In the Burning Bush: Jesus in Exodus 3

This article is part of a series on Old Testament Christophanies.  For important background information, see An Introduction to Old Testament Christophanies–with Justin Martyr.

By the time Moses had fled from Egypt to settle in Midian, it had been over four centuries since the Lord had last appeared to anyone. The wait ended in Exodus 3, where we find what is undoubtably the most well-known theophany in the Bible: the burning bush. After Moses had lived in Midian long enough to get married and father a son, he received his first visit from the Lord:

Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (Exod 3:1–6).

A bush catching on fire in the dry Sinai desert region was and is not unusual. This bush was different; it appeared to be on fire even though it wasn’t actually burning. That’s because this was no ordinary fire. Within the bush was the Angel, glowing with the glory of the Lord. His very presence made the ground holy. The Hebrew seneh, translated here as “bush,” refers to a species of thorny acacia common to the Sinaitic region. (The burning bush may have grown blackberries!) Perhaps uncoincidentally, the ark of the covenant—which held the glory of the Lord—was constructed out of acacia wood (Exod 25:10).

In this one passage, the Angel is stated to be Yahweh and God (v. 4) before He identifies Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 6). No created angel acting on the Lord’s behalf would ever refer to Himself as the God of the patriarchs. Moses hid his face out of fear that seeing God would kill him. The Targum ends verse six with Moses being afraid to look upon “the glory of the Lord.”^[1] It is no wonder why Horeb, also named Sinai, was known as the mountain of God.

Just after explaining that He had come down to deliver the Israelites, the Lord told Moses to deliver them. Both the Lord and Moses would be Israel’s deliverer, though in different ways. Moses would be God’s instrument and representative, while the Lord would be the true power opposing Egypt and protecting His people. Like with the patriarchs before him, the Lord promised to be with Moses. Mount Sinai, the same place where Moses had an encounter with God, is where all the Israelites would be brought to have their own encounter with God. Once the Lord appeared before them, it would be a sure sign that He had been with Moses (vv. 7–12). 

Moses had an important question for the Lord, and the Lord had an incredible answer:

Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God, furthermore, said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘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 name to all generations (Exod 3:13–15).

The Lord’s name, “I AM WHO I AM” (or “I AM that I AM”) is translated from the Hebrew ehyeh asher ehyeh, and is abbreviated simply as ehyeh, “I AM.” In verse 14, Moses is ordered to tell the Israelites that “I AM” has sent him, before being told in verse 15 to say that Yahweh (“The LORD”) has sent him. These are two different forms of the same name; the first defined the second. The name Yahweh (Heb. YHWH) is the third person masculine singular form of the word translated as “I AM.” When God was referred to as Yahweh, people were saying “He is.” Yahweh is the self-defining and self-existent One, the divine Presence. An equivalent of the name appears several times in the Book of Revelation, in which God is said to be “Him who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev 1:4, 8; see 4:8; 11:17 and 16:5 for similar renderings). God’s name has and will cause His people to remember and worship Him forever.

The Lord later said to Moses, “I am the LORD; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but my name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them” (Exod 6:2–3). While the Lord had declared His name to be Yahweh before (e.g., Gen 15:7; 22:16), the meaning of the name had not been revealed until it was given to Moses. The same God who had appeared to the patriarchs, now appeared to Moses, making Himself more fully known.

The Lord ordered Moses to inform the elders of Israel that the God of their forefathers had appeared to him, saying that He would deliver them to the Promised Land. The Lord further told Moses that he and the elders would ask the king of Egypt to allow them to make a three-day journey into the wilderness to make a sacrifice to their God. Since the Lord knew that the king wouldn’t let them go, He said that He would strike Egypt with His miracles. Afterward the Israelites would leave, plundering the Egyptians of their silver, gold, and clothing (vv. 16–22).

The Lord continued to speak from the bush in Exodus 4. He equipped Moses with powers so that people would believe the Lord had appeared to him. Moses would be able to transform his staff into a serpent and back again, make his hand leprous and then healthy again, and he would be able to transform water from the Nile into blood (vv. 1–9). These signs would make it obvious that the Lord had appeared to Moses and empowered him to do His work.  

Because Moses was worried that he wasn’t eloquent enough to speak, the Lord assured him that He would teach him what to say. Also, Moses would be permitted to have his brother Aaron serve as his mouthpiece. In this way, both Moses and Aaron would speak the words of the Lord. Finally, Moses was told that he would use his staff to perform the signs (vv. 10–17). Through it all, the Lord would be the true source of the words spoken and the miracles performed.

Jesus is I AM

The God of Moses would make Himself even more fully known at the incarnation. On many occasions the Lord Jesus declared Himself to be ego eimi in the Greek, which is translated as “I am.” The majority of these “I am” declarations are recorded in the Gospel of John. Christian commentaries often argue that in some of the places where Jesus used ego eimi in the Gospel, a claim to deity is implied. (A good example from another Gospel is found in Mark 14:62.) In several cases, Jesus’ use of ego eimi is followed by a predicate.^[2] For example, Jesus stated, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). Jesus also used ego eimi to identify Himself as the Messiah (John 4:26) and to the frightened disciples in the boat (John 6:20). In these, and in the statements where a predicate followed ego eimi, a claim to divinity isn’t necessarily implied. However, there are seven instances in John’s Gospel where Jesus claimed to be “I am” in an absolute sense,^[3] meaning that His declaration wasn’t limited in some way.

The most critical example comes from John 8:58–59:

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.

If Jesus only meant to say that He existed before Abraham, He would have said, “I was.” Since Jesus has and will always exist, that response would have been insufficient. The Son of God is beyond time; He is “I am.” The Jews didn’t pick up stones because they misunderstood what Jesus was saying; they understood all too well. They knew that He was declaring Himself to be Yahweh: He who spoke from the burning bush. Some translations of the Bible, such as the New King James Version, will highlight the importance of ego eimi in John 8:58 by capitalizing every letter in “I am” so that it becomes “I AM” to match the statement first made in the bush in Exodus 3:14.

On John 8:58, J.C. Ryle, the nineteenth-century Anglican bishop and evangelical champion, advised the reader to

carefully note what a strong proof we have here of the pre-existence and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He applies to Himself the very name by which God made Himself known when He undertook to redeem Israel. It was “I AM” who brought them out of the land of Egypt. It was “I AM” who died for us upon the cross.^[4]

Another dynamic example comes from the account of Jesus’ arrest:

So Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered Him, “Jesus the Nazarene.” He said to them, “I am He.” And Judas also, who was betraying Him, was standing with them. So when He said to them, “I am He,” they drew back and fell to the ground (John 18:4–6). 

The word “He,” following both “I am” statements, is italicized because there is no underlying Greek word that it was translated from. It was added by the translators here, and in several other places after “I am,” in order to make the English more readable. The addition of the pronoun, however, does make the translation less precise. Jesus specifically named Himself as “I am.” And when He said it, Judas and the arresting officers were knocked off their feet. It isn’t that Jesus produced some aggressive power against them. It was just that upon hearing the Messiah declare Himself to be I am, to be Yahweh, these men couldn’t help but fall to the ground before the presence of God. Moses humbly removed his sandals when he stood before the Lord to hear the divine name (Exod 3:5). Judas and the officers didn’t show the same kind of reverence and were thus overwhelmed by the Son of God simply saying His name. While the use of ego eimi typically has an ordinary meaning in Greek, there are undeniably occasions when Jesus’ use of the phrase was meant to express His divinity.

Our final example comes from John 13:19:

From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He.

This verse parallels one from Isaiah:

“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD,
“And My servant whom I have chosen,
So that you may know and believe Me
And understand that I am He.
Before Me there was no God formed,
And there will be none after Me” (Isa 43:10).

In both verses the Lord says that He acted so that His audience would believe that He is “I am.” The phrase “I am He” in the Isaiah verse is translated from the Hebrew ani hu. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament, widely used by first-century Jews) translates ani hu here as ego eimi, which is the same Greek phrase translated as “I am” in the John verse. It would seem that Jesus deliberately echoed the wording of Yahweh in Isaiah 43:10. This parallelism can also be explained by the simple fact that the same God called Himself “I am” in both verses. There are other significant verses in the Septuagint where Yahweh identifies Himself as ego eimi (e.g., Deut 32:39; Isa 41:4; 46:4). Along with Isaiah 43:10, they strengthen the connection between Jesus’ absolute “I am” declarations in John’s Gospel and the Lord identifying Himself as “I AM” in Exodus 3:14. Jesus did indeed teach that He was Yahweh; He called to Moses from the bush and appeared to the patriarchs and prophets.

The Angel, the Son, and the Word

Justin recounted a portion of his debate with Trypho and his fellow Jews, where after discussing the Lord’s appearances to Jacob, he turned to the Lord’s appearance in the burning bush:

“Permit me, further, to show you from the book of Exodus how this same One, who is both Angel, and God, and Lord, and man, and who appeared in human form to Abraham and Isaac, appeared in a flame of fire from the bush, and conversed with Moses.” And after they said they would listen cheerfully, patiently, and eagerly, I went on: “These words are in the book which bears the title of Exodus: ‘And after many days the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel groaned by reason of the works; and so on until, ‘Go and gather the elders of Israel, and thou shalt say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the Lord God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath appeared to me, saying, I am surely beholding you, and the things which have befallen you in Egypt.’” In addition to these words, I went on: “Have you perceived, sirs, that this very God whom Moses speaks of as an Angel that talked to him in the flame of a fire, declares to Moses that He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob?”^[5]

Justin quoted Exodus 2:23 and 3:16 to prove that the God of the Israelites had appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Because the God who spoke from the flame was said to be the Angel, He must be a separate person from God the Father. 

Trypho disagreed with Justin:

Then Trypho said, “We do not perceive this from the passage quoted by you, but [only this], that it was an angel who appeared in the flame of fire, but God who conversed with Moses; so that there were really two persons in company with each other, an angel and God, that appeared in that vision.”^[6] 

Justin explained that even if this was the case, the God in this scenario would still have to be He who ministers to the Father.^[7]

Then, Justin issued a strongly worded retort:

“so that, even though it be as you say, that there were two—an angel and God—he who has but the smallest intelligence will not venture to assert that the Maker and Father of all things, having left all supercelestial matters, was visible on a little portion of the earth.”^[8]

It may be that God the Father has never departed from His heavenly realm in order to visit the earth, but His Son certainly has.

In the second-century church, Justin Martyr was only equaled in influence and exegetical skill by Irenaeus. Irenaeus was the pupil of Polycarp, who was a student of the apostle John. Being only one teacher removed from the disciple whom Jesus loved (e.g., John 13:23) makes the father’s insight all the more valuable. In a discussion on the one true God, Irenaeus wrote that 

no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, “I am that I am. And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, hath sent me unto you;” and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, “I am come down to deliver this people.” For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself—He who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father.^[9]

Irenaeus quoted from Exodus 3:14 and 3:8 to explain that both the Father and the Son could be called God and Lord. In doing so, he explicitly wrote that it was the Son who spoke to Moses. Being one with the Father while also representing the Father, the Son revealed the divine name. The Son came down to deliver the Israelites physically and He came down to deliver His people from sin.

Another key church father who recognized that it was the Son in the bush was Athanasius (ca. 296–373). Athanasius is perhaps best known as the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism. Arianism holds that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was created at some point in time. As such, He is inferior to and totally distinct from God the Father. As part of his refutation of Arianism, Athanasius said that it was the Word (Logos) of God who spoke from the bush.^[10] He then continued by differentiating the Son from a created angel:

But what God speaks, it is very plain He speaks through the Word, and not through another. And the Word, as being not separate from the Father, nor unlike and foreign to the Father’s Essence, what He works, those are the Father’s works, and His framing of all things is one with His; and what the Son gives, that is the Father’s gift. And he who hath seen the Son, knows that, in seeing Him, he has seen, not Angel, nor one merely greater than Angels, nor in short any creature, but the Father Himself. And he who hears the Word, knows that he hears the Father; as he who is irradiated by the radiance, knows that he is enlightened by the sun.^[11]

Since the Son is the Word of the Father, then we might expect Him to function as the Message or Messenger (Angel) of the Lord.

He who spoke from the bush was the Angel, the Son, and the Word. The most famous theophany in the Bible was a Christophany.

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[1] Targum Onkelos on Exodus 3:6. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan ends the verse with Moses being afraid to look upon “the glory of the Shekinah of the Lord.”

[2] Found in John 6:35; 6:41; 6:51; 8:12; 8:18; 10:7; 10:9; 10:11; 10:14; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1; 15:5.

[3] Found in John 8:24; 8:28; 8:58; 13:19; 18:5; 18:6; 18:8.

[4] Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. John, 2:132.

[5] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 59.1.

[6] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 60.1.

[7] Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 60.2.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.6.2.

[10] Athanasius, Against the Arians 3.25.14.

[11] Ibid.