1. Now Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and so he led the flock behind the wilderness, and so he came to the mountain of God, Horeb.
2. And then the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and then so he looked and, behold, the bush was burning with the fire, yet the bush -- it was not being eaten up.
3. And so Moses said: "I will now turn aside so as to see this great sight -- why the bush has not been burnt."
4. And then the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, and so God called to him from the midst of the bush, and so He said: "Moses, Moses!" And then he said: "Behold me!"
5. And then He said: "Approach thou not hither! Put off thy shoes from upon thy feet! For the place upon which thou art standing is ground of holiness."
6. And then He said: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid of looking on God.
7. And then the LORD said: "I have surely seen the affliction of My people which is in Egypt, and I have heard their cry from the face of its taskmasters. For I have come to know its sufferings."
8. And so I have come down to deliver it from the hand of Egypt and to bring it up from that land to and good and wide land, to a land flowing with milk and honey ...
10. So now betake thyself -- for I send thee to Pharaoh -- and so bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, from Egypt.
11. But then Moses said to God: "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the sons of Israel from Egypt?"
12. But then He said: "I shall surely be with thee; yea, this is the sign that I, yes I, have sent thee: when thou bringest forth the people from Egypt, ye will serve God upon this mountain."
13. But then Moses said to God: "Behold, if I come to the sons of Israel and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they say to me, 'What is His name?' -- what shall I say to them?"
14. And so God said to Moses: "I am who I am." And so He said: "Thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel: 'I-AM has sent me to you.'"
15. And then God said again to Moses: "Thus shalt thou say to the sons of Israel: 'YHWH,
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 to eternity -- yea, this is My memorial to
generation on generation."
The reading from the Old Testament which is appointed to the Third Sunday in Lent in Series C of Lutheran Worship consists in thirteen and a half verses of Exodus 15, namely the initial eight and a half verses of the chapter and again (omitting verses 8b-9) its tenth to fifteenth verses. (The exegesis of these verses below is, assuredly, in no way designed to promote the use in the main service of the week of any such modern selection of gospels and epistles as those suggested in Lutheran Worship. This exegete, on the contrary, would continue to urge, on various grounds, fidelity to the pericopal tradition inherited from the ancient church by the church of the reformation and modified only slightly by the Blessed Reformer of the Church, if one is speaking specifically of the gospels and epistles to be read in the main (eucharistic) service of the week. No comparable series of readings, on the other hand, from the Old Testament was either handed down from the ancient church or bestowed on us by the Blessed Reformer; nor, indeed, is there such a program of readings from the New Testament to be used in all the possible additional offices of any given week. In such cases, therefore, even such a traditionalist as this exegete is able, with consistency, to make use of any pericope drawn from the region of Holy Scripture desired.)
The historical and literary observations which follow assume the auctorial integrity of the Book of Exodus and, indeed, of the Pentateuch as a whole which this exegete has defended elsewhere (especially in his Isagogical Notes on the Pentateuch). The Book of Exodus is called in addition, quite correctly, the Second Book of Moses. St. Moses, the Prophet Primarius of the Old Testament, began the Book of Exodus within the same year as the theophany recorded in the pericope now before us, which is to say before the conclusion of the year 1447 B.C. For the call of Moses to his special mediatorial ministry clearly included from the beginning the mandatum scribendi to produce by divine inspiration the Five Books of the Law which were to constitute the very foundation of Israel as church and state.
The material which comprises chapters 1:1-2:10 would already have been familiar to Moses from his first forty years in Egypt -- from both the oral tradition and the written records of both the Hebrews and the Egyptians. The events then recorded in the following fifteen verses of Exodus 2 appertain to the conscious experience of Moses himself, whether as an eyewitness (in verses 11-14 and 15b-22) or as one informed by others (in the case of verses 15a and 23-25). He would, moreover, surely have committed to writing as soon as possible the divine call recounted in chapters 3 and 4 which provided the logical basis and, indeed, the certification of all his subsequent deeds and words, both spoken and written, as the prophet of God (3:1-4:17).
The Book of Exodus, nevertheless, presupposes both grammatically and substantially the prior existence of the Book of Genesis (as appears already from the first eight verses of Exodus, but also from many ensuing assumptions and allusions) [INP, "Exodus"]. Moses would, on the one hand, scarcely have had access before his return to Egypt to the patriarchal records which he conjoined in one continuous narrative to form the Book of Genesis. This construction, on the other hand, of Genesis from previously existing materials, with little editorial addition, would have consumed a minimum of time and so would have been done quickly to satisfy the urgent need of the original audience for the historical rationale of the message which Moses was now proclaiming.
The Book of Genesis could have been made available to public reading already in the early autumn of 1447 B.C. Moses could then have produced within a few days thereafter a first fascicle of Exodus consisting in chapters 1:1-7:7, already before but immediately before the unleashing of the ten plagues on Egypt in the vicinity of October of the year cited. Such a procedure would explain well the position of the genealogy of Moses and Aaron in verses 14-25 of Exodus 6, the formal identification of the brothers in verses 26-27, the effective reiteration of the call of both in the ensuing verses (6:28-7:6), and the formal note, finally, of the age of Moses and Aaron respectively in 7:7.
The Doctor Legalis of Israel would then have compiled the remaining chapters of Exodus (7:8-40:38) in the manner of a journal between the autumn of 1447 B.C. and the spring of 1445 B.C. Such a conclusion follows, not only from the immediate needs of the original audience, but also from the divine command to Moses contained in Exodus 17: "Write thou this thing as a memorial in the book" (verse 14). The pointing of the Hebrew Text (the pathach beneath the beth, absorbed from the definite article, and the daghesh which doubles the initial samekh of sepher) shows the arthrous nature of bassepher ("in the book") in this verse. The pointing serves, as does the definite article and its equivalents on many occasions (in this exegete's view), to indicate possession and, here specifically, authorship ("in thy book"). The reference is, then, to the book which Moses was then engaged in gradually writing, which is to say the Pentateuch in general and, at this juncture, his Second Book in particular.
The prophet, in consequence, completed the first edition of the book before us in the month of Nisan (which would fall within the bounds of March and April in the Gregorian Calendar) in the year 1445 B.C., as appears from a comparison of Exodus 40:17 and Numbers 1:1. For the final date cited in Exodus is "the first month in the second year" of the Mosaic (Post-Egyptian) Era "on the first day of the month" (40:17) and the events of the Book of Numbers begin already "on the first day of the second month in the second year of the going forth" of Israel "from the land of Egypt" (Numbers 1:1). Clearly, then, Moses would have had to complete the Book of Exodus within the first several days of Nisan 1445 B.C. in order to have received and reduced to writing all the revelations constituting the Book of Leviticus during the remaining days of the selfsame month. He then included his Second Book, with any minor modifications appropriate to its new generation of readers, in a final edition of the Pentateuch in the month of Shebat (January or February) of the year 1406 B.C., thus explaining Exodus 16:35 and any similar alleged post-mosaica.
The place of composition, then, of the Book of Exodus was, in the case of chapters 1:1-14:4, Egypt -- and, generally, the land of Goshen in which Israel was dwelling -- and, in the case of chapters 14:5-40:38, the Sinai Peninsula. Chapters 14:5-18:27, specifically, were written en route to Mt. Sinai in a southeasterly direction. The remaining chapters (19-40) were inscribed on the sacred scroll at Mt. Sinai itself, where Moses had originally received his miraculous call to the prophetic office.
The original addressees of the Book of Exodus were the newly constituted nation of Israel. The occasion of the book as a completed whole was the Lord's provision of a national berith to Israel at Mt. Sinai, which may therefore be denominated the Mosaic Berith or Sinaitic Berith. This berith (a bond which is legally binding by virtue of an oath) provided, in effect, the constitution of the theocracy of Israel.
The purpose of God in inspiring the Book of Exodus was to set apart as a distinct and priestly
nation a people from whom the Savior of the world would come. The central passage of the
book, indeed, consists in verses 5-6 of Exodus 19, in which God instructs Moses to relay these
words to the sons of Israel [AV, excepting the translation of berith]:
Now, therefore, if ye will obey My voice, indeed,
and keep My bond,
Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me
above all people;
For all the earth in Mine.
And ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests
and an holy nation....
The theme, correspondingly, of the Book of Exodus may be stated thus: God set apart Israel (the people from whom the Savior of the world was to come) as a distinct and priestly nation (1.) by means of His miraculous deliverance of Israel from slavery in Egypt and (2.) by means of His provision of a national berith with Israel at Mt. Sinai (the constitution of the theocracy).
Being completed, as previously stated, within a year of the exodus, the Second Book of Moses was written in the course of the pivotal transition from the fourth main era of Old Testament history (the Prediluvian Era, the Post-Diluvian Era, the Patriarchal Era, and the Egyptian Sojourn) to the fifth, the Mosaic Era [Chronology of the Old Testament, "The Egyptian Sojourn: 1876-1446" and "The Mosaic Era: 1446-1406"]. Moses the Levite had been born in Egypt in 1526 B.C., during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose I (1526-circa 1512 B.C), who was then attempting to stop the growth of Israel by decreeing, a second time since the foundation of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the death of all newborn sons of the enslaved Hebrews. The way in which Moses survived this sentence and received a royal upbringing and an education in things both Hebrew and Egyptian is well known.
The favored princeling was forty years of age in 1486 B.C. when he murdered an Egyptian taskmaster and then fled from the expected revenge of the contemporary king. The pharaoh of Exodus 2:15 was presumably Thutmose III (1504-1450 B.C.), who evidently, despite his youthful demotion to a co-regency by Queen Hatshepsut (1503-1482 B.C.), was now regaining ground in her waning years. Such was the means by which Moses came to Midian, in the Sinai Peninsula or beyond in Arabia, and became the son-in-law of Jethro, who is also entitled Reuel (in Exodus 2:18 and Numbers 10:29) and Hobab (in Judges 4:11), the "priest of Midian" and chief of the Kenites [C.P. Gray, ZPEB, III, 583b-585b]. Moses had, then, lived another forty years, to the age of eighty, as the husband of Jethro's daughter Zipporah and the shepherd of his sheep, when the events of Exodus 3 took place. Meanwhile, back in Egypt, the greatest of all the pharaohs, Thutmose III, had died in 1450 B.C. and had been succeeded by his very able son Amenhotep II (1450-1425 B.C.).
Such, then, were the circumstances when in the midst of the year 1447 B.C. the Lord (in a
burning bush on Mt. Horeb) called Moses to the prophetic office with the special commission of
(1.) leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the national territory which had been
promised to the patriarchs and, (2.) in connection therewith, mediating the constitution of the
new nation which God intended to promulgate. The call of Moses, simultaneously, represents
the inauguration of the prophetic office in general in Israel as a nation and so provides a
conception of the nature and criteria of this office which would necessarily apply to all ensuing
prophets of the Old Testament.
The following basic outline of the Book of Exodus emerges, then, with special emphasis upon its
third chapter:
I. Israel's Progression from Egypt to Sinai (1-17)
A. Israel's Sojourn in Egypt (1:1-12:30)
1. The initial stage of unhampered growth (1: 1-9)
2. The oppression (1: 10-22)
3. The preparation of Moses (2)
a. His first forty years (2: 1-15)
b. His second forty years (2: 16-25)
4. The prophetic ministry of Moses (3:1-12:30)
a. The call of Moses (3:1-4:17)
(1.) The circumstances (3: 1-6)
(a.) The time and place (verse 1)
(b.) The visible self-revelation of God (verse 2)
(c.) The response of Moses (verse 3)
(d.) The initial call of God (verse 4a-b1)
(e.) The response of Moses (verse 4b2)
(f.) The initial command of God, demanding worship (verse 5)
(g.) The self-identification of God (verse 6a)
(h.) The response of Moses (verse 6b)
(2.) The divine commission of Moses (3: 7-10)
(a.) The rationale of his commission (verse 7)
(b.) The goal of his commission (verse 8)
(c.) The rationale of his commission (verse 9)
(d.) The essence of his commission (verse 10)
(3.) The first query of Moses (3:11)
(4.) The response of the Lord: His primary sign to Moses (3:12)
(5.) The second query of Moses (3:13)
(6.) The response of the Lord (3:14)
(a.) His explication of the Divine Name (verse 14a)
(b.) His authorization to employ a paraphrase the Divine Name (verse 14b)
(7.) The specific instructions and assurances of God (3: 15-22)
(a.) Concerning the Divine Name (verse 15)
i. Its contemporary application (verse 15a)
ii. Its perpetual preservation (verse 15b)
(b.) Concerning the elders of Israel (verses 16-17)
i. The command to address them (verse 16a1)
ii. The rationale to be given them (verse 16a2-b)
iii. The promise to be given them (verse 17)
iv. The response to be given by them to Moses (verse 18a)
(c.) Concerning the Egyptians (verse 18b-22)
i. The command to address the pharaoh (verse 18b1)
ii. The petition to be given the pharaoh (verse 18b2)
iii. The response to be expected from the pharaoh (verse 19)
iv. The promise of miraculous plagues and deliverance (verse 20)
v. The promise of deference from the Egyptians (verse 21)
vi. The promise of gifts from the Egyptians (verse 22)
(8.) The answers of God to the objections of Moses (4: 1-17)
(a.) The first objection: the expected unbelief of Israel (verse 1)
(b.) The response of the Lord: the provision of three miraculous signs (verses 2-9)
i. The first sign (verses 2-5)
ii. The second sign (verses 6-8)
iii. The third sign (vsrael (15: 1-21)
(1.) The Hymn of Moses (15: 1-18)
(2.) The circumstances (15: 19-20)
(3.) The Hymn of Miriam (15:21)
B. Israel's Journey through the Desert (15:22-17:16)
1. Through the Wilderness of Shur (15:22)
2. At Marah (15: 23-26)
3. At Elim (15:27)
4. Through the Wilderness of Sin (16)
5. At Rephidim (Massah-Meribah) (17: 1-7)
II. Israel at Mount Sinai (18-40)
A. The Visit of Jethro (18)
B. The Arrival of Israel (19: 1-2)
C. The Acceptance of the Divine Berith (19:3-24:11)
1. The summation and acceptance of the berith (19: 4-8)
2. The promulgation of the berith (19:9-23:33)
a. The preparation of Israel (19: 9-26)
b. The promulgation of the decalogue (20: 1-17)
c. The reaction of Israel (20: 18-21)
d. The promul)
(4.) Its acceptance (7: 6-7)
f. The second meeting with the pharaoh (7: 8-13)
g. The ten plagues (7:14-12:30
(1.) The first nine plagues (7:14-10:29)
(2.) The tenth plague: death of the first-born (11:1-12:30)
(a.) The announcement of the plague (11)
(b.) The institution of the passover (12: 1-28)
(c.) The occurrence of the plague (12: 29-30)
5. The exodus (12:31-15:21)
a. The preparation (12: 31-36)
b. The first stage: the march from Raamses to Succoth (12: 37-41)
c. The significance of the occasion, as indicated by regulations which Moses had received in connection with the institution of the passover (12: 42-51)
d. The promulgation of the law of the dedication of the first-born (13: 1-16)
e. The second stage: the march from Succoth to Etham (13: 17-22)
f. The third stage: the march to the shore of the Red Sea (14: 1-4)
g. The pursuit of the Egyptians (14: 5-14)
h. The fourth stage: the crossing of the Red Sea (14: 15-22)
i. The destruction of the Egyptian pursuers (14: 23-31)
j. The response of I
3. The usual circumstances (34: 34-35)
G. The Construction of the Tabernacle (35:1-40:38)
1. The preparations (35:1-36:7)
2. The construction of the various constituents
3. The materials used (38: 21-31)
4. The manufacture of the priestly garments (39: 1-31)
5. The inspection and approval of Moses (39: 32-43)
6. The erection and dedication of the tabernacle (40)
a. The instruction of the Lord (40: 1-15)
b. The actions of Moses (40: 16-33)
c. The manifestation of the Lord's presence (40: 34-38)
In the division of verses in this outline into parts "a" and "b" the line of demarcation is always the massoretic 'athnach. In verse 4b the division between parts 1 and 2 has been made at the tiphchah beneath the second occurrence of mosheh ("Moses"). The bifurcation, on the othegation of various laws (20:22-23:33)
e. The promulgation of promises and demands concerning the occupation of Canaan (23: 20-33)
3. The ratification of the berith (24: 1-8)
4. The confirmation of the berith (24: 9-11)
D. The First Forty-Day Sojourn of Moses on the Mountain (24:12-31:18)
1. His ascent (24: 12-18)
2. His reception of the specifications of the tabernacle (25:1-31:11)
3. His reception of specifications concerning the sabbath (31: 12-17)
4. His reception of the two tablets of stone (31:18)
E. The Apostasy of Israel (32:1-33:6)
1. The manifestation of apostasy (32: 1-6)
2. The response of the Lord and His servant Moses (32:7-33:6)
F. The Revelation of the Lord to Moses (33:7-34:35)
1. The usual circumstances (33: 7-11)
2. The second forty-day sojourn of Moses on the mountain (33:12-34:33)
a. The preliminaries (33:12-34:4)
b. The special self-revelation of the Lord (34: 5-7)
c. The response of Moses (34: 8-9)
d. The second promulgation of the divine berith (34: 10-28)
e. The aftermath (34: 29-33)
3. The usual circumstances (34: 34-35)
G. The Construction of the Tabernacle (35:1-40:38)
1. The preparations (35:1-36:7)
2. The construction of the various constituents
3. The materials used (38: 21-31)
4. The manufacture of the priestly garments (39: 1-31)
5. The inspection and approval of Moses (39: 32-43)
6. The erection and dedication of the tabernacle (40)
a. The instruction of the Lord (40: 1-15)
b. The actions of Moses (40: 16-33)
c. The manifestation of the Lord's presence (40: 34-38)
In the division of verses in this outline into parts "a" and "b" the line of demarcation is always
the massoretic 'athnach. In verse 4b the division between parts 1 and 2 has been made at the
tiphchah beneath the second occurrence of mosheh ks, with three
in Exodus (in chapters 3r
hand, between parts 1 and 2 of verses 16a and 18b comes with the rbhia' above yisra'el
("Israel") and mitzrayim ("Egypt") respectively. A more detailed outline of the Book of Exodus
may be found in the exegete's Isagogical Notes on the Pentateuch.
1. Now Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and so
he led the flock behind the wilderness, and so he came to the mountain of God, Horeb.
Horeb is assumed, reasonably enough, to derive its name from one of three roots spelled hrb
[with initial heth] [Root II, BDB, 351b], namely the one which revolves around the idea of
desolation and so produces an adjective and two common nouns denoting "desolate" and
"desolation" respectively [BDB, 351b-352a]. This exegete, indeed, would question the
distinction which the Hebrew and English Lexicon makes between this triliteral stem and the
homonym hrb, which, like its four derivatives, has to do with dryness [BDB, 351a (Root I) and
351a-b]. Even, in fact, the third homonym, which pertains to smiting and is the source of herebh
("sword") [BDB, 352a (Root III), and 352a-preference of J (the supposed Yahwist) and
especially of P (assuming the existence of a "Priestly Source") [BDB, 696a; Davies, ibid.]. Such
a distinction, however, not only plays with imaginary friends, but fails to do justice (1.) to the
presence of both "Horeb" and "Sinai" in the Psalms and the historical books and (2.) the use of
"Sinai" in Deuteronomy 33 and in verses 11 and 18 of Exodus 19, which are supposed to be
Elohistic. The name, in consequence, in these two verses have to be ascribed to the Grand
Redactor's all-sustaining hand [BDB, 696a].
Some have treated "Horeb" :1; 17:6; and 33:6) and the remaining nine in Deuteronomy, in chapters 1 (verses 2, 6, and 19), 4 (verses 10 and 15), 5 (verse 2), 9 (verse 8), 18 (verse 16), and 28 (verse 69 MT; 29:1 EV) [BDB, 352a]. All but one of the non-pentateuchal occurrences hark back to the activity of Moses or Israel recorded in the middle chapters of the Torah, between Exodus 19 and Numbers 10. The sole exception is 1 Kings 19:8, which speaks of the journey of the Prophet Elijah to "the mountain of God" called Horeb.
The twenty occurrences, then, of "Horeb" compare with the thirty-five uses of "Sinai" to
denominate a place which overlaps, certainly, to one degree or another, with Horeb as the site of
the dispensation of the Mosaic Law. Thirteen of these uses of "Sinai" are found in Exodus
(especially in chapters 19 and 34), five in Leviticus, twelve in Numbers, one in Deuteronomy
(33:2), one each in Judges (5:5) and Nehemiah (9:13), and two in Psalm 68 (verses 9 and 18 MT;
8 and 17 EV) [pace BDB, 696a, which fails to note Psalm 68:18 (MT, 19 EV) in a misplaced
concern with the divergent usages of the non-existent sources of the Pentateuch]. The
pentateuchal critics, to be sure, see "Horeb" as the distinctive usage of E (the supposed Elohist)
and especially of D (the so-called Deuteronomist) [BDB, 696a; G.I. Davies, ABD, VI, 48b, in
47b-49b]. "Sinai" represents, on the other hand, the preference of J (the supposed Yahwist) and
especially of P (assuming the existence of a "Priestly Source") [BDB, 696a; Davies, ibid.]. Such
a distinction, however, not only plays with imaginary friends, but fails to do justice (1.) to the
presence of both "Horeb" and "Sinai" in the Psalms and the historical books and (2.) the use of
"Sinai" in Deuteronomy 33 and in verses 11 and 18 of Exodus 19, which are supposed to be
Elohistic. The name, in consequence, in these two verses have to be ascribed to the Grand
Redactor's all-sustaining hand [BDB, 696a].
Some have treated "Horeb" and "Sinai" as interchangeable names of the selfsame mountain, and some have regarded Sinai as embracing a more sizable area than Horeb. The opposite, however, is actually the usage of the Old Testament. For the name "Sinai" is concentrated in those passages penned while Israel was in the immediate vicinity of the mountain, while the name "Horeb" predominates in verses antedating the arrival of Israel, as here in Exodus 3, and those which follow her departure, as in the Book of Deuteronomy. Exodus 3, certainly, requires that Horeb include the mountain subsequently called "Sinai" since the Lord gives Moses this assurance: "when thou bringest forth the people from Egypt, ye will serve God upon this mountain" (verse 12).
The next occasion on which the toponym appears is in Exodus 17, which recounts events transpiring in Rephidim (verse 1) and resulting in its additional appellations of "Massah and Meribah" (verse 7). This Rephidim came two stages beyond the bounds of the Wilderness of Sin (verse 1), which lay "between Elim and Sinai" (16:1, in comparison of Numbers 33: 12-14). There, in Rephidim-Massah-Meribah, the Lord instructs Moses to take his rod in a ceremonious procession and smite a unique rock-mass (hatztzur) so as to bring forth water to satisfy the thirsting and complaining multitude (17: 5-6). Unexpectedly, however, the Lord designates the rock concerned in this way: "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb" (verse 6). It seems, therefore, that this particular rock-mass served as a boundary-stone indicating one's entrance into the mountainous region known as Horeb.
In Exodus 18, indeed, the wilderich the nomads of the region have given to the valley eastward of Jebel Musa (separating Jebel ed-Deir therefrom) as the grazing-place to which Moses led the flock of his father-in-law [Keil, II, 437].
In the last two centuries, to be sure, scholars have proposed at least a dozen sites of Sinai differing from the traditional one, ision follows from the Wandering Itinerary in Numbers 33 (verses 15-16).
Specifically, then, Horeb is the mountainous region in the central south of the Sinai Peninsula which begins on the northern side where the Valley es-Sheikh opens into the Plain er-Rahah [Keil, I, 437; II, 75-76 and 83-84]. Sinai, on the other hand, was a specific and, indeed, unique mountain in the midst of this general range. Christian tradition has always identified Mount Sinai itself with Jebel Musa (the Mount of Moses), which rises to a height of 7,363 feet [H.G. Andersen, ZPEB, V, 448b, in 447b-450a]. St. Helena the Empress, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, constructed a small church on the northwestern slope of Jebel Musa in the fourth century [Andersen, 448b]. By the time of the Emperor Justinian in A.D. 527 this site was occupied by the Monastery of St. Catherine [Andersen, 448b; Davies, 48b]. The claim, to be sure, of its Chapel of the Burning Bush to mark the original theophany to Moses is dubious, but such a location would be reasonable.
Quite implausible, on the other hand, is the legendary accretion of the grazing-place of Jethro's flock located still higher up the mountain in the course of the climb of at least an hour and half which is required to reach the top of Jebel Musa from the monastery. Equally implausible are the legends associated with Ras es-Safsaf, a peak of the same ridge which rises to 6,540 feet at a distance of some two and half miles to the northwest of Jebel Musa, including the identification of a large granite block there with the hydrogenetic rock of Meribah. More reasonable is the name of the Wady Shoeib (Jethro's Valley) which the nomads of the region have given to the valley eastward of Jebel Musa (separating Jebel ed-Deir therefrom) as the grazing-place to which Moses led the flock of his father-in-law [Keil, II, 437].
In the last two centuries, to be sure, scholars have proposed at least a dozen sites of Sinai differing from the traditional one, including sites more westerly and northern in the Sinai Peninsula, in the Negev, in Transjordan, and in what is today Saudi Arabia [Davies, 48b]. Some, indeed, have argued that Horeb was originally a mountain separate from Sinai and that the two were subsequently confused in the course of the centuries, a rationale which obviously robs Holy Scripture of its holiness [Davies, 48b]. Others, too, of the modern attempts to move the mountain of God come scarcely of faith in an Almighty God -- when, for instance, scholars think volcanic activity necessary to explain the fire and smoke and quaking of the Sinai-Horeb [Davies, 48b; Andersen, 448a], or when they find a problem in the working of Egyptian mines in the Sinai Peninsula as late as the Nineteenth Dynasty, requiring the "presence of soldiers" as guards [BDB, 696a].
Concerns, to be sure, of a more textual nature with the traditional location of Horeb and Sinai include (1.) the pentateuchal passages which relate the site in some way to Midian, which, as a region, seems, admittedly, to lie in Arabia [Davies, 48b; Andersen, 448a; and BDB, 696a], and (2.) the passages, on the one hand, which approximate Meribah and Horeb-Sinai and those, on the other hand, which approximate Meribah and Kadesh-Barnea, thus supposedly placing Horeb-Sinai in the vicinity of Kadesh-Barnea [Andersen, 448a]. Firstly, however, regardless of the location of the Midianite homeland, which is, with good reason, somewhat vague in the Old Testament, the Midianites were a nomadic people, who moved around widely both trading and raiding as well as tending to more pastoral pursuits [Andersen, 448a; R.L. Alden, ZPEB, IV, 220b-222b]. The Rephidim, secondly, to which Moses gave the cognomen of "Massah and Meribah" in Exodus 17 (verses 1-7) obviously differs completely from the site which he designated "Meribah" (as being, once again, a place of "contention") in Numbers 20 (verses 1-13). The same conclusion followse source, strength, and power of all heresy, including that
Moses, indeed, specifies the distance between Horeb and the southern extremity of Palestine with
some precision, in beginning the Book of Deuteronomy: "Eleven days from Horeb was the way
with regard to Mount Seir unto Kadesh-Barnea" (1:2). In 1 Kings 19:4, again, the Prophet Elijah
had already proceeded a day's journey beyond Beersheba (verses 4-4), from which Kadesh-Barnea lies but fifty miles in a southwesterly direction [J.L. Kelso, ZPEB, III, 775b, in 775b-777b]. It was from this location that Elijah then undertook the prayerful pilgrimage to Mount
Horeb which consumed a full forty days and nights (1 Kings 19:8). He could, of course, have
traversed the remaining distance to the traditional Horeb-Sinai, which lies some two hundred
miles southwesterly of Beersheba [KD, Kings, 255], in much less time than he did, but, even
considering the meditative purpose of his pilgrimage, he was obviously traveling far beyond the
oasis of Kadesh-Barnea.
2. And then the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush, and then so he looked and, behold, the bush was burning with the fire, yet the bush -- it was not being eaten up.
3. And so Moses said: "I will now turn aside so as to see this great sight -- why the bush has not been burnt."
4. And then the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, and so God called to him from the midst
of the bush, and so He said: "Moses, Moses!" And then he said: "Behold me!"
The Blessed Reformer of the Church makes use of these verses in Part III of the Smalcald Articles in the course of condemning all efforts to find God anywhere except in His word and sacraments (Article VIII: 9-11):
In short, enthusiasm clings to Adam and His descendants from the beginning to the end of the
world. It is a poison implanted and inoculated in man by the old dragon, and it is the source,
strength, and power of all heresy, including that of the papacy and Mohammedanism.
Accordingly, we should and must constantly maintain that God will not deal with us except
through His external word and sacrament. Whatever is attributed to the Spirit apart from such
word and sacrament is of the devil. For even to Moses God wished to appear first through the
burning bush and the spoken word, and no prophet, whether Elijah or Elisha, received the Spirit
without the Ten Commandments [BC, 313, excepting capitalization; Tappert's translation of this
passage, in a reversal of the usual case, much better than the Concordia Triglotta, which, among
other problems, omits any rendition of the important word erstlich ("firstly") in the final sentence
quoted (496a and 497a)].
The confessional argumentation here depends very much on the words auch (here correctly rendered "even") and erstlich ("first" used adverbially).
Moses was, as previously stated, the prime prophet of the Old Testament, to whom God did speak directly and, indeed, in a more intimate way than to anyone else before His incarnation. The prophetic identity, specifically, of Moses, as one through whom God spoke by divine inspiration, was something which others could observe quite objectively by means of the miraculous signs which God gave him in conjunction with His fidelity to the One True God as He had previously revealed Himself (to the patriarchs). Moses thereby fulfilled, beyond any possible shadow of doubt, the divine criteria of prophetic recognition which obtained in the era of the Old Testament, in accord with the conception which this exegete has treated elsewhere [by way of intimation, in The Canon of the Old Testament in Outline and, by way of application, in An Evaluation of Claims to the Charismatic Gifts]. Yet God stressed His restriction of His special revelation to those clearly meeting the criteria which He established by, even in the case of Moses, beginning His self-revelation with objectively observable visual and audible external means. The bush which burned without being consumed was something which anyone else in attendance would also have seen, and the voice calling the name of Moses was something which anyone else in attendance would have heard.
The Blessed Reformer and his fellow-confessors of the faith quite rightly assume that the Angel
of the Lord in the burning bush was God Himself. Verse 4, already, removes any question of His
identity, and all the succeeding verses build on this foundation. The phrase and its equivalents in
the Old Testament designate the Second Person of the Holy Trinity before His incarnation
whenever the reference is to a supernatural messenger of God (as it always is save once).
5. And then He said: "Approach thou not hither! Put off thy shoes from upon thy feet! For the place upon which thou art standing is ground of holiness."
6. And then He said: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob." And then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid of looking on God.
Verse 5 states explicitly the significance of the burning of the bush which is described in the preceding verse. Fire consumes most earthly things and was traditionally used to purify places and peoples of various contaminants. Fire is used, therefore, from one end of Holy Scripture to the other as a symbol of the presence of the All-Holy One. For His very holiness consumes all those who deviate from His holy will unless the holocaust of God Himself satisfy the demands of His uncompromising justice against them.
Examples of this symbolism begin already in the First Book of Moses with the burning torch and
smoking oven which pass through the midst of the sacrificial victims in connection with the
berith which God makes with Abraham in Genesis 15 (verse 17). The Second Book of Moses
includes, not only the example before us of the burning bush seen only by him, but above all the
fire on Mount Sinai seen by all of the people of Israel (Exodus 19:18). Moses reminds Israel of
the significance of this symbol in Deuteronomy 4: "For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire,
even a jealous God" (verse 24). The Epistle to the Hebrews ends with the same warning: "For
our God is a consuming fire" (12:29).
The converse of this symbolism is the sinner's natural fearfulness of the presence of the All-Holy
God. The resulting response, therefore, in verse 6 to the Lord's self-revelation is the desire of
Moses to hide his face. A corresponding example in the New Testament would be the reaction of
Simon Peter to the Lord's revelation of His deity in the miraculous drought of fish: "Depart from
me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" (Luke 5:8).
The press of time prevents this exegete from making any additional comments on the individual verses of this lengthy pericope. The general idea, however, of the meaning of the remaining verses may be ascertained from the literal translation provided at the beginning of these notes in conjunction with the detailed exegetical outline provided above. A few more comments will have to suffice until time allows a return to this passage.
It seems odd to some that the sign which God gives Moses in verse 13 chronologically follows the happening of which it serves as a sign. This relationship, however, although less common than the reverse is not unique to this passage. The same thing happens in Isaiah 7, where the virginal birth of the Messiah is the sign of a succession of developments preceding its occurrence which include the end of the Davidic Dynasty and the devastation of the land of Judah. The purpose of the sign in such cases, as opposed to assuring people that something will take place in the future, is to assure them that something which has already occurred has taken place by no happenstance, but rather by the all-powerful working of the One True God.
The complete control of history by the One True God is also emphasized in this pericope by the exposition of His personal name which He gives in verses 14 and 15. There He explains the tetragrammeton which He had constructed, as a proper noun to describe Himself to humans, from the verb meaning "be" in the original language of man (cor onding to hyh in Hebrew). According, then, to His own testimony (as opposed to the speculations of modern human scholars), the Divine Name denotes "I-AM"; the Lord employs the imperfect, in the absence of any participle, to indicate something which was always true in the past, is now true, and will always be true in the future. The idea is that the One True God is the only being who exists of Himself and so is the ground of all existence, being the creature of none and the creator of everything else. We may, therefore, sum up the significance of the Divine Name by calling the One True God the Eternal Self-Existing One.
The gospel in this pericope is, indeed, to be found in the names of God here employed. His nature, to be sure, as the Eternal Self-Existing One has very penetrating implications of a legal nature, but it also necessarily implies that, since He has promised to justify sinners through His own incarnate self-sacrifice, He can and will certainly do so. When, likewise, He calls Himself the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, He confirms all the promises which He made to the patriarchs. These include, of course, the promises of the exodus from Egypt and the possession of Canaan, but these are not yet the gospel, but only developments which serve the purposes of the gospel by preparing Israel to receive the saving Messiah properly when He should rise again from His self-sacrificial death. No one was saved by means of the exodus, as the Apostle Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 10, and many, indeed, were damned thereby, as Exodus 14 avers (verses 24-28). Much more importantly, then, the central promise of God to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was the gospel itself that in the Divine Seed of Abraham all the nations of the earth should be blessed (Genesis 22:18, etc.).