Exodus 3-4
Introduction
This lesson covers from the burning bush incident to when Moses arrives in Egypt to confront Pharaoh. Again, please refer to these resources as well: this commentary, the NETS Bible, and this LXX Interlinear.
Exo. 3
As we continue our study of Exodus we encounter the famous incident of the burning bush. According to Constable’s notes, it was not unusual for thorn bushes to sponaneously burst into flame in the Sinai desert. What got Moses’ attention was that the flames didn’t consume the bush. So when he went to investigate, “the angel of the Lord” appeared and spoke directly to him— which hadn’t happened to anyone in hundreds of years. And as clearly stated in verse 6, this “angel” is God Himself, and he identifies himself by whose God he is: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the first and most important “name” of God, not a simple label but a relationship. We’ll delve more into the labels later on.
Starting in verse 7, God explains that he has had enough of the suffering of his people; we must never forget that they are his chosen ones, according to what he promised Abraham unconditionally. He also promises to bring them to that Promised Land, which is always portrayed as literal and physical, rather than a description of heaven as some teach. So now he calls Moses to be the one to confront Pharaoh to release the Israelites. Moses wonders why he is being chosen for this task, but God only replies that once the job is done, Moses will return to worship God on the very mountain he was standing on.
In verse 13 Moses wants to know what name to use when the Israelites ask him who sent him. This is where we find scriptural rebuttals to arguments that this was the demiurge of Gnosticism, or a borrowed name from a heathen culture. The Greek text (LXX) is fairly straightforward, using “theos” throughout, but here we find the phrase “I am the one who is”. So we have the Greek telling us what the Hebrew seems to obscure or complicate. That text renders God as Elohim, and I Am as YHWH. People take those names and invent connections to other religions, but they simply mean what the LXX says they mean. YHWH is actually an acronym, the initial letters of the words in the phrase. Tradition has turned it into Yaweh or some varient, such as Jehovah in English. If it had been a literal “sacred name”, the LXX would have simply transliterated it instead of translating it.
This was important to Moses because, for at least several generations, the people of Israel had seemingly been abandoned by the God of their ancestors. They as a group had not done anything to deserve their slavery, but we must keep in mind that neither had any of them deserved God’s prior blessings. As we can read in Job 2:10, “Should we accept good from God, and not hardship?” We also remember God’s pattern of refining people so they can reach their full potential, especially in the case of Joseph, who in spite of everything never gave up on God. Or again, as we read in Job 13:15, “Though he [God] slays me, yet I will hope in him”.
We could boil all this down into modern terms as a very short exchange: Moses says, “Who are you?” and God replies, “Hey, it’s me! Don’t worry about it.” But most people seem to prefer making mountains out of mole hills and complexity out of simplicity. More than that, they love to fight and divide and condemn over syllables. Jesus faulted the Pharisees, not for lacking respect for the tiniest details of the Law, but for “majoring on the minors”, tithing on the tiniest garden herbs but living as evil tyrants. In the same way, among today’s most zealous guardians of what they deem the sacred name of God, we find the most rabid judgmentalism, beating their fellow servants, shunning and mocking precious souls who have confessed and lived out the gospel of our salvation.
Before leaving this topic, we should note that in the Hebrew text the name Elohim is used as a generic term, the English equivalent of which is God, and the Greek equivalent of which is Theos. Those who try to make it the name of some heathen deity are simply ignornat of the use of Elohim in that time and culture, especially since Moses literally says, “Elohim, what is your name?” Likewise, those who try to connect Jehovah with Jove or Jupiter also demonstrate profound ignornace of language.
Moving on to verse 16, God finishes answering Moses and then adds that he should tell them God has not abandoned them at all and will bring them to the Promised Land. Then their elders will go with Moses to demand that Pharaoh release the Israelites to sacrifice outside of Egypt. He warns Moses that Pharaoh will not give them up without a fight, but in the end the people of Israel will plunder the Egyptians— just as Pharaoh had feared but was powerless to prevent. In this way, Israel would be compensated for their years of servitude, not only from Egypt but also from God.
Some take the request for worshiping outside of Egypt as a cover story, but since the distance would be beyond the fartherst military posts of Egypt, Pharaoh would take it as an intent to leave permanently. So this was a polite, indirect statement, giving Pharaoh no reason to be offended beyond the fact that such a request is made at all. We must not let our unfamiliarity with life in that area and time cause us to think poorly of Moses or God.
Exo. 4
Though Moses was assured of God’s identity, Israel would not be so willing to accept him as having been sent from God, so they would need some kind of proof or sign. God then gives Moses three miracles to perform: the staff becoming a snake and then back to a staff, the hand becoming white with a skin disease and then restored, and water from the Nile becoming blood when poured out on the ground. In this way God establishes “the testimony of two or three witnesses”.
Yet even after all that, we see in verse 10 that Moses begs off his mission, complaining that he’s a poor speaker. So God indignantly demands to know who it is that gives people their abilities or can allow their infirmities. Even so, Moses still resists and gets God really irate, but he won’t let Moses off the hook, though he does make a consession: Moses’ brother Aaron will be his mouthpiece.
Let this be a lesson to all of us, that we don’t anger God by failing to trust him once we know he has a task for us. When we say, “God can’t use me,” aren’t we insulting him and showing no faith? Even worse, do we presume God can’t use another person, just because of their perceived faults or the flesh they were born with? God would certainly make fleshly requirements under the Law, just as he made fleshly promises to Abraham. But we in the Body of Christ are not to judge on the basis of worldly standards, per such passages as 2 Cor. 5:16, James 2:1, Acts 10:34-35, and 1 Sam. 16:7.
We can’t be sure why Moses only told Jethro that he wanted to see if his people still survived instead of revealing God’s mission for him, but what God tells Moses along the way indicates that Moses thought he might be arrested when he got to Egypt, for what amounts to be manslaughter.
At another point in the journey (vs. 21), God appears again and tells Moses to expect Pharaoh to resist strongly, but to be just as strong in defying him. But then in v. 24 a very strange thing happens: “an angel of the Lord” comes to kill Moses! The “solution” is even stranger: Moses’ wife Zipporah circumcizes her son.
The Greek (LXX) and Hebrew (MT) read very differently here. For the MT, which Constable is using in his notes, Zipporah either touches Moses’ feet with the foreskin or throws it at him, and she uses a phrase thought to be from the Midianite practice of only circumcizing a male just before his wedding. But since this action makes the angel refrain from killing Moses, one might conclude that the “death angel” came because Moses had ignored God’s command to circumcize his son, per the covenant with Abraham. If so, Zipporah was the likely reason the rite had not been performed at the proper time.
But the LXX paints a much different picture. Zipporah falls at the feet of the angel and reports that the circumcision has been done and the bleeding has stopped, so the angel departs. If this is accurate, then Zipporah was saving Moses from his own disobedience. The MT paints her as the villain, but the LXX paints her as the hero. Constable speculates that this is when Moses sends his family back to Midian without him, with the expectation that they will rejoin him later, as we will see in chapter 18. But this passage doesn’t say anything about it.
Either way, Moses meets up with Aaron and tells him all that God had said, and then they both meet up with the elders of Israel in Egypt. For the time being, the people happily accept the news of their soon emancipation. But that acceptance won’t have much time to go to Moses’ head.