1Now Moses was keeping the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the wilderness, and came to God’s mountain, to Horeb. 2Yahweh’s angel appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the middle of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. 3Moses said, “I will go now, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”
4When Yahweh saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Here I am.”
5He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” 6Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
7Yahweh said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey; to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 9Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12He said, “Certainly I will be with you. This will be the token to you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
13Moses said to God, “Behold, when I come to the children of Israel, and tell them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I tell them?”
14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM,” and he said, “You shall tell the children of Israel this: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15God said moreover to Moses, “You shall tell the children of Israel this, ‘Yahweh, 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 to all generations. 16Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt. 17I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ 18They will listen to your voice. You shall come, you and the elders of Israel, to the king of Egypt, and you shall tell him, ‘Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Now please let us go three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Yahweh, our God.’ 19I know that the king of Egypt won’t give you permission to go, no, not by a mighty hand. 20I will reach out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which I will do among them, and after that he will let you go. 21I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it will happen that when you go, you shall not go empty-handed. 22But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, and of her who visits her house, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and clothing. You shall put them on your sons, and on your daughters. You shall plunder the Egyptians.”
Moses provides an initial glance into the concern and purposes of Yahweh regarding His covenant with Abraham and his posterity who were in Egypt, something that he reiterates in Exod 3:6-10 on Mt. Horeb when Yahweh appeared as a burning bush and the mission of Moses before Pharoah was announced to him.
First of all, the author reveals the impact of the captivity on the children of Israel. Exodus 2:23 indicates that the people of Israel "sighed" because of their bondage; they "cried out"; they had a "cry for help," and "their bondage rose up to God."
For each of these words, Yahweh had a response. He "heard their groaning." He "remembered His covenant." He "saw" the people, and He "took notice" of them.
In his commentary on Exodus, Roy L. Honeycutt, Jr. explains that these are responses of God. He says that God's remembrance of the covenant is a sign of His faithfulness to it. It speaks not to the faithfulness of the Jewish people under bondage but to the faithfulness of God. That he saw the people of Israel speaks to God's more in depth sense of knowing them, since He used the word ra'ah. When the text says that God knew, the word yadah' is used, which always indicates a personal and experiential knowledge of God.1 Compare the use of this word when Yahweh speaks to Abram regarding his obedience to God regarding the sacrifice of his son Isaac (Gen 22:12). Yahweh knew from eternity what Abraham would do, but He now, in time, experienced this event.
Yahweh's words in Exod 3:7-9 to Moses give a similar account of the people's condition of slavery in Egypt, but add the commitment of Yahweh to come down to deliver His people.
What is often not realized about this period of Israel's history is that God's empathy for people's pain is central to God's nature 2. God's deliverance in Exodus is a type of God's deliverance through the pain and death of His son, Jesus the Messiah, when He comes into the world as a human to experience the sorrow of human pain because of God's love (John 3:16) and for the second person of the Triune God to understand in His humanity the struggles of humanity.