We find Moses looking after the flock of Jethro who was his father-in-law and also the priest of Midian. He was in the desert, and he came to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God (v1-3). The mountain was later called Mount Sinai where Moses went to meet with God and received the Ten Commandments. This was another turning point in Moses’ life, and we are probably nearing the end of the next forty years of his life. From being a prince in Egypt he is now a shepherd in the desert looking after his father-in-law’s sheep. Shepherds were usually the lowest of the low, so this was a come down for him, but he was faithfully doing his job in a desolate place, probably night and day. I wonder if he had spent time thinking about his past. How God had preserved from death as a baby and as a man of forty, and what was he doing here, God had a plan for him. He would soon find out.
Whilst he was there the Angel of The LORD appeared to him. He saw a bush containing a flame of fire, but the bush not was not being burned up. He could have ignored it but this was different, so he decided to look more closely. He was greatly rewarded for his looking because God noticed him and spoke to him and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover, He said, “I am the God of your 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.” (v4-6)
Bible commentators believe that this was another instance of Jesus, referred to as The Angel of The LORD, appearing in the Old Testament as He did on several occasions. Moses may have thought he was forgotten and in a desolate place, but God had not forgotten him, He knew his name and the call was special, “Moses, Moses” – it is considered that when God calls a name twice it is important. Other examples are, Abraham, Abraham! (Genesis 22:11), Samuel, Samuel! (1 Samuel 3:10), Simon, Simon (Luke 22:31), Martha, Martha (Luke 10:41), and Saul, Saul (Acts 9:4).
The Angel told him not to come nearer and to take his sandals off because he was on holy ground. He was in the desert near a mountain, but God was there, and it was holy ground. We can be on holy ground wherever God meets us.
He reminded Moses who He was – God, the same God of his forefathers and as He hadn’t let them down, He wouldn’t let him down. God had been preserving and building the nation of Israel during all that time. And Moses was accordingly afraid to look. He wasn’t worthy, he had murdered an Egyptian and run for his life, he wasn’t good enough for God to use, surely, but he humbly came before God this time.
In verses 7-10 we have this wonderful statement by God, “And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.””
God was outlining His plan. They may have thought His people were abandoned, but nothing could be further from the truth. God knew exactly what was happening and He knew the answer, in fact, He was the answer, but He graciously informs Moses that he is going to be a part of that answer. God had promised this hundreds of years before and He had not forgotten, nor was He incapable of bringing it to pass.
The LORD said – I have seen, I have heard, so I have come down, to bring them up, come now and I will send you. Notice it is all God’s doing. He was and is compassionate and cares for His people. He was doing something about it and the amazing thing was that He would use Moses, who probably thought he was a failure, after all, he was a murderer, to go to Pharaoh, the successor of his adopted father, to bring His people out from his rule. He must have thought, ‘How can I go back there? They know all about me, I’ve been on the run for forty years, the moment I set foot in Egypt, I’ll be a dead man!’ He was thinking without God. Note that God said, “I am sending you.” That makes all the difference. Even after all this, Moses was not convinced and said, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (v11)
Over forty years previously, Moses might have thought he was worthy, being a prince in Egypt, but now, he is not so sure and rightly asks, “Who am I”. He has spent the last forty years as a nobody looking after flocks in a desert wasteland.
A perfectly natural reaction in the circumstances, I think. However, God answered him, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (v12)When we know that God is with us, that should answer all our doubts. God gave him His promise to be with him, which would also be a sign that God had sent him, and a promise that he would come back with the people to this very spot where he had had his encounter with God at the burning bush, and even to meet personally with God up the mountain and receive the law of God from His hand. God had it all in hand and was in charge. All Moses had to do was trust and obey.
Moses still had concerns and in verses 13,14 he had a further conversation with God. Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and 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?”
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
Over forty years before he could have spoken as a prince to his adoptive father, but all that had changed. He needed his authority for saying what he had to say, both to his own people and to Pharaoh. His own people had rejected him forty years before. When Moses went to the Israelites, they would want to know who this God is who sent him. God had said, “I AM WHO I AM”. I am is always present. Whenever you say ‘I am’ it is now, whether it was years ago or in five years’ time. It reveals something important about God – He always IS, eternal, unchanging. It is connected to the name ‘Yahweh’ a name he would know from old. We get the name ‘Jehovah’ from it. Religious Jews, out of reverence, left the vowels out and it became YHWH.
Jesus took the title on Himself as I AM. “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” (John 8:58); “Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I AM.” (John 13:19)
Moses was then instructed by God what to say to the Israelites (v15-18). They were words of assurance and encouragement. He began by reminding them that He was The LORD God of their fathers, the God Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that He had sent Moses to them. His Name would last for ever and he would never fail them. Moses was to repeat what God had said to him, that He knew what their predicament was and visited them and would bring them out of their affliction in Egypt to the land of Canaan which He had promised. He assured Moses that they would listen and that he was to go to the king of Egypt with the elders of Israel and say, “The LORD God of the Hebrews has met with us; and now, please, let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.”
God promised Moses that the Israelites would listen to him. Forty years before they had not. It could have been that they didn’t trust him then, being a prince of Egypt as well as an Israelite, maybe they thought ‘he spoke with forked tongue’ and weren’t sure he was genuine, but now God said that they would listen.
It seems an interesting request to the king, a three days journey into the wilderness to worship God. Maybe God was starting small and softening Pharaoh’s heart. Despite all that, God gave them advanced warning and made it clear as to what would happen (v19-22). ‘The king will not let you go,’ so God would strike Egypt with wonders in full view of the people, and after that he will let you go, not empty-handed because He would give his people favour with the Egyptians with gold and silver and clothing as plunder. God had it all planned.
