Exodus 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

While Moses is shepherding Jethro's flock at Horeb, the angel of the LORD appears to him in a burning bush that is not consumed, and God calls to him from it. God says he has seen the affliction of his people in Egypt and has come down to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey, and he sends Moses to Pharaoh. Moses raises objections, and God answers with a promise to be with him, with a sign, and with his name, I AM. God tells Moses what to say to the elders and to the king of Egypt, and says that Egypt will be struck with wonders and that the people will not leave empty-handed.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro his father-in-law.
   • Jethro was the priest of Midian.
   • Moses led the flock to the far side of the wilderness.
   • Moses came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
2. 3:2
   • The angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in a flame of fire from within a bush.
   • Moses looked and saw the bush burning with fire.
   • The bush was not consumed.
3. 3:3
   • Moses said he would turn aside to see this great sight.
   • Moses asked why the bush was not burned up.
4. 3:4
   • The LORD saw that Moses turned aside to look.
   • God called to Moses from within the bush.
   • God said, Moses, Moses.
   • Moses said, Here I am.
5. 3:5
   • God said, Do not come near here.
   • God told Moses to take his sandals off his feet.
   • God said the place where Moses was standing was holy ground.
6. 3:6
   • God said, I am the God of your father.
   • God said, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
   • Moses hid his face.
   • Moses was afraid to look at God.
7. 3:7
   • The LORD said he had surely seen the affliction of his people in Egypt.
   • The LORD said he had heard their cry because of their taskmasters.
   • The LORD said he knew their sufferings.
8. 3:8
   • God said he had come down to deliver them from the hand of the Egyptians.
   • God said he would bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land.
   • God said it is a land flowing with milk and honey.
   • God said it is the place of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
9. 3:9
   • God said the cry of the children of Israel had come to him.
   • God said he had also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.
10. 3:10
    • God told Moses to come now.
    • God said he would send Moses to Pharaoh.
    • God said Moses was to bring his people the children of Israel out of Egypt.
11. 3:11
    • Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?
    • Moses asked who he was that he should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.
12. 3:12
    • God said he would certainly be with Moses.
    • God said this would be the sign to Moses that God had sent him.
    • God said that when Moses brought the people out of Egypt, they would serve God on this mountain.
13. 3:13
    • Moses said to God that he would come to the children of Israel.
    • Moses said he would tell them that the God of their fathers had sent him to them.
    • Moses said they would ask him what God's name is.
    • Moses asked what he should say to them.
14. 3:14
    • God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM.
    • The name God gives is ambiguous between I am who I am and I will be what I will be.
    • God said Moses should tell the children of Israel that I AM has sent him to them.
15. 3:15
    • God said further to Moses that he should say to the children of Israel that the LORD, the God of their fathers, had sent him to them.
    • God identified himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.
    • God said this is his name forever.
    • God said this is his memorial to all generations.
16. 3:16
    • God told Moses to go and gather the elders of Israel.
    • God told Moses to say to them that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had appeared to him.
    • God said he had surely attended to them.
    • God said he had seen what was done to them in Egypt.
17. 3:17
    • God said he had promised to bring them up out of the affliction of Egypt.
    • God said he would bring them to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
    • God said it is a land flowing with milk and honey.
18. 3:18
    • God said the elders would listen to Moses' voice.
    • God said Moses and the elders of Israel would go to the king of Egypt.
    • God said they would tell him that the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, had met with them.
    • God said they would ask to go a three days' journey into the wilderness.
    • God said the purpose stated would be to sacrifice to the LORD their God.
19. 3:19
    • God said he knew the king of Egypt would not let them go.
    • The clause about a mighty hand is ambiguous between the king not letting them go even by a mighty hand and the king not letting them go except under a mighty hand.
20. 3:20
    • God said he would stretch out his hand.
    • God said he would strike Egypt with all his wonders that he would do in its midst.
    • God said that after that Pharaoh would let them go.
21. 3:21
    • God said he would give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians.
    • God said that when they went, they would not go empty-handed.
22. 3:22
    • God said every woman would ask her neighbor and the woman staying in her house for objects of silver, objects of gold, and clothing.
    • God said they would put these on their sons and daughters.
    • God said they would plunder the Egyptians.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

Midian was a region of desert grazing land east and south of the Gulf of Aqaba, in what is now north-western Arabia, though Midianite herders ranged widely across the Sinai peninsula. Its "priest" was not an Israelite priest; Jethro served the religion of his own people. The word behind "desert" (Hebrew *midbar*) means open uncultivated country used for pasturing flocks, not a sea of sand. Horeb is the other name this book uses for Mount Sinai; the two names refer to the same place, and the narrator calls it "the mountain of God" before anything has happened there, telling the reader in advance what kind of place Moses has wandered into.

3:2

"Angel" translates Hebrew *mal'akh*, which simply means "messenger", a sent representative, not a winged figure. Note that the messenger appears in verse 2 but from verse 4 onward it is God himself who speaks; the text moves between the two without explanation, and translators leave the ambiguity as it stands. The word for the bush (*seneh*) means a thornbush or bramble, and closely resembles the name Sinai.

3:5

Removing sandals was a normal mark of respect on entering a sacred space or another person's dwelling; priests later served barefoot in the sanctuary. "Holy" means set apart from ordinary use, the ground is not being described as morally good but as belonging to God and therefore off limits to casual approach.

3:6

"Your father" is singular, but the three names that follow are Moses's ancestors, so the phrase points to the family line rather than to one man. Moses covers his face because of the widespread ancient conviction, stated openly later in this book, that a human being who looked directly at God would not survive it.

3:7

The overseers were officials who drove gangs of forced laborers on state building projects, a well-attested Egyptian practice; they were managers with the power to beat, not slave-owners.

3:8

"Flowing with milk and honey" is a set phrase for land rich enough to support both herds (milk) and orchards or wild bees (honey); the honey in question was probably wild honey or a thick syrup boiled from dates. The six peoples listed are the populations of Canaan as Israel remembered them; such lists are conventional and vary in length from passage to passage. The Hittites here are local Canaanite groups, not the great empire of Anatolia that bore the same name.

3:10

"Pharaoh" is a title, not a personal name. It comes from the Egyptian for "great house", originally the palace, then by extension the man who lived in it. The text never gives this king's name.

3:12

"Sign" translates a word meaning a confirming mark or proof. What is odd, and is left unresolved in the Hebrew, is that the proof arrives only after the mission has succeeded: "this" may point back to the burning bush in front of Moses, or forward to the whole nation worshiping at this mountain.

3:13

In the ancient world a god's name was not a label but a statement of who that god was and what could be expected of him, and it was what you called on in worship. Moses is asking for credentials the elders can test, not for a form of address.

3:14

The Hebrew is *ehyeh asher ehyeh*, built three times on the verb "to be." Hebrew does not mark tense the way English does, so the phrase can equally mean "I am who I am," "I will be who I will be," or "I will be what I choose to be"; it can also be read as a refusal to be pinned down. The reply is also a play on the divine name given in the next verse, which comes from the same verb.

3:15

"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the four Hebrew letters YHWH, the personal name of Israel's God, as distinct from the ordinary word for "god." By long-standing Jewish practice the name is not pronounced; readers say "the Lord" instead, and English versions follow that custom with the capitals. "Memorial" here does not mean a monument but the name by which he is to be invoked and called to mind.

3:16

The elders were the heads of families and clans who spoke and decided for the community; there was no other Israelite leadership structure to approach. "I have surely visited you" renders a verb (*paqad*) meaning to attend to, inspect, or take official notice of someone: it can introduce rescue or punishment, and carries none of the social sense of a modern visit.

3:18

"Hebrews" is the term outsiders use for this people, and the term they use of themselves when speaking to outsiders; within the family story they are "the sons of Israel." A "three days' journey" was a stock expression for a short set distance out and back, not a precise measurement. The request is for permission to hold a festival sacrifice in the open country, a limited leave of absence rather than the departure God has just described.

3:19

The Hebrew here is genuinely uncertain. It can mean "he will not let you go unless a mighty hand forces him", the reading most modern versions take, or, as the King James has it, "not even under a mighty hand," meaning no amount of pressure will move him. Both readings are grammatically possible.

3:20

"Wonders" means astonishing acts. These are the plagues that strike Egypt later in the story.

3:21

To "give a people favour in the sight of" others is a Hebrew idiom for making them well regarded, so that requests are granted; it describes the Egyptians' change of attitude, not a feeling in the Israelites.

3:22

The King James "borrow" is misleading: the Hebrew verb means simply to ask or request, with nothing implied about giving the items back. "Jewels" in 1611 English meant articles or objects of value generally, not only ornaments. "Spoil the Egyptians" uses the vocabulary of an army stripping a defeated enemy, the point of the phrase is that a slave people leaves carrying the goods of the nation that held them, in the manner of victors.