2 And the angel of the Lord was seen by him in a flame of fire coming out of a thorn-tree: and he saw that the tree was on fire, but it was not burned up.
At the end of forty years, an angel came to him in the waste land of Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn-tree. And Moses, seeing it, was full of wonder, and when he came up to have a nearer view of it, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And Moses, shaking with fear, kept his eyes from looking at it. And the Lord said, Take off the shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. Truly, I have seen the sorrows of my people in Egypt, and their cries have come to my ears, and I have come down to make them free: and now, come, I will send you to Egypt. This Moses, whom they would not have, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge? him God sent to be a ruler and a saviour, by the hand of the angel whom he saw in the thorn-tree.
For it is our desire that you may not be without knowledge of our trouble which came on us in Asia, that the weight of it was very great, more than our power, so that it seemed that we had no hope even of life: Yes, we ourselves have had the answer of death in ourselves, so that our hope might not be in ourselves, but in God who is able to give life to the dead: Who gave us salvation from so great a death: on whom we have put our hope that he will still go on to give us salvation;
And he said to Abram, Truly, your seed will be living in a land which is not theirs, as servants to a people who will be cruel to them for four hundred years; But I will be the judge of that nation whose servants they are, and they will come out from among them with great wealth. As for you, you will go to your fathers in peace; at the end of a long life you will be put in your last resting-place. And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full. Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies.
In the body of his mother he took his brother by the foot, and in his strength he was fighting with God; He had a fight with the angel and overcame him; he made request for grace to him with weeping; he came face to face with him in Beth-el and there his words came to him;
And the Lord was pleased ... see a seed, long life, ... will do well in his hand. ... ... made clear his righteousness before men ... had taken their sins on himself.
And when the Lord saw him turning to one side to see, God said his name out of the tree, crying, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Do not come near: take off your shoes from your feet, for the place where you are is holy. And he said, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses kept his face covered for fear of looking on God. And God said, Truly, I have seen the grief of my people in Egypt, and their cry because of their cruel masters has come to my ears; for I have knowledge of their sorrows; And I have come down to take them out of the hands of the Egyptians, guiding them out of that land into a good land and wide, into a land flowing with milk and honey; into the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. For now, truly, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have seen the cruel behaviour of the Egyptians to them. Come, then, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may take my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.
And the voice of the angel of the Lord came to Abraham a second time from heaven, Saying, I have taken an oath by my name, says the Lord, because you have done this and have not kept back from me your dearly loved only son,
And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife. And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority. And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered. And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow. And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers. And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
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Commentary on Exodus 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 3
Ex 3:1-22. Divine Appearance and Commission to Moses.
1. Now Moses kept the flock—This employment he had entered on in furtherance of his matrimonial views (see on Ex 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 (Ge 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" (Ps 36:6); "goodly cedars," Hebrew, "cedars of God" (Ps 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 Ex 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.
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 (Ex 3:4, 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.
4. 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?
5. 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.
6-8. I am the God … come down to deliver—The reverential awe of Moses must have been relieved by the divine Speaker (see Mt 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 period of Israel's journey and affliction in Egypt had been predicted (Ge 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.
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 [Ex 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10] all of which were successfully met and removed—and the happy issue of his labors was minutely described.