Chapter study · Exodus
Exodus 3
The burning bush and the Name
Traditionally Moses · Set c. 1400–1200 BC · about 8 min
Before you read
Moses is eighty years old, forty years removed from Egypt, keeping sheep for his father-in-law in Midian. The palace prince has become a desert nobody — which is when God decides he is ready.
Exodus 3 is where Israel's God introduces Himself by name — the moment everything else in the Bible builds on.
Watch Moses' five objections and God's five answers. Every excuse you have ever made is in this chapter.
Verse by verse
Exodus 3:2–3
“The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush… behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.”
The miracle Moses had to 'turn aside' to see. God often waits in the ordinary — a bush — until someone is willing to interrupt their schedule.
Exodus 3:5
“Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
The ground was already ordinary desert; God's presence made it holy. Any ground where God meets you — a kitchen, a hospital corridor — becomes holy ground.
Exodus 3:7
“I have surely seen the affliction of my people… and have heard their cry… and I have come down to deliver them.”
Four verbs: seen, heard, known, come down. God's answer to suffering is not explanation but arrival. This verse is the seed of the Incarnation.
Exodus 3:11
“But Moses said to God, 'Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh?'”
God's answer (v.12) is famously not an answer: 'I will be with you.' Moses asked about his own adequacy; God replied with His own presence. The question was wrong; the promise was right.
Exodus 3:14
“God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM.' And he said, 'Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.'”
The Name — YHWH — built from the verb 'to be.' It means: self-existent, uncreated, not defined by anything else. Every other god has a biography. This God simply IS.
Exodus 3:4:2
“The Lord said to him, 'What is that in your hand?'”
A staff. Eighty years of reduced circumstances had left Moses one tool, and God chose to start there. The pattern holds: loaves, fish, a slingshot, a staff — God begins with what is already in your hand.
A word in the original Hebrew
Ehyeh · אֶהְיֶה
'I AM' / 'I will be' — the Name at the burning bush. Not 'I was' or 'I might be': pure, unlimited, present-tense Being. Jesus will pick the Name up in John 8:58.
Carry these with you
God's answer to 'who am I?' is 'I will be with you.'
He sees, hears, knows, and comes down — suffering moves Him to arrival.
He starts with what is already in your hand.
Questions to sit with
- 1.
What bush might be burning in your ordinary week that you haven't turned aside for?
- 2.
Which of Moses' five excuses is currently yours?
- 3.
What is in your hand right now?