Key Verses: Exodus 3-4

Key Questions


1. Abraham J. Heschel talks about “the prophet” being one who feels deeply what God feels (pathos). Consider the possible symbolic meanings of the burning bush—what do they disclose about the nature of God, his relationship to the world, and Moses’ mission?
2. Why is the revealing of God’s name significant in the development of the story of God and His people? 

3. What does God’s statement, “I have seen… I have heard… I know… and I have come down” reveal about God’s stance toward the oppressed? How should this inform the ethical sensibilities of communities of faith today?


4. How do you interpret God’s anger with Moses (4:14)? What does it say about the emotional life of God?


5. How do the strange scenes in chapter 4:24-26 challenge your view of God and His relation with people? Pay attention to your thought process as you try to explain, resolve, deny what the text depicts—what does your thought process convey about how you face challenging texts in general?

Theological Insights


“Moses also experiences a challenge to his way of approaching and knowing the world. His encounter at the burning bush calls into question not only the reliability of this mysterious sight. It challenges the natural human presumption that seeing is the most trustworthy way of apprehending the world. Moses, relying on sight, had approached the bush hoping to take its true measure. He trusted that his vision would give him full access to the being and meaning of what the world put before him: what you see is what there is, and it beckons you to know it. Instead, he encounters a voice before which one can be confident only that one is in the presence of a being, but without any clue regarding its totality, never mind its identity and nature. Through speech and hearing we learn—at most—only as much as the speaker chooses to reveal to us. The mystery of what is hidden is enough to inspire caution and even awe.” Leon Kass, Founding God’s Nation, 64.

“Exodus 3:14 is one of the most puzzled over verses in the entire Hebrew Bible… The force is not simply that God is or that God is present but that God will be faithfully God for them… God will be God with and for the people at all times and places…. Israel’s own experience with God in its history will confirm the meaning of this name. Israel both understands its history from the name and the name from its history. The name shapes Israel’s story, and the story gives greater texture to the name.” Fretheim, Exodus (Interpretation), 63-64.

“The language of the Old Testament is so suspicious of any rhetoric which never stammers that it has as its chief prophet a man “slow of speech and of tongue.” In this disability we can see more than the simple admission of a limitation; it also acknowledges the nature of this kerygma, one which does not forget the weight of the world, the inertia of men, the dullness of their understanding.” Emmanuel Levinas, “Revelation in the Jewish Tradition,” The Levinas Reader (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1989), 197.