubts enfeeble and hold back the
mind with anxiety and care; Moses then could not engage in or set about his work
earnestly until furnished with the confidence of divine assistance. Therefore God
promises to be his guide, that in reliance upon such aid he may gird himself boldly
to the warfare. From hence we may gather this general doctrine — that, however
slow and unwilling we may naturally be to obey God, we must not turn away from
any command when he assures us of success, because no stimulus can be stronger
than the promise that his hand shall be always ready to help us when we follow
whither he calls us. With this object God thus speaks before he makes mention of
the vocation of Moses, that he may more cheerfully enter upon his work, in the
assurance of a successful issue. Moreover, when God has founded the redemption of
his people upon his gratuitous covenant, and therefore on his own free bounty, he
adds another argument derived from his justice, namely, that it is impossible for the
judge of the world not to help the oppressed and afflicted when they are
undeservedly mistreated, and especially when they implore his assistance. This is
true generally, that God will be the avenger of all unjust cruelty; but his special aid
may be expected by believers whom he has taken into his friendship and protection.
Accordingly, when he has declared that he has been moved by his adoption of this
people not to desert it in its extreme necessity, he adds, in confirmation, that he has
come to restrain their oppressors’ tyranny, since he has heard the cry of the
afflicted. This was said at that particular time to encourage Moses; but it ought to
afford no common consolation in the troubles of us all when we are groaning under
any unjust burden; for God, whose sight was then so clear, is not now so blind as
not to see all injustice, and to pity them that call upon him. Although the expression
here used in the original, “seeing I have seen,” is a Hebraism, still it signifies that,
while God delays and suspends punishment, his winking at men’s evil deeds is no
proof that he does not behold them from heaven, and will in due time appear as
their judge, for the words denote a continued observation — as much as to say, that
even then he was beholding them, when by his quiescence he might have seemed to
neglect the tribulation of his people. By adding that he had heard their cry, he
indirectly rebukes their lukewarmness, since we do not read that they cried until
compelled by their extremity and despair. Therefore there is no cause for wonder
that they almost wasted away under their misfortunes before succor came, because
their prayers were scarcely offered (41) after a long time. And not even then is it
probable (as I said before) that they prayed earnestly; but God had more respect to
his mercy and faithfulness than to their right and well-grounded preparedness. In
these words the Spirit exhorts us to call upon God, and not to be stunned and
stupified by our cares and sorrows, but to learn to fly straightway to this sacred
anchor; as the Psalmist also says, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and
his ears are open unto their cry,” (Psalms 34:15,) and as he testifies in another place,
(Psalms 65:2,) that he is a God that heareth prayer; thus does he anxiously invite us
to this remedy whenever we are hard pressed. When he speaks of them as his
“people which are in Egypt,” the apparent inconsistency does not a little tend to
confirmation, implying that the promise which he made to Abraham with regard to

66. inheriting the land of Canaan would not be without effect; for it would not accord
with the truth of God that a people to whom an inheritance elsewhere was given
should sojourn in Egypt, unless it was to be freed in the appointed season. It might
also be understood adversatively — although a people dwelling in Egypt be far from
the land of Canaan, and so might seem in a manner to be put away from me, still
have I heard their cry. But the probable meaning is, that because it was not fit that a
people which was to inherit the Holy Land should always remain sojourning
elsewhere, therefore God would shortly deliver them. In the end of the verse the
repetition in other words, “I know their sorrows,” is also an amplification of what
came before.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my
people which [are] in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;
Ver. 7. For I know their sorrows.] That is a sweet support to a sinking soul, that
God knows all, and bears a part. "Your heavenly Father knows," &c. [Matthew
6:32] That is enough.
ELLICOTT, "(7) The Lord said.—Heb., Jehovah said. The “God” of Exodus 3:6 is
“Jehovah” here, and again “God” in Exodus 3:11. (See the ote on Exodus 3:4.)
I have surely seen.—Heb., seeing I have seen. It is not so much certainty as
continued looking that is implied. (Comp. Exodus 2:25.)
Taskmasters.—A different word from that similarly translated in Exodus 1:11, and
one that implies cruel usage. It is sometimes rendered “oppressors” (Zechariah 9:8).
COFFMA , "Verse 7-8
"And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people that are in Egypt,
and have heard their cry by reason of their task-masters; for I know their sorrows;
and I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring
them up out of the land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk
and honey, and unto the PLACE of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite,
and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
God's "coming down" to deliver His people and other such expressions in which the
emotions and actions of men are ascribed to God are called anthropomorphisms, of
which there are almost countless examples in the Bible."
"Unto the PLACE of the Canaanite ..." The Jews found it very difficult to
remember that it was the sensual wickedness of the Canaanites that caused God to
dispossess them and give their land to the Jews, with the definite understanding that
if the Jews FOLLOWED wickedness as had the Canaanites that the same fate
awaited Israel.

67. "The first movement of God toward Moses was to outline in words what God
proposed to do."[16]
The "Canaanites" mentioned here are sometimes called the "seven nations." All of
them were settled in Canaan (Palestine) centuries before Israel.
The word "Canaanite" applied to all of these related groups, and also to one of the
specific divisions. They were in Canaan 1900 years B.C.
The Hittites came much LATER during the era of 1800-1450 B.C. (Genesis 23:10).
The Amorites were the most numerous of these nations, having been in the area
from 2300 B.C. ( umbers 21:26).
The Perizzites are not identifiable.
The Hivites dwelt around Shechem, Gibeon, and the region about 5 miles northwest
of Jerusalem (Joshua 9:3-7; 11:19; Genesis 34:2). They were in Canaan by 2000 B.C.
The Jebusites occupied Jerusalem (Judges 1:21; 2 Samuel 5:6; Joshua 15:63).
The Girgashites (Joshua 24:11; Deuteronomy 7:1) are obscure.[17]
"Land flowing with milk and honey ..." This was a metaphor widely USED in
antiquity with the meaning of a land rich in natural resources, with plenty of water
and abundance of fruit trees.
8 So I have come down to rescue them from the
hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of
that land into a good and spacious land, a land
flowing with milk and honey—the home of the
Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites
and Jebusites.
BAR ES, "The natural richness of Palestine, the variety and excellence of its

68. productions, are attested by sacred (compare Jer_32:22; Eze_20:6) and ancient writers,
whose descriptions are strongly in contrast with those of later travelers. The expression
“flowing with milk and honey” is used proverbially by Greek poets.
The Canaanites ... - This is the first passage in this book where the enumeration, so
often repeated, of the nations then in possession of Palestine, is given. Moses was to
learn at once the extent of the promise, and the greatness of the enterprise. In Egypt, the
forces, situation, and character of these nations were then well known. Aahmes I had
invaded the south of Palestine in his pursuit of the Shasous; Tothmosis I had traversed
the whole land on his campaign in Syria and Mesopotamia; representations of
Canaanites, and of the Cheta, identified by most Egyptologers with the Hittites, are
common on monuments of the 18th and 19th Dynasties, and give a strong impression of
their civilization, riches, and especially of their knowledge of the arts of war. In this
passage, the more general designations come first - Canaanites probably includes all the
races; the Hittites, who had great numbers of chariots (892 were taken from them by
Tothmosis III in one battle), occupied the plains; the Amorites were chiefly
mountaineers, and, in Egyptian inscriptions, gave their name to the whole country; the
name Perizzites probably denotes the dwellers in scattered villages, the half-nomad
population; the Hivites, a comparatively unwarlike but influential people, held 4 cities in
Palestine proper, but their main body dwelt in the northwestern district, from Hermon
to Hamath (see Jos_11:3; Jdg_3:3); the Jebusites at that time appear to have occupied
Jerusalem and the adjoining district. Soon after their expulsion by Joshua, they seem to
have recovered possession of part of Jerusalem, probably Mount Zion, and to have
retained it until the time of David.
CLARKE, "And I am come down to deliver them - This is the very purpose for
which I am now come down upon this mountain, and for which I manifest myself to
thee.
Large - land - Canaan, when compared with the small tract of Goshen, in which they
were now situated, and where, we learn, from Exo_1:7, they were straitened for room,
might be well called a large land. See a fine description of this land Deu_8:7.
A land flowing with milk and honey - Excellent for pasturage, because
abounding in the most wholesome herbage and flowers; and from the latter an
abundance of wild honey was collected by the bees. Though cultivation is now almost
entirely neglected in this land, because of the badness of the government and the
scantiness of the inhabitants, yet it is still good for pasturage, and yields an abundance of
honey. The terms used in the text to express the fertility of this land, are commonly used
by ancient authors on similar subjects. It is a metaphor taken from a breast producing
copious streams of milk. Homer calls Argos ουθαρ αρουρης, the breast of the country, as
affording streams of milk and honey, Il. ix., ver. 141. So Virgil:
Prima tulit tellus, eadem vos ubere laeto Accipiet.
Aen., lib. iii., ver. 95.
“The land that first produced you shall receive you again into its joyous bosom.” The
poets feign that Bacchus, the fable of whom they have taken from the history of Moses,
produced rivers of milk and honey, of water and wine: -
ሤει δε γαλακτι πεδον,

69. ሤει δ’ οινሩ, ምει δε µελισσαν
Νεκταρι.
Eurip. Bacch., Εποδ., ver. 8.
“The land flows with milk; it flows also with wine; it flows also with the nectar of bees,
(honey).” This seems to be a mere poetical copy from the Pentateuch, where the
sameness of the metaphor and the correspondence of the descriptions are obvious.
Place of the Canaanites, etc. - See Gen_15:18, etc.
GILL, "And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians,.... Which must be understood consistent with the omnipresence of God,
who is everywhere, and strictly speaking cannot be said to remove from place to place, or
to descend; but such a way of speaking is used, when he gives some eminent display of
his power or goodness, as here in a wonderful manner he appeared in a burning bush,
and manifested himself in a way of grace and kindness to his people, signifying that he
would shortly save them: so Christ in our nature came down from heaven to earth, to
save his spiritual Israel out of the hands of all their enemies:
and to bring them out of that land; the land of Egypt, where they were in bondage,
and greatly oppressed:
unto a good land, and a large; the land of Canaan, which was not only a good land,
but a large one in comparison of Goshen, where the Israelites were pent up and
straitened for room through their great increase; and though it was but a small country
in itself, and when compared with some others, being but one hundred and sixty miles
from Dan to Beersheba, and but forty six from Joppa to Bethlehem, and but sixty from
Joppa to Jordan, yet, for so small a country, it had a great deal of good land in it; for
Hecataeus (t) an Heathen writer, says it had in it three hundred myriads of acres of the
best and most fruitful land:
unto a land flowing with milk and honey; which is not to be restrained merely to
the abundance of cattle fed he
CALVI , "8.And I am come down to deliver them. He now more clearly announces
his intention not only to relieve their present calamity, but to fulfill the promise
given to Abraham as to the possession of Canaan. He therefore marks the end of
their deliverance, that they might enjoy the rest and inheritance promised to them.
It is a common manner of speaking to say, God descends to us, when he actually
puts forth his power and shews that he is near us; as much as to say, that the
Israelites would experience plainly that his help was at hand. The “large” land
seems to be brought in comparison with the straits in which they now were; for
although the land of Goshen was fertile and convenient, still it scarcely afforded
room enough for their increasing multitude; besides, there they were kept shut in
like slaves in a house of bondage. Finally, he again assures them that he would deal
graciously with them, because he had heard their cry, and was not ignorant of their
sorrows, although he might have long delayed to avenge them.

70. TRAPP, "Exodus 3:8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto
a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the
Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Ver. 8. I am come down.] Humanitus dictum, as in Genesis 11:7; Genesis 18:21. {See
Trapp on "Genesis 11:7"} {See Trapp on "Genesis 18:21"}
Milk and honey.] Plenty and dainties; all things both for necessity and delight.
ELLICOTT, "(8) I am come down.—By condescension to human infirmity, which
conceives of all things under the limitations of time and space, God is spoken of as
dwelling ordinarily in heaven, or “the heaven of heavens,” whence sometimes He
“comes down” to manifest Himself to men. That this was not understood literally,
even by the Jews, appears from such passages as 1 Kings 8:27; Psalms 137:7-9;
Proverbs 15:3, &c.
A good land and a large.—The land promised to Abraham (Genesis 15:18) well
deserves this description. Besides Philistia, and Palestine on both sides of the
Jordan, it included almost the whole of Syria from Galilee on the south, to Amanus,
Taurus, and the Euphrates on the north and north-east. This tract of country is 450
miles long, and from sixty to a hundred and twenty miles broad. Its area is not much
less than 50,000 square miles. Although some parts are unproductive, it is, on the
whole, a region of great fertility, quite capable of forming the seat of a powerful
empire.
A land flowing with milk and honey.—This expression, here used for the first time,
was already, it is probable, a proverbial one, denoting generally, richness and
fertility. (See umbers 13:27.)
The Canaanites. . . . —See the comment on Gen. (Exodus 10:15-17; Exodus 13:7).
BE SO , "Exodus 3:8. I am come down to deliver them — When God doth
something very extraordinary, he is said to come down to do it, as Isaiah 64:1. This
deliverance was typical of our redemption by Christ, and in that the eternal Word
did indeed come down from heaven to deliver us. A large land — So it was,
according to its true and ancient bounds, as they are described, (Genesis 15:18,) and
not according to those narrow limits, to which they were afterward confined for
their unbelief and impiety. A land flowing with milk and honey — A proverbial
expression: abounding with the choicest fruits, both for necessity and delight.
COKE, "Exodus 3:8. A good land and a large, &c.— The land of Canaan is here
described as good and LARGE, and abounding with plenty; flowing with milk and
honey, a proverbial expression, denoting plenty; and, as such, frequently used, not
only in the Scriptures, but also in prophane writers. So Euripides, speaking of a

71. country, says, that it flows with milk and honey, and the nectar of bees. The fertility
of Canaan is manifest from the UMBER of inhabitants which it maintained, as
well as from the attestation of various writers: nor can any objection to the
Scripture-account arise from its present barrenness, which is owing to its want of
inhabitants and cultivation; though there may also be at present a curse resting
upon it. It is called, a large land, not only with respect to the narrow tract of
Goshen, to which the children of Israel were now confined; but also, in reference to
the whole of the territories, to which their future conquests should extend.
REFLECTIO S.—1. God here begins TO OPE his designs toward his people. He
observes their sorrows and oppression, and hears their cry; and will not only deliver
them from it, but bring them into the land promised, to their fathers, and of slaves
maketh them princes. Thus shall Jesus not only bring us from the bondage of our
corruptions, but raise us up to be kings on thrones of glory.
2. He sends Moses his ambassador to demand their release. The weak things in
God's hands are mighty. A shepherd brings Israel from Egypt: afterwards, a few
despised fishermen lay the foundations of the Christian church, against which all
the powers of earth, or malice of devils, never could, and never shall prevail.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:8
If it please heaven, we shall all yet make our Exodus from Houndsditch, and bid the
sordid continents, of once rich apparel now grown poisonous Ole"-Clo", a mild
farewell! Exodus into wider horizons, into God"s daylight once more; where eternal
skies, measuring more than three ells, shall again overarch us; and men,
immeasurably richer for having dwelt among the Hebrews , shall pursue their
human pilgrimage, St. Ignatius and much other saintship, and superstitious terror
and lumber, lying safe behind us, like the nightmares of a sleep that is past.
—Carlyle, Latter-day Pamphlets, o. viii.
PULPIT, "I am come down. Another anthropomorphism, and one very common in
Scripture (Genesis 11:5, Genesis 11:7; Genesis 18:21; Psalms 18:9; Psalms 144:5,
etc.), connected of course with the idea that God has a special dwellingplace, which
is above the earth. To bring them up. Literally correct. Palestine is at a much higher
level than Egypt. (Compare Genesis 12:10; Genesis 13:1; Genesis 37:25; Genesis
39:1; Genesis 42:2; Genesis 46:3, Genesis 46:4; Genesis 50:25.) A good land and a
large. The fertility of Palestine, though not equal to that of Egypt, was still very
great. Eastward of Jordan, the soil is rich and productive, the country in places
wooded with fine trees, and the herbage luxuriant. Vast tracts in the spring produce
enormous crops of grain, and throughout the year pasturage of every kind is
abundant. "Still the countless flocks and herds may be seen, droves of cattle moving
on like troops of soldiers, descending at sunset to drink of the springs-literally, in
the language of; the prophet, "rams, and lambs, and goats, and bullocks, all of them
fatlings of Bashan. The western region is less productive, but by careful cultivation
in terraces may be made to bear excellent crops of corn, olives, and figs. Palestine

72. proper to a modern European seems small, being about the size of Belgium, less
than Holland or Hanover, and not much larger than Wales. It contains about 11,000
square miles. To an Israelite of the age of Moses such a land would appear
sufficiently "large;" for it was considerably larger than the entire Delta of Egypt,
whereof his nation occupied the smaller half; and it fell but little short of the entire
cultivable area of the whole land of Egypt, which was the greatest and most
powerful country known to him. It may be added that the land included in the
covenant which God made with Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21), and actually possessed
by David and Solomon (1 Kings 4:21), was a "good land and a large," according
even to modern notions, including (as it did) besides Palestine the whole of Syria,
and thus containing an area of from 50,000 to 60,000 square miles. The phrase
flowing with milk and honey, first used here, and so common in the later books
( umbers 13:27; Deuteronomy 26:9, Deuteronomy 26:15; Deuteronomy 31:20;
Jeremiah 11:5; Jeremiah 32:22; Ezekiel 20:6, etc.) was probably a proverbial
expression for "a land of plenty," and not intended literally. See what the spies say,
umbers 13:27
The enumeration of the nations of Palestine here made is incomplete, five only of the
ten whose land was promised to Abraham (Genesis 15:19-21) being expressly
mentioned. One, however, that of the Hivites, is added. We may suppose that they
had succeeded to the Kenizzites or the Kadmonites of Abraham's time. The only
important omission is that of the Girgashites, who hold their place in most other
enumerations (Genesis 10:16; Genesis 15:21; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10; Joshua
24:11, etc.), but seem to have been the least important of the "seven nations,"and
are omitted in 3:5.
9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached
me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are
oppressing them.
GILL, "Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto
me,.... See Exo_2:23,
and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them;
which is repeated to observe the great notice he took of it; and the reason of his descent
and appearance in this wonderful manner, as well as of the urgent necessity of Moses's
going to deliver the people from their oppression.

73. COFFMA , "Verses 9-11
"And OW, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: moreover I
have seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now
therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my
people the children of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that
I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of
Egypt?"
God here flatly proposed to Moses that Moses himself should lead the people up out
of Egypt, and Moses' first reaction to it was negative. He who forty years previously
had been anxious and ready to take up a sword and deliver his brethren, at this
POI T in time was filled with a deep feeling of inadequacy.
These verses, along with Exodus 3:12, constitute the commissioning of the Deliverer.
And, after some doubt, hesitation, and excuse-making, Moses accepted it, eventually
discharging the full obligation magnificently! The source-splitters and meddlers
with the Sacred Text have attempted to postulate their version of a "contradiction,"
affirming that the real commissioning of Moses actually took place, not in Midian,
but in Egypt, according to Exodus 6:10-13. The answer to this lies in the fact that
the latter mention of the commission is nothing more than a renewal of the
commission already given. Just as God renewed the covenant with Abraham, he
found it necessary here to renew the charge to Moses. Haley has this:
"Moses' FAILURE to persuade Pharaoh to a dismissing of the Israelites, as well as
the sudden revulsion of their part, from buoyant hope to unseemly dejection,
rendered it absolutely necessary that Moses' wavering faith should be strengthened
by a solemn renewal of his commission."[18]
"Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh ...?" This is the first of a series of excuses
offered by Moses in his resistance to full acceptance of God's commission of
deliverance by the hand of Moses. ote:
"Who am I, that I should go?" (Exodus 3:11).
"What shall I say when they ask, `What is his (God's) AME?'" (Exodus 3:13).
"They will not believe" (Exodus 4:1).
"I am not eloquent" (Exodus 4:10).
"Send SOMEO E ELSE" (Exodus 4:13).
God effectively refuted all of Moses' objections and set him forward on the road to
Egypt to do the work to which God called him.

74. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to
bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
GILL, "Come now therefore,..... Leave thy flock, thy family, and the land of Midian:
and I will send thee unto Pharaoh: this Pharaoh, according to Eusebius, was
Cenchres, the successor of Achoris; but according to Bishop Usher (u), his name was
Amenophis, who immediately succeeded Ramesses Miamun, under whom Moses was
born. Clemens of Alexandria (w) relates from Apion, and he, from Ptolemy Mendesius,
that it was in the times of Amosis that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt; but
Tacitus (x) says, the name of this king was Bocchoris, who obliged them to go out, being
advised by an oracle to do so; and so says Lysimachus (y):
that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt;
and conduct them through the wilderness to the land of Canaan, and so be their
deliverer, guide, and governor under God, who now gave him a commission to act for
him.
HE RY, "The commission he gives to Moses in order hereunto, Exo_3:10. He is not
only sent as a prophet to Israel, to assure them that they should speedily be delivered
(even that would have been a great favour), but he is sent as an ambassador to Pharaoh,
to treat with him, or rather as a herald at arms, to demand their discharge, and to
denounce war in case of refusal; and he is sent as a prince to Israel, to conduct and
command them. Thus is he taken from following the ewes great with young, to a
pastoral office much more noble, as David, Psa_78:71. Note, God is the fountain of
power, and the powers that be are ordained of him as he pleases. The same hand that
now fetched a shepherd out of a desert, to be the planter of a Jewish church, afterwards
fetched fishermen from their ships, to be the planters of the Christian church, That the
excellency of the power might be of God.
JAMISO 10-22, "Come now therefore, and I will send thee — Considering
the patriotic views that had formerly animated the breast of Moses, we might have
anticipated that no mission could have been more welcome to his heart than to be
employed in the national emancipation of Israel. But he evinced great reluctance to it
and stated a variety of objections [Exo_3:11, Exo_3:13; Exo_4:1, Exo_4:10] all of which
were successfully met and removed - and the happy issue of his labors was minutely
described.

75. CALVI , "10.Come now therefore. After God had furnished his servant with
promises to engage him more cheerfully in his work, he now adds commands, and
calls him to undertake the office to which he is designed. And this is the best
encouragement to duty, when God renders those, who would be otherwise slow
through doubt, sure of good success; for although we must obey God’s plain
commands without delay or hesitation, still he is willing to provide against our
sluggishness by promising that our endeavors shall not be vain or useless. And
certainly it is a feeling naturally implanted in us all, that we are excited into action
by a confidence of good success; therefore although God sometimes, for the purpose
of trying the obedience of his servants, deprives them of hope, and commands them
peremptorily to do this or that, still he more often cuts off hesitation by promising a
successful issue. Thus, then, he now aroused Moses to perform his commands by
setting the hope of the deliverance before him. The copula must be resolved into the
illative particle, because the command and vocation undoubtedly depend upon the
promise.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that
thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
Ver. 10. That thou mayest bring forth.] Which, though as unlikely to be done as to
remove a rock with his shoulder, yet, setting upon it in God’s strength, he effecteth
it. Tantum velis, et Deus tibi praeoccurret. (a) Howbeit, let a man do what he can
naturally, and God will meet him graciously; - there is no truth in such an assertion.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:10
"Among our aristocracy," writes Carlyle in his essay on "Corn-law Rhymes,"
"there are men, we trust there are many men, who feel that they also are workmen,
born to toil, ever in their great Taskmaster"s eye, faithfully with heart and head, for
those who with heart and hand do, under the same great Taskmaster, toil for
them;—who have even this noblest and hardest work set before them; to deliver out
of that Egyptian bondage to Wretchedness and Ignorance and Sin, the hardhanded
millions."
There are many persons, doubtless, who feel the wants and miseries of their fellow-
men tenderly if not deeply; but this feeling is not of the kind to induce them to exert
themselves out of their own small circle. They have little faith in their individual
exertions doing aught towards a remedy for any of the great disorders of the world.
—Sir Arthur Helps.
In strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual steps. The
appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh—in Greece, of the Seven
Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates, and of the Stoic Zeno,—in Judea,
the advent of Jesus,—and in modern Christendom, of the realists Huss, Savonarola,
and Luther, are causal facts which carry forward races to new convictions and

76. elevate the rule of life.
—Emerson on Civilization.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "THE COMMISSIO .
Exodus 3:10, Exodus 3:16-22.
We have already learned from the seventh verse that God commissioned Moses,
only when He had Himself descended to deliver Israel. He sends none, except with
the implied or explicit promise that certainly He will be with them. But the converse
is also true. If God sends no man but when He comes Himself, He never comes
without demanding the agency of man. The overruled reluctance of Moses, and the
inflexible urgency of his commission, may teach us the honour set by God upon
humanity. He has knit men together in the mutual dependence of nations and of
families, that each may be His minister to all; and in every great crisis of history He
has respected His own principle, and has visited the race by means of the
providential man. The gospel was not preached by angels. Its first agents found
themselves like sheep among wolves: they were an exhibition to the world and to
angels and men, yet necessity was laid upon them, and a woe if they preached it not.
All the best gifts of heaven come to us by the agency of inventor and sage, hero and
explorer, organiser and philanthropist, patriot, reformer and saint. And the hope
which inspires their grandest effort is never that of selfish gain, nor even of fame,
though fame is a keen spur, which perhaps God set before Moses in the noble hope
that "thou shalt bring forth the people" (Exodus 3:12). But the truly impelling force
is always the great deed itself, the haunting thought, the importunate inspiration,
the inward fire; and so God promises Moses neither a sceptre, nor share in the good
land: He simply proposes to him the work, the rescue of the people; and Moses, for
his part, simply objects that he is unable, not that he is solicitous about his reward.
Whatever is done for payment can be valued by its cost: all the priceless services
done for us by our greatest were, in very deed, unpriced.
Moses, with the new name of God to reveal, and with the assurance that He is about
to rescue Israel, is bidden to go to work advisedly and wisely. He is not to appeal to
the mob, nor yet to confront Pharaoh without authority from his people to speak for
them, nor is he to make the great demand for emancipation abruptly and at once.
The mistake of forty years ago must not be repeated now. He is to appeal to the
elders of Israel; and with them, and therefore clearly representing the nation, he is
respectfully to crave permission for a three days' journey, to sacrifice to Jehovah in
the wilderness. The blustering assurance with which certain fanatics of our own
time first assume that they possess a direct commission from the skies, and
thereupon that they are freed from all order, from all recognition of any human
authority, and then that no considerations of prudence or of decency should restrain
the violence and bad taste which they mistake for zeal, is curiously unlike anything
in the Old Testament or the ew. Was ever a commission more direct than those of

77. Moses and of St. Paul? Yet Moses was to obtain the recognition of the elders of his
people; and St. Paul received formal ordination by the explicit command of God
(Acts 13:3).
Strangely enough, it is often assumed that this demand for a furlough of three days
was insincere. But it would only have been so, if consent were expected, and if the
intention were thereupon to abuse the respite and refuse to return. There is not the
slightest hint of any duplicity of the kind. The real motives for the demand are very
plain. The excursion which they proposed would have taught the people to move
and act together, reviving their national spirit, and filling them with a desire for the
liberty which they tasted. In the very words which they should speak, "The Lord,
the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us," there is a distinct proclamation of
nationality, and of its surest and strongest bulwark, a national religion. From such
an excursion, therefore, the people would have returned, already well-nigh
emancipated, and with recognised leaders. Certainly Pharaoh could not listen to any
such proposal, unless he were prepared to reverse the whole policy of his dynasty
toward Israel.
But the refusal answered two good ends. In the first place it joined issue on the best
conceivable ground, for Israel was exhibited making the least possible demand with
the greatest possible courtesy--"Let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the
wilderness." ot even so much would be granted. The tyrant was palpably in the
wrong, and thenceforth it was perfectly reasonable to increase the severity of the
terms after each of his defeats, which proceeding in its turn made concession more
and more galling to his pride. In the second place, the quarrel was from the first
avowedly and undeniably religious: the gods of Egypt were matched against
Jehovah; and in the successive plagues which desolated his land Pharaoh gradually
learnt Who Jehovah was.
In the message which Moses should convey to the elders there are two significant
phrases. He was to announce in the name of God, "I have surely visited you, and
seen that which is done unto you in Egypt." The silent observation of God before He
interposes is very solemn and instructive. So in the Revelation, He walks among the
golden candlesticks, and knows the work, the patience, or the unfaithfulness of each.
So He is not far from any one of us. When a heavy blow falls we speak of it as "a
Visitation of Providence," but in reality the visitation has been long before. either
Israel nor Egypt was conscious of the solemn presence. Who knows what soul of
man, or what nation, is thus visited today, for future deliverance or rebuke?
Again it is said, "I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt into ... a land
flowing with milk and honey." Their affliction was the divine method of uprooting
them. And so is our affliction the method by which our hearts are released from love
of earth and life, that in due time He may "surely bring us in" to a better and an
enduring country. ow, we wonder that the Israelites clung so fondly to the place of
their captivity. But what of our own hearts? Have they a desire to depart? or do
they groan in bondage, and yet recoil from their emancipation?

78. The hesitating nation is not plainly told that their affliction will be intensified and
their lives made burdensome with labour. That is perhaps implied in the certainty
that Pharaoh "will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand." But it is with Israel as
with us: a general knowledge that in the world we shall have tribulation is enough;
the catalogue of our trials is not spread out before us in advance. They were assured
for their encouragement that all their long captivity should at last receive its wages,
for they should not borrow(6) but ask of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and gold,
and raiment, and they should spoil the Egyptians. So are we taught to have "respect
unto the recompense of the reward."
MACLARE , "THE CALL OF MOSES
Exodus 3:10 - - Exodus 3:20.
The ‘son of Pharaoh’s daughter’ had been transformed, by nearly forty years of
desert life, into an Arab shepherd. The influences of the Egyptian court had faded
from him, like colour from cloth exposed to the weather; nor is it probable that,
after the failure of his early attempt to play the deliverer to Israel, he nourished
further designs of that sort. He appears to have settled down quietly to be Jethro’s
son-in-law, and to have lived a modest, still life of humble toil. He had flung away
fair prospects,-and what had he made of it? The world would say ‘ othing,’ as it
ever does about those who despise material advantages and covet higher good.
Looking after sheep in the desert was a sad downcome from the possibility of sitting
on the throne of Egypt. Yes, but it was in the desert that the vision of the bush
burning, and not burning out, came; and it would not have come if Moses had been
in a palace.
This passage begins in the midst of the divine communication which followed and
interpreted the vision. We note, first, the divine charge and the human shrinking
from the task. It was a startling transition from Exodus 3:9, which declares God’s
pitying knowledge of Israel’s oppression, to Exodus 3:10, which thrusts Moses
forward into the thick of dangers and difficulties, as God’s instrument. ‘I will send
thee’ must have come like a thunder-clap. The commander’s summons which brings
a man from the rear rank and sets him in the van of a storming-party may well
make its receiver shrink. It was not cowardice which prompted Moses’ answer, but
lowliness. His former impetuous confidence had all been beaten out of him. Time
was when he was ready to take up the rôle of deliverer at his own hand; but these
hot days were past, and age and solitude and communion with God had mellowed
him into humility. His recoil was but one instance of the shrinking which all true,
devout men feel when designated for tasks which may probably make life short, and
will certainly make it hard. All prophets and reformers till to-day have had the same
feeling. Men who can do such work as the Jeremiahs, Pauls, Luthers, Cromwells,
can do, are never forward to begin it.
Self-confidence is not the temper which God uses for His instruments. He works
with ‘bruised reeds,’ and breathes His strength into them. It is when a man says ‘I
can do nothing,’ that he is fit for God to employ. ‘When I am weak, then I am
strong.’ Moses remembered enough of Egypt to know that it was no slight peril to
front Pharaoh, and enough of Israel not to be particularly eager to have the task of

79. leading them. But mark that there is no refusal of the charge, though there is
profound consciousness of inadequacy. If we have reason to believe that any duty,
great or small, is laid on us by God, it is wholesome that we should drive home to
ourselves our own weakness, but not that we should try to shuffle out of the duty
because we are weak. Moses’ answer was more of a prayer for help than of a
remonstrance, and it was answered accordingly.
God deals very gently with conscious weakness. ‘Certainly I will be with thee.’
Moses’ estimate of himself is quite correct, and it is the condition of his obtaining
God’s help. If he had been self-confident, he would have had no longing for, and no
promise of, God’s presence. In all our little tasks we may have the same assurance,
and, whenever we feel that they are too great for us, the strength of that promise
may be ours. God sends no man on errands which He does not give him power to do.
So Moses had not to calculate the difference between his feebleness and the strength
of a kingdom. Such arithmetic left out one element, which made all the difference in
the sum total. ‘Pharaoh versus Moses’ did not look a very hopeful cause, but
‘Pharaoh versus Moses and Another’-that other being God-was a very different
matter. God and I are always stronger than any antagonists. It was needless to
discuss whether Moses was able to cope with the king. That was not the right way of
putting the problem. The right way was, Is God able to do it?
The sign given to Moses is at first sight singular, inasmuch as it requires faith, and
can only be a confirmation of his mission when that mission is well accomplished.
But there was a help to present faith even in it, for the very sacredness of the spot
hallowed now by the burning bush was a kind of external sign of the promise.
One difficulty being solved, Moses raised another, but not in the spirit of
captiousness or reluctance. God is very patient with us when we tell Him the
obstacles which we seem to see to our doing His work. As long as these are presented
in good faith, and with the wish to have them cleared up, He listens and answers.
The second question asked by Moses was eminently reasonable. He pictures to
himself his addressing the Israelites, and their question, What is the name of this
God who has sent you? Apparently the children of Israel had lost much of their
ancestral faith, and probably had in many instances fallen into idolatry. We do not
know enough to pronounce with confidence on that point, nor how far the great
name of Jehovah had been used before the time of Moses, or had been forgotten in
Egypt.
The questions connected with these points and with the history of the name do not
enter into our present purpose. My task is rather to point out the religious
significance of the self-revelation of God contained in the name, and how it becomes
the foundation of Israel’s deliverance, existence, and prerogatives. Whatever
opinions are adopted as to the correct form of the name and other grammatical and
philological questions, there is no doubt that it mainly reveals God as self-existent
and unchangeable. He draws His being from no external source, nor ‘borrows leave
to be.’ Creatures are what they are made or grow to be; they are what they were
not; they are what they will some time not any more be. But He is what He is. Lifted
above time and change, self-existing and self-determined, He is the fountain of life,
the same for ever.
This underived, independent, immutable being is a Person who can speak to men,
and can say ‘I am.’ Being such, He has entered into close covenant relations with

80. men, and has permitted Himself to be called ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob.’ The name Jehovah lifts Him high above all creatures; the name ‘the God of
your fathers’ brings Him into tender proximity with men, and, in combination with
the former designation, guarantees that He will forever be what He has been, even
to all generations of children’s children. That mighty name is, indeed, His ‘memorial
to all generations,’ and is as fresh and full of blessedness to us as to the patriarchs.
Christ has made us understand more of the treasures for heart and mind and life
which are stored in it. ‘Our Father which art in heaven’ is the unfolding of its
inmost meaning.
We may note that the bush burning but not consumed expressed in symbol the same
truth which the name reveals. It seems a mistake to take the bush as the emblem of
Israel surviving persecution. Rather the revelation to the eye says the same thing as
that to the ear, as is generally the case. As the desert shrub flamed, and yet did not
burn away, so that divine nature is not wearied by action nor exhausted by
bestowing, nor has its life any tendency towards ending or extinction, as all
creatural life has.
The closing verses of this passage [Exodus 3:16 - - Exodus 3:20] are a programme of
Moses’ mission, in which one or two points deserve notice. First, the general course
of it is made known from the beginning. Therein Moses was blessed beyond most of
God’s servants, who have to risk much and to labour on, not knowing which shall
prosper. If we could see, as he did, the lie of the country beforehand, our journeys
would be easier. So we often think, but we know enough of what shall be to enable
us to have quiet hearts; and it is best for us not to see what is to fail and what to
succeed. Our ignorance stimulates effort, and drives to clinging to God’s hand.
Then we may note the full assurances to be given to the ‘elders of Israel.’
Apparently some kind of civic organisation had been kept up, and there were
principal people among the slaves who had to be galvanised first into enthusiasm. So
they are to be told two things,-that Jehovah has appeared to Moses, and that He, not
Moses only, will deliver them and plant them in the land. The enumeration of the
many tribes [Exodus 3:17] might discourage, but it is intended to fire by the thought
of the breadth of the land, which is further described as fertile. The more exalted
our conceptions of the inheritance, the more willing shall we be to enter on the
pilgrimage towards it. The more we realise that Jehovah has promised to lead us
thither, the more willing shall we be to face difficulties and dangers.
The directions as to the opening of communications with Pharaoh have often been
made a difficulty, as if there was trickery in the modest request for permission to go
three days’ journey into the wilderness. But that request was to be made, knowing
that it would not be granted. It was to be a test of Pharaoh’s willingness to submit to
Jehovah. Its very smallness made it so more effectually. If he had any disposition to
listen to the voice speaking through Moses, he would yield that small point. It is
useless to speculate on what would have happened if he had done so. But probably
the Israelites would have come back from their sacrificing.
Of more importance is it to note that the failure of the request was foreseen, and yet
the effort was to be made. Is not that the same paradox which meets us in all the
divine efforts to win over hard-hearted men to His service? Is it not exactly what
our Lord did when He appealed to Judas, while knowing that all would be vain?
The expression in Exodus 3:19, ‘not by a mighty hand,’ is very obscure. It may

81. possibly mean that Pharaoh was so obstinate that no human power was strong
enough to bend his will. Therefore, in contrast to the ‘mighty hand’ of man, which
was not mighty enough for this work, God will stretch out His hand, and that will
suffice to compel obedience from the proudest. God can force men by His might to
comply with His will, so far as external acts go; but He does not regard that as
obedience, nor delight in it. We can steel ourselves against men’s power, but God’s
hand can crush and break the strongest will. ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God.’ It is a blessed thing to put ourselves into them, in order to
be moulded by their loving touch. The alternative is laid before every soul of man.
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I
should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out
of Egypt?”
BAR ES, "Who am I - These words indicate humility (compare Num_12:3), not
fear. He feared failure, owing to incompetency, especially in the power of expression.
CLARKE, "Who am I - that I should bring - He was so satisfied that this was
beyond his power, and all the means that he possessed, that he is astonished that even
God himself should appoint him to this work! Such indeed was the bondage of the
children of Israel, and the power of the people by whom they were enslaved, that had not
their deliverance come through supernatural means, their escape had been utterly
impossible.
GILL, "And Moses said unto God, who am I, that I should go unto
Pharaoh,.... A private person, an exile in a foreign country, a poor shepherd, unknown
to Pharaoh, and had no interest in him; and he a great king, and possessed of numerous
forces to defend his country, and prevent the Israelites' departure out of it: time was
when he was known to a Pharaoh, dwelt in his court, and made a figure there, and had
great interest and authority there, being the adopted son of the king's daughter; but now
it was otherwise with him:
and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt: who though a
people numerous, yet unarmed, and held in great bondage; and he might remember how

82. he had been repulsed and rejected by some of them forty years ago, which might be
discouraging to him.
HE RY, "God, having spoken to Moses, allows him also a liberty of speech, which he
here improves; and,
I. He objects his own insufficiency for the service he was called to (Exo_3:11): Who am
I? He thinks himself unworthy of the honour, and not par negotio - equal to the task. He
thinks he wants courage, and therefore cannot go to Pharaoh, to make a demand which
might cost the demandant his head: he thinks he wants skill, and therefore cannot bring
forth the children of Israel out of Egypt; they are unarmed, undisciplined, quite
dispirited, utterly unable to help themselves; it is morally impossible to bring them out.
1. Moses was incomparably the fittest of any man living for this work, eminent for
learning, wisdom, experience, valour, faith, holiness; and yet he says, Who am I? Note,
The more fit any person is for service commonly the less opinion he has of himself: see
Jdg_9:8, etc. 2. The difficulties of the work were indeed very great, enough to startle the
courage and stagger the faith of Moses himself. Note, Even wise and faithful instruments
may be much discouraged at the difficulties that lie in the way of the church's salvation.
3. Moses had formerly been very courageous when he slew the Egyptian, but now his
heart failed him; for good men are not always alike bold and zealous. 4. Yet Moses is the
man that does it at last; for God gives grace to the lowly. Modest beginnings are very
good presages.
K&D 11-12, "To the divine commission Moses made this reply: “Who am I, that I
should go to Pharaoh, and bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Some time
before he had offered himself of his own accord as a deliverer and judge; but now he had
learned humility in the school of Midian, and was filled in consequence with distrust of
his own power and fitness. The son of Pharaoh's daughter had become a shepherd, and
felt himself too weak to go to Pharaoh. But God met this distrust by the promise, “I will
be with thee,” which He confirmed by a sign, namely, that when Israel was brought out
of Egypt, they should serve (‫ד‬ ַ‫ב‬ ָ‫,ע‬ i.e., worship) God upon that mountain. This sign, which
was to be a pledge to Moses of the success of his mission, was one indeed that required
faith itself; but, at the same time, it was a sign adapted to inspire both courage and
confidence. God pointed out to him the success of his mission, the certain result of his
leading the people out: Israel should serve Him upon the very same mountain in which
He had appeared to Moses. As surely as Jehovah had appeared to Moses as the God of
his fathers, so surely should Israel serve Him there. The reality of the appearance of God
formed the pledge of His announcement, that Israel would there serve its God; and this
truth was to till Moses with confidence in the execution of the divine command. The
expression “serve God” (λατρεύειν τሬ Θεሬ, lxx) means something more than the
immolare of the Vulgate, or the “sacrifice” of Luther; for even though sacrifice formed a
leading element, or the most important part of the worship of the Israelites, the
patriarchs before this had served Jehovah by calling upon His name as well as offering
sacrifice. And the service of Israel at Mount Horeb consisted in their entering into
covenant with Jehovah (Exo 24); not only in their receiving the law as the covenant
nation, but their manifesting obedience by presenting free-will offerings for the building
of the tabernacle (Exo_36:1-7; Num_7:1).
(Note: Kurtz follows the Lutheran rendering “sacrifice,” and understands by it the
first national sacrifice; and then, from the significance of the first, which included
potentially all the rest, supposes the covenant sacrifice to be intended. But not only is

83. the original text disregarded here, the fact is also overlooked, that Luther himself has
translated ‫עבד‬ correctly, to “serve,” in every other place. And it is not sufficient to say, that
by the direction of God (Exo_3:18) Moses first of all asked Pharaoh for permission merely to
go a three days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to their God (Exo_5:1-3), in
consequence of which Pharaoh afterwards offered to allow them to sacrifice (Exo_8:3)
within the land, and at a still later period outside (Exo_8:21.). For the fact that Pharaoh
merely spoke of sacrificing may be explained on the ground that at first nothing more was
asked. But this first demand arose from the desire on the part of God to make known His
purposes concerning Israel only step by step, that it might be all the easier for the hard heart
of the king to grant what was required. But even if Pharaoh understood nothing more by the
expression “serve God” than the offering of sacrifice, this would not justify us in restricting
the words which Jehovah addressed to Moses, “When thou hast brought forth the people out
of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain,” to the first national offering, or to the
covenant sacrifice.)
CALVI , "11.Who am I? He cannot yet be accused of disobedience, because,
conscious of his own weakness, he answers that he is not sufficient for it, and
therefore refuses the commission. His comparison of himself with Pharaoh was an
additional pretext for declining it. This, then, seems to be the excuse of modesty and
humility; and as such, I conceive it not only to be free from blame, but worthy of
praise. It is no contradiction to this that he knew God to be the proposer of this very
arduous task, for he wonders that some one else was not rather chosen, since God
has so many thousands of beings at command. But another question arises, why he,
who forty years ago had been so forward in killing the Egyptian, and, relying on the
vocation of God, had dared to perform so perilous a deed, should now timidly deny
his sufficiency for the deliverance of the people? It does not seem probable that his
rigor had decreased from age; though youth is naturally ardent, and age induces
coldness and supineness: but it appears that his fault was of another kind, viz., that
he advanced hastily at first, not having sufficiently considered his own powers, nor
weighed the greatness of his undertaking. For although such precipitation may be
praiseworthy, still it often fails in the middle of its course; just as precocious fruits
either never arrive at maturity, or soon perish. Therefore, although Moses afforded
an example of a noble disposition, when he so hastily devoted himself to God’s
work; yet was he not then provided with that firmness which would support him to
the end, because the faith, which prevailed in his heart, had not yet struck its roots
deeply enough, nor had he thoroughly examined his own capability. Therefore does
he tremble when he is brought to the point, though he had been more confident
when its difficulty was as yet unconsidered. So daily do we, who appear to ourselves
of good courage (42) when out of the reach of darts, begin to quake as the battle
comes near us; because we perceive the dangers which did not affect us at a
distance. o wonder, then, if Moses, who had been ready to obey forty years ago,
and who had perseveringly cherished in himself this holy feeling, is filled with new

84. alarm, when he is commanded to enter on the field of battle.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:11 And Moses said unto God, Who [am] I, that I should go unto
Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
Ver. 11. Who am I?] Worth is modest: the proud man asketh, Who am I not? παντα
ποιειν εδωυαµτω, Curi Maioris sepulchro inscriptum refert Arrianus. Worth with
modesty is καλον καλως; nothing is so amiable.
ELLICOTT, "(11) Who am I, that I should go?—The men most fit for great
missions are apt to deem themselves unfit. When God called Jeremiah to be a
prophet, his reply was, “O Lord God! Behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child” (
Jeremiah 1:6). St. Ambrose fought hard to escape being made Archbishop of Milan.
Augustine was loth to undertake the mission to England. Anselm was with difficulty
persuaded to accept the headship of our Church in the evil days of Rufus. The first
impression of a fit man selected for a high post generally is, “Who am I?” In
Moses’s case, though there were some manifest grounds of fitness—e.g., his
Egyptian training and learning, his familiarity with the court. his knowledge of both
nations and both languages—yet, on the other hand, there were certain very marked
(apparent) disqualifications. Forty years of exile, and of a shepherd’s life had at
once unfitted him for dealing with a court, and made him a stranger to his brethren.
Want of eloquence seemed to be a fatal defect in one who must work mainly by
persuasion. Even his age (eighty) might well have seemed to him unsuitable.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:11. Who am I? — He thinks himself unworthy of the honour,
and unable for the work. He thinks he wants courage, and therefore cannot go to
Pharaoh: he thinks he wants conduct, and therefore cannot bring forth the children
of Israel out of Egypt — They are unarmed, undisciplined, quite dispirited, utterly
unable to help themselves. Moses was incomparably the fittest of any man living for
this work, eminent for learning, wisdom, experience, valour, faith, holiness, and yet
he says, Who am I? The more fit any person is for service, the less opinion he has of
himself.
COKE, "Exodus 3:11. Moses said—Who am I, &c.— Conscious of his own
unworthiness and incapacity for so great a service, and apprehensive of his little
influence with the court of Egypt; Moses HERE modestly declines the undertaking:
upon which, God assures him of his immediate succour and assistance; and fortifies
him with the encouraging declaration, that nothing should harm him, for that he
himself would be with him; CERTAI LYI will be with thee. See Genesis 26:3;
Genesis 28:15. Joshua 1:5.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:11
"For one thing," says Carlyle in his fourth lecture on Heroes, "I will remark that
this part of Prophet to his ation was not of his seeking; Knox had lived forty years
quietly obscure, before he became conspicuous.... He was with the small body of
Reformers who were standing siege in St. Andrews Castle—when one day in this

85. chapel, the preacher, after finishing his exhortation to those fighters in the forlorn
hope, said suddenly, that there ought to be other speakers, that all men who had a
priest"s heart and gift in them ought now to speak;—which gifts and heart one of
their own number, John Knox the name of him, had.... Poor Knox could say no
word;—burst into a flood of tears, and ran out. It is worth remembering, that scene.
He was in grievous trouble for some days. He felt what a small faculty was his for
this great work. He felt what a baptism he was called to be baptized withal."
At the opening of his Ministry at Collace, Dr. A. A. Bonar notes in his diary: "I have
been thinking of the case of Moses. He trembled and resisted before being sent, but
from the moment that he was chosen we never hear of alarm or fear arising."
Reference.—III:11-13.—G. Hanson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. liii1898 , p101.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:11. And Moses said unto God.—He who once would, when as
yet he ought not, now will no longer, when he ought. Both faults, the rashness and
the subsequent slowness, correspond to each other. Moses has indeed “learned
humility in the school of Midian” [Keil]; but this humility cannot be conceived as
without a mixture of dejection, since humility of itself does not stand in the way of a
bold faith, but is rather the source of it. After being forty years an unknown
shepherd, he has, as he thinks, given up, with his rancor, also his hope. Moreover,
he feels, no doubt, otherwise than formerly about the momentous deed which seems
to have done his people no good, and himself only mischief, and which in Egypt is
probably not forgotten. As in the Egyptian bondage, the old guilt, of Joseph’s
brethren manifested itself even up to the third and fourth generation, so a shadow of
that former rashness seems to manifest itself in the embarrassment of his spirit.
PULPIT, "And Moses said … Who am I, that I should go, etc. A great change had
come over Moses. Forty years earlier he had been forward to offer himself as a
"deliverer." He "went out" to his brethren and slew one of their oppressors, and
"supposed his brethren would have understood how that God by his hand would
deliver them" (Acts 7:25). "But they understood not" (ibid.) They declined to accept
him for leader, they reproached him with setting himself up to be "a ruler and a
judge" over them. And now, taught by this lesson, and sobered by forty years of
inaction, he has become timid and distrustful of himself, and shrinks from putting
himself forward. Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh? What weight can I, a
foreigner, forty years an exile, with the manners of a rough shepherd, expect to have
with the mighty monarch of all Egypt—the son of Rameses the Great, the inheritor
of his power and his glories? And again, Who am I, that I should bring forth the
children of Israel? What weight can I expect to have with my countrymen, who will
have forgotten me—whom, moreover, I could not influence when I was,in my full
vigour—who then "refused" my guidance and forced me to quit them? True
diffidence speaks in the words used—there is no ring of insincerity in them; Moses
was now as distrustful of himself as in former days he had been confident, and when
he had become fit to be a deliverer, ceased to think himself fit.

86. 12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will
be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you:
When you have brought the people out of Egypt,
you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”
BAR ES, "A token unto thee - Or the sign. The word means a declaration or
promise of God, which rests absolutely on His word, and demands faith. The promise
that God would have the people serve Him in that place was an assurance, if fully
believed, that all intervening obstacles would be removed by His power.
CLARKE, "Certainly I will be with thee - This great event shall not be left to thy
wisdom and to thy power; my counsel shall direct thee, and my power shall bring all
these mighty things to pass.
And this shall be a token - Literally, And This to thee for a sign, i.e., this
miraculous manifestation of the burning bush shall be a proof that I have sent thee; or,
My being with thee, to encourage thy heart, strengthen thy hands, and enable thee to
work miracles, shall be to thyself and to others the evidence of thy Divine mission.
Ye shall serve God upon this mountain - This was not the sign, but God shows
him, that in their return from Egypt they should take this mountain in their way, and
should worship him in this place. There may be a prophetic allusion here to the giving of
the law on Mount Sinai. As Moses received his commands here, so likewise should the
Israelites receive theirs in the same place. After all, the Divine Being seems to testify a
partial predilection for this mountain, for reasons that are not expressed. See Clarke’s
note on Exo_3:5.
GILL, "And he said, certainly I will be with thee,.... To encourage and strengthen
him; to protect, defend, and preserve him, and to succeed and prosper him; to give him
credit and respect with the people of Israel, and influence over Pharaoh to prevail upon
him at length to let Israel go:
and this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee; not the promise now
made, nor the vision he had seen, but what follows:
when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God
upon this mountain: Mount Horeb or Sinai, as they did at the time of the giving of the

87. law on it, when an altar was built upon a hill, and they offered burnt offerings and peace
offerings, Exo_24:4 and this was a sign, "a posteriori", confirming the divine mission of
Moses; and besides the promise of this, on which Moses might depend, being made by
the Lord, assured him of success, that he should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt,
since he and they would serve the Lord together at this mountain, and from whence he
might conclude he had a mission and commission from God. Of a like kind is the sign or
token given of the deliverance of Jerusalem from the army of Sennacherib, Isa_37:30.
HE RY, " God answers this objection, Exo_3:12. 1. He promises him his presence:
Certainly I will be with thee, and that is enough. Note, Those that are weak in
themselves may yet do wonders, being strong in the Lord and in the power of his might;
and those that are most diffident of themselves may be most confident in God. God's
presence puts an honour upon the worthless, wisdom and strength into the weak and
foolish, makes the greatest difficulties dwindle to nothing, and is enough to answer all
objections. 2. He assures him of success, and that the Israelites should serve God upon
this mountain. Note, (1.) Those deliverances are most valuable which open to us a door
of liberty to serve God. (2.) If God gives us opportunity and a heart to serve him, it is a
happy and encouraging earnest of further favours designed us.
CALVI , "12.And he said, Certainly I will be with thee. It is remarkable that God
sets his ready help alone against all to overcome every fear, and to take away every
scruple; as much as to say, It matters not who Moses is, or what may be his strength,
so that God be his leader. In these words we are taught, that he is never regarded by
us with due honor, unless when, contented with his assistance alone, we seek for no
ground of confidence apart from him; and, although our own weakness may alarm
us, think it enough that he is on our side. Hence these celebrated confessions of his
saints:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for thou art with me.” (Psalms 23:4.)
Again,
“In God have I put my trust;
I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.” (Psalms 56:4.)
Again,
“I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people.”
(Psalms 3:6.)
Again,
“If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31.)
Therefore, in proportion to our advancement in the faith, when we are exposed to
the greatest dangers, do we magnify the power of God, and, exalting ourselves in
that, advance boldly against all the world; and this is the ground of firm and

88. unwearied obedience, when the thought that God is with us is deeply rooted in our
hearts. But, after Moses is commanded to turn away his reflections from himself,
and to fix all his regards upon the promised help of God, he is confirmed by a sign,
that the Israelites should sacrifice on Mount Horeb three days after their departure
from Egypt. Still this promise appears neither very apt nor opportune, since it
would not exist in effect till the thing was done. I pass over the forced
interpretations, which some, to avoid this absurdity, have adduced; since others
wisely and prudently observe, that the confirmation which we receive from
posterior tokens, is neither useless nor vain, and that there are examples of it
elsewhere in Scripture. Samuel, by anointing David, promises that he shall be king
of the people; and pronounces that this shall be the sign that the anointing is from
God. (1 Samuel 16:13.) David had long to battle with misfortunes before he could
enjoy this token, yet will it not be thought superfluous, since in its season it
confirmed the favor of God. Isaiah, prophesying of the raising of the siege of the
city, adds a sign,
“Ye shall eat this year such as groweth of itself; and the second year that which
springeth of the same; and in the third year sow ye and reap, and plant vineyards,
and eat the fruit thereof.”
(Isaiah 37:30.)
It was said to John the Baptist,
“Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, the same is he which baptizeth
with the Holy Ghost.” (John 1:33.)
Yet, before he beheld that sign, he already knew that Christ was the Son of God; for
the prophecies of both his parents were well known to him. But there is nothing
absurd in the faith, which is founded on the word, being increased by the addition
of a sign. In fine, God magnifies his mercy by the new mercy which supervenes,
thus, as it were, heaping up the measure; and, in truth, the vocation of Moses was
ratified by a remarkable proof, when, in the very place on which he then stood, the
people, brought forth by his instrumentality, offered a solemn sacrifice. In the
meantime God kept his servant in suspense, as though he had said, Let me perform
what I have decreed; in due time you will know that your were not sent by me in
vain, when you have brought the people safely to this spot.
ELLICOTT, "(12) Certainly I will be with thee.—Heb., since I will be with thee. An
answer addressed not to the thing said, but to the thing meant. Moses meant to urge
that he was unfit for the mission. God’s reply is, “ ot unfit, since I will be with
thee.” I will supply all thy defects, make good all thy shortcomings. “My strength is
made perfect in weakness.”
This shall be a token unto thee.—It is in accordance with the Divine economy to give
men "tokens,” which are future, and appeal to faith only, (Comp. 1 Samuel 2:34; 2
Kings 19:27.)

89. COKE, "Exodus 3:12. This shall be a token, &c.— This part of the verse would be
more properly rendered thus: and this (namely, the vision) is, or shall be (for there
is no verb in the Hebrew) a sign unto thee, that I have sent thee: and when thou hast
brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. It is
certain, that it could be no present sign of encouragement to Moses, to be told, that
hereafter they should worship God upon this mountain, as our TRA SLATIO
leads us to understand it; while it is equally certain, that this appearance of God was
the strongest encouragement possible.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:12
He was not a name, then; not a tradition, not a dream of the past. He lived now as
He lived then; He who had been with men in past ages, was actually with him at that
hour.
—F. D. Maurice.
Compare Knox"s urgent letter from Dieppe to his irresolute Scotch friends, in1557:
"The invisible and invincible power of God sustaineth and preserveth according to
His promise, all such as with simplicity do obey Him. o less cause have ye to enter
in your former enterprise than Moses had to go to the presence of Pharaoh; for your
subjects, yea, your brethren are oppressed; their bodies and souls holden in
bondage; and God speaketh to your conscience that ye ought to hazard your own
lives, be it against kings or emperors, for their deliverance."
LA GE, "Exodus 3:12. The promise that God will go with him and give success to
his mission is to be sealed by his delivering the Israelites, bringing them to Sinai,
and there engaging with them in divine service, i.e., as the expression in its fullness
probably means, entering formally into the relation of worshipper of Jehovah. The
central point of this worship consisted, it is true, afterwards in the sacrificial
offerings, particularly the burnt offering, which sealed the covenant. This first and
greatest sign involves all that follow, and is designed for Moses himself; with it God
gives his pledge of the successful issue of the whole. It must not be overlooked that
this great promise stands in close relation to the great hope which is reviving in his
soul.
SIMEO , "GOD’S PRESE CE WITH HIS PEOPLE
Exodus 3:12. And he said, Certainly I will be with thee.
THERE is nothing more amiable in the character of a saint than true and genuine
humility. Without that virtue, all graces are defective, and all attainments worthless
in the sight of God. But it is no uncommon thing to see other dispositions assuming
the garb of humility, and claiming an excellence which they do not possess. The
Prophet Jeremiah, when called to the prophetic office, declined it under an idea that

90. he was “a child, and unable to speak.” But God said to him, “Say not, I am a child:
for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I shall command thee
thou shalt speak [ ote: Jeremiah 1:4-7.].” His pretended insufficiency for the work
was, in reality, no other than a cover for his dread of the dangers to which it would
expose him: and therefore God, in order to remove the impediment, replied, “Be not
afraid of their faces; for I am with thee, to deliver thee [ ote: Jeremiah 1:8.].” Thus
Moses, when God said to him, “Come now, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that
thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt;” replied,
“Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the
children of Israel out of Egypt [ ote: Exodus 3:10-11.] ?” This was specious enough,
and had the semblance of true humility; but it was only a pretext, and a cover to his
fears and unbelief. He had, forty years before, exerted himself with great vigour in
behalf of that people, and had even slain an Egyptian who was contending with
them: but they had thrust him from them, saying, “Who made thee a ruler and a
judge over us?” and Pharaoh had sought his life, as forfeited to the laws of the land.
ow, therefore, he was afraid that the people would shew the same disregard of his
efforts, and that his slaughter of the Egyptian would be visited with the punishment
which the laws of the land denounced against him. This indeed, did not at first sight
appear to be his real motive: but his numerous refusals of the office delegated to
him, repeated as they were under a variety of pretexts, clearly discovered at last
what was in his heart, and justly excited the displeasure of God against him [ ote:
Exodus 4:13-14; Exodus 4:19.]. But the very first answer of God should have been
quite sufficient to remove every apprehension. God said to him, “Certainly I will be
with thee:” and, having that assurance, he should without hesitation have gone forth
to his destined labours.
Let us consider,
I. The extent of the promise—
As relating to him, it comprehended all that he could wish—
[True, his work was arduous, and to unassisted man impracticable: but, if God was
with him, what could he have to fear? He would be guided by a wisdom that could
not err, and he aided by a power which could not be overcome. With such an
assurance, what had he to do with discouragements? Could Pharaoh hurt him,
whilst he was under such protection; or the Israelites withstand his solicitations,
when enforced by such powerful energy on their minds? Every difficulty should
have vanished from his mind; and he should have leaped for joy at the prospect of
effecting so great and good a work.]
But it relates to us also, and pledges God to an equal extent in our behalf—
[A similar promise was given to Joshua, on an occasion precisely similar [ ote:
Joshua 1:5.]: and that is quoted by the Apostle Paul as applicable to every true
believer: “God hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee: so that WE may
boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me

91. [ ote: Hebrews 13:5-6.].” Here the very promise made to Moses, is renewed to
Joshua, and declared to belong to us also. Whatever difficulties, therefore, we may
have to encounter in the discharge of our duty to God, we need not fear: his
promised presence shall be with us in our efforts, and his almighty power secure to
us a successful issue.]
The more minute consideration of the subject will fall under the next head of my
discourse, whilst I endeavour to shew,
II. The encouragement it affords to us—
We may properly view it, in the first place, as applicable to Ministers—
[Ministers have, if I may so speak, the very same office delegated to them as was
assigned to Moses: they are sent to bring men out of spiritual thraldom, and to
deliver them from a bondage far more terrible than that of Egypt. The power that
opposes them is fax stronger than that of Pharaoh; and the unhappy captives are in
love with their chains: they are themselves as averse to leave their hard taskmaster,
as he is to lose their services. Were we to go in our own strength, we should soon
desert our post; as Moses did, when, in reliance on his own arm, he prematurely
proffered to the people his assistance. But with the promise of God’s presence, a
promise specifically given to us by our Divine Master for our encouragement [ ote:
Matthew 28:18.], we go forth with confidence; and to every obstacle that is in our
way, we say, “Who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt
become a plain [ ote: Zechariah 4:7.].” We know that the persons to whom we
speak are as incapable of hearing our words, as dry bones scattered upon the face of
the earth: yet do we not despond, or even doubt the efficacy of our ministrations for
those to whom we are sent: and, in dependence on this word, we hope and believe,
that the word which we speak shall prove “the power of God to the salvation” of
those who hear it. We are not unmindful of the question put by the Apostle, “Who is
sufficient for these things?” but, if the rod of Moses wrought effectually in his hand
for the deliverance of Israel, we have no fear but that the word of God, by
whomsoever administered, shall be alike effectual for all the ends for which it is
sent. It is “the rod of God’s strength;” and not all the powers of darkness shall be
able to withstand it.]
But it is also applicable to God’s people generally throughout the world—
[To this extent, as we have before observed, St. Paul applies it: and every believer
needs it for his support. Every one is engaged in a great work, for which no finite
power is sufficient: every one, therefore, needs to be encouraged with an assurance,
that God will be with him in all his endeavours to perform it, and will secure to him
the desired success. Believer, hast thou much to do for God, even so much as thou
couldest have no hope of effecting without the arm of Omnipotence exerted in thy
behalf? Hear what God has said for thine encouragement: “Fear thou not, for I am
with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help
thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness [ ote: Isaiah

92. 41:10.].” See here, how God, in every successive part of these promises,
accommodates himself to thy weakness and thy fears. When he says, “I am with
thee,” a thought may perhaps arise, that he will be with thee only to witness thy
defeat: he therefore adds, “I will be thy God.” Does a sense of thy weakness press
upon thee? he further says, “I will strengthen thee.” Art thou still discouraged,
because the work is left to thee? he adds, “I will help thee.” Art thou still dejected,
through an apprehension of thy failure at last? he takes the whole responsibility on
himself, and declares, for thy comfort, “I will altogether uphold thee with the right
hand of my righteousness.” This may serve to shew (what we forbore to specify
under the former head) the extent to which this promise goes, in relation to every
thing which our necessities may require.
Again; Hast thou also much to suffer for God in thy Christian course? Doubtless
thou must have some cross to bear, else thou couldest not be conformed fully to thy
Saviour’s image. But, whether thy trials be more or less severe, the promise in my
text secures to thee an effectual help, and a sure deliverance. For thus saith the
Lord: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the
rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt
not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee: for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour [ ote: Isaiah 43:2-3.].” Here again the extent of
the promise clearly appears, and its perfect sufficiency for every trial to which thou
canst be exposed.
Is there yet a lurking apprehension that in the extremity of death thy heart will fail?
At this season, also, shall the presence of thy God afford thee effectual support:
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for
thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me [ ote: Psalms 23:4.].” ow,
though the valley of this shadow of death may comprehend the whole of the present
life as beset with snares and difficulties, yet it must include the closing scenes of life,
as well as those that have preceded it; and, consequently, when our flesh and heart
fail, we may be assured that “God will be the strength of our heart, and our portion
for ever [ ote: Psalms 73:26.].”]
Learn from hence—
1. To undertake nothing but in dependence on God—
[When God vouchsafed his assistance to Israel, no man could stand before them: but
when they went up against the Canaanites in dependence on an arm of flesh, they
were put to flight and slain [ ote: umbers 14:43-45.]. So it will be with us, if we
presume to engage in any thing without first asking counsel, and imploring help,
from him. God is jealous of his own honour: and if we place our reliance on any
thing but him, we must expect a curse, and not a blessing, on all our labours [ ote:
Jeremiah 17:5-6.].]
2. To shrink from nothing to which he calls us—

93. [If Moses was forbidden to shrink from the duties imposed on him, what shall we
not willingly and confidently undertake for God? We must not contemplate human
means, when the path of duty is clear; but must expect him to “perfect his own
strength in our weakness.” With him it is alike “easy to save by many or by few:”
nor need we doubt a moment, but that “through Christ strengthening us we can do
all things.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?”]
3. To despair of nothing which we undertake at his command—
[We may be in the path of duty, and yet find many difficulties, even such as may
appear utterly insuperable. Moses himself was so discouraged by his want of
success, that he complained of God as having disappointed and deceived him. But he
succeeded at last: and the very difficulties which had discouraged him served but
the more to illustrate the power and grace of God. So may we find it for a season:
but we should bear in mind, that his word, which he has pledged to us, is
immutable, and that his counsel shall stand, though earth and hell should combine
to defeat it. Let us then “commit our every way to him;” and, with a holy
confidence, advance, “strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”]
PULPIT, "Certainly I will be with thee. Literally, "Since I will be with thee." Moses
had excused himself on the ground of unfitness. God replies—"Thou wilt not be
unfit, since I will be with thee—I will supply thy deficiencies—I will impart all the
qualities thou needest—and this shall be a sign unto thee of my power and
faithfulness—this shall assure thee that I am not sending thee upon a fruitless
errand—it is determined in my counsels that not only shalt thou succeed, and lead
the people out, but after that,—when thou hast so done—thou and they together
shall serve me on this mountain." The "sign" was one which appealed to faith only,
like that given to Hezekiah by Isaiah (1 Kings 19:1-21 :29), but, if accepted, it gave a
full assurance—the second step involved the first—the end implied the means—if
Moses was of a certainty to bring the Israelites to Sinai, he must first lead them out
of Egypt—he must in some way or other triumph over all the difficulties which
would beset the undertaking.
13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the
Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your
fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me,
‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

94. BAR ES, "What is his name - The meaning of this question is evidently: “By
which name shall I tell them that the promise is confirmed?” Each name of the Deity
represented some aspect or manifestation of His attributes (compare the introduction to
Genesis). What Moses needed was not a new name, but direction to use that name which
would bear in itself a pledge of accomplishment. Moses was familiar with the Egyptian
habit of choosing from the names of the gods that which bore specially upon the wants
and circumstances of their worshippers, and this may have suggested the question which
would be the first his own people would expect him to answer.
CLARKE, "They shall say - What is his name? - Does not this suppose that the
Israelites had an idolatrous notion even of the Supreme Being? They had probably drank
deep into the Egyptian superstitions, and had gods many and lords many; and Moses
conjectured that, hearing of a supernatural deliverance, they would inquire who that
God was by whom it was to be effected. The reasons given here by the rabbins are too
refined for the Israelites at this time. “When God,” say they, “judgeth his creatures, he is
called ‫אלהים‬ Elohim; when he warreth against the wicked, he is called ‫צבאות‬ Tsebaoth; but
when he showeth mercy unto the world, he is called ‫יהוה‬ Yehovah.” It is not likely that
the Israelites had much knowledge of God or of his ways at the time to which the sacred
text refers; it is certain they had no written word. The book of Genesis, if even written,
(for some suppose it had been composed by Moses during his residence in Midian), had
not yet been communicated to the people; and being so long without any revelation, and
perhaps without even the form of Divine worship, their minds being degraded by the
state of bondage in which they had been so long held, and seeing and hearing little in
religion but the superstitions of those among whom they sojourned, they could have no
distinct notion of the Divine Being. Moses himself might have been in doubt at first on
this subject, and he seems to have been greatly on his guard against illusion; hence he
asks a variety of questions, and endeavors, by all prudent means, to assure himself of the
truth and certainty of the present appearance and commission. He well knew the power
of the Egyptian magicians, and he could not tell from these first views whether there
might not have been some delusion in this case. God therefore gives him the fullest
proof, not only for the satisfaction of the people to whom he was to be sent, but for his
own full conviction, that it was the supreme God who now spoke to him.
GILL, "And Moses said unto God,.... Having received full satisfaction to his
objection, taken from his own unfitness for such a service, and willing to have his way
quite clear unto him, and his commission appear firm and valid to his people, he
proceeds to observe another difficulty that might possibly arise:
when I come unto the children of Israel: out of Midian into Egypt:
and shall say unto them, the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; with
a message to them to receive him as his ambassador and their deliverer:
and they shall say unto me, what is his name? a question it was probable they
would ask, not through ignorance, since in their distress they had called upon the name
of the Lord, and cried unto him for help and deliverance; but either to try Moses, and

95. what knowledge he had of God: or there being many names by which he had made
himself known; and especially was wont to make use of a new name or title when he
made a new appearance, or any eminent discovery of himself, they might be desirous of
knowing what was the present name he took:
what shall I say unto them? what name shall I make mention of?
HE RY, "He begs instructions for the executing of his commission, and has them,
thoroughly to furnish him. He desires to know by what name God would at this time
make himself known, Exo_3:13.
1. He supposes the children of Israel would ask him, What is his name? This they
would ask either, (1.) To perplex Moses: he foresaw difficulty, not only in dealing with
Pharaoh, to make him willing to part with them, but in dealing with them, to make them
willing to remove. They would be scrupulous and apt to cavil, would bid him produce his
commission, and probably this would be the trial: “Does he know the name of God? Has
he the watch-word?” Once he was asked, Who made thee a judge? Then he had not his
answer ready, and he would not be nonplussed so again, but would be able to tell in
whose name he came. Or, (2.) For their own information. It is to be feared that they had
grown very ignorant in Egypt, by reason of their hard bondage, want of teachers, and
loss of the sabbath, so that they needed to be told the first principles of the oracles of
God. Or this question, What is his name? amounted to an enquiry into the nature of the
dispensation they were now to expect: “How will God in it be known to us, and what may
we depend upon from him?”
2. He desires instructions what answer to give them: “What shall I say to them? What
name shall I vouch to them for the proof of my authority? I must have something great
and extraordinary to say to them; what must it be? If I must go, let me have full
instructions, that I may not run in vain.” Note, (1.) It highly concerns those who speak to
people in the name of God to be well prepared beforehand. (2.) Those who would know
what to say must go to God, to the word of his grace and to the throne of his grace, for
instructions, Eze_2:7; Eze_3:4, Eze_3:10, Eze_3:17. (3.) Whenever we have any thing to
do with God, it is desirable to know, and our duty to consider, what is his name.
K&D 13-15, "When Moses had been thus emboldened by the assurance of divine
assistance to undertake the mission, he inquired what he was to say, in case the people
asked him for the name of the God of their fathers. The supposition that the people
might ask the name of their fathers' God is not to be attributed to the fact, that as the
Egyptians had separate names for their numerous deities, the Israelites also would want
to know the name of their own God. For, apart from the circumstance that the name by
which God had revealed Himself to the fathers cannot have vanished entirely from the
memory of the people, and more especially of Moses, the mere knowledge of the name
would not have been of much use to them. The question, “What is His name?”
presupposed that the name expressed the nature and operations of God, and that God
would manifest in deeds the nature expressed in His name. God therefore told him His
name, or, to speak more correctly, He explained the name ‫,יהוה‬ by which He had made
Himself known to Abraham at the making of the covenant (Gen_15:7), in this way, ‫ה‬ֶ‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ ֶ‫א‬
‫ר‬ ֶ‫שׁ‬ ֲ‫א‬ ‫ה‬ֶ‫י‬ ְ‫ה‬ ֶ‫,א‬ “I am that I am,” and designated Himself by this name as the absolute God of
the fathers, acting with unfettered liberty and self-dependence. This name precluded any
comparison between the God of the Israelites and the deities of the Egyptians and other

96. nations, and furnished Moses and his people with strong consolation in their affliction,
and a powerful support to their confidence in the realization of His purposes of salvation
as made known to the fathers. To establish them in this confidence, God added still
further: “This is My name for ever, and My memorial unto all generations;” that is to
say, God would even manifest Himself in the nature expressed by the name Jehovah,
and by this He would have all generations both know and revere Him. ‫ם‬ ֵ‫,שׁ‬ the name,
expresses the objective manifestation of the divine nature; ‫ר‬ ֶ‫ב‬ֵ‫,ז‬ memorial, the subjective
recognition of that nature on the part of men. ‫ּר‬ ‫ּר‬ , as in Exo_17:16 and Pro_27:24. The
repetition of the same word suggests the idea of uninterrupted continuance and
boundless duration (Ewald, §313a). The more usual expression is ‫ּר‬‫ד‬ָ‫ו‬ ‫ּר‬‫ד‬ָ‫,י‬ Deu_32:7;
Psa_10:6; Psa_33:11; or ‫ים‬ ִ‫ּר‬ ‫ּר‬ , Psa_72:5; Psa_102:25; Isa_51:8.
CALVI , "13.Behold, when I come to the children of Israel. If we believe that
Moses spoke his own sentiments here, he would say, that he could not be the
messenger of an unknown God; which seems highly improbable. For who can think
that the faith of the holy Prophet was so obliterated, that he was forgetful of the true
God, whom he had devoutly served? Whereas, in the name of his elder son, he had
borne witness to his solemn recollection of Him, when he voluntarily professed
himself a stranger in the land of Midian. or does it appear at all more suitable to
the children of Israel, in whose mouths the covenant made with their fathers
constantly was. It will not, however, be far from the truth, if we suppose that the
faith both of Moses and the Israelites had grown somewhat faint and rusty. He
himself, with his father-in-law, was altogether without the instruction which would
retain him in that peculiar worship, and in that knowledge, which he had imbibed
in Egypt; and the whole people had departed far away from the course of their
fathers; for although the brightness of the true and ancient religion was not entirely
gone, still it only shone in small sparks. But whilst Moses tacitly confesses his
ignorance, because he was not sufficiently familiar with the doctrine handed down
from the holy patriarchs, yet because he was about to present himself to the people
as a stranger, he infers that he shall be rejected, unless he brings with him some
watchword which will be acknowledged. “I will declare that which thou
commandest, (he seems to say,) that I am sent by the God of our fathers; but they
will deride and despise my mission, unless I shall present some surer token, from
whence they may learn that I have not falsely made use of thy name.” He therefore
seeks for a name which may be a distinguishing mark; since it is not a mere word or
syllable which is here in question, but a testimony, by which he may persuade the
Israelites that they are heard on the score of the covenant with their fathers.
ELLICOTT, "(13) What is his name?—In Egypt, and wherever polytheism
prevailed, every god had, as a matter of course, a name. Among the Israelites
hitherto God had been known only by titles, as El or Elohim, “the Lofty One;
“Shaddai,” the Powerful; “Jahveh, or Jehovah, “the Existent.” These titles were
used with some perception of their meaning; no one of them had as yet passed into a
proper name. Moses, imagining that the people might have become so far
Egyptianised as to be no longer content with this state of things, asks God by what

97. name he shall speak of Him to them. Who shall he say has appeared to him?
COFFMA , "Verses 13-15
THE TETRAGRAMMATO (Exodus 3:13-15)
"And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and
shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall
say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses,
I AM THAT I AM: and he said, THUS shalt thou say unto the children of lsrael, I
AM hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou
say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my
name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations."
This student has long been familiar with the preposterous claims relative to the
great TETRAGRAMMATO supposed to have been given in Exodus 3:14, but we
find no evidence whatever of any such thing. Whatever happened here, God simply
did not honor Moses' REQUEST for God's personal name. The middle verse here,
(Exodus 3:14), which the translators of the Septuagint (LXX) misunderstood as the
great new name is actually nothing of the kind. The great memorial name which was
to be forever is not EVE mentioned in Exodus 3:14, but it is given in Exodus 3:15.
Here it is. We have altered the punctuation to make the meaning clearer:
(Exodus 3:15) A D GOD SAID MOREOVER U TO MOSES; THUS SHALT
THOU SAY TO THE CHILDRE OF ISRAEL:
JEHOVAH (YAHWEH),
THE GOD OF YOUR FATHERS,
THE GOD OF ABRAHAM,
THE GOD OF ISAAC,
A D THE GOD OF JACOB,
HATH SE T ME U TO YOU: THIS IS MY AME FOREVER; A D THIS IS
MY MEMORIAL U TO ALL GE ERATIO S.
What then is the great memorial name? The one which is forever and ever? Answer:
It is simply this: JEHOVAH; THE GOD OF ABRAHAM; A D THE GOD OF
ISAAC; A D THE GOD OF JACOB. This is the AME repeated twice in this
passage; and when the Son of God referred to this passage, he quoted it verbatim:
Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I AM THE GOD
OF ABRAHAM; A D THE GOD OF ISAAC; A D THE GOD OF JACOB
(Matthew 22:32).

98. In the light of the Saviour's emphasis upon this place, it is absolutely imperative that
we reject a lot of the nonsense that has been written about the great
TETRAGRAMMATO ! Since the great memorial name forever is in Exodus 3:15,
what should we MAKE of Exodus 3:13? Whatever we make of it, there is not any
new name in it. If that verse has the great memorial name, then nobody knows what
it is for the last 2,000 years! Here are examples of the way the passage has been
translated:
And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say ... I
AM hath sent me unto you. (ASV)
"I WILL BE WHO (OR WHAT) I WILL BE." (Fields)
"I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." (Tyndale Bible)
"I AM WHO AM." (the Douay Version)
"I AM THE BEI G." (the Septuagint (LXX))
"I AM BECAUSE I AM." (ASV's margin)
"I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE." (Moffatt)
"I AM WHO I AM." (RSV)
From these examples, it is clear enough that people simply DO OT K OW how to
translate this place. With that in mind, observe this: Scholars have decided that the
name is YAHWEH (JEHOVAH), making Exodus 3:13 to be "an analysis of
YHWH,"[19] and offering the conclusion that Jehovah is the alleged new name.
That cannot be correct, because as Moller said, "Genesis represents Jehovah as
having been in use from the earliest times.[20] Furthermore, even Moses' mother,
Jochebed, bore a name with the meaning "Yahweh is glory."[21] The difficulties of
this passage are very great, and we shall CO TE T ourselves with giving two
different interpretations, either one of which might be either partially are
completely correct:
That of F. C. Cook: He viewed Exodus 3:15 as corresponding to Exodus 3:14
exactly; "The name, therefore, which Moses was commissioned to use, was at once
new and old; old in its connection with previous revelations, new in its full
interpretation."[22] It would appear that this was exactly the application Jesus
made of the passage in Matthew 22:32.
That founded upon a different view of the connection between these three verses.
"What we have in Exodus 3:14 is a parenthetical statement, or interpretation, that
analyzes the AMEYHWH ... It is POSSIBLE to read Exodus 3:15 as the
immediate continuation of Exodus 3:13."[23] This view also has much to commend

99. it. If correct, then this analysis, offered by Ellison, is legitimate: "Exodus 3:14 is an
affirmation of God's inscrutability, into whose being man cannot penetrate, and
possibly including a rebuke to Moses for asking this question!"[24]
Whatever God said to Moses here, he went right on using the same old names for
God, without any change whatever. The only new thing to come out of the passage
was that pointed out by the Christ (Matthew 22:32) who made God's "I AM" here
to be an affirmation of His eternal being, containing also a promise of the
resurrection of the dead!
Rawlinson thought that the purpose of Moses' question was to procure the
individual, specific, personal name for God, in the sense that Dagon was the god of
the Philistines, or that Molech was a god of the old Canaanites. If that was indeed
what Moses wanted, he certainly never received it.
"More has been written in the past two centuries on this section than upon any
other comparable portion of Exodus."[25] and along with Exodus 6:2ff, it has been
made the starting POI T for all kinds of reconstructions regarding religion, and for
breeding all kinds of new ideas about the sources of Genesis! We have seen enough
here to cast the gravest doubts upon all such irresponsible postulations.
COKE, "Exodus 3:13. Shall say to me, What is his name? &c.— Bishop Warburton
judiciously observes, that "at this time, so great was the degeneracy of the Israelites
in Egypt, and so sensible was Moses of its effects, in ignorance of, or alienation
from, the true God, that he would willingly have declined the office; and, when
absolutely commanded to undertake it, he desired that God would let him know, by
what AME he would be called, when the people should ask the name of the God of
their fathers. In which we see a people, not only lost to all knowledge of the U ITY,
(for the asking for a name necessarily implied their opinion of a plurality,) but
likewise possessed with the very spirit of Egyptian idolatry. The religion of AMES
was a matter of great consequence in Egypt: it was one of their essential
superstitions: it was one of their native inventions; and the first of them which they
communicated to the Greeks. A AME was so peculiar an adjunct to a local,
tutelary deity, that we see, by a passage quoted by Lactantius, from the spurious
BOOKS of Trismegist, (which, however, abounded with Egyptian notions and
superstitions,) that the one Supreme God had no name, or title of distinction.
Zechariah, evidently alluding to these notions, when he prophesies of the worship of
the Supreme God, unmixed with idolatry, says, in that day shall there be one Lord,
and HIS AME O E, Zechariah 14:9. Out of indulgence, therefore, to this
weakness, God was pleased to give himself a AME. And God said unto Moses, I
AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM
hath sent me unto you: where we may observe, according to the constant method of
Divine Wisdom, when it condescends to the prejudices of men, how, in the very
instance of indulgence to their superstition, he gives a corrective of it. The religion of
names arose from an idolatrous polytheism; and the AMEhere given, which
implies eternity and self-existence, directly opposeth that superstition."

100. LA GE, "Exodus 3:13. It is very significant, that Moses, first of all, desires, in
behalf of his mission, and, we may say, in behalf of his whole future religious
system, to know definitely the name of God. The name, God, even in the form of El
Shaddai, was too general for the new relation into which the Israelites were to enter,
as a people alongside of the other nations which all had their own deities. Though he
was the only God, yet it was necessary for him to have a name of specific
significance for Israel; and though the name Jehovah was already known by them,
still it had not yet its unique significance, as the paternal name of God first acquired
its meaning in the ew Testament, and the word “justification,” at the Reformation.
Moses, therefore, implies that he can liberate the people only in the name of God;
that he must bring to them the religion of their fathers in a new phase. ‫ם‬ֵ‫שׁ‬ expresses
not solely “the objective manifestation of the divine essence” [Keil], but rather the
human apprehension of it. The objective manifestation cannot in itself be
desecrated, as the name of God can be.
PULPIT, "What is his name? It is not at all clear why Moses should suppose that
the Israelites would ask him this question, nor does it even appear that they did ask
it. Perhaps, however, he thought that, as the Egyptians used the word "god,"
generically, and had a special name for each particular god—as Ammon, Phthah,
Ra, Mentu, Her, Osiris, and the like—when he told his people of "the God of their
fathers," they would conclude that he, too, had a proper name, and would wish to
know it. The Egyptians set much store by the names of their gods, which in every
ease had a meaning. Ammen was "the concealed (god)," Phthah, "the revealer,"
Ra,"the swift," etc. Hitherto Israel's God had had no name that could be called a
proper name more than any other. He had been known as "El," "The High;"
"Shad-dai," "The Strong;" and "Jehovah," "The Existent;" but these terms had all
been felt to be descriptive epithets, and none of them had passed as yet into a proper
name. What was done at this time, by the authority of God himself, was to select
from among the epithets one to be distinctly a proper name, and at the same time to
explain its true meaning as something more than "The Existent"—as really "The
Alone Existent"—the source of all existence. Henceforth this name, which had
previously been but little used and perhaps less understood, predominated over
every other, was cherished by the Jews themselves as a sacred treasure, and
recognised by those around them as the proper appellation of the one and only God
whom the Israelites worshipped. It is found in this sense on the Moabite stone, in the
fragments of Philo-Byblius, and elsewhere.
GREAT TEXTS, "The Eternal ame
And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and
shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall
say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses,
I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I

101. AM hath sent me unto you.—Exo_3:13-14.
A new day was dawning for Israel—the day of exodus—the era of national
development—in which each man was to have a part unknown before. ational
expansion always involves new views, new terms, fresh adjustments, and changed
ideals. And as Israel faced a new life, there was given a new view of God and new
terms were chosen for its definition.
The text suggests three things—
I. The ecessity for the ame.
II. The Meaning of the ame.
III. The Revelation in the ame.
I
The ecessity for the ame
1. Why did Moses ask to know the name of God?—The reason, as the text tells us,
was not primarily to satisfy himself, but that he might possess credentials wherewith
he could approach this stubborn people. He had just been gazing at the burning
bush, and by that sight he had been taught that the place where God reveals Himself
is holy ground and that His presence should ever inspire reverence and holy fear.
God appeared to Moses with a message, and Moses was charged to deliver it.
Whereupon, overwhelmed by the commission, he urged: “But who am I that I
should go in to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the Children of Israel out of
Egypt?” Moses recognized his own insufficiency. Unless he could tell the Israelites
and Pharaoh in whose name he was sent, he knew that it would be useless to
undertake the commission.
The naming of an heir to a throne is regarded as not unworthy of debate and
argument by grave and aged ministers of State. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, on
succeeding to the throne, styled himself Edward vii., thus making an appeal to the
noblest traditions of the English past. It was with deliberate intention that the late
Emperor of Germany called himself Frederick William, and that his son, the present
Emperor, chose the name of William. So the assumption of a title by the Popes, who
at their accession to the tiara drop their own names, and choose a new one from
those borne by the first Bishops of the Roman See, is watched with great interest as
affording an indication of the probable policy and character of the coming
pontificate. It was with relief that the world heard Cardinal Ricci take the style of
Leo xiii., rather than that of Pius, or Gregory, or Clement, or Sixtus. o one can
imagine that the late Emperor of the French could have held his throne for sixteen
years had he, whose baptismal appellation was Louis apoleon, preferred to be
known as Louis xix., instead of apoleon iii.1 [ ote: C. C. Edmunds.]

102. 2. What did the commission of Moses mean?—The Israelites without faith could not
come near to God. Sinful as they were, they could not, if they dared, behold the
glory of God. They could not even behold the face of Moses when it shone with the
radiance of God’s glory; still less could they understand the revelation of God’s
loving, ever-abiding presence which He vouchsafed to His true servant. This, then,
was the commission given to Moses first of all—to interpret God—in so far as he
could understand and interpret the incomprehensible—to this faithless people.
When the people of Israel crowded for the first time into the House of God which
Solomon had reared, the king, on bended knees and with uplifted hands, exclaimed:
“Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee, how much less this
house which I have builded.” It is the spirit in which the Infinite should ever be
approached by the finite. As no space can enclose Him, so no name can contain Him.
Human speech, which can clothe the things of man in pompous attire, is poor,
ragged, and beggarly when brought near the throne of God. Even the holy angels,
whose faculties have never been beclouded by sin, and who know the nearest and
fullest revelations of God, bow before the Ineffable Unknown, the Unutterable One.
Our words, then, which only glance superficially at earthly things and never reach
their depths, how can they fitly describe or contain the Infinite, the Holy God, in
whom is all fulness of perfection, whom we have never seen, and whom by faith
alone we approach?1 [ ote: R. V. Pryce.]
3. To interpret God in any degree a name is necessary.— o name indeed can ever
set God forth, yet some name we must have. Accordingly we revere the name of God
as well as God Himself, and say: “Hallowed be thy name”; for though the name is
only a name, as in any other case, yet it sets before us what no other name can—it
sets before us a living God.
My father named me after Boardman, that dauntless hero who preceded Judson in
missionary work among the Karens. When I was old enough I read the history of
the struggles, sufferings, and achievements of that brave young man. His name,
which I so unworthily bear, has been to my soul an abiding and unfailing
inspiration. Luther, Calvin, Knox, Bunyan, and Carey were long ago gathered to
their fathers; but the power of their names is still invoked wherever Christian
workmen need a higher courage, a steadier purpose, and a more fervent zeal. But
there is a name above every name—a name which is reconstructing our disordered
planet, re-creating our fallen and ruined humanity, and which stands everywhere
for the sweetest charities of earth, the synonym of the purest life, and the symbol of
the highest civilization; a name which carries healing to the wounded, rest to the
weary, pardon to the guilty, and salvation to the lost; a name which makes the dark
gateway of the tomb the portal to a temple resplendent with the glory of celestial
light, where the music of golden harps by angels’ fingers touched is ineffable and
eternal.2 [ ote: J. B. Hawthorne.]
II
The Meaning of the ame

103. 1. It is probable that the name Yahweh was not new to Moses or the Israelites. An
entirely new name would have meant to them an entirely new God. It is extremely
unlikely that the name is of Babylonian origin. If the supposed traces of it in
Babylonian literature are genuine, they only point to the introduction of foreign (i.e.
Western Semitic) cults. Some maintain that the name is found as an element in early
orth Syrian proper names. But, if so, this only implies that the name became
known to Semitic tribes other than the Israelites.
The ultimate etymology of the name is quite uncertain. The primary meaning of
hawah was perhaps “to fall” (cf. Job_37:6, hwç’,? “fall thou”), which is found also
in Arabic. Hence some explain “Yahweh” as “He who causes rain or lightning to
fall”; or “He who causes to fall (overthrows) by lightning”, i.e. the Destroyer. In this
case Yahweh in primitive Semitic times would be somewhat equivalent to the
Assyrian Adad or Ramman. It is quite possible that the name Yahweh may in the
far past have had a physical meaning, and have been a product of nature-worship.1
[ ote: A. H. Mc eile.]
2. Hebrew writings tell us much as to the character and attributes of the God of the
Old Testament, yet the exact meaning which the writer of Exo_3:14 attached to the
name Yahweh is far from clear. Yahweh, however, may be considered as (1)
causative imperfect of hawah, “to be,” which would express “He who causes to
be”—either the Creator or the Life-giver, or “He who brings to pass”—the
Performer of His promises. But an objection to this interpretation is that this tense
of the verb is found only in late Syriac. (2) The ordinary imperfect of hawah, “to
be.” The Hebrew imperfect denotes either habitual action, or future action, and
therefore can be translated either “He who is,” or “He who will be.” The name “He
who is” represents to modern thought the conception of an absolute existence—the
unchangeable, self-consistent, absolutely existing One. And this has been adopted by
many writers both in ancient and modern times. But the early Hebrew mind was
essentially practical, not metaphysical. Professor A. B. Davidson (in Hastings’
Dictionary of the Bible, ii. 199b) says that the verb “does not mean ‘to be’ essentially
or ontologically, but phenomenally.” He explains it as follows: “It seems evident that
in the view of the writer ’ehyeh and yahweh are the same; that God is ’ehyeh, ‘I will
be,’ when speaking of Himself, and yahweh, ‘He will be,’ when spoken of by others.
What He will be is left unexpressed—He will be with them, helper, strengthener,
deliverer”; the word is explained by the “I will be with thee,” of Exo_3:12.
Among other interpretations Davidson’s is the most attractive. The passage receives
a simple and beautiful explanation if the expression, “I will be what I will be,” is
taken as an instance of the idem per idem idiom, which a speaker employs when he
does not wish to be explicit. Moses asked for God’s name, i.e. for a description of
His nature and character (cf. Gen_32:29; Jdg_13:17 f.); and he was taught that it
was impossible to learn this all at once. God would be what He would from time to
time prove to be; each age would discover fresh attributes of His Being.1 [ ote: A.
H. Mc eile.]

104. 3. The new name of God was no academic subtlety, no metaphysical refinement of
the Schools, unfitly revealed to slaves, but a most practical and inspiring truth, a
conviction to warm their blood, to rouse their courage, to convert their despair into
confidence and their alarms into defiance. They had the support of a God worthy of
trust. And thenceforth every answer in righteousness, every new disclosure of
fidelity, tenderness, love, was not an abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of
a capricious despot; no, its import was permanent as an observation of the stars by
an astronomer, ever more to be remembered in calculating the movements of the
universe. In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient
days, as being He who “cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon.” “I am the Lord, I
change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”
Therefore I trust, although to outward sense
Both true and false seem shaken; I will hold
With newer light my reverence for the old,
And calmly wait the births of Providence.
o gain is lost; the clear-eyed saints look down
Untroubled on the wreck of schemes and creeds;
Love yet remains, its rosary of good deeds
Counting in task-field and o’er peopled town;
Truth has charmed life! the Inward Word survives,
And, day by day, its revelation brings;
Faith, hope, and charity, whatsoever things
Which cannot be shaken, stand. Still holy lives
Reveal the Christ of whom the letter told,
And the new gospel verifies the old.2 [ ote: J. G. Whittier.]
4. Two thoughts are evidently contained in the ame.
(1) There is the thought, first, of the permanence of God. We have often heard an
expression concerning the “Great I Am,” as if, in popular esteem, it involved only
the thought of self-sufficiency; that God is complete in Himself, having no real need
of others to augment His pleasure or to complete His world; that He rules alone,
absolute Master and Dictator of everything, and in no way bound to listen to any

105. earthly voice or make change in the operation of ordinary laws or sequences. But
that is not the idea He was giving to Moses. It is all that some men claim to see in
Him, and so they ignore Him and live alone. God had come to each of the old
Hebrew saints, being to each of them what He was not to the others, and yet being
the complete answer to the needs and aspirations of all. And it was in just this sense
that He wanted to come into touch with the individual lives of His people through all
succeeding time. Along with the spirit of adaptability which would make Him of
value to each life, regardless of its eccentricities, was to go the thought of
permanency. He lives perpetually in the present tense. “I AM,” is His name. We live,
so often, in other tenses. Some of us in the past, perhaps, when life was serener and
we had other difficulties to combat; a past for which we long, because it was easier
and more triumphant. Or, perhaps, we are living in the future, and feeling that all
the blessedness of God’s presence will be given to us then. This is the view that so
many of us get, of a God who is to be ours by and by, when we shall have struggled
through the world by dint of hard endeavour and have saved our souls—that the
vision of God will be ours when heaven begins. But the personal presence, personal
co-operation, personal blessing, is to be ours all through the years.
(2) But there is a thought here, also, as to the permanence of life. Our Saviour
quoted this text and gave such emphasis to His interpretation that St. Matthew, St.
Mark, and St. Luke have noted it. St. Matthew quotes Him as saying: “But as
touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto
you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Christ emphasizes the
eternal presence, and means us to note the tense. There is no statement which
suggests that the personal relation of God to these men was merely a matter of
history—that it is entirely a thing of the past. Every past moment was once present,
and so the statement of this perpetual presence reaches back into the past. But every
future moment will at some time be present, and the eternal presence reaches
forward through all coming time.
One of the later scientific reinforcements of the philosophic argument for
immortality has been drawn from the principle of continuity. This principle has
been used by the authors of the Unseen Universe as the basis for the construction of
an elaborate argument for the continuation of our life after death; and still further,
with the help of other admitted physical truths, they have sought to render
conceivable the possibility of another sphere of existence connected with this, yet
superior to it, in which we have now our spiritual birthright, and into which after
death our life shall without personal loss be transformed. According to this view,
death would become a transference of individual existence from this visible universe
to some other order of things intimately connected with it. The conclusion of their
reasonings with regard to life in its connection with matter, they have expressed in
this sentence: “In fine, we maintain that what we are driven to is not an under-life
resident in the atom, but rather, to adopt the words of a recent writer, a Divine
over-life in which we live and move and have our being.”
5. As the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God was built up

106. slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation which ensured the stability
of all, until the Head Stone of the Corner gave completeness to the vast design, until
men saw and could believe in the very Incarnation of all love, unshaken amid
anguish and distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious, while they heard
from human lips the awful words, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they learned
to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new and more pathetic
revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake grew strong as he remembered
that the Man of Sorrows was the same yesterday and to-day and for ever; and the
great apostle, prostrate before the glory of his Master, was restored by the touch of
a human hand, and by the voice of Him upon whose bosom he had leaned, saying,
Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One.
The mysterious “I AM” who spake to Moses is the same “I am,” the ever-existent
Christ, who speaks to us. He whom we adore as submitting to death was the Lord of
Life. He whom men treated with such indignity was the Lord, the Creator of angels.
He whom men falsely and unjustly judged was the Judge of quick and dead, the sole
executor of judgment, for it is said by Him, that the Father judgeth no man, but
hath committed all judgment unto the Son. He, the “I AM” who thus, as recorded in
Exodus, at the bush, spake to Moses, and declared His intention of redeeming His
people from Egyptian bondage, now redeemed them from another and far worse
bondage, not by plaguing their oppressors, and physically destroying them, but by
submitting Himself on their behalf, first to ignominy and tortures, and then to
death. ot by power, not by might, but by My Spirit—the Spirit of love, meekness,
gentleness, goodness—not by superhuman power, but by superhuman humility.
“Thou art the king of glory, O Christ: thou art the Everlasting Son of the Father:
when thou tookest upon thee to deliver man thou didst not abhor the virgin’s womb;
when thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death thou didst open the kingdom of
heaven to all believers.”
III
The Revelation in the ame
1. When God wants a man to do some good and useful work, He gives him a fresh
thought about Himself, His character, and His purposes, a thought which tells him
what He is, what He has done, what He is now doing, and what He wills to be done;
and by that thought He not only illumines his mind, but also feeds his faith, sustains
his patience, and fires his zeal, so that though he may never set foot in the land of
promise, yets he keeps on, steadfastly climbing the slopes of Pisgah, and from its
heights catches cheering glimpses of the lengthening issues of his toil.
Somehow the revelation comes! You see it written on the sheet let down from heaven
to the startled gaze of the sleeper on the house-top at Joppa, assuring him that the
creative energy of God cleanses all His work of commonness and makes it full of
meaning and beauty; that He condemns the narrowness that would shut out from
His infinite love any Cornelius who fears God and works righteousness, and that
therefore prejudiced and reluctant Peter must initiate a new era in the religious

107. thought and life of the world.
It comes to the perplexed Augustine, as, with wearied brain and agitated soul, eager
to find pardon for his sin and freedom from the tyranny of his youthful lusts, he
wanders in the gardens of his friend Alypius, at Tagaste, and says to him, “Tolle
lege; tolle lege!” “Take and read; take and read!” And forthwith he opens the ew
Testament and reads the closing verses of Romans 13 and at once dedicates himself
to the life of purity revealed in Jesus Christ.
Somehow it comes. See how it haunts the soul of Martin Luther, filling his youth
with awe and firing it with the passion for holiness. Constraining him to listen to the
spiritual counsels of Stanfutz, then goading him to undertake the pilgrimage to
Rome, where, as he climbs “the holy staircase,” he swiftly learns that God does not
require men to crawl up the “Scala Santa” repeating hollow phrases, but to accept
His free forgiveness, and from the impulse it gives follow after that holiness without
which no man can see the Lord. It comes to John Wesley from the Moravians, and
makes him glad with a new joy and strong with a new power. It comes to Dr. Clarke
as he meditates on the needs of the churches, and guides him in creating that latest
and most effective instrument, the Christian Endeavour movement, for the training
and culture of the young in robust godliness, fervent piety, and fruitful service to
mankind.
2. Wherein lay the strength of this revelation of God to Moses?
(1) First, it identified God with the work he was given to do. It asserted, in effect,
that it was a part of His work, belonged to God, and partook of His eternity; did not
depend primarily upon the worker, but upon God Himself. The man was but as a
cog in the mighty wheel of the progress of the world; a tool in the hands of the
infinite. In that is security. Moses had lived in the midst of whirling change, and
inherited a past crowded with trouble and sorrow. His own fortunes had passed
through the splendours of a court, the privations of the desert and the anxieties of
the criminal; but now, as he faced the responsibilities of leadership, it was with the
assurance that God, the God of Abraham, his father’s God, endured, that He was
the Eternal, the one fixed centre in a wide circle of ceaseless vicissitude, the “I am
that I am”; and as He was, so was His work. Therefore the heart of Moses was fixed,
trusting in the Lord, and he went to his task, body, soul, and spirit, with faith and
insight, hope and endurance. He saw not the fleeting forms of service, but God’s
invisible Israel, the regenerate future of humanity, the gold separated from the
dross in the fires of trial, and man redeemed, ending triumphant over every
obstacle, and feasting on the bounty of God.
Where ordinary men see a stone and nothing more, the genius of Michael Angelo
beholds an angel before hammer or chisel has touched it. To the eye of his
companions John ewton is a drunken, swearing sailor; but God sees in him the
redeemed, re-made, messenger of love and mercy. The people of Elstree see no more
than a tinker, living a loose, irregular life, in John Bunyan; God sees the dreamer of
the pilgrim journey from the City of Destruction to the land of Beulah. The call of

108. God is so fraught with revelations of the possibilities of men and of man in God, that
those who hear it go forth to their work with an unquenchable hopefulness and an
all-subduing zeal.
Blind souls, who say that Love is blind;
He only sees aright;
His only are the eyes that find
The spirit’s central light.
He lifts—while others grope and pry—
His gaze serene and far;
And they but see a waste of sky
Where Love can see the Star.
(2) When a man feels that his work is God’s rather than his own, he is raised at once
to the loftiest ranges of power by the development of his humility. The maximum of
human force for any work is never reached till we are self-oblivious, absorbed in
our task, heedless of ourselves and all besides, except the mission we have to carry
out. At this height men are simply irresistible, for they are one with God’s eternal
purpose and almighty power.
Ruskin says: “I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not
mean by humility doubt of his own power, hesitation of speaking his opinions, but a
right understanding of the relation of what he can do and say to the rest of the
world’s doings and sayings. All great men not only know their business, but usually
know that they know it; they are not only right in their main opinions, but they
usually know that they are right in them; only they do not think much of themselves
on that account.… They have a curious sense of powerlessness, feeling that the
greatness is not in them, but through them—that they could not do or be anything
else than God made them; and they see something Divine and God-made in every
man they meet, and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” Kipling pictures
the artist at the supreme moment of his success as realizing that his work is due, not
to his own genius, but to a power that is working in him and through him. This is
our strength. God works in us, to work not only our own, but also the world’s
salvation.
Whither away, O brawling Stream,
Whither away so fast?

109. Fleeing for life and death you seem.
Speak, as you hasten past
Answered the Brook, with a pompous roar,
Tossing its creamy foam,
“I go, my flood in the Main to pour—
Listen, O Sea, I come!”
Whither away, O River deep,
Gliding so slow and calm?
Your gentle current seems half asleep,
And chanting a drowsy psalm.
Answered the River, with whisper low,
Swaying her lilies fair;
“Down to the measureless Sea I go—
The Sea will not know I am there.”1 [ ote: Augusta Moore, in Scribner’s Monthly,
xiii. 30.]
(3) But the tenderest and strongest element in the new thought of God given to
Moses is that God is the Redeemer, and is coming down to the lowest levels of the
suffering life of Israel to save the people from all their troubles and raise them up to
share His own life in its peace and joy for evermore. That is the sum of all God’s
speech to us. Out of the burning bush comes the revelation of the Cross. God is
Himself at the centre of the fires that burn humanity; He is afflicted in all our
afflictions; He shares our lot so that He may redeem us from all our iniquities.2
[ ote: John Clifford.]
A living God means an active Redeemer. This is the interpretation of God which
Moses is to set before the people. God chooses Moses to go and speak to Pharaoh on

110. Israel’s behalf. He will be a Pillar of Fire, giving light by which an untrained,
unarmed nation of hereditary bondsmen will see the way out of Egypt. He will, in
the meek and slow-tongued Moses, confound the arrogance and assumption of the
magicians of a mighty Empire. “Tell them that ‘I AM’ hath sent thee. Let them
know that I have heard their cry. Say to the elders that ‘I have visited you.’ Tell
them that certainly I will be with thee, and ye shall serve God in this mountain.”1
[ ote: J. G. Gibson.]
3. The credentials which God gave to Moses are the same as Christ gave to His
Church. But how often we are loth to go without better credentials than these! And
yet what better could we have? “As my Father sent Me into the world, even so have
I also sent them into the world.” As we look upon the seething chaos of social
hopelessness, we feel it to be well-nigh impossible to do anything great—we are so
feeble, and in nature so insufficient. We feel much as Elijah did when he bent in
abject despair at the brook: “I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life to take it
away.” Considered numerically, what prospect is there that the few millions of
aggressive Christians will ever win over the hundreds of millions who are at present
almost altogether out of sympathy with the objects of the Christian religion? Surely
all our ferment and prayer and testimony, our martyrdom and love and self-
sacrificing thought are thrown away! We are only men as they are, and must be
borne down at last by numbers!
A tiny volume of gas is not distinguishable from the gases we call air about it. But
give to that gas in its tiny volume heat, and it becomes incandescent; and so long as
gas remains with air about it, that flame gives light, in darkness ever so dense. One
tiny volume enlightens many thousands of times its own space of air, because that
very burning has taken place in connexion with it. So, though dark the social night
in which we shine, our Gospel will be approved. We are Messengers of the King of
Light, in whom is no darkness at all, and our presence is omnipotent for good, so
long as He goes with us.1 [ ote: J. G. Gibson.]
CO STABLE, "Verses 13-22
Moses" fear that the Israelite elders would not accept him is understandable (
Exodus 3:13). God had not revealed Himself to His people for over400 years. When
Moses asked how he should answer the Israelites" question, "What is His name?"
he was asking how he could demonstrate to them that their God had sent him.
"According to the conception prevailing in the ancient East, the designation of an
entity was to be equated, as it were, with its existence: whatever is without an
appellation does not exist, but whatever has a denomination has existence." [ ote:
Cassuto, pp36-37.]
"The question contains both a request for information and an explanation of its
significance. There are two aspects of the one question. Clearly the people want to
know more about God"s intention. By requesting his name, they seek to learn his
new relationship to them. Formerly he related to them as the God of the Fathers.

111. What will he be to Israel now?" [ ote: Childs, p75.]
"What Moses asks, then, has to do with whether God can accomplish what he is
promising. What is there in his reputation (see umbers 6:27; Deuteronomy 12:5;
Deuteronomy 12:11; Deuteronomy 16:2-6; Psalm 8:1; Psalm 74:7; Amos 5:8; Amos
9:5-6; Jeremiah 33:2) that lends credibility to the claim in his call? How, suddenly,
can he be expected to deal with a host of powerful Egyptian deities against whom,
across so many years, he has apparently won no victory for his people?" [ ote:
Durham, p38.]
God"s name expressed His nature and actions ( Exodus 3:14-15). The Israelites
would ask for proof that the God of their fathers was with Moses. God explained the
name by which He made Himself known to Abraham ( Genesis 15:7).
"The repetition of the same word [I am] suggests the idea of uninterrupted
continuance and boundless duration." [ ote: Keil and Delitzsch, 1:442-43.]
Yet it means more than this.
"To the Hebrew "to be" does not just mean to exist as all other beings and things do
as well-but to be active, to express oneself in active being, "The God who acts." "I
am what in creative activity and everywhere I turn out to be," or "I am (the God)
that really acts."" [ ote: Sigmund Mowinckel, "The ame of the God of Moses,"
Hebrew Union College Annual32 (1961):127.]
"I am that I am" means "God will reveal Himself in His actions through history."
[ ote: Charles Gianotti, "The Meaning of the Divine ame YHWH," Bibliotheca
Sacra142:565 (January-March1985):45.]
Other translations are, "I will be what I will be," "I am the existing One," and "I
cause to be what comes to pass." [ ote: Johnson, pp54-55.] One writer paraphrased
God"s answer, "It is I who am with you." [ ote: Cassuto, p38.] In other words, the
one who had promised to be with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
had sent Moses to them.
"The answer Moses receives is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a name. It is
an assertion of authority, a confession of an essential reality, and thus an entirely
appropriate response to the question Moses poses." [ ote: Durham, p38.]
Moses had asked, "Who am I?" implying his complete inadequacy for his calling.
God replied, "I am who I am!" implying His complete adequacy. The issue was not
who Moses was but who God is. I believe God meant, I am the God of your
forefathers who proved myself long ago as completely adequate for all their needs,
so it really doesn"t matter who you are, Moses. Moses would learn the complete
adequacy of God Himself in the events that followed. Later, Pharaoh would say,
"Who is the LORD?" ( Exodus 5:2), and God"s response was, "I am the LORD!" (
Exodus 6:2; Exodus 6:6; Exodus 6:8). Pharaoh, too, then learned God"s complete

112. adequacy. The real issue, then, was, and Isaiah , who God is.
This is the first reference to the elders of Israel ( Exodus 3:16). [ ote: See Leslie
Hoppe, "Elders and Deuteronomy ," Eglise et Theologie14 (1983):259-72.] The
elders were the leaders of the various groups of Israelites.
God told Moses to request Pharaoh"s permission for the Israelites to leave Egypt (
Exodus 3:18).
"The sequel shows that there was no element of deceit in the request for "a three
days" journey into the wilderness," i.e, right out of contact with the Egyptian
frontier guards. Pharaoh knew perfectly well that this implied no return; indeed,
since Israel was a tolerated alien people, he would have no claim on their return,
once they had left his territory." [ ote: H. L. Ellison, Exodus , p22.]
"Moses" demand for complete freedom, though couched in polite words, is there
from the start." [ ote: R. Alan Cole, Exodus: An Introduction and Commentery,
p72.]
The signs God proceeded to give Moses would demonstrate to the Israelites that
their God was again actively working for them ( Exodus 3:20; cf. Exodus 4:2-9).
God told Moses that the Israelites would believe him ( Exodus 3:18).
Probably there were several reasons the Israelites were to ask their Egyptian
neighbors for jewelry and clothing ( Exodus 3:22). By doing Song of Solomon , they
would humiliate the Egyptians further. They would also obtain articles needed for
the wilderness march and the construction of the tabernacle. Moreover they would
receive partial payment for the labor the Egyptians had stolen from them during
their years of slavery (cf. Deuteronomy 15:12-15).
The writer stated God"s sovereignty over Pharaoh in Exodus 3:14-22. God
demonstrated it in the plagues that followed (chs5-11). [ ote: See ibid, pp19-40 , for
an exposition of the character of God as revealed in Exodus.]
"With the name "Yahweh" revealed and explained and with the proof of this
explanation illustrated, at least in prospect, Moses can have no further question
about God"s authority. The narrative deals next with Moses" own authority, and
how that is to be made clear." [ ote: Durham, p41.]
14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is
what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has

113. sent me to you.’”
BAR ES, "I am that I am - That is, “I am what I am.” The words express absolute,
and therefore unchanging and eternal Being. The name, which Moses was thus
commissioned to use, was at once new and old; old in its connection with previous
revelations; new in its full interpretation, and in its bearing upon the covenant of which
Moses was the destined mediator.
CLARKE, "I am that I am - ‫אהיה‬ ‫אשר‬ ‫אהיה‬ Eheyeh asher Eheyeh. These words have
been variously understood. The Vulgate translates Ego Sum Qui Sum, I am who am. The
Septuagint, Εγω ειµι ᆇ ν, I am he who exists. The Syriac, the Persic, and the Chaldee
preserve the original words without any gloss. The Arabic paraphrases them, The
Eternal, who passes not away; which is the same interpretation given by Abul Farajius,
who also preserves the original words, and gives the above as their interpretation. The
Targum of Jonathan, and the Jerusalem Targum paraphrase the words thus: “He who
spake, and the world was; who spake, and all things existed.” As the original words
literally signify, I will be what I will be, some have supposed that God simply designed to
inform Moses, that what he had been to his fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he would
be to him and the Israelites; and that he would perform the promises he had made to his
fathers, by giving their descendants the promised land. It is difficult to put a meaning on
the words; they seem intended to point out the eternity and self-existence of God. Plato,
in his Parmenides, where he treats sublimely of the nature of God, says, Ουδ’ αρα ονοµα
εστιν αυτሩ, nothing can express his nature; therefore no name can be attributed to him.
See the conclusion of this chapter, Exo_3:22 (note) and on the word Jehovah, Exo_34:6
(note), Exo_34:7 (note).
GILL, "And God said unto Moses, I am that I am,.... This signifies the real being
of God, his self-existence, and that he is the Being of beings; as also it denotes his
eternity and immutability, and his constancy and faithfulness in fulfilling his promises,
for it includes all time, past, present, and to come; and the sense is, not only I am what I
am at present, but I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I
am. The Platonists and Pythagoreans seem to have borrowed their το ον from hence,
which expresses with them the eternal and invariable Being; and so the Septuagint
version here is ο ων: it is said (z), that the temple of Minerva at Sais, a city of Egypt, had
this inscription on it,"I am all that exists, is, and shall be.''And on the temple of Apollo at
Delphos was written ει, the contraction of ειµι, "I am" (a). Our Lord seems to refer to this
name, Joh_8:58, and indeed is the person that now appeared; and the words may be
rendered, "I shall be what I shall be" (b) the incarnate God, God manifest in the flesh:
thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you;

114. or as the Targum of Jonathan has it,"I am he that is, and that shall be.''This is the name
Ehjeh, or Jehovah, Moses is empowered to make use of, and to declare, as the name of
the Great God by whom he was sent; and which might serve both to encourage him, and
strengthen the faith of the Israelites, that they should be delivered by him.
HE RY, " God readily gives him full instructions in this matter. Two names God
would now be known by: -
1. A name that denotes what he is in himself (Exo_3:14): I am that I am. This explains
his name Jehovah, and signifies, (1.) That he is self-existent; he has his being of himself,
and has no dependence upon any other: the greatest and best man in the world must say,
By the grace of God I am what I am; but God says absolutely - and it is more than any
creature, man or angel, can say - I am that I am. Being self-existent, he cannot but be
self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and
bliss. (2.) That he is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, today,
and for ever; he will be what he will be and what he is; see Rev_1:8. (3.) That we cannot
by searching find him out. This is such a name as checks all bold and curious enquiries
concerning God, and in effect says, Ask not after my name, seeing it is secret, Jdg_
13:18; Pro_30:4. Do we ask what is God? Let it suffice us to know that he is what he is,
what he ever was, and ever will be. How little a portion is heard of him! Job_26:14. (4.)
That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his
nature, and not a man that he should lie. Let Israel know this, I AM hath sent me unto
you.
CALVI , "14.I am that I am. The verb in the Hebrew is in the future tense, “I will
be what I will be;” but it is of the same force as the present, except that it designates
the perpetual duration of time. This is very plain, that God attributes to himself
alone divine glory, because he is self-existent and therefore eternal; and thus gives
being and existence to every creature. or does he predicate of himself anything
common, or shared by others; but he claims for himself eternity as peculiar to God
alone, in order that he may be honored according to his dignity. Therefore,
immediately afterwards, contrary to grammatical usage, he used the same verb in
the first person as a substantive, annexing it to a verb in the third person; that our
minds may be filled with admiration as often as his incomprehensible essence is
mentioned. But although philosophers discourse in grand terms of this eternity, and
Plato constantly affirms that God is peculiarly τὸ ὄν (the Being); yet they do not
wisely and properly apply this title, viz., that this one and only Being of God absorbs
all imaginable essences; and that, thence, at the same time, the chief power and
government of all things belong to him. For from whence come the multitude of false
gods, but from impiously tearing the divided Deity into pieces by foolish
imaginations? Wherefore, in order rightly to apprehend the one God, we must first
know, that all things in heaven and earth derive (43) at His will their essence, or
subsistence from One, who only truly is. From this Being all power is derived;
because, if God sustains all things by his excellency, he governs them also at his will.
And how would it have profited Moses to gaze upon the secret essence of God, as if
it were shut up in heaven, unless, being assured of his omnipotence, he had obtained
from thence the buckler of his confidence? Therefore God teaches him that He alone
is worthy of the most holy name, which is profaned when improperly transferred to
others; and then sets forth his inestimable excellency, that Moses may have no doubt

115. of overcoming all things under his guidance. We will consider in the sixth chapter
the name of Jehovah, of which this is the root.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said,
Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
Ver. 14. I AM THAT I AM.] Heb., I will be that I will be. The Septuagint render it
Eγω ειµι ο ων, I am He that is. Agreeably hereunto, Plato calleth God το ον and το
ον οντως. This name of God is fully opened in Revelation 16:5. It imports two of
God’s incommunicable attributes: (1.) His eternity, when he saith, I will be; ( 2.) His
immutability, when he saith, That I will be. As Pilate said, "What I have written, I
have written"; I will not alter it. But how far out was Paulus Burgensis in denying
Ehich to be any of God’s names? (a) Whether Aph-hu [2 Kings 2:14] be one, is far
more questionable.
ELLICOTT, "(14) I AM THAT I AM.—It is generally assumed that this is given to
Moses as the full name of God. But perhaps it is rather a deep and mysterious
statement of His nature. “I am that which I am.” My nature, i.e., cannot be declared
in words, cannot be conceived of by human thought. I exist in such sort that my
whole inscrutable nature is implied in my existence. I exist, as nothing else does—
necessarily, eternally, really. If I am to give myself a name expressive of my nature,
so far as language can be, let me be called “I AM.”
Tell them I AM hath sent me unto you.—I AM, assumed as a name, implies (1) an
existence different from all other existence. “I am, and there is none beside me”
(Isaiah 45:6); (2) an existence out of time, with which time has nothing to do (John
8:58); (3), an existence that is real, all other being shadowy; (4) an independent and
unconditioned existence, from which all other is derived, and on which it is
dependent.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:14. God said — Two names God would be known by: 1st, A
name that speaks what he is in himself, I AM THAT I AM. The Septuagint renders
the words ειµι ο ων, I AM the existing Being, or HE WHO IS and the Chaldee, I
AM HE WHO IS, and WHO WILL BE. That is, I am He that enjoys an essential,
independent, immutable, and necessary existence, He that IS, and WAS, and IS TO
COME. It explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1st, That he is self- existent: he
has his being of himself, and has no dependance on any other. And being self-
existent, he cannot but be self-sufficient, and therefore all-sufficient, and the
inexhaustible fountain of being and blessedness. 2d, That he is eternal and
unchangeable: the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. For the words are with
equal propriety rendered, I WILL BE WHAT I AM, or, I AM WHAT I WILL BE,
or, I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. Other beings are, and have been, and shall be;
but because what they have been might have been otherwise, and what they are
might possibly not have been at all, and what they shall be may be very different
from what now is therefore their changeable, dependant, and precarious essence,
which to-day may be one thing, to- morrow another thing, and the next day possibly
nothing at all, scarce deserves the name of being. There is another consideration

116. which makes this name peculiarly applicable to God, namely that he is the fountain
of all being and perfection, and that from him all things have derived their
existence; so that it is he alone that has life in himself: and no creature, of whatever
rank or order, has so much as an existence of its own: For in him we live, and move,
and have our being. And though divers of God’s attributes are, through his
goodness, participated by his creatures, yet because they possess them in a way so
inferior to that transcendent, peculiar, and divine manner in which they belong to
God, the Scriptures seem absolutely to exclude created beings from any title to those
attributes.
Thus our Saviour says, There is none good but one, that is God. Thus St. Paul terms
God the only Potentate, though the earth be shared by several potentates; and the
only wise God, though many men and the holy angels are wise. And thus he
describes him as one who only hath immortality, although angels and human souls
are also immortal. In so incommunicable a manner does the superiority of God’s
nature make him possess those very excellences which the diffusiveness of his
goodness has induced him to communicate. 3d, That he is faithful and true to all his
promises, unchangeable in his word, as well as in his nature; and not a man that he
should lie. Let Israel know this; I AM hath sent me unto you.
COKE, "Exodus 3:14. God said unto Moses I AM THAT I AM:— It is very
reasonable to suppose, that the answer to the question of Moses, should contain such
an appellation, name, or account of God, as was applicable to the point in hand, and
would conduce to assure the Israelites of his intended deliverance of them from
bondage: but nothing of this kind, it must be confessed, appears from the passage,
as we render it. For, if I AM THAT I AM, according to the generality of
interpreters, refers to the incommunicable nature and self-existence of the Supreme
Being; this, doubtless, is a REASO for general acquiescence in HIS
PROVIDE CE, who exists for ever the same; but it could be no particular ground
of encouragement to the Israelites, whom this self-existing God had now left so
many years in servitude. There being these, and other reasonable objections to this
version and interpretation; we find, upon referring to the original, that the words,
literally rendered, have a different import: for ‫אהיה‬ ‫אשׁר‬ ‫אהיה‬ eheieh asher eheieh, is,
I will be whom I will be; ego is ero, qui olim futurus sum, (I will be he, who am from
old about to come,) says Houbigant, who observes, that, "as Moses, when he
inquired of God what was his name, desired to know in that AME of GOD, not a
bare appellation of syllables, but some reality, signified by the name of God; so God
answers his request, by I FORMI G him, that he will be the same, when he shall
deliver the people of Israel from Egypt, as he promised their fathers, Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, should hereafter come, and be the deliverer of mankind;
discovering that reality, from of old adumbrated or represented in the name
JEHOVAH: I will be whom I will be: the present, future, and everlasting Deliverer
of my people; who Is, and Was, and Is to come; the Saviour of all men from sin,
death, and hell: JESUS CHRIST, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. That the
AME of God is not intimated in these words, aeie asher aeie, the FOLLOWI G
verse shews; where we read, thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel,
JEHOVAH, the GOD of your fathers, (for so it should be rendered,) hath sent—this

117. is my AME for ever: the name of GOD being signified by the word ‫יהוה‬ iehovah, or
JEHOVAH." For further satisfaction on this point, we refer the learned reader to
Houbigant's own observations. The Chaldee renders it in the same manner; and
every reason of good criticism and connection confirms this interpretation; and
assures us, not only that these words refer to GOD the Deliverer and Saviour of his
people; but that the august and incommunicable name of JEHOVAH is derived
from the same SOURCE, and expressive of the same great truth. There are
innumerable passages, in which this name of JEHOVAH is applied to Christ: and,
therefore, if it express not, as we suppose, his office of Deliverer; it must, according
to the other interpretation given, express his ineffable and incommunicable essence.
That this Divine name JEHOVAH was well known to the Heathens, there can be no
doubt; as was that of ‫יה‬ iah, which, I conceive, immediately expresses the Divine
Essence; and is, certainly, not derived from the same source as Jehovah. The famous
inscription, Ei, thou art, on the temple of Apollo at Delphos, appears derived from
this name: and on the temple of Minerva at Sais in Egypt, it was written, I am all
that exists, that is, or shall be; and no mortal hath hitherto taken off my veil; which
is plainly deduced from this sacred name. See Parkhurst, and the Universal History,
vol. 2: where the authors have been copious on this subject.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:14
"Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things," says Emerson in his
essay on Spiritual Laws, "and the nature of things makes it prevalent. It consists in
a perpetual substitution of being for seeming, and with sublime propriety God is
described as saying I AM."
"I have been struck lately," wrote Erskine of Linlathen to Maurice, "by the
communication which God made to Moses at the Burning Bush. "I AM"—the
personal presence and address of God. o new truth concerning the character of
God is given; but Moses had met God Himself, and was then strengthened to meet
Pharaoh. There is one immense interval between "He" and "I"—between hearing
about God and hearing God. What an interval!" God hath not made a creature that
can comprehend Him; it is a privilege of His own nature: "I am that I am" was His
own definition to Moses; and it was a short one to confound mortality, that durst
question God, or ask Him what He was. Indeed, He only is; all others have and shall
be.
—Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, pt. i. sec2.
EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE COMME TARY, "A EW AME.
Exodus 3:14. Exodus 6:2-3.
"God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt thou say unto
the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you."
We cannot certainly tell why Moses asked for a new name by which to announce to

118. his brethren the appearance of God. He may have felt that the memory of their
fathers, and of the dealings of God with them, had faded so far out of mind that
merely to indicate their ancestral God would not sufficiently distinguish Him from
the idols of Egypt, whose worship had infected them.
If so, he was fully answered by a name which made this God the one reality, in a
world where all is a phantasm except what derives stability from Him.
He may have desired to know, for himself, whether there was any truth in the
dreamy and fascinating pantheism which inspired so much of the Egyptian
superstition.
In that case, the answer met his question by declaring that God existed, not as the
sum of things or soul of the universe, but in Himself, the only independent Being.
Or he may simply have desired some name to express more of the mystery of deity,
remembering how a change of name had accompanied new discoveries of human
character and achievement, as of Abraham and Israel; and expecting a new name
likewise when God would make to His people new revelations of Himself.
So natural an expectation was fulfilled not only then, but afterwards. When Moses
prayed "Show me, I pray Thee, Thy glory," the answer was "I will make all My
goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord." The
proclamation was again Jehovah, but not this alone. It was "The Lord, the Lord, a
God full of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and
truth" (Exodus 33:18-19, Exodus 34:6, R.V.) Thus the life of Moses, like the agelong
progress of the Church, advanced towards an ever-deepening knowledge that God is
not only the Independent but the Good. All sets toward the final knowledge that His
highest name is Love.
Meanwhile, in the development of events, the exact period was come for epithets,
which were shared with gods many and lords many, to be supplemented by the
formal announcement and authoritative adoption of His proper name Jehovah. The
infant nation was to learn to think of Him, not only as endowed with attributes of
terror and power, by which enemies would be crushed, but as possessing a certain
well-defined personality, upon which the trust of man could repose. Soon their
experience would enable them to receive the formal announcement that He was
merciful and gracious. But first they were required to trust His promise amid all
discouragements; and to this end, stability was the attribute first to be insisted upon.
It is true that the derivation of the word Jehovah is still a problem for critical
acumen. It has been sought in more than one language, and various shades of
meaning have been assigned to it, some untenable in the abstract, others hardly, or
not at all, to be reconciled with the Scriptural narrative.
ay, the corruption of the very sound is so notorious, that it is only worth mention
as illustrating a phase of superstition.

119. We smile at the Jews, removing the correct vowels lest so holy a word should be
irreverently spoken, placing the sanctity in the cadence, hoping that light and
flippant allusions may offend God less, so long as they spare at least the vowels of
His name, and thus preserve some vestige undesecrated, while profaning at once the
conception of His majesty and the consonants of the mystic word.
A more abject superstition could scarcely have made void the spirit, while grovelling
before the letter of the commandment.
But this very superstition is alive in other forms today. Whenever one recoils from
the sin of coarse blasphemy, yet allows himself the enjoyment of a polished
literature which profanes holy conceptions,--whenever men feel bound to behave
with external propriety in the house of God, yet bring thither wandering thoughts,
vile appetites, sensuous imaginations, and all the chamber of imagery which is
within the unregenerate heart,--there is the same despicable superstition which
strove to escape at least the extreme of blasphemy by prudently veiling the Holy
ame before profaning it.
But our present concern is with the practical message conveyed to Israel when
Moses declared that Jehovah, I AM, the God of their fathers, had appeared unto
him. And if we find in it a message suited for the time, and which is the basis, not
the superstructure, both of later messages and also of the national character, then
we shall not fail to observe the bearing of such facts upon an urgent controversy of
this time.
Some significance must have been in that ame, not too abstract for a servile and
degenerate race to apprehend. or was it soon to pass away and be replaced; it was
His memorial throughout all generations; and therefore it has a message for us
today, to admonish and humble, to invigorate and uphold.
That God would be the same to them as to their fathers was much. But that it was of
the essence of His character to be evermore the same, immutable in heart and mind
and reality of being, however their conduct might modify His bearing towards them,
this indeed would be a steadying and reclaiming consciousness.
Accordingly Moses receives the answer for himself, "I AM THAT I AM"; and he is
bidden to tell his people "I am hath sent me unto you," and yet again "JEHOVAH
the God of your fathers hath sent me unto you." The spirit and tenor of these three
names may be said to be virtually comprehended in the first; and they all speak of
the essential and self-existent Being, unchanging and unchangeable.
I AM expresses an intense reality of being. o image in the dark recesses of
Egyptian or Syrian temples, grotesque and motionless, can win the adoration of him
who has had communion with such a veritable existence, or has heard His authentic
message. o dreamful pantheism, on its knees to the beneficent principle expressed
in one deity, to the destructive in another, or to the reproductive in a third, but all of

120. them dependent upon nature, as the rainbow upon the cataract which it spans, can
ever again satisfy the soul which is athirst for the living God, the Lord, Who is not
personified, but IS.
This profound sense of a living Person within reach, to be offended, to pardon, and
to bless, was the one force which kept the Hebrew nation itself alive, with a vitality
unprecedented since the world began. They could crave His pardon, whatever
natural retributions they had brought down upon themselves, whatever tendencies
of nature they had provoked, because He was not a dead law without ears or a
heart, but their merciful and gracious God.
ot the most exquisite subtleties of innuendo and irony could make good for a day
the monstrous paradox that the Hebrew religion, the worship of I AM, was really
nothing but the adoration of that stream of tendencies which makes for
righteousness.
Israel did not challenge Pharaoh through having suddenly discovered that goodness
ultimately prevails over evil, nor is it any cold calculation of the sort which ever
inspires a nation or a man with heroic fortitude. But they were nerved by the
announcement that they had been remembered by a God Who is neither an ideal
nor a fancy, but the Reality of realities, beside Whom Pharaoh and his host were but
as phantoms.
I AM THAT I AM is the style not only of permanence, but of permanence self-
contained, and being a distinctive title, it denies such self-contained permanence to
others.
Man is as the past has moulded him, a compound of attainments and failures,
discoveries and disillusions, his eyes dim with forgotten tears, his hair grey with
surmounted anxieties, his brow furrowed with bygone studies, his conscience
troubled with old sin. Modern unbelief is ignobly frank respecting him. He is the
sum of his parents and his wet-nurse. He is what he eats. If he drinks beer, he thinks
beer. And it is the element of truth in these hideous paradoxes which makes them
rankle, like an unkind construction put upon a questionable action. As the foam is
what wind and tide have made of it, so are we the product of our circumstances, the
resultant of a thousand forces, far indeed from being self-poised or self-contained,
too often false to our best self, insomuch that probably no man is actually what in
the depth of self-consciousness he feels himself to be, what moreover he should
prove to be, if only the leaden weight of constraining circumstance were lifted off
the spring which it flattens down to earth. Moses himself was at heart a very
different person from the keeper of the sheep of Jethro. Therefore man says, Pity
and make allowance for me: this is not my true self, but only what by compression,
by starvation and stripes and bribery and error, I have become. Only God says, I
AM THAT I AM.
Yet in another sense, and quite as deep a one, man is not the coarse tissue which
past circumstances have woven: he is the seed of the future, as truly as the fruit of

121. the past. Strange compound that he is of memory and hope, while half of the present
depends on what is over, the other half is projected into the future; and like a
bridge, sustained on these two banks, life throws its quivering shadow on each
moment that fleets by. It is not attainment, but degradation to live upon the level of
one's mere attainment, no longer uplifted by any aspiration, fired by any emulation,
goaded by any but carnal fears. If we have been shaped by circumstances, yet we
are saved by hope. Do not judge me, we are all entitled to plead, by anything that I
am doing or have done: He only can appraise a soul a right Who knows what it
yearns to become, what within itself it hates and prays to be delivered from, what is
the earnestness of its self-loathing, what the passion of its appeal to heaven. As the
bloom of next April is the true comment upon the dry bulb of September, as you do
not value the fountain by the pint of water in its basin, but by its inexhaustible
capabilities of replenishment, so the present and its joyless facts are not the true
man; his possibilities, the fears and hopes that control his destiny and shall unfold
it, these are his real self.
I am not merely what I am: I am very truly that which I long to be. And thus, man
may plead, I am what I move towards and strive after, my aspiration is myself. But
God says, I AM WHAT I AM. The stream hurries forward: the rock abides. And
this is the Rock of Ages.
ow, such a conception is at first sight not far removed from that apathetic and
impassive kind of deity which the practical atheism of ancient materialists could
well afford to grant;--"ever in itself enjoying immortality together with supreme
repose, far removed and withdrawn from our concerns, since it, exempt from every
pain, exempt from all danger, strong in its own resources and wanting nought from
us, is neither gained by favour nor moved by wrath."
Thus Lucretius conceived of the absolute Being as by the necessity of its nature
entirely outside our system.
But Moses was taught to trust in Jehovah as intervening, pitying sorrow and wrong,
coming down to assist His creatures in distress.
How could this be possible? Clearly the movement towards them must be wholly
disinterested, and wholly from within; unbought, since no external influence can
modify His condition, no puny sacrifice can propitiate Him Who sitteth upon the
circle of the earth and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: a movement
prompted by no irregular emotional impulse, but an abiding law of His nature,
incapable of change, the movement of a nature, personal indeed, yet as steady, as
surely to be reckoned upon in like circumstances, as the operations of gravitation
are.
There is no such motive, working in such magnificent regularity for good, save one.
The ultimate doctrine of the ew Testament, that God is Love, is already involved in
this early assertion, that being wholly independent of us and our concerns, He is yet
not indifferent to them, so that Moses could say unto the children of Israel "I AM

122. hath sent me unto you."
It is this unchangeable consistency of Divine action which gives the narrative its
intense interest to us. To Moses, and therefore to all who receive any commission
from the skies, this title said, Frail creature, sport of circumstances and of tyrants,
He who commissions thee sits above the waterfloods, and their rage can as little
modify or change His purpose, now committed to thy charge, as the spray can
quench the stars. Perplexed creature, whose best self lives only in aspiration and
desire, now thou art an instrument in the hand of Him with Whom desire and
attainment, will and fruition, are eternally the same. one truly fails in fighting for
Jehovah, for who hath resisted His will?
To Israel, and to all the oppressed whose minds are open to receive the tidings and
their faith strong to embrace it, He said, Your life is blighted, and your future is in
the hand of taskmasters, yet be of good cheer, for now your deliverance is
undertaken by Him Whose being and purpose are one, Who is in perfection of
enjoyment all that He is in contemplation and in will. The rescue of Israel by an
immutable and perfect God is the earnest of the breaking of every yoke.
And to the proud and godless world which knows Him not, He says, Resistance to
My will can only show forth all its power, which is not at the mercy of opinion or
interest or change: I sit upon the throne, not only supreme but independent, not
only victorious but unassailable; self-contained, self-poised and self-sufficing, I AM
THAT I AM.
Have we now escaped the inert and self-absorbed deity of Lucretius, only to fall into
the palsying grasp of the tyrannous deity of Calvin? Does our own human will
shrivel up and become powerless under the compulsion of that immutability with
which we are strangely brought into contact?
Evidently this is not the teaching of the Book of Exodus. For it is here, in this
revelation of the Supreme, that we first hear of a nation as being His: "I have seen
the affliction of My people which is in Egypt ... and I have come down to bring them
into a good land." They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Yet
their carcases fell in the wilderness. And these things were written for our learning.
The immutability, which suffers no shock when we enter into the covenant, remains
unshaken also if we depart from the living God. The sun shines alike when we raise
the curtain and when we drop it, when our chamber is illumined and when it is
dark. The immutability of God is not in His operations, for sometimes He gave His
people into the hand of their enemies, and again He turned and helped them. It is in
His nature, His mind, in the principles which guide His actions. If He had not
chastened David for his sin, then, by acting as before, He would have been other at
heart than when He rejected Saul for disobedience and chose the son of Jesse to
fulfil all His word. The wind has veered, if it continues to propel the vessel in the
same direction, although helm and sails are shifted.
Such is the Pauline doctrine of His immutability. "If we endure we shall also reign

123. with Him: if we shall deny Him, He also will deny us,"--and such is the necessity of
His being, for we cannot sway Him with our changes: "if we are faithless, He
abideth faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." And therefore it is presently added
that "the firm foundation of the Lord standeth sure, having" not only "this seal,
that the Lord knoweth those that are His,"--but also this, "Let every one that
nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness" (2 Timothy 2:12-13, 2
Timothy 2:19, R.V.).
The Lord knew that Israel was His, yet for their unrighteousness He sware in His
wrath that they should not enter into His rest.
It follows from all this that the new name of God was no academic subtlety, no
metaphysical refinement of the schools, unfitly revealed to slaves, but a most
practical and inspiring truth, a conviction to warm their blood, to rouse their
courage, to convert their despair into confidence and their alarms into defiance.
They had the support of a God worthy of trust. And thenceforth every answer in
righteousness, every new disclosure of fidelity, tenderness, love, was not an
abnormal phenomenon, the uncertain grace of a capricious despot; no, its import
was permanent as an observation of the stars by an astronomer, ever more to be
remembered in calculating the movements of the universe.
In future troubles they could appeal to Him to awake as in the ancient days, as being
He who "cut Rahab and wounded the Dragon." "I am the Lord, I change not,
therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."
And as the sublime and beautiful conception of a loving spiritual God was built up
slowly, age by age, tier upon tier, this was the foundation which insured the the
stability of all, until the Head Stone of the Corner gave completeness to the vast
design, until men saw and could believe in the very Incarnation of all Love,
unshaken amid anguish and distress and seeming failure, immovable, victorious,
while they heard from human lips the awful words, "Before Abraham was, I AM."
Then they learned to identify all this ancient lesson of trustworthiness with new and
more pathetic revelations of affection: and the martyr at the stake grew strong as he
remembered that the Man of Sorrows was the same yesterday and today and for
ever; and the great apostle, prostrate before the glory of his Master, was restored by
the touch of a human hand, and by the voice of Him upon Whose bosom he had
leaned, saying, Fear not, I am the First and the Last and the Living One.
And if men are once more fain to rend from humanity that great assurance, which
for ages, amid all shocks, has made the frail creature of the dust to grow strong and
firm and fearless, partaker of the Divine ature, what will they give us in its stead?
Or do they think us too strong of will, too firm of purpose? Looking around us, we
see nations heaving with internal agitations, armed to the teeth against each other,
and all things like a ship at sea reeling to and fro, and staggering like a drunken
man. There is no stability for us in constitutions or old formul ύ--none anywhere, if
it be not in the soul of man. Well for us, then, that the anchor of the soul is sure and

124. steadfast! well that unnumbered millions take courage from their Saviour's word,
that the world's worst anguish is the beginning, not of dissolution, but of the birth-
pangs of a new heaven and earth,--that when the clouds are blackest because the
light of sun and moon is quenched, then, then we shall behold the Immutable
unveiled, the Son of Man, who is brought nigh unto the Ancient of Days, now sitting
in the clouds of heaven, and coming in the glory of His Father!
LA GE, "Exodus 3:14. Can it be that ‫אהיה‬ ‫אשר‬ ‫אהיה‬ means only “I am He who I
am?” that it designates only the absoluteness of God, or God as the Eternal One?
We suppose that the two ‫’אהיה‬s do not denote an identical form of existence, but the
same existence in two different future times. From future to future I will be the
same—the same in visiting and delivering the people of God, the faithful covenant-
God, and, as such, radically different from the constant variation in the
representations of God among the heathen. This his consciousness is the immediate
form of his name; transposed to the third person, it is Jehovah. Hence also the
expression: “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” is
equivalent in meaning. When the repetition of this name in Exodus 6 is taken for
another account of the same fact, it is overlooked that in that case the point was to
get an assurance that the name “Jehovah” would surpass that of “Almighty God”—
an assurance of which Moses, momentarily discouraged, was just then in need.
[F 11]
SIMEO , "THE SELF-EXISTE CE A D IMMUTABILITY OF GOD
Exodus 3:14. And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and He said, Thus shalt
thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.
IT is of great importance that Ministers should be considered as ambassadors of
God. And that they should deliver nothing which they cannot enforce with, Thus
saith the Lord. Without this, their word can have but little weight. But ministrations
thus supported will produce the happiest effects. Moses was commissioned to offer
deliverance to the oppressed Israelites. But he rightly judged that they would ask,
from whence he had his authority. He therefore inquired of God, what answer he
should return. And received from God the direction recorded in the text.
To understand the words aright, we must consider,
I. The title God assumed—
The Deity had hitherto revealed himself to man by the name of God Almighty.
Though he had been called Jehovah, he was not fully known by that name, even to
his most highly-favoured servants [ ote: Exodus 6:3.]. He now was pleased to
assume a title similar to that; but, if possible, of still plainer import—
The name, I AM THAT I AM, represents him to be,
1. Self-existent—

125. [Creatures have only a derived, and therefore a dependent, existence. They are now
what they once were not, and may again cease to be. But God from all eternity was
precisely what he now is. To him therefore this august title may be properly applied.
or are there wanting other similar descriptions of him to confirm it [ ote: Psalms
102:27; Revelation 1:4.].]
2. Immutable—
[Every creature in earth and heaven is liable to change. But “with God there is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.” He himself claims immutability as his own
peculiar prerogative [ ote: Malachi 3:6.]. And in this view, the title assumed in the
text must ever belong to him.]
3. Incomprehensible—
[ o words can convey, or imagination conceive, an adequate idea of God [ ote: Job
11:7; 1 Timothy 6:16.]. Hence God does not endeavour to explain his nature to
Moses. But, by declaring himself to be what he is, intimates, that he is what can
neither be comprehended nor expressed. His answer, in effect, was similar to that
which he afterwards gave to Manoah [ ote: Judges 13:17-18.].]
The title thus explained, it will be proper to consider,
II. For what end he assumed it—
The Israelites were extremely debased by means of their long bondage. It was
necessary therefore to prepare their minds for the intended deliverance—
[Though they groaned under their oppression, they were too much reconciled to
their yoke. They rather affected a mitigation of trouble, than the attainment of
liberty. Though the promises made to their fathers were not wholly forgotten, the
accomplishment of them was not cordially desired. Indeed, they scarcely conceived
it possible that their emancipation should be effected. Hence it was necessary to
stimulate their desires, renew their hopes, and confirm their expectations, of a better
country.]
The title which God assumed was admirably adapted to this end—
[If God was so incomprehensible a Being, he could easily devise means of executing
his own sovereign will and pleasure. If he was the one self-existent, independent
Creator of the universe, all creatures must be wholly subject to his control. And if
he were absolutely immutable, he could not recede from the covenant entered into
with their fathers. He therefore could not want either inclination or power to deliver
them. Yea, He could not but deliver them for his own great name’s sake. He could
not be I AM, if his promised interposition should be either withheld or defeated.
Thus the declaration of his name must inspire them with confidence, and induce

126. them willingly to put themselves under the direction of Moses.]
Infer,
1. What a solemn attention does the Gospel demand!
[The Gospel is a message of mercy to those who are in bondage to sin. And they who
preach it are ambassadors from the great I AM. Jesus, who sends them forth,
assumes to himself this very title [ ote: John 8:58.]. To the same effect also his
character is drawn in the Epistle to the Hebrews [ ote: Hebrews 13:8.]. He has
commissioned his servants to go forth into all the world [ ote: Mark 16:15.] ; and
promised (as God did to Moses) to be always with them [ ote: Matthew 28:20.].
Shall we then make light of the mercy which He offers to us; or doubt his power and
willingness to fulfil his promises? Shall we thrust away his servants, saying, Why
dost thou interfere with us [ ote: Acts 7:27.] ? Let us remember who it is that
speaks to us in the Gospel [ ote: Luke 10:16.]. Every faithful Minister may say, I
AM hath sent me unto you. or, though miracles have ceased, shall signs be wanting
to confirm the word: the deaf shall hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers be
cleansed. And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended at the Redeemer’s voice
[ ote: Matthew 11:5-6.].]
2. What encouragement is here afforded to those who are groaning under
spiritual bondage!
[God brought out his people safely, notwithstanding all their difficulties; and in due
time put them into possession of the promised land. Shall the spiritual redemption
offered by him be less effectual? Are not his power and faithfulness the same as in
former ages [ ote: Isaiah 59:1.] ? Will he not remove our obstacles, supply our
wants, and destroy our enemies? Surely there are none so weak but they shall be
made to triumph [ ote: Isaiah 49:24-25.]. or shall the Prince of Darkness oppose
with more success than Pharaoh [ ote: Romans 16:20.]. Behold, then, I AM hath
sent me to proclaim these glad tidings. Let all arise, and cast off their yoke, and
burst their bands asunder. Let not unbelief represent the obstacles as
insurmountable; nor fear induce you to comply with the imperious dictates of the
world [ ote: Pharaoh, after many successive plagues, agreed first that they should
sacrifice to God in the land, but not in the wilderness; then that they should go into
the wilderness, but not far; then that the men should go, but without the women or
children; then that the women and children, but not the flocks. Exodus 8:25;
Exodus 8:28; Exodus 10:11; Exodus 10:24. Thus the world would prescribe limits to
the service we shall pay to God.]. Behold! the Pillar and the Cloud are ready to
conduct your path. The great I AM is for you: who then can be against you? Go
forth; and universal nature shall applaud your steps [ ote: Isaiah 55:12.].]
PULPIT, "I AM THAT I AM. o better translation can be given of the Hebrew
words. "I will be that I will be (Geddes) is more literal, but less idiomatic, since the
Hebrew was the simplest possible form of the verb substantive. "I am because I am"
(Boothroyd) is wrong, since the word asher is certainly the relative. The Septuagint,

127. ἐγώ εἰµι ὁ ὤν, explains rather than translates, but is otherwise unobjectionable. The
Vulgate, sum qui sum, has absolute exactness. The idea expressed by the name is, as
already explained, that of real, perfect, unconditioned, independent existence. I AM
hath sent me to you. "I am" is an abbreviated form of "I am that I am," and is
intended to express the same idea.
15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites,
‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.
BAR ES, "The Lord God ... - Better, Jehovah ‫יהוה‬ ye
hovâh, God of your fathers,
God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. It corresponds exactly to the preceding
verse, the words “I am” and “Jehovah” (Yahweh) being equivalent. This name met all the
requirements of Moses, involving a two-fold pledge of accomplishment; the pledges of
ancient benefits and of a new manifestation.
Name ... memorial - The name signifies that by which God makes Himself known,
the memorial that by which His people worship Him.
CLARKE, "This is my name for ever - The name here referred to is that which
immediately precedes, ‫אלהים‬ ‫יהוה‬ Yehovah Elohim, which we translate the Lord God, the
name by which God had been known from the creation of the world, (see Gen_2:4). and
the name by which he is known among the same people to the present day. Even the
heathens knew this name of the true God; and hence out of our ‫יהוה‬ Yehovah they
formed their Jao, Jeve, and Jove; so that the word has been literally fulfilled, This is my

128. memorial unto all generations. See Clarke’s note on the word Elohim, Gen_1:1 (note). As
to be self-existent and eternal must be attributes of God for ever, does it not follow that
the ‫לעלם‬ leolam, for ever, in the text signifies eternity? “This is my name to eternity - and
my memorial,” ‫דר‬ ‫לדר‬ ledor dor, “to all succeeding generations.” While human
generations continue he shall be called the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob; but when time shall be no more, he shall be Jehovah Elohim. Hence the
first expression refers to his eternal existence, the latter to the discovery he should make
of himself as long as time should last. See Gen_21:33. Diodorus Siculus says, that
“among the Jews, Moses is reported to have received his laws from the God named Jao,”
Ιαω, i.e., Jeue, Jove, or Jeve; for in all these ways the word ‫יהוה‬ Yehovah may be
pronounced; and in this way I have seen it on Egyptian monuments. See Diod., lib. l., c.
xciv.
GILL, "And God said moreover unto Moses,.... As a further explanation of the
above name, and of the design and use of it:
thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: for their further instruction in the
said name, and for the confirmation of the mission of Moses, and the success of it:
the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you; he who is Jehovah, and the covenant God of
the ancestors of the people of Israel, and of them, so he is called, Ecc_3:6.
this is my name for ever: meaning either "Ehjeh, I am", in the preceding verse, or,
which is the same, Jehovah in this, and so both of them, and including also the name of
the God of Abraham, &c. which he was always to be known by:
and this is my memorial unto all generations; the name by which he should be
made mention of both by himself and others, and by which he would be called to
remembrance by his people, and what he had promised unto them, and done for them.
HE RY, "A name that denotes what he is to his people. Lest that name I AM should
amuse and puzzle them, he is further directed to make use of another name of God more
familiar and intelligible: The Lord God of your fathers hath sent me unto you (Exo_
3:15): Thus God had made himself know to him (Exo_3:6), and thus he must make him
known to them, (1.) That he might revive among them the religion of their fathers,
which, it is to be feared, was much decayed and almost lost. This was necessary to
prepare them for deliverance, Psa_80:19. (2.) That he might raise their expectations of
the speedy performance of the promises made unto their fathers. Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, are particularly named, because with Abraham the covenant was first made, and
with Isaac and Jacob often expressly renewed; and these three were distinguished from
their brethren, and chosen to be the trustees of the covenant, when their brethren were
rejected. God will have this to be his name for ever, and it has been, is, and will be, his
name, by which his worshippers know him, and distinguish him from all false gods; see
1Ki_18:36. Note, God's covenant-relation to his people is what he will be ever mindful
of, what he glories in, and what he will have us never forget, but give him the glory of: if
he will have this to be his memorial unto all generations, we have all the reason in the

129. world to make it so with us, for it is a precious memorial.
CALVI , "15.And God said moreover. God again assumes his name taken from the
covenant which he had made with Abraham and his posterity, that the Israelites
may know that they do not deceive themselves in an uncertain God, provided they
depart not from the religion of their fathers; for as soldiers assemble round their
standard to maintain the order of their ranks, so does he command them to look
back upon the special grace of their adoption, and to know that they are a people
elected of God, because they are Abraham’s sons. He confines them within these
limits, that they may not wander about in search of God. For we know that
whatever opinions were held by the Gentiles as to the Deity, were not only entangled
with many errors, but were also ambiguous, so that they were always wavering with
respect to them. God demands another kind of religion from his people, on the
certainty of which their hearts may depend. Besides, their long sojourn in the land
of Egypt, although it had not destroyed the knowledge of the true God, had yet
much obscured that light of revelation which their fathers possessed. And again, the
promise might seem to be obsolete, when they had received no assistance, whilst
overwhelmed in such an abyss of misery; and on this ground the faith received from
their fathers had undoubtedly grown cold. Wherefore, that they may learn to repose
upon it, he calls himself the God of their fathers, and declares, that by this title he
will be celebrated for ever; for I cannot consent to refer this to the previous
expression, “I am that I am,” since the context does not admit of it. Hence might be
inferred the incomparable love of God towards his chosen people, because he had
passed over all the nations of the earth, and had attached himself to them alone. But
we must remember, that although it was honorable to Abraham and the patriarchs
for God to take his name from them, yet that the main object of this was to confirm
the truth of his promise. There may be an apparent incongruity in saying, “this is
my memorial unto all generations,” because a much more excellent memorial
succeeded in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ; but my reply is, that since, in the
coming of Christ, the truth of the covenant made with Abraham was shewn forth,
and was thus demonstrated to be firm and infallible, its memory was rather
renewed than destroyed; and that thus it still survives and flourishes in the Gospel,
since Abraham even now ceases not to be the father of the faithful, under the one
Head. We conclude that God would not be spoken of on earth, without the effects of
his gratuitous adoption appearing, by which he may be proved to be faithful and
true.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:15 And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this [is] my name for
ever, and this [is] my memorial unto all generations.
Ver. 15. Unto all generations.] The Jews, to countenance their conceit of the
ineffability of the name of Jehovah, did corrupt this text: and for This is my name,
Legnolam, for ever, they read, This is my name, Legnalam, to be concealed. (a)
ELLICOTT, "(15) The Lord God of your fathers.—Heb., Jehovah, God of your

130. fathers. The “I AM” of the preceding verse (‘ehyeh) is modified here into Jahveh, or
Jehovah, by a substitution of the third person for the first. The meaning of the name
remains the same.
This is my name for ever.—Jehovah is the pre. dominant name of God throughout
the rest of the Old Testament. (On the meaning of the name see ote on Genesis
2:4.) Rendered by the LXX. κύριος, [“Lord”] the name appears under that form
everywhere throughout the Authorised Version printed in capitals. It does not occur
in the ew Testament, since “Lord” takes its place. An equivalent of the name
occurs, however, frequently in the Revelation of St. John, where God appears as
“He which is, and which was, and which is to come” (Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:8;
Revelation 4:8; Revelation 11:17; Revelation 16:5). ecessary, self-sustained,
independent, eternal existence, must always be of his essence.
My memorial—i.e., the designation by which I shall be remembered.
BE SO , "Exodus 3:15. God will be known, 2d, By a name that speaks what he is
to his people. Lest they should not understand the name I AM, Moses is directed to
make use of another name of God more familiar to them. The Lord God of your
fathers hath sent me unto you — Thus God made himself known, that he might
revive among them the religion of their fathers, which was much decayed, and
almost lost. And, that he might raise their expectations of the speedy performance of
the promises made unto their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are particularly
named, because with Abraham the covenant was first made, and with Isaac and
Jacob often expressly renewed, and these three were distinguished from their
brethren, and chosen to be the trustees of the covenant. This God will have to be his
name for ever, and it has been, is, and will be his name, by which his worshippers
know him, and distinguish him from all false gods.
COKE, "Exodus 3:15. This is my name, &c.— JEHOVAH, in consequence of this,
was ALWAYS held among the Jews, as the peculiar and distinguishing name of
their God. And as God was peculiarly the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of
the Jewish nation; as he separated them solely to himself, for the great end of
bringing the FUTURE SAVIOUR into the world; as the whole Mosaic history, nay,
and all the books of the Old Testament, lead only to this great point, and prepare
the way for the coming of the Messiah: there is all the reason in the world to believe,
that this incommunicable name of JEHOVAH refers absolutely to that deliverance
and salvation which the SO of GOD could and did perfect; and not to the general
nature and essence of GOD. And it is very observable in the next verse, Exodus 3:16
that, after God has given Moses so striking a designation of himself, he immediately
sends him to Israel, to remind them, peculiarly, of the covenant which he had
entered into with their fathers: which covenant, not God's immediate essence, was
their hope and surety, and which, as we have often observed, was twofold;
consisting in the promise of the land of Canaan, and of the Messiah, the seed of
Abraham.
REFLECTIO S.—Moses starts at God's proposal.

131. 1. He pleads his insufficiency for the task, perhaps out of humility. Highly qualified
as a man may be to minister BEFORE the Lord, lowly thoughts become him. Who is
sufficient for these things? Perhaps out of fear. The essay was dangerous, and he
must put his life in his HA D. Fear of man is a great hinderance to the work of
God.
2. God silences his objection, and promises him success. If God be with us, our
weakness shall become strength, our folly wisdom, and every mountain of difficulty
be level as a plain; nor can we fail of succeeding under such a Leader.
3. Moses begs farther instructions for his proceedings. He expected that they would
call upon him to prove his mission, and who sent him. ote; We must not run
without our message. They who are to speak for God, need earnestly inquire at his
WORD, that they may be able to give an answer to every one that asketh a reason of
the hope which is in them.
4. The satisfaction he receives. God is the great I am, self-existent, faithful to his
promises, and all-sufficient to accomplish them. He is their fathers' God; and they
should remember the covenant, in which for their fathers' sake they were interested:
Considerations admirably suited to engage their dependence on him, and to make
them ready to welcome their Great Deliverer. ote; The remembrance of what God
is to his covenant-people, is the great motive to hear him, trust him, LOVE HIM,
and follow him.
PULPIT, "The Lord God. In the original Jehovah elohey—"Jehovah, God of your
fathers," etc. The name is clearly an equivalent of the "I AM" in the preceding
versa The exact mode of its formation from the old root hava, "to be," is still
disputed among the best Hebraists. This is my name for ever. Henceforth there will
be no change—this will be my most appropriate name so long as the world
endures—"The Existent"—"The Alone Existent"—"He that is, and was, and is to
come" (Revelation 1:4, Revelation 1:8; Revelation 4:8; Revelation 11:17; Revelation
16:5). My memorial. The name whereby I am to be spoken of.
16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to
them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to
me and said: I have watched over you and have
seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

132. CLARKE, "Elders of Israel - Though it is not likely the Hebrews were permitted to
have any regular government at this time, yet there can be no doubt of their having such
a government in the time of Joseph, and for some considerable time after; the elders of
each tribe forming a kind of court of magistrates, by which all actions were tried, and
legal decisions made, in the Israelitish community.
I have surely visited you - An exact fulfillment of the prediction of Joseph, Gen_
50:24, God will surely visit you, and in the same words too.
GILL, "Go and gather the elders of Israel together,.... Not all the ancient men
among them, nor the "judges" of the people of Israel; for it does not appear there were
such among them in Egypt, until they came into the land of Canaan, but the heads of
tribes or families:
and say unto them, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of
Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me; in a flame of fire in the midst of a bush at
Horeb:
saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in
Egypt; inspected into their state and circumstances, took notice of their afflictions and
oppressions, and determined to deliver them out of them, as follows.
HE RY 16-22, "Moses is here more particularly instructed in his work, and
informed beforehand of his success. 1. He must deal with the elders of Israel, and raise
their expectation of a speedy removal to Canaan, Exo_3:16, Exo_3:17. He must repeat to
them what God had said to him, as a faithful ambassador. Note, That which ministers
have received of the Lord they must deliver to his people, and keep back nothing that is
profitable. Lay an emphasis on that, Exo_3:17 : “I have said, I will bring you up; that is
enough to satisfy them, I have said it:” hath he spoken, and will he not make it good?
With us saying and doing are two things, but they are not so with God, for he is in one
mind and who can turn him? “I have said it, and all the world cannot gainsay it. My
counsel shall stand.” His success with the elders of Israel would be good; so he is told
(Exo_3:18): They shall hearken to thy voice, and not thrust thee away as they did forty
years ago. He who, by his grace, inclines the heart, and opens the ear, could say
beforehand, They shall hearken to thy voice, having determined to make them willing in
this day of power. 2. He must deal with the king of Egypt (Exo_3:18), he and the elders
of Israel, and in this they must not begin with a demand, but with a humble petition;
that gentle and submissive method must be first tried, even with one who, it was certain,
would not be wrought upon by it: We beseech thee, let us go. Moreover, they must only
beg leave of Pharaoh to go as far as Mount Sinai to worship God, and say nothing to him
of going quite away to Canaan; the latter would have been immediately rejected, but the
former was a very modest and reasonable request, and his denying it was utterly
inexcusable and justified them in the total deserting of his kingdom. If he would not give
them leave to go and sacrifice at Sinai, justly did they go without leave to settle in
Canaan. Note, The calls and commands which God sends to sinners are so highly

133. reasonable in themselves, and delivered to them in such a gentle winning way, that the
mouth of the disobedient must needs be for ever stopped. As to his success with
Pharaoh, Moses is here told, (1.) That petitions, and persuasions, and humble
remonstrances, would not prevail with him, no, nor a mighty hand stretched out in signs
and wonders: I am sure he will not let you go, Exo_3:19. Note, God sends his
messengers to those whose hardness and obstinacy he certainly knows and foresees, that
it may appear he would have them turn and live. (2.) That plagues should compel him to
it: I will smite Egypt, and then he will let you go, Exo_3:20. Note, Those will certainly
be broken by the power of God's hand that will not bow to the power of his word; we
may be sure that when God judges he will overcome. (3.) That his people should be
more kind to them, and furnish them at their departure with abundance of plate and
jewels, to their great enriching: I will give this people favour in the sight of the
Egyptians, Exo_3:21, Exo_3:22. Note, [1.] God sometimes makes the enemies of his
people, not only to be at peace with them, but to be kind to them. [2.] God has many
ways of balancing accounts between the injured and the injurious, of righting the
oppressed, and compelling those that have done wrong to make restitution; for he sits in
the throne judging right.
K&D 16-20, "With the command, “Go and gather the elders of Israel together,” God
then gave Moses further instructions with reference to the execution of his mission. On
his arrival in Egypt he was first of all to inform the elders, as the representatives of the
nation (i.e., the heads of the families, households, and tribes), of the appearance of God
to him, and the revelation of His design, to deliver His people out of Egypt and bring
them to the land of the Canaanites. He was then to go with them to Pharaoh, and make
known to him their resolution, in consequence of this appearance of God, to go a three
days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to their God. The words, “I have surely
visited,” point to the fulfilment of the last words of the dying Joseph (Gen_50:24). ‫ינוּ‬ ֵ‫ל‬ ָ‫ע‬
‫ה‬ ָ‫ר‬ ֵ‫ק‬ִ‫נ‬ (Exo_3:18) does not mean “He is named upon us” (lxx, Onk., Jon.), nor “He has
called us” (Vulg., Luth.). The latter is grammatically wrong, for the verb is Niphal, or
passive; and though the former has some support in the parallel passage in Exo_5:3,
inasmuch as ‫א‬ ָ‫ר‬ ְ‫ק‬ִ‫נ‬ is the verb used there, it is only in appearance, for if the meaning really
were “His name is named upon (over) us,” the word ‫ּו‬‫מ‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ (‫ם‬ ֵ‫)שׁ‬ would not be omitted (vid.,
Deu_28:10; 2Ch_7:14). The real meaning is, “He has met with us,” from ‫ה‬ ָ‫ר‬ ְ‫ק‬ִ‫,נ‬ obruam
fieri, ordinarily construed with ‫ל‬ ֵ‫,א‬ but here with ‫ל‬ ַ‫,ע‬ because God comes down from
above to meet with man. The plural us is used, although it was only to Moses that God
appeared, because His appearing had reference to the whole nation, which was
represented before Pharaoh by Moses and the elders. In the words ‫א‬ָ‫ה־נ‬ ָ‫כ‬ ְ‫ל‬ֵ‫,נ‬ “we will go,
then,” equivalent to “let us go,” the request for Pharaoh's permission to go out is couched
in such a form as to answer to the relation of Israel to Pharaoh. He had no right to detain
them, but he had a right to consent to their departure, as his predecessor had formerly
done to their settlement. Still less had he any good reason for refusing their request to go
a three days' journey into the wilderness and sacrifice to their God, since their return at
the close of the festival was then taken for granted. But the purpose of God was, that
Israel should not return. Was it the case, then, that the delegates were “to deceive the
king,” as Knobel affirms! By no means. God knew the hard heart of Pharaoh, and
therefore directed that no more should be asked at first than he must either grant, or

134. display the hardness of his heart. Had he consented, God would then have made known
to him His whole design, and demanded that His people should be allowed to depart
altogether. But when Pharaoh scornfully refused the first and smaller request (Exo 5),
Moses was instructed to demand the entire departure of Israel from the land (Exo_
6:10), and to show the omnipotence of the God of the Hebrews before and upon Pharaoh
by miracles and heavy judgments (Heb_7:8.). Accordingly, Moses persisted in
demanding permission for the people to go and serve their God (Exo_7:16; Exo_8:1;
Exo_9:1, Exo_9:13; Exo_10:3); and it was not till Pharaoh offered to allow them to
sacrifice in the land that Moses replied, “We will go three days' journey into the
wilderness, and sacrifice to Jehovah our God” (Exo_8:27); but, observe, with this
proviso, “as He shall command us,” which left, under the circumstances, no hope that
they would return. It was an act of mercy to Pharaoh, therefore, on the one hand, that
the entire departure of the Israelites was not demanded at the very first audience of
Moses and the representatives of the nation; for, had this been demanded, it would have
been far more difficult for him to bend his heart in obedience to the divine will, than
when the request presented was as trifling as it was reasonable. And if he had rendered
obedience to the will of God in the smaller, God would have given him strength to be
faithful in the greater. On the other hand, as God foresaw his resistance (Exo_3:19), this
condescension, which demanded no more than the natural man could have performed,
was also to answer the purpose of clearly displaying the justice of God. It was to prove
alike to Egyptians and Israelites that Pharaoh was “without excuse,” and that his
eventual destruction was the well-merited punishment of his obduracy.
(Note: “This moderate request was made only at the period of the earlier plagues.
It served to put Pharaoh to the proof. God did not come forth with His whole plan
and desire at first, that his obduracy might appear so much the more glaring, and
find no excuse in the greatness of the requirement. Had Pharaoh granted this
request, Israel would not have gone beyond it; but had not God foreseen, what He
repeatedly says (compare, for instance, Exo_3:18), that he would not comply with it,
He would not thus have presented it; He would from the beginning have revealed His
whole design. Thus Augustine remarks (Quaest. 13 in Ex.).” Hengstenberg, Diss. on
the Pentateuch. vol. ii. p. 427, Ryland's translation. Clark, 1847.)
‫ה‬ ָ‫ק‬ָ‫ז‬ ֲ‫ח‬ ‫ד‬ָ‫י‬ ְ‫ב‬ ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ְ‫,ו‬ “not even by means of a strong hand;” “except through great power” is not
the true rendering, ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ְ‫ו‬ does not mean ᅚᆭν µᆱ, nisi. What follows, - viz., the statement that
God would so smite the Egyptians with miracles that Pharaoh would, after all, let Israel
go (Exo_3:20), - is not really at variance with this, the only admissible rendering of the
words. For the meaning is, that Pharaoh would not be willing to let Israel depart even
when he should be smitten by the strong hand of God; but that he would be compelled to
do so against his will, would be forced to do so by the plagues that were about to fall
upon Egypt. Thus even after the ninth plague it is still stated (Exo_10:27), that “Pharaoh
would (‫)אבה‬ not let them go;” and when he had given permission, in consequence of the
last plague, and in fact had driven them out (Exo_12:31), he speedily repented, and
pursued them with his army to bring them back again (Exo_14:5.); from which it is
clearly to be seen that the strong hand of God had not broken his will, and yet Israel was
brought out by the same strong hand of Jehovah.
CALVI , "16.Go and gather. Because it was not easy either to gather the whole
people into one place, or for his commission to be heard by so great a multitude,

135. Moses is commanded to begin with the elders, and to speak to them concerning their
coming deliverance, that they may thus by their authority arouse the body of the
people to a good hope. For their dismissal must be sought for from the king in the
name of all, and all their minds prepared for departure; since, unless they had
timely notice of it, there would have been no general consent to embrace the mercy
of God. It was then of great importance that the vocation of Moses should be well
known, that they might boldly follow him as the leader set over them by God. He
does not express without a purpose, that the God who had been seen by him, was the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for the vision, which would have been otherwise
hardly credited by the people, depended on the ancient covenant which was
deposited with them. Therefore, in order to obtain belief for his words, Moses
reminds them that the deliverance, of which he was now about to treat, and of which
he is appointed by God as the leader, was formerly promised in Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. Lastly, because we usually receive with difficulty what is new and
strange, Moses therefore lays his foundation on the old revelations, which were
beyond the reach of doubt. But he repeats what he had before related to be said to
himself, thus setting before the others what he had privately heard to assure him of
his vocation. We know that when God does not immediately succour us in our
adversities, our minds are worn down with grief, and sink into despair; because we
think that God has no care for us. Lest, therefore, the minds of the Israelites should
despond, Moses is commanded to tell them that it is God’s time for remembering
them; and, although he might seem not to behold for a while, yet that he would not
for ever forget his own people. What follows, that the injuries done to them by the
Egyptians had come into account, is added in confirmation; for, since he is judge of
the world, he cannot but rise as an avenger after long endurance of injustice and
tyranny. Let us, too, learn from this passage, when God seems to turn away his face
from us, by delaying to help us, to wait patiently until he looks upon us in due
season; since his forgetfulness is only temporary, when he gives us over to the will of
our enemies. I have shewn elsewhere how these phrases are to be understood, viz.,
that according to the estimate of our own senses, things are attributed to God which
do not properly belong to him.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:16 Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto
them, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,
appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and [seen] that which is done to
you in Egypt:
Ver. 16. The God of Abraham, &c.] His friends, with whom he had all things
common. This was a greater honour done to these patriarchs than if God had
written their names in the visible heavens, to be read of all men.
ELLICOTT, "(16) The elders of Israel.— ot so much the old men generally, as the
rulers—those who bore authority over the rest—men of considerable age, no doubt,
for the most part. Rosenmüller reasonably concludes from this direction that the
Hebrews, even during the oppression, enjoyed some kind of internal organisation
and native government (Schol, in Exod. p. 58).

136. I have surely visited.—Heb., Visiting, I have visited. (Comp. Genesis 1:24.)
COFFMA , "Verses 16-18
"Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, JEHOVAH THE
GOD OF YOUR FATHERS; THE GOD OF ABRAHAM; A D OF ISAAC; A D
OF JACOB; HATH APPEARED U TO ME; SAYI G, I have surely visited you,
and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: and I have said, I will bring you up out
of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the
Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, unto a land flowing
with milk and honey. 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, Jehovah,
the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us: and and now let us go, we pray thee,
three days journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our God."
One may only smile at such a contradiction as that alleged by Peake, who
complained that here Moses was instructed to communicate through "the elders,"
whereas in Exodus 3:15, it was to be "with the people at large"![26] Of course, there
would have been absolutely no other way that Moses could have CO TACTED the
people at large, except through the Jewish institution of the eldership, visible here in
the Bible for the very first time. It should be remembered that the Israelites were
now a nation of some 2,000,000 people, with a potential standing army of over
600,000 men! As Dummelow expressed it:
"In the Pentateuch, when the people of Israel are addressed, it is frequently the
elders who are meant. They are the usual medium of communication BETWEE
Moses and the people, and act as representatives of the latter."[27]
ote again the prominence of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the name that Moses is
instructed to use.
Some scholars who hold themselves as capable of passing judgment upon the actions
of God Himself are inclined to be very critical of this passage, because, according to
them, God instructed Moses to request permission for a journey of three days,
merely to deceive Pharaoh, having no intention whatever of confining their
departure to a mere distance of three days journey. It is far more commendable to
study the text with a view of thinking God's thoughts after Him, that we might know
the truth. Dummelow has an excellent explanation of why this first request of
Pharaoh involved a mere three days' journey:
"There was no intention to deceive Pharaoh in this request. Had Pharaoh been
willing to grant the people entire release, this would have been asked at first. But
God, knowing that Pharaoh would not let them go, enjoined Moses to make only this
moderate request, so as to emphasize the obstinancy of the king."[28]
Keil was most surely correct in his judgment that, If Pharaoh had rendered
obedience to God in the smaller REQUEST regarding the journey of three days,
God would have given him strength to be faithful in the greater. Thus, it was an act
of mercy toward Pharaoh, that God did not REQUEST of him all at once the total
of what would surely be required eventually.[29]

137. COKE, "Exodus 3:16. I have SURELY visited you— We add, in the next clause,
and seen; whereas there is no word for seen in the original. The verse might, with
great propriety, be rendered, I have surely viewed or observed you, and that which
is done unto you in Egypt. The same word, in 1 Samuel 15:2 is rendered remember;
and, therefore, might be rendered here, I have surely remembered you, and that,
&c. And thus the Chaldee Paraphrase, the Syriac, and Arabic, have it. The LXX
render it, επισκοπη επισκεµµαι, I have overseen.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:16-18. Moses is to execute his commission to Pharaoh not only
in the name of Jehovah, but also in connection with the elders of Israel, in the name
of the people. The expression “elders” denotes, it is true, primarily the heads of
tribes and families, but also a simple, patriarchal, legal organization based upon
that system.— ow let us go three days’ journey. The phrase ‫ָא‬‫נּ‬‫ָה־‬‫כ‬ְ‫ל‬ֵ‫נ‬. is
diplomatically exactly suited to the situation. Strictly, they have a perfect right to
go; but it is conditioned on Pharaoh’s consent. Knobel says: “The delegates,
therefore, were to practice deception on the king.” This is a rather clumsy judgment
of the psychological process. If Pharaoh granted the request, he would be seen to be
in a benevolent mood, and they might gradually ask for more. If he denied it, it
would be well for them not at once, by an open proposal of emancipation, to have
exposed themselves to ruin, and introduced the contest with his hardness of heart,
which the guiding thought of Jehovah already foresaw. Moses knew better how to
deal with a despot. Accordingly he soon increases his demand, till he demands
emancipation, Exodus 6:10; Exodus 7:16; Exodus 8:25; Exodus 9:1; Exodus 9:13;
Exodus 10:3. From the outset it must, moreover, have greatly impressed the king,
that the people should wish to go out to engage in an act of divine service; still more,
that they should, in making their offering, desire to avoid offending the Egyptians,
Exodus 8:26. But gradually Jehovah, as the legitimate king of the people of Israel,
comes out in opposition to the usurper of His rights, Exodus 9:1 sq. Moses, to be
sure, even during the hardening process, does not let his whole purpose distinctly
appear; but he nevertheless gives intimations of it, when, after Pharaoh concedes to
them the privilege of making an offering in the country, he stipulates for a three
days’ journey, and, in an obscure additional remark, hints that he then will still wait
for Jehovah to give further directions.
PULPIT, "Gather the elders. It is generally thought that we are to understand by
"the elders" not so much the more aged men, as these who bore a certain official
rank and position among their brethren, the heads of the various houses (Exodus
6:14, Exodus 6:25; Exodus 11:1-10 :21), who exercised a certain authority even
during the worst times of the oppression. Moses was first to prevail, on them to
acknowledge his mission, and was then to go with them to Pharaoh and make his
representation (Exodus 3:18). I have surely visited you. The words are a repetition
of those used by Joseph on his deathbed (Genesis 50:24), and may be taken to mean,
"I have done as Joseph prophesied—I have made his words good thus far. Expect,
therefore, the completion of what he promised.''

138. 17 And I have promised to bring you up out of
your misery in Egypt into the land of the
Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites
and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and
honey.’
GILL, "And I have said,.... Within himself, resolved in his own mind, and had
declared it to Moses:
I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt: with which they were afflicted in
Egypt, and by the Egyptians; this he both purposed and promised to bring them out of:
unto the land of the Canaanites, &c. then in the possession of the Canaanites, and others
after named; See Gill on Exo_3:8.
CALVI , "17.And I have said. By this expression God reminds us that he in his
secret counsel determines what he will do, and therefore that we must put a
restraint on our desires, which otherwise press forward too fast, and let him freely
and voluntarily appoint what he knows to be best to be done; not because he has
need of taking time to deliberate, but that we may learn to depend on his
providence. By this decree the children of Israel were assured that the end of their
woes was near, because there is nothing which can prevent God from performing his
work. But he speaks briefly, as of a thing well known; because what had been
handed down through the patriarchs, as to their future deliverance, was not entirely
forgotten. He enumerates several nations whose lands He would give them, that he
might thus the more attract them to come forth. With the same object he affirms
that the whole country flows “with milk and honey,” lest its barrenness should
alarm them, because famine had driven their fathers out from thence. But although
the land of Canaan was naturally fertile, there is no doubt but that its fruitfulness
chiefly arose from the blessing of God. The conclusion is, that a spacious dwelling-
place is prepared for them, since for their sake God will drive out many nations,
that they may possess the habitations of them all; and that, finally, they need not
fear want, because God will abundantly supply them with food, as if the whole of
that land were filled with rivers of milk and honey.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of

139. 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.
Ver. 17. I have said, I will bring you up.] And now I am come to do it. This is some
part of the import of "I am that I am," "the same yesterday, today, and for ever."
[Hebrews 13:8] Ero qui eram, I will be the same to you in my performances that I
was to your fathers in my proraises.
A land flowing with milk.] Sumen totius orbis, as one calleth it, where the hard
rocks did sweat out oil and honey. [Deuteronomy 32:13] See Exodus 3:8.
18 “The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then
you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt
and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the
Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day
journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to
the Lord our God.’
BAR ES, "Three days’ journey - i. e. a journey which would occupy three days in
going and returning. This was a demand quite in accordance with Egyptian customs. The
refusal of Pharaoh and the subsequent proceedings were revealed to Moses at once; but
it is important to observe that the first request which Pharaoh rejected could have been
granted without any damage to Egypt, or any risk of the Israelites passing the strongly-
fortified frontier.
CLARKE, "They shall hearken to thy voice - This assurance was necessary to
encourage him in an enterprise so dangerous and important.
Three days’ journey into the wilderness - Evidently intending Mount Sinai,
which is reputed to be about three days’ journey, the shortest way, from the land of
Goshen. In ancient times, distances were computed by the time required to pass over
them. Thus, instead of miles, furlongs, etc., it was said, the distance from one place to

140. another was so many days’, so many hours’ journey; and it continues the same in all
countries where there are no regular roads or highways.
GILL, "And they shall hearken to thy voice,.... The elders of Israel, who would
give credit to his commission, attend to what he said, and obey his orders, and follow the
directions that he should give them, and not slight and reject him, as some had done
before:
and thou shall come, thou, and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt:
the elders of Israel in a body, and Moses at the head of them; though we do not read of
their approaching to Pharaoh, and addressing him in such a manner, only of Moses and
Aaron applying to him:
and you shall say unto him, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us;
with one of them, who had reported to the rest what he had said; the children of Israel
are here called Hebrews, because that seems to be a name the Egyptians most commonly
called them, and by which they were best known to them, see Gen_39:14.
and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness;
the wilderness of Sinai and Arabia, and to Mount Horeb in it; which from the borders of
Egypt was three days' journey going the direct road, but the Israelites going somewhat
about, and stopping by the way, did not get to it until the third month of their going out
of Egypt, Exo_19:1,
that we may sacrifice to the Lord God; in the place where he had appeared to a
principal man among them, and where they would be in no danger of being insulted and
molested by the Egyptians. Some think the reason of this request they were directed to
make, to sacrifice out of the land of Egypt, was, because what they sacrificed the
Egyptians worshipped as gods, and therefore would be enraged at such sacrifices; but for
this there is no sufficient foundation; See Gill on Gen_46:34, rather the design was
under this pretence to get quite away from them, they being no subjects of the king of
Egypt, nor had he a right to detain them; nor were they obliged to acquaint him with the
whole of their intentions, and especially as they were directed of God himself to say this,
and no more, and which being so reasonable, made Pharaoh's refusal the more
inexcusable.
CALVI , "18.And they shall hearken to thy voice. (44) The literal translation is,
“They shall hearken to thy voice,” which many take to be a promise from God that
they should be obedient; but the sense given in the Latin, “after they shall have
heard thy voice,” seems more consonant, that first of all He should command them
by the mouth of Moses, and that then they should accompany him in bearing the
message to Pharaoh. For, before so difficult an undertaking was enjoined to them, it
was desirable that the authority of God should be propounded to them, so that they
might go about it with unwavering hearts. The sum of the message is, that they
should seek permission from Pharaoh to go and sacrifice; but lest they might be
thought to do so from mere unfounded impulse, they are desired to premise that
God had met with them and had given them the command. For the word which

141. expresses his meeting with them, means that he presented himself voluntarily. They
had indeed cried out before, and often appealed to the faithfulness and mercy of
God; yet still this was a voluntary meeting with them, when, contrary to the hope of
them all, he avowed that he would be their deliverer, for, as we have already said,
they cried out more from the urgency of their affliction than from confidence in
prayer. A pretext is suggested to them, by which suspicion and anger may be turned
away from themselves; for a free permission to depart altogether, by which grievous
loss would have arisen to the tyrant, never would have been accorded. Besides, by
refusing so equitable a demand, he despoiled himself of his royal right and power,
since he thus withheld His due honour from the King of kings; for although the
Israelites were under his dominion, yet did not his rule extend so far as to defraud
God of his rightful worship. It was expedient, too, that the people should depart
without the king’s permission only for very good reasons, lest hereafter license of
rebellion should be given to other subjects. Pharaoh indeed suspected differently,
that the sacrifice was a mere false pretense; but since this mistrust proceeded from
his tyranny, his ingratitude was sufficiently proclaimed by it, because through his
own evil conscience he forbade that God should be served. Whatever, again, might
be his feelings, still the miracles by which the command was followed must needs
have taught him that their mission proceeded from God. If the Israelites had merely
spoken, and no confirmation of their words had been given, he might perhaps have
naturally guarded himself against deception; but when God openly shewed that he
was the originator of this departure, and that he commanded the sacrifice beyond
the bounds of Egypt, all grounds of excuse are taken away; and thus the departure
of the people is placed out of the reach of calumny. If any object that it is alien from
the nature of God to countenance any craft or pretense, the reply is easy, — that he
was bound by no necessity to lay open his whole counsel to the tyrant. They mistake
who suppose that there is a kind of falsehood implied in these words; for God had
no desire that his people should use any deceit, he only concealed from the tyrant (as
He had a perfect right to do) what He was about ultimately to effect; and in this way
He detected and brought to light his obstinacy. In a word, God entered the lists for
the Israelites, not in an earthly controversy, but for religion, to which all the rights
of kings must give way. But Jehovah calls himself the God of the Hebrews, that
Pharaoh may know him to be the peculiar God of that nation, and that their form of
worship was different from the customs of Egypt, and, in fact, that he is the only
true God, and all others are fictitious.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:18 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.
Ver. 18. Hath met with us.] Of his own accord, and without our seeking. olentem
praevenit Deus ut velit, volentem subsequitur ne frustra velit. (a) "I am found of
those that sought me not." [Isaiah 65:1]
ELLICOTT, "(18) They shall hearken.—The pronoun “they” refers to “the elders”
of Exodus 3:16. For the fulfilment of the promise, see Exodus 4:29-31. The elders

142. appear to have been persuaded easily, and at once.
Thou and the elders.—We are not told in Exodus 5 that the elders did present
themselves before Pharaoh; but it is possible that they may have done so. Or Moses
and Aaron, who spoke in their name, and by their authority, may have been
regarded as sufficiently representing them.
The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us.—Heb., Jehovah, the God of the
Hebrews. Pharaoh would readily comprehend this statement. He would quite
understand that the Hebrews, being of a different race from the Egyptians, had a
God of their own, and that this God would from time to time give intimations to
them of His will. Such intimations were supposed to be given to the Egyptian kings
occasionally by their gods.
Three days’ journey.—The necessity for withdrawing to so great a distance arose
from that remarkable peculiarity in the Egyptian religion, the worship of animals.
Cows, or at any rate, white cows, were sacred throughout the whole of Egypt, and to
kill them was regarded as a crime of the deepest dye. Sheep were sacred to the
inhabitants of one nome or canton, goats to those of another (Herod. ii. 42). Unless
the Hebrews retired to a place where there were no Egyptians, they would be unable
to perform their sacred rites without danger of disturbance, and even bloodshed.
(See below, Exodus 8:26.)
The wilderness.—“The wilderness” to those who dwelt in Goshen was the broad
sandy and rocky tract which intervened between Egypt and Palestine—the modern
El-Tih—a desert reckoned at three days’ journey across (Herod. iii. 5). It is “a vast
limestone plateau of irregular surface, projecting wedge-fashion into the peninsula
of Sinai, just as Sinai itself projects into the Red Sea. It terminates in a long cliff or
encampment, steep and abrupt on the south-western side, gradually falling away
towards the south-east.”—(Our Work in Palestine, p. 275.)
That we may sacrifice.—It is idle to speculate whether, if Pharaoh had granted the
request, the Israelites would have returned to Egypt after sacrificing. God knew that
he would not grant it.
PULPIT, "They shall hearken to thy voice. Moses thought they would despise him—
turn a deaf ear to his words—look upon him as unworthy of credit. But it was not
so. The hearts of men are in God's hands, and he disposed those of the elders to
receive the message of his servant, Moses, favourably, and believe in it. (See Exodus
4:29-31.) Thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt. This
future is perhaps one of command rather than of prophetic announcement. The
elders do not seem to have actually made their appearance before Pharaoh. (See
Exodus 5:1-4.) They may, however, have authorised Moses and Aaron to speak in
their name. The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us. Through our
representative Moses. "Met with us" is undoubtedly the true meaning. That we may
sacrifice. There was reticence here, no doubt, but no falseness. It was a part of God's
design that sacrifice, interrupted during the sojourn in Egypt for various reasons,

143. should be resumed beyond the bounds of Egypt by His people. So much of his
purpose, and no more, he bade Moses lay before Pharaoh on the first occasion. The
object of the reticence was not to deceive Pharaoh, but to test him.
19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let
you go unless a mighty hand compels him.
BAR ES, "No, not - See the marginal rendering. Others explain it to mean, Pharaoh
will not let the people go even when severely smitten.
CLARKE, "I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not by a
mighty hand - When the facts detailed in this history have been considered in
connection with the assertion as it stands in our Bibles, the most palpable contradiction
has appeared. That the king of Egypt did let them go, and that by a mighty hand, the
book itself amply declares. We should therefore seek for another meaning of the original
word. ‫ולא‬ velo, which generally means and not, has sometimes the meaning of if not,
unless, except, etc.; and in Becke’s Bible, 1549, it is thus translated: I am sure that the
kyng of Egypt wyl not let you go, Except wyth a mighty hand. This import of the negative
particle, which is noticed by Noldius, Heb. Part., p. 328, was perfectly understood by the
Vulgate, where it is translated nisi, unless; and the Septuagint in their εαν µη, which is of
the same import; and so also the Coptic. The meaning therefore is very plain: The king of
Egypt, who now profits much by your servitude, will not let you go till he sees my hand
stretched out, and he and his nation be smitten with ten plagues. Hence God
immediately adds, Exo_3:20 : I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my
wonders - and after that, he will let you go.
GILL, "And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go,.... Or "but" (c)
"I am sure", &c. though so reasonable a request was made him, yet it would not be
granted; this is observed to them, that they might not be discouraged when he should
refuse to dismiss them, which the omniscient God knew beforehand, and acquaints them
with it, that, when it came to pass, they might be induced to believe that the mission of
Moses was of God, rather than the contrary:
no, not by a mighty hand; the mighty power of God displayed once and again, even in
nine plagues inflicted on him, until the tenth and last came upon him; or "unless by a

144. mighty hand" (d), even the almighty hand of God; prayers, entreaties, persuasions, and
arguments, will signify nothing, unless the mighty power of God is exerted upon him.
CALVI , "19.And I am sure that the king of Egypt. God forearms his people, lest,
suffering a repulse at their first onset, they should retire, and abandon in despair
the work enjoined to them. It was, indeed, a hard thing to hear that their expedition
would be vain; and that they might as well address themselves to the trunk of a tree,
since there was no hope of reaching the obstinate heart of Pharaoh; but they would
have been much more discouraged by this trial, if his stubbornness had been
discovered unexpectedly. Therefore God foretells that their words would avail
nothing; but at the same time he announces that he should succeed by his own
wondrous power. If any think it absurd for these unhappy men to be wearied by
their useless labor, and to be repulsed with ridicule and insult, I answer, that this
was for the sake of example, and that it was advantageous for setting forth God’s
glory, that the king, having been civilly applied to, should betray his impious
perversity, since nothing could be more just than that what he had unjustly refused,
should be extorted from him against his will. But interpreters differ as to the
meaning of the words. For some translate it literally from the Hebrew, “no, not by a
mighty hand;” as though God said that the pride of the king would be
unconquerable, and not to be subdued by any power or force; but the context
requires a different sense, because the remedy is afterwards opposed to it, “and I
will stretch out my hand;” and the result is added, that Pharaoh, overcome at length
by the plagues, would let the people go. And this view is grammatically correct; for
the Hebrews use the word ‫ולא‬,)45 ) velo, for “except.” Therefore God commands his
people to be firm and confident, although Pharaoh may not immediately obey;
because he would evidence his power (46) in a remarkable manner for their
deliverance. In the meantime he arouses them to hope by the promise of a successful
issue; since he will forcibly compel Pharaoh to yield.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:19 And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no,
not by a mighty hand.
Ver. 19. Will not let you go.] A sturdy rebel he was; but God tamed him, and took
him down by those ten plagues, comprised in these four verses -
“Fit cruor ex undis, conspurcant omnia ranae;
Dat pulvis cimices, postea musca venit.
Dein pestis, post ulcera, grando, locusta, tenebrae:
Tandem prototocos ultima plaga necat.”
ELLICOTT, "(19) I am sure.—Heb., I know, which is more suitable, since it is God
who speaks, and to Him the future is known with as absolute a certainty as the past.

145. o, not by a mighty hand.—Rather, not even under a mighty hand (ne quidem
valida manu castigatus, Rosenmüller). Pharaoh, even when chastised by My mighty
hand, will not voluntarily permit of your departure (see Exodus 14:5-23).
COFFMA , "Verse 19-20
"And I know that the king of Egypt will not GIVE you leave to go, no, not by a
mighty hand, And I will put forth my hand, and smite Egypt with all my wonders
which I will do in the midst thereof and after that he will let you go."
In this passage, God briefed Moses regarding the ultimate success of the whole
mission. Such knowledge was necessary for Moses who would, therefore, as a result,
know EXACTLY what would happen at each step of the long and difficult
confrontation with Pharaoh. God left no doubt whatever about the final outcome.
"After that he will let you go." Indeed, he did!
This verse is actually a partial explanation of God's promise in Exodus 3:12 that he
would "be with" Moses. It appeared here that he would perform mighty wonders
against the whole land of Egypt, but he did not elaborate concerning what type of
wonders would be done. That remained obscure for the moment.
" o, not by a mighty hand ..." As it stands, the meaning of this is not exactly clear.
The Septuagint (LXX), slightly changing the text, renders it thus: "Unless I lay My
HA D heavily upon him." Dummelow also said that it could possibly mean, "In
spite of the fact that I will lay My hand heavily upon him."[30]
COKE, "Exodus 3:19. Will not let you go, no, not by a mighty hand— But by a
strong hand. Margin of our Bibles. i.e. But by the exertion of a strong and mighty
power, which he will not be able to resist; and which shall subdue that hardness of
heart, and backwardness to consent, which he will shew; see Exodus 6:1. Houbigant
renders this, ni vis aderit portentorum; unless the force of miracles be exerted;
which is rather a paraphrase than a translation: unless with a strong hand, seems
the true interpretation.
EXPOSITOR'S DICTIO ARY, "Exodus 3:19-20
What appears to one side a singular proof of the special interposition of Providence,
is used on the other side, and necessarily with equal force, to show that Christianity
itself is no special interposition of Providence at all, but the natural result of the
historical events by which it was ushered into the world. The Duke of Weimar spoke
more safely when he said of the tyranny of the first apoleon in Germany, "It is
unjust, and therefore it cannot last". He would have spoken more safely still if he
had said, "Last or not last, it is unjust, and being unjust, it carries its own sentence
in its heart, and will prove the weakest in the sum of things".—Goldwin Smith,
Lectures on the Study of History, pp68-69.
When I first heard that Buonaparte had declared that the interests of small states

146. must always succumb to great ones, I said, "Thank God! he has sealed his fate: from
this moment his fall is certain".
—Coleridge.
PULPIT, "I am sure. Literally, "I know," a better rendering, since, "I am sure"
implies something leas than knowledge. o, not by a mighty hand. Or "not even by
a mighty hand." Pharaoh will not be willing to let you go even when my mighty
hand is laid upon him. (See Exodus 8:15, Exodus 8:19, Exodus 8:32; Exodus 9:12,
Exodus 9:35; Exodus 10:20, Exodus 10:27.) "But by strong hand" (marg.) is a
rendering which the rules of grammar do not permit.
20 So I will stretch out my hand and strike the
Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform
among them. After that, he will let you go.
GILL, "And I will stretch out my hand,.... Or "therefore" (e) he would stretch out
his mighty hand, exert his almighty power; and for this purpose was Pharaoh raised up,
and his heart hardened, that God might show his power in him, and on him:
and smite Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in the midst thereof:
with those wondrous plagues, the amazing effects of his almighty power, which were
wrought by him in the midst of Egypt, by which their land, their rivers, their persons,
and their cattle, were smitten:
and after that he will let you go; this is said for their encouragement, that their faith
and patience might hold out, who otherwise seeing him so obstinate and inflexible,
might be ready to despair of ever succeeding.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:20 And I will stretch out my hand, and smite Egypt with all my
wonders which I will do in the midst thereof: and after that he will let you go.
Ver. 20. And after that he will let you go.] When he dare hold you no longer; when I
have sufficiently tamed him and taught him, as Gideon "taught the men of Succoth
with thorns and briers of the wilderness." [ 8:16]

147. COKE, "Exodus 3:20. I will stretch out my HA D— I will mightily exert my
power; see Deuteronomy 26:8. Bishop Warburton very judiciously observes, that
the two most populous regions at that time in the world, were Canaan and Egypt:
the first, distinguished from all others, by its violence and unnatural crimes; the
latter, by its superstitions and idolatries. It concerned God's moral government, that
a speedy check should be put to both; the inhabitants of these two places being now
ripe for Divine vengeance. And, as the instruments he employed to punish their
present enormities, were designed for the barrier AGAI STfuture; the Israelites
went out of Egypt with a high hand, which desolated their haughty tyrants; and
were led into the possession of the land of Canaan, whose inhabitants they were
utterly to exterminate. The dispensation of this providence appears admirable, both
in the time and the modes of the punishment. Vice and idolatry had now, as I said,
filled up their measure. Egypt, the capital of false religion, being likewise the
nursery of arts and sciences, was preserved from total destruction, for the sake of
civil life [and various branches of useful knowledge which were to derive their
source therefrom]: but the CA AA ITES were to be utterly exterminated, to
vindicate [not only the Divine law, but] the honour of humanity, and to put a stop to
a spreading contagion which changed the reasonable nature into brutal. And God
chose to smite this kingdom of Egypt with all his wonders, in support of his elect
people, for this very reason; that through the celebrity of so famed an empire, the
power of the true God might be spread abroad, and strike the observation of the
whole habitable world. See Divine Legat. vol. 2: part 1.
PULPIT, "I will stretch out my hand. To encourage Moses and the people, to
support them in what was, humanly speaking, a most unequal contest, this
important promise is made. It is a confirmation, and to some extent, an explanation
of the pledge, already, given, "Certainly I will be with thee" (Exodus 3:12). It shows
how God would be with him—he would smite Egypt with all his wonders—what
those would be was left obscure. He would come to his people's aid, and openly
assert himself, and afflict and strike terror into their enemies-until at last even
Pharaoh's stubborn spirit would be broken, and he would consent to let them go.
21 “And I will make the Egyptians favorably
disposed toward this people, so that when you
leave you will not go empty-handed.

148. GILL, "And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians,.... That
is, give the Israelites favour in their sight, a little before their departure, who should be
ready to do anything for them, or bestow anything upon them; or however lend them
what they would desire, being glad to be at peace with them, or get rid of them, for
whose sakes they would perceive all those sore calamities came upon them, they were
distressed with:
and it shall come to pass, that when ye go, ye shall not go empty; destitute of
what was necessary for them, but even with great substance, as was foretold by Abraham
they should, and which prophecy was now about to be fulfilled, Gen_15:14.
K&D 21-22, "Not only would God compel Pharaoh to let Israel go; He would not let
His people go out empty, but, according to the promise in Gen_15:14, with great
substance. “I will give this people favour in the eyes of the Egyptians;” that is to say, the
Egyptians should be so favourably disposed towards them, that when they solicited of
their neighbours clothes and ornaments of gold and silver, their request should be
granted. “So shall ye spoil the Egyptians.” What is here foretold as a promise, the
Israelites are directed to do in Exo_11:2-3; and according to Exo_12:35-36, it was really
carried out. Immediately before their departure from Egypt, the Israelites asked (‫לוּ‬ ֲ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ִ‫)י‬
the Egyptians for gold and silver ornaments (‫ים‬ ִ‫ל‬ ֵⅴ not vessels, either for sacrifice, the
house, or the table, but jewels; cf. Gen_24:53; Exo_35:22; Num_31:50) and clothes; and
God gave them favour in the eyes of the Egyptians, so that they gave them to them. For
‫ה‬ ָ ִ‫א‬ ‫ה‬ ָ‫ל‬ ֲ‫א‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ “Let every woman ask of her (female) neighbour and of her that sojourneth in
her house” ( ָ‫ית‬ ֵ ‫ת‬ ָ‫ר‬ָ, from which it is evident that the Israelites did not live apart, but
along with the Egyptians), we find in Exo_11:2, “Let every man ask of his neighbour,
and every woman of her (female) neighbour.” - ‫ם‬ ֶ ְ‫מ‬ ַ‫שׂ‬ְ‫,ו‬ “and put them upon your sons
and daughters.” ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬ ‫,שׂוּם‬ to put on, applied to clothes and ornaments in Lev_8:8 and
Gen_41:42. This command and its execution have frequently given occasion to the
opponents of the Scriptures to throw contempt upon the word of God, the asking being
regarded as borrowing, and the spoiling of the Egyptians as purloining. At the same
time, the attempts made to vindicate this purloining from the wickedness of stealing
have been in many respects unsatisfactory.
(Note: For the different views as to the supposed borrowing of the gold and silver
vessels, see Hengstenberg, Dissertations on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. pp. 419ff., and
Kurtz, History of the Old Covenant, vol. ii. 319ff.)
But the only meaning of ‫ל‬ፍ ָ‫שׁ‬ is to ask or beg,
(Note: Even in 2Ki_5:6; see my commentary on the passage.)
and ‫יל‬ ִ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫,ה‬ which is only met with in Exo_12:36 and 1Sa_1:28, does not mean to lend,
but to suffer to ask, to hear and grant a request. ‫לוּם‬ ִ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ַ‫י‬ (Exo_12:36), lit., they allowed
them to ask; i.e., “the Egyptians did not turn away the petitioners, as not wanting to
listen to them, but received their petition with good-will, and granted their request. No
proof can be brought that ‫יל‬ ִ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫ה‬ means to lend, as is commonly supposed; the word

149. occurs again in 1Sa_1:28, and there it means to grant or give” (Knobel on Exo_12:36).
Moreover the circumstances under which the ‫ל‬ፍ ָ‫שׁ‬ and ‫יל‬ ִ‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫ה‬ took place, were quite at
variance with the idea of borrowing and lending. For even if Moses had not spoken
without reserve of the entire departure of the Israelites, the plagues which followed one
after another, and with which the God of the Hebrews gave emphasis to His demand as
addressed through Moses to Pharaoh, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me,” must
have made it evident to every Egyptian, that all this had reference to something greater
than a three days' march to celebrate a festival. And under these circumstances no
Egyptian could have cherished the thought, that the Israelites were only borrowing the
jewels they asked of them, and would return them after the festival. What they gave
under such circumstances, they could only give or present without the slightest prospect
of restoration. Still less could the Israelites have had merely the thought of borrowing in
their mind, seeing that God had said to Moses, “I will give the Israelites favour in the
eyes of the Egyptians; and it will come to pass, that when ye go out, ye shall not go out
empty” (Exo_3:21). If, therefore, it is “natural to suppose that these jewels were festal
vessels with which the Egyptians furnished the poor Israelites for the intended feast,”
and even if “the Israelites had their thoughts directed with all seriousness to the feast
which they were about to celebrate to Jehovah in the desert” (Baumgarten); their
request to the Egyptians cannot have referred to any borrowing, nor have presupposed
any intention to restore what they received on their return. From the very first the
Israelites asked without intending to restore, and the Egyptians granted their request
without any hope of receiving back, because God had made their hearts favourably
disposed to the Israelites. The expressions ‫ם‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫ר‬ ְ‫צ‬ ִ‫ת־מ‬ ֶ‫א‬ ‫ם‬ ֶ ְ‫ל‬ ַ ִ‫נ‬ in Exo_3:22, and ‫לוּ‬ ְ ַ‫נ‬ְ‫י‬ַ‫ו‬ in Exo_
12:36, are not at variance with this, but rather require it. For ‫ל‬ ַ‫צ‬ָ‫נ‬ does not mean to
purloin, to steal, to take away secretly by cunning and fraud, but to plunder (2Ch_
20:25), as both the lxx (σκυλεύειν) and Vulgate (spoliare) have rendered it. Rosenmüller,
therefore, is correct in his explanation: “Et spoliabitis Aegyptios, ita ut ab Aegyptiis, qui
vos tam dura servitute oppresserunt, spolia auferetis.” So also is Hengstenberg, who
says, “The author represents the Israelites as going forth, laden as it were with the spoils
of their formidable enemy, trophies of the victory which God's power had bestowed on
their weakness. While he represents the gifts of the Egyptians as spoils which God had
distributed to His host (as Israel is called in Exo_12:41), he leads us to observe that the
bestowment of these gifts, which outwardly appeared to be the effect of the good-will of
the Egyptians, if viewed more deeply, proceeded from another Giver; that the outwardly
free act of the Egyptians was effected by an inward divine constraint which they could
not withstand” (Dissertations, vol. ii. p. 431). - Egypt had spoiled Israel by the tributary
labour so unjustly enforced, and now Israel carried off the spoil of Egypt-a prelude to the
victory which the people of God will one day obtain in their conflict with the power of
the world (cf. Zec_14:14).
CALVI , "21.And I will give this people favor. By this extreme exercise of His
bounty He encourages the Israelites to contend and strive more heartily; since
otherwise it would be hard for them to struggle with the great cruelty of the king.
Therefore He promises them not only liberty, but also abundance of rich and
precious things. But, inasmuch as this was hard to believe, that the Egyptians their
bitterest enemies would become so kind and liberal as to exert such beneficence
towards them, God reminds them that it is in His power to turn the hearts of men

150. whithersoever He will. He proclaims, then, that He will cause these wolves of Egypt
to become like lambs, and that they who used to bite and devour should now supply
them with the very wool from their backs. This passage contains rich and extensive
doctrine; that whenever men cruelly rage against us, it does not happen contrary to
the design of God, because He can in a moment quiet them; and that He grants this
license to their cruelty, because it is expedient thus to humble and chasten us. Again,
we gather from hence, that we have no enemies so fierce and barbarous, as that it is
not easy for Him readily to tame them. If we were surely persuaded of this, that
men’s hearts are controlled, and guided by the secret inspiration of God, we should
not so greatly dread their hatred, and threatenings, and terrors, nor should we be so
easily turned from the path of duty through fear of them. This alarm is the just
reward of our unbelief, when we repose not on God’s providence; and although we
ought to take pains to conciliate the kindness of all by courtesy, yet should we
remember that our efforts will not gain their favor, unless God should so incline
their hearts.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:21 And I will give this people favour in the sight of the
Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
Ver. 21. I will give this people favour.] It is God that fashioneth men’s spirits, and
speaketh ofttimes for them in the hearts of their greatest enemies.
COFFMA , "Verse 21-22
"And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to
pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty: but every woman shall ask of her
neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of
gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters;
and ye shall despoil the Egyptians."
Here again we encounter the indignation of the supermoralists who blame the God
of heaven and earth with deceit and inmorality based upon what we find here. Evil
men love to find fault with God. The Hebrews had been worked without wages, or
at least any adequate wages, for a century or more. ow that they would be leaving
forever, it was appropriate that they should have REQUESTED gifts of those whom
they were leaving. Unfortunately, the word "borrow" crept into the translation in
some versions, but that is simply an error. There was never any promise of repaying
any of what was given. Both the Israelites and the Egyptians understood that
perfectly. Keil has this:
U DER the circumstances, no Egyptian could have cherished the thought that the
Israelites were only borrowing the jewels asked of them, and that they would return
them after the festival. What they gave under the circumstances they could only
have given without the slightest prospect of restoration."[31]
This loading of the Israelites with treasures on the occasion of their departure was
prophesied by God Himself in a promise made to Abraham (Genesis 15:24) where it
was related that they would go out of the land of their sojournings "with great

151. substance." Here the same meaning is stated in, "Ye shall despoil the Egyptians." In
the history of the world, there was EVER another coup exactly like this one! The
very uniqueness of Exodus is an unqualified marvel.
COKE, "Exodus 3:21. I will give this people favour— An expression, which
abundantly serves to clear the difficulty raised by some from what is mentioned in
the following verse. GOD, in whose hand are all hearts, promises, that he himself
will influence the Egyptians to favour the Israelites at their departure, to grant them
what they shall ask, (for so the WORD ‫שׁאל‬ sheal, which we render borrow, should
be translated,) and generously to dismiss them with such presents, as might be
thought, in some degree, a compensation for the injuries they had received in Egypt.
LA GE, "Exodus 3:21. Announcement of the terror of the Egyptians, in which they
will give to the Israelites, upon a modest request for a loan, the most costly vessels
(Keil: “jewels”). The announcement becomes a command in Exodus 11:2 sq. On the
ancient misunderstanding of this fact, vid. Keil, p445 sq, and the references to
Hengstenberg, Kurtz, Reinke; also Commentary on Genesis, p29. “Egypt had
robbed Israel by the unwarranted and unjust exactions imposed upon him; now
Israel carries off the prey of Egypt. A prelude of the victory which the people of God
will always gain in the contest with the powers of the world. Comp. Zechariah
14:14” (Keil).[F 12]
PULPIT, "Exodus 3:21, Exodus 3:22
The "spoiling of the Egyptians" has called forth much bitter comment. (See Kalisch,
note on Exodus 3:22.) It has been termed a combination of "fraud, deception and
theft"—"base deceit and nefarious fraud"—"glaring villainy," and the like. The
unfortunate translation of a verb meaning "ask" by "borrow" in Exodus 3:22, has
greatly helped the objectors. In reality, what God here commanded and declared
was this:—The Israelite women were told on the eve of their departure from Egypt
to ask presents (bakh-sheesh) from their rich Egyptian neighbours, as a
contribution to the necessary expenses of the long journey on which they were
entering; and God promised that he would so favourably incline the hearts of these
neighbours towards them, that, in reply to their request, articles of silver and of
gold, together with raiment, would be freely and bounteously bestowed on them—so
freely and so bounteously, that they might clothe and adorn, not only themselves,
but their sons and daughters, with the presents; and the entire result would be that,
instead of quitting Egypt like a nation of slaves, in rags and penniless, they would go
forth in the guise of an army of conquerors, laden with the good things of the
country, having (with their own good-will) "spoiled the Egyptians." o fraud, no
deceit, was to be practised—the Egyptians perfectly well understood that, if the
Israelites once went, they would never voluntarily return—they were asked to give
and they gave—with the result that Egypt was "spoiled." Divine justice sees in this a
rightful nemesis. Oppressed, wronged, down-trodden, miserably paid for their hard
labour during centuries, the Israelites were to obtain at the last something like a
compensation for their ill-usage; the riches of Africa were to be showered on them.

152. Egypt, "glad at their departing," was to build them a bridge of gold to expedite
their flight, and to despoil herself in order to enrich her quondam slaves, of whom
she was, under the circumstances, delighted to be rid.
22 Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any
woman living in her house for articles of silver
and gold and for clothing, which you will put on
your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder
the Egyptians.”
BAR ES, "Shall borrow - shall ask. The Egyptians had made the people serve
“with rigor,” and the Israelites when about to leave the country for ever were to ask or
claim the jewels as a just, though very inadequate, remuneration for services which had
made “their lives bitter.” The Egyptians would doubtless have refused had not their
feelings toward Moses (see Exo_11:3) and the people been changed, under God’s
influence, by calamities in which they recognized a divine interposition, which also they
rightly attributed to the obstinacy of their own king (see Exo_10:7). The Hebrew women
were to make the demand, and were to make it of women, who would of course be
especially moved to compliance by the loss of their children, the fear of a recurrence of
calamity, perhaps also by a sense of the fitness of the request in connection with a
religious festival.
Jewels - Chiefly, trinkets. These ornaments were actually applied to the purpose for
which they were probably demanded, being employed in making the vessels of the
sanctuary (compare Exo_35:22).
Sojourneth in her house - This indicates a degree of friendly and neighborly
contact, in accordance with several indirect notices, and was a natural result of long and
peaceable sojourn in the district. The Egyptians did not all necessarily share the feelings
of their new king.
CLARKE, "Every woman shall borrow - This is certainly not a very correct
translation: the original word ‫שאל‬ shaal signifies simply to ask, request, demand,
require, inquire, etc.; but it does not signify to borrow in the proper sense of that word,
though in a very few places of Scripture it is thus used. In this and the parallel place,
Exo_12:35, the word signifies to ask or demand, and not to borrow, which is a gross

153. mistake into which scarcely any of the versions, ancient or modern, have fallen, except
our own. The Septuagint has αιτησει, she shall ask; the Vulgate, postulabit, she shall
demand; the Syriac, Chaldee, Samaritan, Samaritan Version, Coptic, and Persian, are the
same as the Hebrew. The European versions are generally correct on this point; and our
common English version is almost the sole transgressor: I say, the common version,
which, copying the Bible published by Becke in 1549, gives us the exceptionable term
borrow, for the original ‫שאל‬ shaal, which in the Geneva Bible, and Barker’s Bible of 1615,
and some others, is rightly translated aske. God commanded the Israelites to ask or
demand a certain recompense for their past services, and he inclined the hearts of the
Egyptians to give liberally; and this, far from a matter of oppression, wrong, or even
charity, was no more than a very partial recompense for the long and painful services
which we may say six hundred thousand Israelites had rendered to Egypt, during a
considerable number of years. And there can be no doubt that while their heaviest
oppression lasted, they were permitted to accumulate no kind of property, as all their
gains went to their oppressors.
Our exceptionable translation of the original has given some countenance to the
desperate cause of infidelity; its abettors have exultingly said: “Moses represents the just
God as ordering the Israelites to borrow the goods of the Egyptians under the pretense
of returning them, whereas he intended that they should march off with the booty.” Let
these men know that there was no borrowing in the case; and that if accounts were fairly
balanced, Egypt would be found still in considerable arrears to Israel. Let it also be
considered that the Egyptians had never any right to the services of the Hebrews. Egypt
owed its policy, its opulence, and even its political existence, to the Israelites. What had
Joseph for his important services? Nothing! He had neither district, nor city, nor
lordship in Egypt; nor did he reserve any to his children. All his services were gratuitous;
and being animated with a better hope than any earthly possession could inspire, he
desired that even his bones should be carried up out of Egypt. Jacob and his family, it is
true, were permitted to sojourn in Goshen, but they were not provided for in that place;
for they brought their cattle, their goods, and all that they had into Egypt, Gen_46:1,
Gen_46:6; so that they had nothing but the bare land to feed on; and had built treasure
cities or fortresses, we know not how many; and two whole cities, Pithom and Raamses,
besides; and for all these services they had no compensation whatever, but were besides
cruelly abused, and obliged to witness, as the sum of their calamities, the daily murder of
their male infants. These particulars considered, will infidelity ever dare to produce this
case again in support of its worthless pretensions?
Jewels of silver, etc. - The word ‫כלי‬ keley we have already seen signifies vessels,
instruments, weapons, etc., and may be very well translated by our English term, articles
or goods. The Israelites got both gold and silver, probably both in coin and in plate of
different kinds; and such raiment as was necessary for the journey which they were
about to undertake.
Ye shall spoil the Egyptians - The verb ‫נצל‬ natsal signifies, not only to spoil, snatch
away, but also to get away, to escape, to deliver, to regain, or recover. Spoil signifies what
is taken by rapine or violence; but this cannot be the meaning of the original word here,
as the Israelites only asked, and the Egyptians with out fear, terror, or constraint, freely
gave. It is worthy of remark that the original word is used, 1Sa_30:22, to signify the
recovery of property that had been taken away by violence: “Then answered all the
wicked men, and men of Belial, of those that went with David, Because they went not
with us we will not give them aught of the Spoil (‫מהשלל‬ mehashShalal) that we have

154. Recovered, ‫הצלנו‬ ‫אשר‬ asher Hitstsalnu. In this sense we should understand the word here.
The Israelites recovered a part of their property - their wages, of which they had been
most unjustly deprived by the Egyptians.
In this chapter we have much curious and important information; but what is most
interesting is the name by which God was pleased to make himself known to Moses and
to the Israelites, a name by which the Supreme Being was afterwards known among the
wisest inhabitants of the earth. He who Is and who Will Be what he Is. This is a proper
characteristic of the Divine Being, who is, properly speaking, the only Being, because he
is independent and eternal; whereas all other beings, in whatsoever forms they may
appear, are derived, finite, changeable, and liable to destruction, decay, and even to
annihilation. When God, therefore, announced himself to Moses by this name, he
proclaimed his own eternity and immateriality; and the very name itself precludes the
possibility of idolatry, because it was impossible for the mind, in considering it, to
represent the Divine Being in any assignable shape; for who could represent Being or
Existence by any limited form? And who can have any idea of a form that is unlimited?
Thus, then, we find that the first discovery which God made of himself was intended to
show the people the simplicity and spirituality of his nature; that while they considered
him as Being, and the Cause of all Being, they might be preserved from all idolatry for
ever. The very name itself is a proof of a Divine revelation; for it is not possible that such
an idea could have ever entered into the mind of man, unless it had been communicated
from above. It could not have been produced by reasoning, for there were no premises
on which it could be built, nor any analogies by which it could have been formed. We can
as easily comprehend eternity as we can being, simply considered in and of itself, when
nothing of assignable forms, colors, or qualities existed, besides its infinite and
illimitable self.
To this Divine discovery the ancient Greeks owed the inscription which they placed
above the door of the temple of Apollo at Delphi: the whole of the inscription consisted
in the simple monosyllable Ei, Thou Art, the second person of the Greek substantive
verb ειµι, I am. On this inscription Plutarch, one of the most intelligent of all the Gentile
philosophers, made an express treatise, περι του ΕΙ εν ∆ελφοις, having received the true
interpretation in his travels in Egypt, whither he had gone for the express purpose of
inquiring into their ancient learning, and where he had doubtless seen these words of
God to Moses in the Greek version of the Septuagint, which had been current among the
Egyptians (for whose sake it was first made) about four hundred years previously to the
death of Plutarch. This philosopher observes that “this title is not only proper, but
peculiar to God, because He alone is being; for mortals have no participation of true
being, because that which begins and ends, and is continually changing, is never one nor
the same, nor in the same state. The deity on whose temple this word was inscribed was
called Apollo, Απολλν, from α, negative, and πολυς, many, because God is One, his nature
simple, his essence uncompounded.” Hence he informs us the ancient mode of
addressing God was, “ΕΙ ΕΝ, Thou art One, ου γαρ πολλα το θειον εστιν, for many cannot
be attributed to the Divine nature: και οᆓ προτερον ουδεν εστιν, ουδ’ υστερον, ουδε µελλον,
ουδε παρωχηµενον, ουδε πρεσβυτερον, ουδε νεωτερον, in which there is neither first nor
last, future nor past, old nor young; αλλ’ εις ων ενι τሩ νυν το αει πεπληρωκε, but as being
one, fills up in one Now an eternal duration.” And he concludes with observing that “this
word corresponds to certain others on the same temple, viz., ΓΝ ΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΝ Know

155. thyself; as if, under the name ΕΙ. Thou Art, the Deity designed to excite men to venerate
Him as eternally existing, ᆞς οντα διαπαντος, and to put them in mind of the frailty and
mortality of their own nature.”
What beautiful things have the ancient Greek philosophers stolen from the
testimonies of God to enrich their own works, without any kind of acknowledgment!
And, strange perversity of man! these are the very things which we so highly applaud in
the heathen copies, while we neglect or pass them by in the Divine originals!
GILL, "But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that
sojourneth in her house,.... Or "shall ask" (f), desire them to give or lend, what
follows; and by this it appears, that the Israelites by reason of their great increase were
spread about, and mixed with the Egyptians; and hence it was that there was such a
mixed multitude that went up with them out of Egypt, who either were in connection
with them in civil things, or were proselyted by them:
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold; that is, jewels set in silver and in gold; or
"vessels of silver, and vessels of gold" (g), plate of both sorts, cups, dishes, &c:
and raiment; rich and goodly apparel, which they might borrow to appear in at their
feast and sacrifices in the wilderness, whither they asked leave to go to:
and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and so deck
and ornament them with them at the time of their departure:
and ye shall spoil the Egyptians; and very justly, for the hard service they put them
to; for which all this was but their wages due unto them, and which they would stand in
need of in their travels to Canaan's land, and for the erection of the tabernacle, and
providing things appertaining to it in the wilderness.
CALVI , "22.But every woman shall borrow. (47) Those who consider these means
of enriching the people to be but little in accordance with the justice of God,
themselves reflect but little how widely that justice of which they speak extends. I
acknowledge that it is His attribute to defend every one’s rights, to prohibit theft, to
condemn deceit and rapine; but let us see what every one’s property is. Who will
boast that he has anything, except what is given him by God? And all is given on
this condition, that each one should possess according to His will whatever God
pleases, who is free to take away at any moment whatsoever He has given. The
Hebrews spoiled the Egyptians; and should the latter complain that an injury is
done them, they would argue against God that He had transferred His own free gifts
from them to others. Would this complaint be listened to, that God, in whose hands
are the ends of the earth, who by His power appoints the bounds of nations, and
reduces their kings to poverty, had deprived certain persons of their furniture and
jewels? Another defense is set up by some, that the Hebrews took nothing which was
not their own, but only the wages which were due to them; because they were
iniquitously driven to servile labors, and had subsisted meanly upon what belonged

156. to themselves. And certainly it would have been just that their labor should have
been recompensed in some way. But there is no need of weighing the judgment of
God by ordinary rules, since we have already seen that all the possessions of the
world are His, to distribute them according to His pleasure. evertheless I do not
thus suppose Him to be without law; for although His power is above all laws, still,
because His will is the most certain rule of perfect equity, whatever He does must be
perfectly right; and therefore He is free from laws, because He is a law to Himself,
and to all. either would I simply say with Augustin, (48) that this was a command
of God which should not be canvassed but obeyed, because He knows that He
commands justly, and that his servants must obediently perform whatever He
commands. This indeed is truly said, and yet we must hold fast that higher
principle, that, since whatever people call their own they possess only by God’s
bounty, there is no juster title to possession than His gift. We will not therefore say
that the Hebrew women purloined that which God ordered them to take, and which
He chose to bestow upon them; neither will God be accounted unjust in bestowing
nothing but what was His own. (49) The word which I have translated “hospitem, ”
or “hostess,” some understand as a “fellow- sojourner;” and this is not very
important, because we gather from the other word, that the Egyptians were mixed
among the Hebrews. In the end of the verse, because the original expresses, “ye shall
put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters,” almost all interpreters
expound it to mean that they should ornament them; but it seems to me that it only
refers to the abundance of the spoil; as much as to say, you shall not only obtain as
much as you can carry yourselves, but shall also load your sons and daughters.
TRAPP, "Exodus 3:22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her
that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and
ye shall put [them] upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the
Egyptians.
Ver. 22. Ye shall spoil the Egyptians.] By a special dispensation, which none could
grant but the law maker. So Ezekiel 39:10. These jewels did afterwards become a
snare to the Israelites in the matter of the golden calf.
ELLICOTT, "(22) Every woman shall borrow.—Rather, shall ask ( αἰτήσει, LXX.;
postulabit, Vulg.). That there was really no pretence of “borrowing,” appears from
Exodus 12:33-36, where we find that the “jewels” were not asked for until the very
moment of departure, when the Israelites were being “thrust forth,” and the people
were urgent on them to be gone, certainly neither expecting nor wishing to see them
again. Asking for presents is a common practice in the East, and persons who were
quitting their homes to set out on a long journey through a strange country would
have abundant excuse, if any had been needed, for soliciting aid from their rich
neighbours.
Of her neighbour.—Egyptians were mingled with the Israelites in Goshen, as we see
by Exodus 2:3.
Of her that sojourneth in her house.—Rosenmüller supposes that Egyptians who

157. rented houses which belonged to the Hebrews are intended; but the expression used
is more suitable to lodgers or visitors, (Comp. Job 19:15.)
Upon your sons.—The Egyptian men of the Rameside period wore gold and silver
ornaments almost as freely as the women. Their ornaments included armlets,
bracelets, anklets, and collars.
Ye shall spoil, i.e., It shall be as if ye had conquered the Egyptians, and spoiled
them. Compare the promise made to Abraham (Genesis 15, 14); and for the
fulfilment, see below (Exodus 12:35-36).
BE SO , "Exodus 3:22. Every woman shall ask, ‫,שׁאלה‬ shaalah, (not borrow,)
jewels. And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians — God
sometimes makes the enemies of his people not only to be at peace with them, but to
be kind to them. And he has many ways of balancing accounts between the injured
and the injurious, of righting the oppressed, and compelling those that have done
wrong to make restitution.
COKE, "Exodus 3:22. Every woman shall borrow— It should be translated, shall
ASK of her neighbour, and of her that sojourns in her house, vessels of silver, and
vessels of gold, and raiment, &c. But, for a further justification of this matter, we
refer to the event itself, ch. Exodus 12:35. It appears by the expression in the text, of
her neighbour, and her that sojourneth in her house,—that the Hebrews and
Egyptians lived intermixed; and so the former might the more easily carry some of
the latter along with them, when they left Egypt. See ch. Exodus 11:8.
REFLECTIO S.—Moses is farther directed in his WORK.
1. He must assemble the elders of the people, and assure them of the fulfilment of
God's promise; and they shall hearken to it. ote; (1.) The faithful report of God's
word is every minister's duty. (2.) When we do so, it is God's work to make it
successful, and we have God's promise to assure us that he will, Matthew 28:20.
2. He must speak to Pharaoh; and the request is most reasonable, but Pharaoh will
not hearken. Learn hence, The obstinacy of the sinner's heart, who turns a deaf ear
to the kindest pleas and remonstrances.
3. God will bring his people out in spite of Pharaoh, and not only free, but enriched
with the spoils of the Egyptians. Learn, (1.) Opposition against God is vain. (2.)
Whether we have justice in this world or not, we know the day is near, when God
will judge according to truth.
But let us, before we dismiss this chapter, consider this wonderful manifestation of
God as a type of the Messiah. The appearances of the Deity, in that AGE of types,
were most generally vouchsafed in such a manner, as to represent some hidden
mystery, or important doctrine of the Gospel. They who think, that the flame of fire
might signify the pure and spiritual nature of God, who appeared in it, are certainly

158. not mistaken. And it is also not unfitly observed, that the burning bush may
represent the state of Israel at that time, who were entangled in the thorny bush of
adversity, in which they were near being consumed. But let us draw near, and
consider with Moses this great sight with a closer attention; and perhaps it will be
found a most significant emblem, both of Jesus Christ who was in the bush, and of
the church which is his body, in every age of the world.
And, first, it seems very probable, that this was a prelusive vision both of the future
incarnation and sufferings of Jesus Christ. That the bush may represent his human
nature, is not unlikely, especially as the prophet Esaias compares him to a tender
plant, and root out of a dry ground, in which, to the eye of sense, no form,
comeliness, or beauty should BE FOU D. That the flame of fire may adumbrate or
typify his Divine ature, will be no less evident, when we consider how often the
fiery element is, in the Scripture-style, an emblem of the Deity: yea, it is expressly
said, "Our God is a consuming fire," Hebrews 12:29. That the union of the flame of
fire with the bush may denote the union of the Godhead and the Manhood, is not at
all absurd to suppose: for why should Moses, in his dying benediction, be
DIRECTED to speak of "the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the bush?"
Deuteronomy 33:16. May it not signify, that the continuance of the flame of fire in
the bush for a time, was a type of the fulness of the Godhead dwelling for ever in the
man Christ Jesus? As the bush was in the fire, and the fire in the bush; yet still they
were distinct things, though joined thus in one: even so the Man Christ Jesus is in
the God, and the God is in the Man, though both these atures, so mysteriously
united, do still retain their own distinct properties. And if Moses was struck with
admiration, that the bush was not consumed, though in such near neighbourhood
with ruddy flame; much more may we be OVERWHELMED with amazement, to
think how a portion of our frail humanity lives for ever in a state of the nearest
approach unto, and most ineffable union with the glorious Godhead, in whose
unveiled presence we mortals could not live, and even the angels cover their faces
with their wings. Here also may be discerned a shadow of those direful sufferings,
by which the Son of God was to expiate our sins. For the wrath of God is in
innumerable instances in Scripture compared to fire: and Jesus Christ, who dwelt in
the bush, dwelt also in the fierce fire of God's indignation against sin, which flamed
most intensely against him, while he bore the sins of many, and was compassed by
this fire all the days of his humbled life: yet he was not consumed, because his Deity,
like the Angel in the bush, supported his humanity, and bade him be a glorious
Conqueror.
From the sufferings of the head, let us descend to the sufferings of the body. Let the
bush be an emblem of the church, to which it may be compared on account of its
weak, obscure, and contemptible state in the esteem of worldly men, who are taken
with nothing but what dazzles the eye of sense. For though there is a real glory, and
a spiritual magnificence, in this holy society, she cannot compare with earthly
kingdoms in outward splendour, any more than a bush in the wilderness can vie
with a cedar in Lebanon; for besides the comparative paucity of her true members,
they are commonly to be found rather in smoky cottages than proud palaces; and
sometimes they have been found in prisons, dungeons, dens, and caves of the earth.

159. Let the fire in which the bush burned, signify the fiery trials to which the church
has been no stranger in all ages. Sometimes, she has burned in the fire of
persecution; and sometimes, of division. But as the bush was not consumed, so
neither has the church been destroyed. In vain shall the great red dragon persecute
this woman clothed with the sun; for a place is prepared for her in the wilderness by
the great God, and there no necessary provision shall be wanting. How many times
have bloody and deceitful men conspired her destruction? When were incendiaries
wanting to foment and KI DLE those fires, which, without the immediate
interposition of the Keeper of Israel, would certainly have wasted unto destruction,
and completed the utter extinction of this humble bush? What society, but this
alone, could have subsisted to this day, in the midst of a hating world? Where are
now the mighty empires of antiquity? They are but an empty name, live only in
history, having fallen to pieces by their own weight, or been crushed by bloody war.
But the church of Christ, though she has undergone many revolutions, remains, and
will remain, when the consumption determined by the Lord of Hosts shall come
upon all the earth.
Ask you the reason? The angel of the Lord is in the bush; and though persecuted,
she is not forsaken: THEREFORE shall the fiery trials, instead of consuming her,
serve to refine her, and add unto her glory, as the bush was only brightened by the
flame.
PULPIT, "Borrow. The Hebrew word means simply "ask" ( αἰτήσει, LXX.;
postulabit, Vulg.). Of her neighbours. The intermixture to some extent of the
Egyptians with the Hebrews in Goshen is here again implied, as in Exodus 1:1-22
and Exodus 2:1-25. And of her that sojourneth in her house. Some of the Israelites,
it would seem, took in Egyptian lodgers superior to them in wealth and rank. This
implies more friendly feeling between the two nations than we should have
expected; but it is quite natural that, after their long stay in Egypt, the Hebrews
should have made a certain number of the Egyptians their friends.