Names of God

Exoduschapter 3

22 verses · ASV

This chapter sends 369 cross-references outward and receives 430 — heaviest partner: Exodus.

Chapter summary

The burning bush. Moses at Horeb, keeping Jethro's flock, turns aside to the bush that burns but is not consumed. ‘Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.’ The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob commissions him. The commission lands on the revealed Name — ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (3:14) — answered to every generation of Israel. The chapter is the hinge of the Old Testament: the patriarchal God of the fathers steps forward as the covenant God with a Name for deliverance. John 8:58 lifts the verse into the mouth of Jesus; the burning bush burns in every ‘I AM’ of the Gospels.

Drafted from Matthew Henry, Calvin, Gill, Clarke, JFB, and Barnes.

Context

Law · Moses — see the Exodus overview for the book's full setting.

13 Names of God14–22 I AM

1 Now 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.

2 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.

3 And Moses said, I will turn aside now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

4 And when Jehovah 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.

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.

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.

7 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 taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

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 Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.