Exodus 3
EdwardsExodus 3:2-3
Exo. 3:2, 3. “And the angel of the Lord appeared,” etc. That is, Christ - who is often so called - appeared, etc. This bush represents - (1.) The human nature of Christ, whose name is “the branch.” This bush well represented the human nature of Christ, because it was the growth of the earth. Though Christ, with regard to His Divine nature, be the Lord from heaven, yet, with respect to His human nature, He was the growth of the earth; He was of earthly descent, of the race of mortal mankind. And upon the account of its low and humble stature; it was a bush or bramble, as the word in the original signifies. This well represented Christ’s state of humiliation, and also His meekness and lowliness of heart. And also upon the account of its tenderness and liableness to be destroyed. What more easily crushed or consumed than a bramble-bush?
This bush, upon each of these accounts, well represented what is spoken of Christ in Isaiah 53:2. This bush was “a root out of a dry ground,” (see Hosea 13:5; Deuteronomy 8:15), for it was a bush that grew on Mount Horeb, as verse 1, which was so called from the remarkable dryness of the place, for the word Horeb signifies dryness. The Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, His appearing in this bush is a type of His being manifest in the flesh. Christ is said (Deuteronomy 33:16) to have dwelt in the bush; hereby was typified His dwelling in flesh. As the bush burned with fire and was not consumed, so Christ, in the human nature, suffered extremely; He endured the wrath of God, but was not overcome, perished not, was not consumed, He rose again from the dead, and did not see corruption. Though His human nature was but a bush or tender plant, in itself easily capable of being consumed, and though the fire spent all its force upon it; yet, because of the Divinity that dwelt in it, it was impossible that it should be consumed.
The power of God “was made perfect in weakness.” Satan could not prevail against Christ; though he cast Him into the fire, yet he could not destroy Him. (2.) This bush represents the Church, the mystical body of Christ; as it was with Christ, so it was with the Church. It is a tender plant. It is a branch of the earth; and oftentimes is in the fire. But God will not suffer it to be consumed; but it always survives the flames; the gates of hell never prevail against it; her enemies are not suffered to swallow her up; God has promised that, when she goes through the fire, she shall not be burnt, neither shall the flames kindle upon her. But, doubtless, a special respect is herein had to the Church, now in her suffering state in Egypt, where her enemies had labored to destroy her, but were not able; the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied. God always carried them on eagle’s wings out of their enemies’ reach, and when they had well-nigh swallowed them up at the Red Sea, God delivered them. Exo. 3:3
Exodus 3:3
Exo. 3:3. “Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” The great sight that Moses here said he would turn aside to see, and that he did turn aside to see as he said, as we have an account in next verse, was not that the bush was not burnt, for this Moses had seen already, which was the occasion of his earnestly desiring to know further, and his turning aside to see something further. But what the great sight he turned aside to see was, why the bush was not burnt, or upon what account, or for what reason, as the word in the original signifies. Moses seems to have spoke these words after he had stood a while with astonishment beholding the bush burn, and when he after a while perceived the bush notwithstanding was not burnt, he then considered it must be some great and very extraordinary thing that must preserve the bush as in the midst of the flames. By the sight is meant the thing to be seen: it is as much as if he had said, “I will turn aside and see this great thing, on the account of which the bush was not burnt.” This great thing was that God dwelt in the bush (Deuteronomy 33:16). It is probable Moses was sensible that there was something divine in the case; he might probably see some token of Divine glory there present, some extraordinary lustre or effulgence that had an appearance of exceeding awful majesty, and also surprising sweetness and pleasantness, - like that which Peter describes (2 Peter 1:16; 2 Peter 1:17), speaking of what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration, - which Moses saw in the time that the bush was burning, and also said to continue there after the flame was out, and concluded that the bush’s being preserved was by reason of that divine thing that he there beheld. This Moses seems to have respect to when he says, “I will turn aside and see this great sight.” This appearance was so divinely excellent and ravishing, that it seems to have left an everlasting impression on Moses’s mind, and probably made him the more earnestly desirous to see God’s glory afterwards, (Exodus 33:18), and he remembers it when he blesses Joseph (Deuteronomy 33:16).
And Moses had now a mind to come nearer to behold this great and sweet and wonderful sight, the glory of God united to and dwelling in the bush. This great sight that Moses speaks of represents two things, - (1.) The Incarnation of Christ, which was represented by God’s dwelling in the bush; (2.) The death and sufferings of Christ, which were represented by God’s appearing and dwelling in the burning bush, and in the bush when all on fire; which two things were the greatest sight that ever was seen by angels or men.
Exodus 3:13
Exo. 3:13. “And they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?” They would be the more apt to inquire this, because they had now been so long in Egypt, where they had served other gods, that they had in a great measure forgotten the God of their fathers. Had it not been for God’s mercy to them in thus renewedly making Himself known to them, the case would soon have been with them as it was with other nations, who soon after the Flood forgot the true God and degenerated to the worship of idols (see Ezekiel 20:5). God chose them, they did not choose Him. He remembered them, and His covenant with their fathers when they had forgot Him. Israel was a people that God formed for Himself; He took them when they were (the body of them) idolaters and ignorant of Him, and made them His people. He redeemed them from the gods of Egypt, from their idolatry as well as from their taskmasters; and that was the most glorious redemption.
Here is a notable instance of the Church’s being hidden and obscured, as it was under antichrist before the Reformation. There were, doubtless, left amongst them some true worshippers of God thinly sown among them, as it was under the tyranny of that city which is spiritually called Sodom in Egypt. The Church was now in the wilderness as it was then (see Ezekiel 20:7-10; 2 Samuel 7:23; Leviticus 17:7; Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 23:3-8). We have another remarkable instance of the like nature in the time of the Jews’ captivity in Babylon, another great type of the Anti-Christian Church (see Jeremiah 16:13).
Exodus 3:14
Exo. 3:14. “I am that I am,” etc. Some of the heathen philosophers seem to have derived notions that they had of the Deity from hence. Plato and Pythagoras make the great object of philosophy to be ΤὸΟν, that which is; ΤὸὂντωςΟν, that which truly is; and also ΤὸαὔτοΟν, being itself. The Seventy render this place in Exodus thus: Εγωειμιὃὢν, that the philosophers by their ΤὸΟν, ΤὸὂντωςΟν, and ΤὸαὔτοΟν, meant God, appears by what Jamblicus saith of Pythagoras, by ΤωνΟντων, Beings, he understood sole and self agents, immaterials, and eternals. Other beings indeed are not beings, but yet are equivocally called such by a participation with ΤὸΟνκαιΕν these eternals." So Plato, in his Parmenides (who was a Pythagorean), treating of, which he makes the first principle of all things, thereby understands God. So, in his Timoeus Locrus, he says, ΤὸΟν, Being is always; neither hath it beginning.
So again in his Timoeus, folios 37, 38, he proves nothing properly is, but God, the eternal essence, “to which,” says he, “we do very improperly attribute those distinctions of time, was, and shall be.” Plutarch says, ΤὸὂντωςΟν, The true Being, is eternal, ingenerable, and incorruptible, unto which no time ever brings mutation." Hence in the Delphic temple there was engraved Ει, Thou art. Gale’s Court of Gen. p. 2, b.2, ch. VIII, p. 173, 174, 175. That Plato by ΤὀὂντωςΟν, meant God, appears by his own words in his Epist. 6, fol. 323. “Let there,” says he, “be a law constituted and confirmed by oath, calling to witness the God of all things, the Governor of beings present, and things to come, the Father of that governing cause whom, according to our philosophy, we make to be the true Being, Ονὂντως, etc. This is the same with him that revealed himself to Moses by the name I am that I am, out of the bush, that was the Son of God. G. C. of Gen. p. 1, b. 3, c. 5, p. 64. Plato seems evidently to have heard of this revelation that God made of himself to Moses by the name of I am, etc. out of the burning bush in mount Sinai, and to have a plain reference to it in his Philebus, fol. 17; he confesseth, “The knowledge of the ΤὀΟν, etc. was from the gods, who communicated this knowledge to us, by a certain Prometheus, together with a bright fire. G. C. of G. p. 2, b. 3, c. 2, p. 228. Exo. 3:14. “And God said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.” We are informed that there was an ancient inscription in the temple at Delphos, over the place where the image of Apollo was erected, consisting of these letters, ΕΙ; and Plutarch introduces his disputants querying what might be the true signification of it. At length Ammonius, to whom he assigns the whole strength of the argumentation, concludes that “the word ΕΙ was the most perfect title they could give the Deity, that it signifies THOU ART, and expresses the divine essential Being, importing that, though our being is precarious, fluctuating, dependent, subject to mutation, and temporary; so that it would be improper to say to any of us, in the strict and absolute sense, thou art; yet we may with great propriety give the Deity this appellation, because God is independent, uncreated, immutable, eternal, always and everywhere the same, and therefore he only can be said absolutely To Be. Plutarch would have called this Being ΤὀὂντωςΟν. Plato would have named him Τὀὂν, which he would have explained to signify Ουσία, implying TO BE essentially, or self-existent.” Shuckford’s Connections, vol. 2, p. 385, 386.
Exodus 3:18
Exo. 3:18. “And you shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us, and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.” That is, inform Pharaoh that your God that hath met with you, has instructed you to ask this of him. In this Pharaoh was not treated with any falsehood or unjust deceit. The utmost that can be supposed by any objector is, that here is an implicit promise, that if he would let them go three days’ journey into the wilderness, they would return again after they had there served their God, and received the revelation of his will, which he should there make to them. But if there had been, not only an implicit, but an express, promise of this, it might have been consistent with God’s real design, and the revelations of it that he had made to Moses, and by him to the people, without any false or unjust dealing. God knew that Pharaoh would not comply with the proposal, and that his refusal would be the very occasion of their final deliverance. He knew he would order it so, and therefore might reveal this as the event that should finally be brought to pass, and promise it to his people, though he revealed not to them the exact time and particular means and way of its accomplishment. Conditional promises or threatenings of that which God knows will never come to pass, and which he has revealed will not come to pass, are not inconsistent with God’s perfect justice and truth; as when God promised the prince and people of the Jews in Jeremiah’s time, that the city should surely be preserved, and never should be destroyed by its enemies, if they would repent and turn to God, and cleave to him, though it had been often most expressly and absolutely foretold that Jerusalem should be destroyed by the Chaldeans; and as the apostle Paul denounced unto the mariners that were about to flee out of the ship, that if they did, the ship’s crew must perish, though he had before in the name of God foretold and promised that there should be the loss of no man’s life, but only of the ship.