What the Old Testament Means to Us. . .No. 17

MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH

I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.—Exodus 3:3

We are to understand that this is what caught Moses’ attention, not that the bush was burning, which was a common sight for a veteran shepherd in the desert, but that it kept burning and was not consumed. Up to this point we may conclude that Moses was motivated only by curiosity. He was not in search of something supernatural. He was not looking for a miracle.

This is in fact one of the story’s lasting lessons: that Moses found God when be was busy with his daily routine of “keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian.” And it was an inauspicious place for a theophany (appearance of God), out in a desolate wilderness. We are also to understand that God bad taken his time in revealing himself to bis chosen envoy, for Moses had been a desert shepherd for upward of 40 years since his flight from Egypt. Year after year be plied the desert paths tending his flock with nothing “religious” happening. His colorful past in Egypt, when be sat next to Pharaoh as his own son, must by now have faded in his memory, and it was now a matter of making the most of his day to day chores.

We can only wonder what be thought of God during those years in the desert. Since God bad not yet shown his power to him, Moses would have had only a primitive concept of God, seeing him as the God of the Hebrews but not necessarily as the only god, for all nations had their gods. Moses’ mother would have taught him about God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but be had not yet “seen” God do marvelous things. He hardly saw God in any personal way. El Shaddai or Elohim was yet a tribal God, “the mountain God,” and any faith Moses bad at this time would hardly be more than fear and wonder. His wanderings with his flock had brought him to the environs of Horeb, the mountain of God. We don’t know bow common this was for him or how often be had been there before.

Even in the area of Horeb it is unlikely that Moses had anything more than a subdued awareness of the God of his fathers. There is no evidence that be was waiting for something to happen, or that be was at this time a man of prayer. From what took place at the burning bush we may suppose that be had no idea of ever returning to Egypt, certainly not as a prophet or a deliverer. He was not waiting for a “call” from God. On that day, one of the most significant in human history, Moses was simply doing his thing as a shepherd, the same thing he had been doing for years and years. He had no reason to suppose that that day would be any different. They were all dull and tiresome, and he supposed life would continue the way it had been.

That is one of its great lessons: we don’t choose God, he chooses us, and he may well intrude into our lives when we least expect it. And God may well be there amidst the simplest, ordinary routines of life. He has a way of entering the commonplaces of our lives.

The story of the burning bush is one of the most significant in religious history and probably the most important in the history of Israel. Israel’s faith really began with Moses, for it was not until the burning bush and the Ten Commandments that followed that Israel saw God not only as the only God but as a personal God, one with a personal name, and one who had decreed their destiny. Abraham was of course the father of the nation, but Moses was the father of their faith. Abraham left his home “not knowing where he was going,” while Moses always knew where he was going and why.

If Abraham belonged to the “starlight age” of revelation, as Alexander Campbell liked to identify the dispensations, Moses belonged to the “moonlight age,” which anticipated the “sunlight age.” It was Moses that the early Christians saw as a prophet like unto Christ, not Abraham. Moses came to know God much more personally than Abraham, and this was his great contribution to Israel.

The God of heaven was watching when Moses “turned aside to see” and approached the burning bush. God had his attention. And now, after all those years since Egypt, God speaks to his man, calling him by name, “Moses, Moses.” Moses responds, but he doesn’t yet know what is going on or who speaks to him, probably not even when he is told to remove his sandals since be stands on holy ground. God now identifies himself as the God of his fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses’ response is understandable, seeing where he was in his thinking at that time. He didn’t start praising God, nor did he ask for further information. He was afraid, hiding his face from God. We can believe he was speechless.

God was director of the scenario. He had to take charge of the proceedings. He goes on to reveal himself to Moses as one who not only knows what is going on in the world, especially in Egypt, but as one who cares about suffering and injustice. The series of active verbs that follow reveal a God that Moses had not known before: “I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. . . I have heard their cry . . . I know their sufferings. . . I have come down to deliver them. . .”

Then came the great call, The biggest verb of all: “I will send you to Pharoh that you may bring forth my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. “It is understandable that Moses would resist the call. “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” was not false modesty, but a recognition of fact. Moses knew enough about Egypt to know that his assignment was beyond his power. God gave him the only assurance that be needed: I will be with you. That is the good news of the Bible. If God is with us there is no task beyond our reach. That God and one person make a majority is a great truth. This is why Paul said and why we can say, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philip. 4:13).

When one has a reasonable doubt about God’s call and looks for a sign, God seems willing to accommodate. But God appears to have given an odd sign when he tells Moses he would eventually lead the people out of Egypt and bring them to the very mountain on which they then stood. That must have blown Moses’ mind that it was all going to be so real that slaves then in Egypt would one day gather as a free people in that mountain under his leadership. If he could believe that, it was enough.

One cannot be too sure that the voice he hears is God’s rather than his own. We are less than faithful when we inject our own will into the scenario by having God say what we want him to say. It is tragic to claim that we are called by God when we call ourselves.

What is important to us in the story of the burning bush is that we can have fellowship with the same God that spoke to Moses. It was the living God, the one in whom we live and have our being, the one who loves and cares, the one who hears our cries and knows our suffering, the one who is ready to act for our sake. Moses was not an animist. He did not look for a god in the bush. It is noteworthy that the bush is virtually ignored in the rest of Scripture. That is because it was not the bush that mattered. Once Moses felt the searing presence of God all else faded into insignificance.

God was no longer a God of terror or the mighty Lord of the wilderness, mountain, and storm. He no longer spoke through thunder or earthquake. God now spoke to Moses as one would speak to a friend, apparently in his own language. God was now approachable. It was as if heaven itself opened up saying, “Moses, Moses.” The God of nature now becomes the God of history.

The story becomes all the weightier when God at last reveals his name to Moses. When Moses asked God his name it was an inquiry into his nature, for all gods had names and the name revealed the nature of the god. Moses knew from his knowledge of Egypt that he would be expected to give the name of the God who had sent him. God tells Moses that his name is Yahweh, the best we can do with that four-letter Hebrew word that scholars call the tetragrammaton, which means four letters. It has been variously translated I am who I am, I am the One who is, I will be what I will be, etc. The name sums up all that God is and will be to his people. Moses may have supposed that if he knew God’s secret name he could use it in a power struggle with the gods of Pharaoh. He grew up in Egypt believing in magic and in magical names, and when he at last went to Egypt he had to deal with Pharaoh’s magicians. Egypt was a land of magic.

It is not going too far to say that in Egypt Moses introduced a new God to his people, a new God with a new name, for Yahweh was not known before the Exodus. It is made clear in Ex. 6:3 that while God had appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and had made a covenant with them, he had not revealed to them his name. Egypt was a new beginning. God would deliver his people by means of almighty power, and it would be in the name of Yahweh.

Even after all this Moses flinches in the face of the charge. He was saying, “Anyone but me!,” which is where many of us are. “They will not believe me,” he told Yahweh, but there is no evidence that they would not have believed him without signs and miracles. He, like us who blame the church for our inadequacies, too quickly blamed the people. Still God gives him a further sign, one primarily for him, the shepherd’s rod that he held in his hand would have magical power. He could also make his hand leprous and then whole again by mere movement. As irrational as this may appear, it was God’s way of dealing with Moses’ unbelief. Are we all that different when we are not satisfied with the promise that God loves us and will be with us, and look for such signs as tongues and healings?

Still Moses hesitated. Now his excuse was that he was not eloquent enough for Pharaoh’s court—“I am slow of speech and of tongue,” which was probably true. Yahweh at last hands his newly-chosen prophet, and the greatest of all the prophets, a mild rebuke: “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him deaf, or dumb, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.” God was telling him that if he was the one who created him he could surely give him the power to execute his mission.

But still Moses was obdurate. “Oh, my Lord, send, I pray, some other person.” Anyone but me, Lord! His rebellion, which strikes us as incredible, reveals how human Moses was and how impossible he perceived the assignment. He could not bear the thought of confronting all the resources of the most powerful nation on earth, even with God’s help.

Now Yahweh was angry with Moses. Enough was enough! God at last names Aaron, Moses’ brother, as the spokesman in Egypt. “I will be with your mouth and with his mouth,” he assures Moses, “and I will teach you what you shall do.” He again points to the rod by which Moses can do signs. There is no evidence that Moses was at this point all that willing to take on the task, but he had run out of excuses.

In asking his father-in-law for permission to leave, Moses was not just being courteous, for in marrying Jethro’s daughter he had become part of his family, and it was important that he leave in peace. He took his wife and children with him, which we may wonder if God intended. Yahweh warns Moses in advance that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Moses was fully aware of the magnitude of the task before him. From this point on he never again flinches in the face of the impossibilities. We can say that Moses did some growing since the day he encountered the burning bush.

Do we have burning bushes in our Christian life, and do we become burning bushes through which God speaks to others? Might some unexpected experience be a burning bush through which God gets our attention? A telephone call or a letter? A book, a sermon, even an article like this one? When we feel the searing presence of God, the great I Am, there is our burning bush. Fervent prayer and praise might often have their fiery bushes. Little children might be burning bushes.

What really matters in all this is that the time came when God revealed himself as the one, living God of heaven. A real, personal God who has a name, who hears, sees, feels, and responds when his people are in trouble.

I have come down! he said to Moses. He comes to be with us and in us. He reveals himself in Jesus Christ and he fills us with his Spirit. God with us! It started with Moses at the burning bush. Does anything else really matter all that much?—the Editor