Bible for Gen Z
Download Bible for Gen Z on the App StoreGet Bible for Gen Z on Google Play
Exodus 3–4

Moses and the burning bush

A runaway shepherd, a bush on fire that doesn't burn up, and a God who gives his name. Exodus 3 and 4 is the call story for anyone who feels unqualified.

The story

Moses is around eighty, and he's been gone a long time. Back in Egypt he'd been raised in Pharaoh's palace, seen an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. When it got out, he ran. Now he's a shepherd in Midian, married, with a son he named for being a foreigner in a foreign land. That's his life: minding his father-in-law's sheep.

He takes the flock out to the far side of the wilderness and comes to a mountain called Horeb. There's a bush on fire. That's not unusual in a desert. What's unusual is that it keeps burning and doesn't burn up. Moses goes over for a look, and the moment he does, a voice from inside the bush says his name. Twice.

Take your sandals off, the voice says. You're on holy ground. I'm the God of your father, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses hides his face. Then God says why he's here: I've seen what's happening to my people in Egypt. I've heard them. I know their pain. I've come down to get them out. And then the pivot: so I'm sending you.

Moses says no five different ways. Who am I? God: I'll be with you. What if they ask your name? God: I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM sent you. What if they don't believe me? God gives him three signs, a staff that becomes a snake, a hand that goes leprous and heals, water that turns to blood. I'm not a good speaker, Moses says, I never have been. God: who made your mouth? Go, and I'll be with your mouth.

Then the real answer, the one under all the others: please, send someone else. The text says God's anger burned. But he doesn't take the job away. He sends Aaron, Moses' brother, who can speak, and who is already on his way. Moses will tell Aaron what to say. Aaron will say it. Moses picks up the staff and goes.

There's one more strange, unsettling scene at a lodging place on the road, where God confronts Moses and his wife Zipporah acts fast, circumcising their son. The text is brief and doesn't explain itself, and honest readers admit they're not sure what it means. Then Aaron meets Moses on the mountain, they go to Egypt together, they tell the elders everything and do the signs, and the people believe. They bow their heads. For the first time in the story, someone is listening.

The verse to keep

Exodus 3:12WEB
He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
Gen Zsame meaning, your words

God said, 'I will be with you, that's certain. And here's how you'll know I'm the one who sent you: when you've brought the people out of Egypt, you'll all worship God on this very mountain.'

Moses asked 'Who am I?' and God answered a different question. The sign he offers is one Moses will only see after he's done the thing. That's usually how it goes.

What it actually means

The order of the conversation matters. God says he has seen, heard, known, and come down, before he says a word about Moses. The rescue is God's project. Moses is the delivery method. When he asks 'Who am I?', God doesn't answer the question. He says 'I will be with you', which is a different answer to a different question, and the only one that actually helps.

The name is the center of the chapter. 'I AM WHO I AM' is hard to translate and is probably meant to be. It's a God who isn't defined by anything else, who simply is, and who is about to stand with a stammering fugitive in front of the most powerful man on earth. If you've ever felt too unqualified, too far past it, or too compromised to be useful, you're reading the right story. Moses had killed a man, couldn't speak well by his own account, and had decades of hiding behind him. God's response to 'send someone else' was to send help, not to cancel the plan.

What it doesn't mean: that God will hand you a burning bush before you make a decision, or that hearing from God feels obvious. Moses got the sign after he went over to look. And it's not a promise that saying yes makes things easy. Chapter 5 is Pharaoh asking who this LORD is and making the slaves' lives worse. 'I will be with you' held anyway.

Worth arguing about

  1. 1God answers 'Who am I?' with 'I will be with you'. Why is that a better answer than a list of Moses' qualifications?
  2. 2Moses gives five objections. Which one is closest to yours?
  3. 3God gets angry at 'send someone else' but sends Aaron anyway. What does that say about how God handles reluctance?
  4. 4The bush burns but isn't consumed. What do you think that image is doing?

Read it yourself: Exodus 3:1–15

World English Bible. 15 verses.

1Now 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 God’s mountain, to Horeb. 2The LORD’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3Moses said, “I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4When the LORD saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!” He said, “Here I am.” 5He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” 6Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. 7The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 9Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” 13Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘The LORD, 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 forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.

Whole book: Exodus

Keep going

🌊 The Exodus and the Red Sea🕯️ Samuel hears God🧭 Bible verses about purpose🪞 Bible verses for insecurity🦁 Bible verses for courage