And he said, I am the God of thy 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 at God.
At the burning bush God names Himself to Moses by three men long dead. Moses covers his face. Why that name, at that moment? And why did the sight of God frighten him?
God did not name Himself from Sinai and the law. He named Himself from the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That choice shaped how near Moses could come.
Moses had to keep at a distance and remove his shoes, as a sign that the place was holy, and he was only a servant. There had to be distance. But it was far less marked than later, when God gave the law. This was doubtless because at the outset the Lord revealed Himself to him as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." The God who set up the covenant of promise was not so awesome as when He gave the law from Sinai.
The name itself was old. What was new was that God was now about to act on it.
The name He gave Himself was not new — people had heard it before. But now He was about to act on its reality and present value. There was to be accomplishment up to a certain and evident point, and not promise only. So the stress falls on "the God of your fathers," explained as "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob."
Before the three great names comes a smaller one: "the God of your father." That phrase reached Moses himself.
The words that Moses heard out of the middle of the fire in the bush must have awakened in his heart the memory of God's goodness towards the fathers. But they must also have shown him that he had a personal link with the God of Abraham. For God had said to him, "I am the God of your father."
The same meeting shows two things at once: grace and holiness.
If God's holiness is infinite, His grace is infinite also. The way He revealed Himself to Moses declared His holiness. The very fact that He revealed Himself at all showed His grace. He came down because He was gracious. But having come down, He would reveal Himself as holy… God's presence must always make nature hide itself. When we stand before God with bare feet and covered head — the attitude of soul which those acts so aptly and beautifully express — we are ready to listen to the sweet words of grace. When man takes his proper place, God can speak in the language of unmixed mercy.
Moses' fear marks where he stood — before the exodus, before God had redeemed His people.
Before redemption, even a saint trembled when brought into God's presence. His voice does declare Him the God of promise, the God of the fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Even so, "Moses trembled, and did not dare to look." Until redemption, peace is impossible.
Jesus used this sentence to prove that the dead live. His argument turns on what it would mean for God to name Himself after men who no longer exist.
If Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist, could God still have taken their names, the names of nothing, to describe Himself to Israel? … God describes Himself by them. He is not ashamed to be called their God… He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. But this truth went further. Abraham was dead, his soul separated from his body. He was living for God, yet he was not what God meant him to be as his God… He was to be complete, and so raised from the dead.
Everything turns on one small word — the tense of the verb.
Our Lord stresses His point in that God said, "I AM." The strength of His argument lies in the present tense of the verb "to be." So exact is verbal inspiration.
Moses could not look. Believers now can. The difference is how God has since made Himself known.
This is a great sight for us to turn aside and see. It is greater than what Moses saw, as the substance is greater than the shadow. In Jesus, God is made known to us and brought near. In His presence our souls can stay without a fear, unlike Moses, who "hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God" — for "GOD IS LOVE."
- Name — God names Himself by the fathers and the covenant of promise, not by the law. The distance is real, but gentler than Sinai's.
- Personal — "the God of your father" gave Moses his own link to that promise, not just an inherited story.
- Holy — He came down because He is gracious. Having come down, He shows Himself holy, and human nature hides.
- Living — God still names Himself their God. "I AM" is present tense, so Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live to Him and must rise.
- Near — The bush was the shadow. The substance is God made known in Jesus. There the soul that once hid its face can stay without fear.
And Jehovah said, I have seen assuredly the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and their cry have I heard on account of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and tells him what He has noticed: a nation of slaves, their cry, and their pain. Two questions grow out of this one sentence: why did God wait so long, and what finally moved Him to act?
(The ESV reads "I know their sufferings." The quotes below use an older translation: "I know their sorrows.")
The decisive word in the verse is the small one: God calls these slaves His own. That claim, not their condition, decides the outcome.
These words reveal a great basic principle in the ways of God. It is on the ground of what He is that He always acts. "I AM" secures everything for "MY PEOPLE." He was never going to leave His people among the brick kilns of Egypt, under the whip of Pharaoh's taskmasters. They were His people, and He would act toward them in a way worthy of Himself. To be His people settled everything. They were the favoured objects of Jehovah's electing love, the subjects of His unconditional promise. He had come down to deliver them. The combined power of earth and hell could not hold them captive one hour beyond His appointed time.
That title starts here, and it becomes the demand God makes of Pharaoh.
The first time we read of God calling Israel "My people" was when He spoke to Moses from the burning bush (Exodus 3:7). Following this, the first demand to Pharaoh (Exodus 5:1) was "Let My people go."
The verse stacks three statements together. They answer years that looked like silence.
He declared three things. First, His attention to the cry of His people and His sympathetic concern for their sorrows. For a century or two it must have seemed as though He was indifferent. But it was not so. God is never in a hurry and He intervenes in His own time, which is the right time. The three statements in verse 7 are very touching: He had seen; He had heard; He knew their sorrows. So it always is with all His people, with us among the rest.
God says He heard their cry — but not that they cried to Him. Several writers press this distinction.
But He does not add that the cry was to Him. We may say then, as a prophet did later, that they groaned; but they did not groan to God. It was only a selfish sense of suffering. They groaned only because of their wretchedness; but there was no looking out to God — no counting on His mercy.
If the cry was not aimed at God, then the reason God moved has to lie somewhere else.
This lesson gives the soul great strength: God always finds His motive within Himself. It is on the ground of what He is, and not on the ground of what we are… There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
Knowing here is not distant information. It is love that goes into detail.
He began to show more than His grace in giving His promises to the seed, which faith could lay hold of. He showed His own considerate love in caring for the need and sorrows of His people… He took notice of every circumstance of their trouble and sorrow.
Darby reads the "I" of these words as God stepping out of His own glory into a place strange to Him.
Is not this "I" the Lord placing Himself as coming down into Egypt? He came out of all that was natural to Himself and His glory. He placed Himself in the middle of what was strange to Him, to deliver them. "I have seen, I have seen the affliction of my people, and I have come down to deliver them." He speaks as identifying Himself with His people.
Writers read Israel's slavery as a picture of a condition shared by everyone, and their rescue as a picture of salvation.
Read Exodus 2:23 and 3:1-10. There we see the condition of the people in cruel bondage and slavery. It is an exact picture of our condition under the cruel bondage of sin and Satan. Their cries and groans came up to God… Such is the condition by nature of every man, whether he knows it or not. And note, the source of their deliverance was not in themselves. The source of our salvation is the love of God. God is love. He came down to deliver.
- Seen — God watched the affliction through long years that looked like indifference. He acts in His own time, and that is the right time.
- Heard — the cry reached Him, though it was not addressed to Him. Their misery alone moved Him, not their merit.
- Known — He noticed every circumstance of their trouble, not the general fact of it.
- Owned — "My people" is the word that settles the outcome; God acts on the ground of what He is, not what they are.
- Come down — He identifies Himself with them and steps into Egypt to deliver. The same love later sent Christ for sinners.
And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good and spacious land, unto a land flowing with milk and honey, unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush. He tells him what He has already decided to do: come down, rescue a nation of slaves, and settle them in a land where six other peoples live. The verse is short. Yet commentators find in it the whole shape of redemption — where God starts, why He acts, and where He means to finish.
Nothing in the verse suggests Israel asked for this. One writer asks where God's motive comes from, and shows how little the people contributed:
God always finds His motive within Himself. He acts on the ground of what He is, not on the ground of what we are. The occasion of His action was the condition of His people. "The LORD said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings'" (v. 7). What infinite tenderness! There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. They had sighed and cried because of their bondage, but it does not appear that their hearts had turned to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8).
God does not rescue Israel and then leave them to themselves. One writer notices that God calls these slaves His own before He does anything to improve them:
Who but God would have spoken so openly of a poor set of slaves as "My people"? Others would have delivered and dressed them up first. It is the same God who, as a father, falls on the neck of the returning prodigal son in his rags and kisses him. That comes before the honours poured on him later. But whether we look at the picture or at the reality behind it, one thing is vital to grasp. Redemption is the work of God, present in some sense, and delivering — not only from the enemy, but for Himself.
The verse contains two promises, not one, and they organise everything that follows:
The eighth verse points out the two parts of Exodus. The Lord announced two things He would do for His people. 1. I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. 2. And to bring them up out of that land to a good land flowing with milk and honey. Exodus has two great parts which match these two statements.
God gave Moses both halves of that errand, and he managed only the first. Another writer sees the verse pointing past Moses to Christ:
God sent Moses to lead them out, and to bring them in (Exodus 3:8, 10, 12). He failed, but Christ does both. Meanwhile, as High Priest, Christ has gone in to keep us now joined to our true place of blessing, and in all the value of the blood, as God values it, until He puts us into actual possession at His coming again.
Between Egypt and Canaan lie forty years — and they are not mentioned here. Several writers make much of that silence:
If you look at Exodus 3, you will see that the wilderness formed no part of God's purpose... In Exodus 6 you find the same, and in Exodus 15, where faith celebrates redemption, you have the same thing. "You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode." This leaps right over the wilderness. He did bring them through the wilderness, but it was no part of His purpose for them.
The destination is described by what it produces without being forced. That contrast with Egypt is the point:
Not a word is said of the wilderness, and its forty years of endurance and toil. His plan was to test them there, which He did. But His purpose was to bring them to the place where He could dwell, to a land that "drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for" (Deut. 11).
after_note: DELETE He would bring us into a place where His own heart can be satisfied, and where He may dwell with and enjoy His people. How different from the land of slavery where nothing is to be had for nothing, where no man gives!
The promised land already has occupants, and God names them. One writer reads the names as a picture of what stands between a believer and enjoying what God has given:
The names here, as everywhere, are certainly significant. They stand for the powers of evil that hold the ground and would keep us from enjoying the inheritance God has given us in Christ. The Hittite, "child of terror" — how spiritual dread makes cowards of us all! The Amorite, "the talker," rather than the doer of the Word. The Canaanite, "the trafficker," companion to the talker, who turns the very truth of God into merchandise... while the Jebusite, "the treader down," never rests until it treads every divine thing underfoot. All these must be cast out.
- Down — God moves first; the people's misery, not their prayers, is what draws Him down.
- For Himself — He comes not only to break Egypt's grip but to take a people as His own, in their rags.
- Out — the first promise is rescue from Egypt, and it fills the first half of the book.
- In — the second promise is a land, and it is the goal; the desert was where He tested them, never His purpose for them.
- Kept — God sent Moses to bring them out and bring them in; he failed at the second, but Christ does both.
And now behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me; and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
God speaks to Moses from the burning bush and tells him what He has seen and heard in Egypt. Two things move Him: a cry that has come to Him, and an oppression He has watched. So why does He act now?
The verse says the cry came to God. It does not say the people sent it to Him. One writer notices what is missing:
The Lord then brings His care before Moses, saying, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings." But He does not add that their cry was to Him. We may say, as a prophet did later, that they groaned. But they did not groan to God. It was only a selfish sense of suffering. They groaned because of their misery. There was no looking out to God — no counting on His mercy.
The verse adds sight to hearing. God has watched the taskmasters at work, and He notices the details:
He began to show more than His grace in giving the promises to the seed, which faith could lay hold of. He also showed His own thoughtful love in caring for the need and sorrows of His people... He took notice of every circumstance of their trouble and sorrow.
The verse says nothing about repentance or reform in Israel. Their condition alone moves God to act:
Here the absolute, free, unconditional grace of the God of Abraham, and of Abraham's seed, shines out in all its own brightness. Nothing holds it back — not the "ifs" and "buts," and not the vows, resolutions, and conditions of man's legal spirit... He had not come down to check whether the people His promise covered deserved His salvation. It was enough for Him that they needed it. Their oppressed state, their sorrows, their tears, their sighs, their heavy bondage had all passed in review before Him. For, blessed be His name, He counts His people's sighs and puts their tears into His bottle.
Another writer carries the same point into the New Testament. God loved people who were not looking for Him:
There is not a word to show that the children of Israel had cried to the Lord. They had sighed and cried because of their bondage, but it does not appear that their hearts had turned to the Lord. But their misery had touched His heart. He "knew their sorrows, and had come down to deliver them." So "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8.)
The verse calls them the people of Israel — slaves making bricks for a foreign king. God owns them before He rescues them:
Who but God would have spoken so openly of a poor set of slaves as "My people"? Others would have delivered and dressed them up first. It is the same God who, as a father, falls on the neck of the returning prodigal son in his rags and kisses him. That comes before all the honours given to him later... redemption is the work of God, present in some form and delivering — not only from the enemy, but for Himself.
Once God calls them His own, both the outcome and its timing are settled:
"I AM" secures everything for "MY PEOPLE." He was never going to leave His people among the brick-kilns of Egypt, under the lash of Pharaoh's taskmasters... He had come down to deliver them. The combined power of earth and hell could not keep them captive one hour beyond His appointed time.
God hears the cry, and then He sends a man. He comes down Himself, yet works through someone unfit for the job:
In verse 8 God says, "I have come down to deliver them…" Then in Exodus 3:10 He says, "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people… out of Egypt." God in His sovereign wisdom had chosen a man whose later actions showed him to be weak and unfit. Yet God would be with His servant. He would give him such power and authority that everyone would see the excellence of the power belonged to God, and not to the instrument He had chosen.
- Cry — The groan was one of misery, not of faith; God heard a cry that was never sent to Him.
- Seen — He had watched every circumstance of the trouble, so nothing about their sorrow was news to Him.
- Grace — He did not come down to check their merit. Their need was enough, and He kept count of their tears.
- Owned — He calls slaves in rags "My people," and delivers them not only from the enemy but for Himself.
- Sent — The cry becomes a commission. God sends a weak man, so the power on show is His own.
And now come, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
God has just said that He Himself has come down to rescue Israel from Egypt. Then He sends a man to do it — one who had already tried to help his people, failed, and fled.
Verse 8 and verse 10 say two different things. God will deliver Israel — and Moses will bring them out.
Let us put these statements together. Combined like this, they give us a thought of enormous weight. In verse 8 God says, "I have come down to deliver them …" Then in Exodus 3:10 He says, "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people …" In sovereign wisdom God had chosen one whose later actions marked him as weak and incompetent, yet God would be with His servant. He would give him power and authority in such a way, and in such measure, that everyone would see the greatness of the power belonged to God, not to the instrument He had chosen to deliver His people.
Moses had once rushed ahead of God's time. Now the time has come, and notice which word God uses.
"Come, I will send you" (Ex. 3:10). God's moment has arrived. Formerly Moses wanted to go without waiting for God's time, but now he is about to hesitate. God does not say "Go" but "Come." God sends him in His own company and fellowship. Even so, Moses is not willing to answer. He brings God four objections, one after another.
Forty years earlier Moses had acted on his own. What changed was not his desire but his commission.
Horeb is really the starting post for all whom God sends forth to act for Him. It was at Horeb that Moses learnt to take off his shoes and hide his face. Forty years before he had gone to work, but his movement was premature… Here was real authority. There is a vast difference between God sending a man, and a man running unsent… God had to teach him, and God had to commission him. Everyone who goes out to serve Christ and speak for Him needs the same teaching and the same commission from God.
Zeal and ability were never Moses' problem. The right to act was.
Authority means having the right or title to act, and not only the ability to do it; ability is what the word often translated "power" expresses. You could say Moses had zeal and ability when he first set out to right his people's wrongs in Egypt. But someone challenged his authority — "Who made you a prince and a judge over us?" — and he fled in disgrace. Later the LORD said to him, "Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." This time he went as a messenger with God's own credentials.
The years of waiting were not wasted. God's timing had a reason.
God had used various circumstances to prepare Moses for this time when He tells him He is sending him to Egypt to deliver Israel from their bondage (v. 10). Perhaps by now he thought he was past the age of being usable by God at all, for he was 80 years old (Acts 7:30). But God knew that at 40 he was not ready, and 80 is just the right time, for God does not use one because of his strength, but more likely because of his weakness.
The man now sent to Pharaoh is the same man Israel had once pushed away.
Israel had rejected this Moses forty years before. Now they accepted him as their God-appointed leader. God sent him as "both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush" (Acts 7:35).
Israel's slavery is a picture of a deeper bondage, and God's rescue shows the pattern of ours.
Read Exodus 2:23 and 3:1-10, and you see the people in cruel bondage and slavery. It is an exact picture of our own condition under the cruel bondage of sin and Satan. Their cries and groans came up to God… And note, the source of their deliverance was not in themselves. The source of our salvation is the love of God. God is love. He came down to deliver. He sent Moses to deliver. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
- Sent by God. God comes down to deliver, and He sends a man to do it. One work, seen from both sides.
- Sent with God. God says "Come," not "Go." Moses goes in God's company, not just on God's errand.
- Sent, not running. Zeal without a commission collapsed forty years earlier; authority is what Horeb added.
- Sent in weakness. At forty Moses was not ready; at eighty he was, because God uses weakness rather than strength.
- Sent as a picture. The rejected man became the deliverer — a picture of a greater rescue that begins in the love of God.
And Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?
Forty years earlier Moses struck down an Egyptian, sure his people would see him as their rescuer. Now God sends him, and the man who once ran without a call draws back — humility, unbelief, or both?
The same person can fail in opposite directions at different stages of life. Moses' hesitation is the mirror image of his earlier haste.
Here we see the man who was truly to be the instrument of Israel's deliverance. Until now he had run ahead of his time. He draws back at the moment he receives the call he needed. The man who showed the forwardness of nature now shows the backwardness of nature. The voice of God is now urging him forward with authority, and even that is not enough for him.
The timing is striking. Courage came before God spoke. The obstacles appeared the moment He did.
Is this the man once so ready to strike Egypt and deliver Israel? The very same. Full of courage when God's time had not come, he feels the obstacles when it has. It is often so!
The years in Midian were not wasted. They stripped Moses of confidence in himself. That was a gain, but only half the lesson.
During his many years in Midian he had given up all thoughts of his own greatness. That was good. But now he had gone to the other extreme... For the moment Moses had his eye on himself and not on God.
One writer says this shrinking always marks the person God sends.
When a believer feels that God has sent him on a mission, there is always the deepest bowing down of spirit. This may come about through painful discipline of soul, but the aim of God's training is to break down self-confidence. Then, when the person at last goes out in service, he goes with the feeling, "Who am I?"
Commentators differ on how to read the question. Some see a right instinct that stops short. Others judge it harder, because Moses asks it after God has already decided.
That may look like humility in us, but it is not. When God has taken hold of us for a certain thing, to turn round and say, "Who am I, that I should do it?" is not humility. God raised no question as to who or what Moses was. If He chooses and sends, it does not matter who the person is.
Read alongside Moses' later excuses, this one fits a pattern.
Faced with the Lord's commands, he raised objections. On the surface they rested on humility, on distrust of men, and on distrust of himself. In short, they hid unbelief and the mistrust of the natural heart beneath an admirable outward appearance.
One writer traces the hesitation back to an earlier failure. Then notice what God does not say. He never tells Moses who he is. He answers with His own presence.
No doubt the memory of his earlier failure affected him. If a man acts in anything without God, he is sure to be discouraged, even when God is sending him. When lack of confidence and timidity led Moses to say, "Who am I," God's answer was, "But I will be with you." This should have been enough. If God is with me, it matters very little who I am, or what I am. When God says, "I will send you," and "I will be with you," He gives that servant full divine authority and divine power.
One writer makes this a rule for measuring any task God gives.
It is always a fatal mistake when we measure the difficulties of service by what we are. The question is what God is. Through the mists of our unbelief, difficulties look like mountains. To Him they are nothing but the occasion for displaying His almighty power.
Moses offered his own smallness as a reason to say no. God makes it the reason to choose him.
He had yet to learn that it is God's way to take up and use the very people who are little in their own eyes. Their littleness makes room for God to display His own power.
- Two failures. Moses once ran without a call. Forty years later he refuses one. Nature errs both ways — too fast, then too slow.
- Half a lesson. Losing confidence in yourself is real progress. But stopping there keeps your eye on self, not on God.
- Not humility. Once God has chosen and sent you, asking who you are is distrust dressed in humility's clothes.
- The one answer. God never says who Moses is; He says, "I will be with you." If God is with us, who we are matters little.
- Littleness fits. The smallness Moses offered as an excuse is what God uses. It leaves room for His power to show.
And he said, For I will be with thee; and this shall be the sign to thee that I have sent thee when thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
God has just told Moses to go to Pharaoh. Moses does not answer with eagerness. He asks, "Who am I?" God's reply says nothing about Moses. It offers His own presence, and a sign Moses will only see after he has obeyed.
The man who hesitates here once struck down an Egyptian. Forty years have passed, and commentators see the same man swinging to the opposite extreme.
We might expect that the moment God gave Moses His commission, his reply would be, "Here am I." But no. God had yet to bring him there... This is very unlike the man who forty years before "supposed that his brothers would understand that God was rescuing them by his hand." Such is man — at one time too hasty, at another time too slow. Moses had learnt a great deal since the day he struck down the Egyptian. He had grown in the knowledge of himself, and this produced hesitation and timidity. But then he clearly lacked confidence in God. If I am merely looking at myself, I shall do "nothing"; but if I am looking at Christ, "I can do all things."
God never tells Moses that he is adequate. He moves the question off the man and onto Himself.
It is quite right that we should have a sense of our own utter nothingness... But it is also right that we should think much of God. For when He sends, it is not a question of what we are, but of what He is — and it is no small thing to be invested with His authority and power... The presence of the Lord was to be both the warrant for his mission and the source of his strength.
A low view of yourself is not the barrier to service it seems.
Moses objects that he himself is unfit. But this only brings the assurance that God is with him. Self-distrust need not be discouragement. In fact, the more complete it is, the more he will know God's all-sufficiency.
The sign God gives (older translations read "token") is unusual: it lies at the end of the journey, not the start. Moses must go first and see the proof afterwards.
God then gives a sign, a token that He will be with him. But the sign would only come true after Moses obeyed. It was to strengthen him and gladden him once he had already obeyed.
God added the token because Moses was slow to believe, and He has stooped to others in the same way.
Of course His promise to be with him guaranteed everything. But Moses was slow to believe it, so God stooped to give him a token. When God made the promise to Abraham, He took account of how frail our faith is. He confirmed His purpose with an oath, as Hebrews 6:17 reminds us. With Moses He did not confirm His word by an oath, but by a token — and that token came true later in this book.
The stated goal of the exodus is not merely escape from Pharaoh. It is worship at a particular place, and this becomes the refrain of the whole conflict that follows.
When He sent Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt, God said to him, "you shall serve God on this mountain" (Ex. 3:12). All through the struggle with Pharaoh the word was, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." And when the people reached Sinai, the word was, "you shall serve the LORD your God" (Ex. 23:25). The law was given so that the people might know God's will for them, and serve Him by obeying it.
Service also proves who did the rescuing.
For his encouragement God firmly assures him that the people he brings out will serve God on that mountain. This is the fruit of salvation, and the sign of who has worked in it: it brings the former slaves of sin back to Him in obedience.
The mountain named is the ground where Moses is standing. The bush that shows God's care for a suffering people will later show them His glory.
The burning bush is now the symbol of God's constant care of Israel, even in the furnace of Egypt... And it is in connection with this mysterious bush that Horeb is first called "the Mount of God." For now the Lord first tells of Himself there... And this same spot which now testified of grace should later testify of glory to them, as the Lord says here to Moses.
- Question — Moses asks "Who am I?" God says nothing about Moses. He points to what He Himself is.
- Presence — God's being with him serves as both the authority for the mission and the strength to carry it out.
- Sign — God puts the proof after the obedience. Moses must go on His word first and see it later.
- Purpose — Deliverance aims at service; "let My people go" is always followed by "that they may serve Me."
- Mountain — The bush that showed God's care marks the spot where the rescued slaves will worship. The promise ends where it began.
And Moses said to God, Behold, [when] I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?
Moses stands at the burning bush with a commission he does not want, and he raises one more objection: what if the people ask God's name? The question sounds practical, but it exposes Israel's state after centuries in Egypt — and draws out a name that says what God is, not what He will do.
Moses was not inventing a problem. God sent him to people who had lived for centuries surrounded by other gods.
So in verse 13 we find him raising a great question as one more objection to what was proposed. The children of Israel had been in a land of idolatry for several centuries. So they knew the names of the false Egyptian gods well. Moses was to approach them in the name of the God of their fathers. But their minds were confused by everything around them. They would be sure to ask, What is His name?
Dennett notes what Moses had already been told, and what the question suggests about Israel.
God had already revealed Himself to Moses as the God of his fathers, and this might have been enough. But nothing can ever satisfy doubts and fears. What a glimpse this gives of Israel's condition — that they might not know the name of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob!
This is not Moses' first objection. The pattern says something about us, and more about God.
But Moses puts another question; for the human heart is full of questions… It is amazing to see how the human heart reasons and questions, when what it owes God is obedience without hesitating. More amazing still is the grace that puts up with all the reasoning and answers all the questions. Each question seems only to draw out some new feature of divine grace.
God's reply in the next verse does not name a plan. It names a Person. (The ESV reads "I AM WHO I AM"; the quotations below use an older wording.)
There is great force in these words. It was not only what God was going to do. Man would probably have preferred "I shall do." But God takes His stand on these weighty words, "I AM THAT I AM" — the self-existing, ever-being One. In truth, everything hangs on Him. All others are only beings that exist. God is the only one who can say "I AM." Whatever exists was called into being, and it may pass out of existence, if God so chooses.
Behind the two English words lies a single Hebrew word.
The words "I AM" translate one Hebrew word, "Ehyeh." It comes from the same root as Jehovah. It clearly stresses the eternal nature and existence of the One who can speak this way. It is an unmistakable claim to deity.
Because the name states no single act, it excludes no need. Mackintosh sets it beside the other titles God takes in Scripture.
God unfolds all these gracious titles to meet the needs of His people. And when He calls Himself "I AM," that one title takes them all in. In taking this title, Jehovah was handing His people a blank cheque, to be filled in for any amount. He calls Himself "I AM," and faith has only to write beside that unspeakably precious name whatever we want. God is the only figure that counts, and human need may add the zeros. If we want life, Christ says, "I AM the life."
God does not stop at His own being. He goes on at once to the name that ties Him to particular people — Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the ancestors of Israel.
"I AM" is His own essential name. But when it comes to how He governs the earth and relates to it, His name is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. That is the name every generation is to remember Him by. It gave Israel a very special place, now that God had visited them and taken them up under His name.
Grant hears the same name on the lips of Jesus.
This name means that God is the self-existent, eternally existent One. With Him there is no question of past and future, as there is with us… The same name belongs just as much to the Lord Jesus. He uses it many times in the Gospel of John, and settles the matter with this declaration: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). What a wonderful name to fill a believer's heart with adoration!
- Forgotten name. Israel had lived so long among Egypt's gods that Moses expected them to ask who the God of their fathers even was.
- Answered questions. Moses raised one more objection, yet each question drew out fresh grace instead of rebuke.
- Being, not doing. God did not say "I shall do" but "I AM" — the self-existent One on whom everything hangs. He called everything else into being.
- Blank cheque. Because the name names no single act, it covers every need; faith writes its own amount against it.
- Named for us. He adds the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as His memorial for every generation — and Jesus speaks the same "I AM" again.
And God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel I AM hath sent me unto you.
God sent Moses to a people who had lived for generations among Egypt's gods. Moses wanted to know what to say if they asked the name of the God who was sending him. God's answer does not describe what He does. It states what He is. Commentators find in that short phrase both the deepest truth about God and the most practical comfort for faith.
The request for a name was not idle curiosity. It exposed how far the nation had drifted during their years of slavery.
You know how they became slaves in Egypt. When Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament, opens, we see Abraham's descendants there. They were a great and mighty nation, but they were helpless slaves under the cruel rule of Pharaoh, Egypt's great king. But not only were they slaves, they had also forgotten the God who had chosen them and made them His own. They were idol-worshippers in Egypt (see Joshua 24:14). God's people had so far forgotten their God that they had even forgotten His great Name.
The reply says nothing about what God does. It only says that He is. Commentators tie it to the name Jehovah — a name Abraham knew, but whose meaning God had not yet explained.
God had made Himself known to Abraham as Jehovah (Genesis 15:7). But here He explains that name. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew the name Jehovah, but they did not know what it truly meant. He reveals Himself as the Self-Existing One, THE I AM THAT I AM. He is the One who is, who was, and who is to come (Rev. 1:4). And this wonderful Name — the Unchanging, Living One, the Eternal, the Name too deep to search out — is the Name of our Lord who has redeemed us.
God's being never shifts. So nothing in Israel's later history could shift His purpose for them. Their record went on to prove it.
He made Himself known as the great "I AM" — the One self-existent, ever-existent, unchanging, and therefore always true to what He is in Himself. Israel would prove to be an unstable and stubborn people. If they had been dealing with anyone other than "I AM," judgment would soon have swept them away. God was patient with them, and He will still achieve all His purpose for them, because He is always true to Himself. We should remind ourselves of this. We now know God far more closely, since Christ has revealed Him. But we do not lose the value of these earlier revelations. The One whom we know as Father is still the "I AM" to us, as much as He was to Moses and the children of Israel.
The deliverance about to begin had no foundation in Israel's worthiness. Their only qualification was that they belonged to Him.
These words reveal a great and basic principle in God's ways. He always acts on the ground of what He is. "I AM" secures everything for "MY PEOPLE." He was never going to leave His people making bricks in Egypt, under the whips of Pharaoh's slave-drivers. They were His people, and He would act toward them in a way worthy of Himself.
God's other titles each answered one particular need. This one gathers them all up and stays open.
As we trace the different names God takes in Scripture, we find each one tied to the need of the people He was dealing with. "Jehovah-jireh" (the Lord will provide). "Jehovah-nissi" (the Lord my banner). "Jehovah-shalom" (the Lord sends peace). "Jehovah-tsidkenu" (the Lord our righteousness). All these gracious titles of His are unfolded to meet the needs of His people; and when He calls Himself "I AM," it includes them all. By taking this title, Jehovah handed His people a blank cheque for them to fill in for any amount... If we want life, Christ says, "I AM the life." If we want righteousness, He is "THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." If we want peace, "He is our peace."
A writer links this verse with words Jesus spoke to those who opposed Him.
We do not wonder that He claims to be the self-existent One, as in His words to the Jews: "Before Abraham was I AM" (John 8:58). This is the name that belongs to God alone, the name He used when He revealed Himself to Moses and to Israel: "I AM has sent me to you" (Ex. 3:14). He has always been the Word, the One who makes God known, so that older voice was His own. He is the Abiding, the Unchangeable, the Eternal.
Alongside this absolute name, God gave a second one. It ties Him to three named men.
"I AM" is His own essential name. But when it comes to how He rules the earth and deals with it, He takes another name. All generations are to remember Him as the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob.
- Forgotten. Slavery in Egypt had cost Israel even the memory of God's name, so Moses had to ask what to tell them.
- Revealed. God names Himself the self-existent One — who is, who was, and who is to come. That is what "Jehovah" had always meant, though Abraham was never told.
- Unchanging. He is always true to what He is, so judgment did not wipe out a stubborn nation. His purpose outlasts their failure.
- Given. Deliverance rests on what He is, not on what they were: "I AM" secures everything for "My people."
- Filled in. The name is a blank cheque — life, righteousness, peace — and the One who signed it said, "Before Abraham was, I AM."
And God said moreover to Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel Jehovah, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you. This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.
At the burning bush God gives Moses two names: the "I AM" of the previous verse, and then this one, tied to three men who had already died. The second is the one He calls His name forever — so why does God tie Himself to three human lives, and how long does "forever" last?
The two names answer two different questions. One says what God is in Himself. The other says who He is to people on earth — and where that leaves Israel.
This name expresses the essential being of God — His name as the self-existent One. So it affirms His eternal being... But this is not all. After revealing what He is in His own essential existence, He adds... This is pure grace on the part of God. "I AM" is His own essential name. But when it comes to His rule over the earth and His relationship with it, His name is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob — the name all generations are to remember Him by. This gave Israel a very special place under His name. It points to their being chosen by the sovereign grace of God, and to their being loved for their fathers' sake. It also reveals that Israel will always be the centre of God's ways and the key to His purposes on the earth.
(The writers quoted here use older translations. Those read "this is my memorial unto all generations," and print God's name as "Jehovah" where the ESV has "the LORD".)
God does not keep the towering name as His permanent title. Kelly sees the choice itself as the kindness.
How infinitely gracious of God! The name He takes forever in connection with Israel is not the one that reduces every other creature to its own nothingness. It is not the one that makes everything merely the result of His word and His will. He loves and cherishes the name in which He has bound up the objects of His choice with Himself.
Who were these three? Darby sums up their whole standing in one phrase.
So God made Himself "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob" — heirs of the promises, and pilgrims upon earth.
"Forever" is not a decorative word here. Mackintosh notes what God refused to add to it.
This statement contains a very important truth — one many professing Christians seem to forget. God's relationship with Israel is an eternal one. He is just as much Israel's God now as when He visited them in the land of Egypt... He does not say, "This is my name for a time, as long as they continue what they ought to be." No. He says, "this is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations." Let my reader think about this. "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew." (Rom. 11:2) They are His people still, whether obedient or disobedient, gathered together or scattered abroad.
A memorial name is something later generations can appeal to. Darby follows that use of the name into Israel's worst failure, the golden calf.
In Exodus 3:14-15, His name is the memorial for His people forever. He remembers His covenant with the fathers (2:24), and His name is pledged on behalf of His people. And in the utter failure of the people soon after (Ex. 32), where they practically give up God, Moses pleads the name, the revealed character of the Lord.
The rescue from Egypt is what filled the name with meaning.
Israel's deliverance was meant to show what the name Jehovah means, and so make it His memorial name for all generations. And in it Israel would find their lasting ground of confidence.
Death raises a question about this name. Darby presses it: a name is worthless if it points to nobody.
Suppose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had ceased to exist. Could God still have taken their names — the name of nothing — to describe Himself to Israel? He might have said, I am He who was with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, when they existed. Even then it would have been a completely unworthy relationship... He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. But this truth went further. As far as soul and body go, Abraham was dead. Though living for God, he was not what God meant him to be... He was to be complete, and so raised from the dead.
- Two names. "I AM" tells what God is in Himself. "The God of your fathers" tells whom He has joined Himself to — and that is the name He calls His forever.
- Chosen, not required. He passes over the name that reduces every creature to nothing. He keeps the name that ties His people to Himself.
- Forever, unqualified. He never says "for a time, so long as they behave." So the bond survives Israel's disobedience and scattering.
- A name to plead. It is a memorial name. Moses could appeal to it after the golden calf, and Israel could rest on it.
- A name that outlasts death. God cannot be the God of people who no longer exist. So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob must rise.