I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF IT. The revelation came to Moses -

(1) unexpectedly;

(2) while in the way of duty - he "kept the flock;"

(3) in a solemn place - "mountain of God," a natural oratory and place of sacred repute - and probably while revolving solemn thoughts;

(4) from a most unlooked-for quarter - a common bush; and at first

(5) impersonally. The bush burning had no apparent relation to Moses more than to another. It was there for him to look at, to inquire into, if he chose. It invited, but did not compel, or even ask for, his attention. All which circumstances are significant.

1. The Divinity is ever nearer to us than we think. So Jacob, as well as Moses, found it. "Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not" (Genesis 28:16).

2. Revelations are not to be expected, save in the way of duty.

3. God may be met with anywhere (John 4:24), but some places are more favourable for communion with God than others - the closet (Matthew 6:6), the sanctuary (Psalm 73:16, 17), natural solitudes (Matthew 16:23). And revelations have usually a relation to the state of mind of those who receive them - answering questions, resolving perplexities, affording guidance, adapting themselves to psychological conditions (cf. Job 2:12, 13; Daniel 2:29; Daniel 9:20, 21; Daniel 10:2-6; Acts 10:3, 10; 1 Corinthians 12:9; Revelation 1:10). It is in every way likely that Moses' thoughts were at that moment deeply occupied about Israel's future.

4. God's discoveries of himself are marked by great condescension. Lowliness of situation is no bar to the visits of the King of Heaven, while humility of heart is indispensable to our receiving them. He who dwelt in the bush will not refuse the dwelling place of the contrite heart (Isaiah 57:15). God's most wonderful discoveries of himself have been made through "base things of the world, and things which are despised" (1 Corinthians 2:28). The highest example of this is Christ himself, of whose incarnation the angel in the bush may be regarded as a prophecy. "He shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness," etc. (Isaiah 53:2).

5. God's revelations act as a moral test. This applies to the objective revelation - to the tokens of the supernatural strewn everywhere around us in life and history, as well as to Nature and the Bible. We may pass them unheeded, or we may draw nearer to inquire. The Bible invites attention by the supernatural in its history, as well as by its teachings. It is only when we draw nearer to it that the Word becomes personal, and seizes on the conscience with spiritual power. Attention on man's part is rewarded by further self-discovery on God's.

II. ITS INTEREST FOR MOSES. We may connect his turning aside to see (ver. 4) -

1. With an appeal to his faculty of wonder. This is one function of miracle - to arrest attention, and awaken in the witness of it a powerful consciousness of the Divine presence.

2. With a general habit of devout inquiry. It may be true that "many a man has been led through the pale of curiosity into the sanctuary of reverence" (Parker); but it is also true that to a merely curious disposition God usually reveals little, and to an irreverent one nothing. The habit of inquiry is as valuable, if one's ultimate aim is in all things to become acquainted with God and his will, as in science and philosophy, or any other form of the pursuit of knowledge; but let inquiry be devout. "Search the Scriptures" (John 5:39). Ponder thoughtfully events of providence and facts of history. Study Nature with an eye to spiritual suggestions - to underlying spiritual analogies. Give to whatever you read or hear, which seems to have truth or value in it, the attention it deserves. Inquiry throws the mind into the attitude most favourable for receiving Divine revelations. Moses was not called by name till he "turned aside to see."

3. With the perception that in this circumstance God was specially calling him to inquire. As Moses gazed, he would be prompted to ask about this bush - What means it? What invisible power is here manifesting itself? Why is it burning at this place, and at this time? What mystery is contained in it? Has it a message for me? And he would not be long in perceiving that it must be burning there with the special view of attracting his attention. And is it not thus that the Divine usually draws near to us? Attention is arrested by something a little aside from the course of ordinary experience, and the impression it makes upon us produces the conviction that it is not unintended; that it is, as we say, "sent;" that it has a meaning and message to us we do well to look into. Every man, at some point or another in his history, has felt himself thus appealed to by the supernatural. The impression may be made by a book we feel drawn to read, or by something we read in it; through a sermon, through some event of life, by a sickness, at a deathbed, by the sayings and doings of fellow-men, or in hours of solitude, when even Nature seems peopled with strange voices, and begins to speak to us in parables. But, originate as it may, there is plainly in it, as in all special dealings of God with us, a call to inquire, to question ourselves, to ask whether, from the midst of the mystery, God may not have some further message for our souls.

III. THE SIGHT ITSELF. The bush that burned (ver. 2) was -

1. A token of the Divine Presence. Moses would soon feel that he was standing in presence of the Unseen Holy.

2. A significant emblem. It represented the Israelites in their state of affliction, yet miraculously surviving. Possibly, in the questionings of his spirit, Moses had not before sufficiently considered the "token for good" implied in this astonishing preservation of the nation, and needed to have his attention directed to it. It was a clear proof that the Lord had not cast off his people. If Israel was preserved, it could only be for one reason. The continued vitality, growth, and vigour of the nation was the infallible pledge of the fulfilment of the promise.

3. An answer to prayer. For what could be the meaning of this portent, but that the long, weary silence was at length broken; that the prayer, "O Lord, how long?" was at last to receive its answer? Faith can see great results wrapped up in small beginnings. For nothing in God's procedure is isolated. Beginnings with God mean endings too.

IV. THE PERSONAL CALL. As Moses wondered -

1. The revelation became personal. He heard himself addressed by name, "Moses, Moses" (ver. 4). Solemnised, yet with that presence of mind which could only arise from long habituation to the idea of an invisible spiritual world, he answered, "Here am I." This was to place himself unreservedly at God's disposal. Mark the order -

(1) God revealing (ver. 1);

(2) man attending (ver. 2);

(3) the revelation becoming Personal (ver. 3).

Then followed the direction (ver. 5), "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes," etc. Thus Moses was instructed:

2. As to the right attitude towards God's revelations.

(1) Self-surrender;

(2) reverence;

(3) obedience.

Moses doubtless obeyed the injunction he received. These qualities meet in all true religion: humility in hearing what God has to say; submission of mind and heart to it when said; readiness to obey. Glance for a moment at the requirement of reverence. One can understand how in the tumult of his feelings at the moment - in the very eagerness of his spirit to hear what further God had to say to him - Moses should be in danger of neglecting the outward tokens of the reverence which no doubt he felt; but it is instructive to observe that God recalls his attention to them. We are thus taught that reverence becomes us, not only in relation to God himself, but in relation to whatever is even outwardly connected with his presence, worship, or revelation. e.g., in our dealing with Scripture, in the use of Divine names and titles, in the ritual of Divine service. The attitude of the spirit is doubtless the main thing; but a reverent spirit will seek for itself suitable forms of expression; and respect for the forms is itself a duty, and an aid in the education of the sentiment. Those are greatly to be censured who, presuming on a supposed special intimacy with God not granted to others, venture to take liberties, and allow themselves in a demeanour and in a style of expression to the Almighty at the least irreverently familiar, and not unfrequently bordering on profanity. Raptures of piety, however sincere, do not justify us in forgetting that in communion with God we stand on "holy ground." - J.O.

I. REVELATION. The appearance at the bush suggestive -

1. Of the supernatural in Nature. Bushes are aglow all around us, if only we had eyes to see them. Christ's teaching an illustration of the spiritual suggestiveness of Nature. "Consider the lilies" (Matthew 6:28). The parables.

2. Of the supernatural in common life. "Moses kept the flock of Jethro." The Higher Presence may be with us in the humblest occupations.

3. Of the supernatural in the Church -

(1) As a whole;

(2) Individual believers.

The bush, burning but not consumed, an emblem of Israel - of the Church - enduring in tribulation.

4. Of the higher supernatural of positive revelation. Authoritative revelation is suspended, but the sum of its results is given in Scripture. The Bible is the Bush of revelation, to which the student of Divine things will do well to direct his attention.

II. PREPAREDNESS. Cultivate with Moses -

1. A spirit of duty (ver. 1).

2. A spirit of devout inquiry (ver. 3).

3. A spirit of humility and reverence (vers. 5, 6).

To such a spirit, God -

1. Reveals himself.

2. Addresses calls to his service (ver. 4).

3. Gives work to do.

4. Honours in its work. - J.O.

I. OBSERVE THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH GOD FINDS MOSES. He is still with Jethro, although forty years have passed since their first acquaintance. Though a fugitive, he had not become a mere wanderer.

1. He continues, however, in a comparatively humble position. His marriage to Jethro's daughter and his long stay in the country do not seem to have brought him much external prosperity.. He has not reached even the modest point of success in the eyes of a Midianite shepherd, viz. to have a flock of his own. But this very humility of position doubtless had its advantages and its place in the providence of God with respect to him. With all the lowliness of his state, it was better to be a living man in Midian than to have been Main as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. God had brought him out of a king's house, so that he might be freed from all the temptations of soft raiment, and also to make manifest that, although among courtiers, he was, not of them. But if during his stay in Midian he had increased in pastoral wealth, and become a second Job (Job 1:3), then, like Job, he might have had to go into humiliation because of his wealth. It was well for him that while he had the care of property, he had not the cares of it (James 1:10, 11).

2. God finds him engaged in faithful service, leading his flock far into the desert that they might find suitable pasture. God comes to those who are diligently occupied in some useful work, even if it be as humble and obscure as that of Moses. He does not come with his revelations to day-dreamers; they are left to build their castles in the air. They who despise common and daily work, on the pretext that they are fitted for something much better, will at last be thrown into the corner among the refuse. "Let those that think themselves buried alive be content to shine like lamps in sepulchres, and wait till God's time comes for setting them in a candlestick" (Matthew 4:18-22, 9:9; Luke 2:8).

II. GOD APPROACHES MOSES WITH A SUDDEN TEST. "The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush" i.e. the flame of fire became a messenger of God to Moses. We are told in Psalm 104. that God is he who makes the clouds his chariot, walks upon the wings of the wind, makes the winds his messengers, and flaming fire into his ministers (Hebrews 1:7). And so here God sends this flame of fire, encompassing and attacking the bush, in order to discover what sort of man Moses is. Certain features of his character, viz. his patriotism, his hatred of oppression, his prompt action to serve the weak, have hitherto been exhibited rather than tested. He had shown what sort of man he was in the ordinary experiences of life, such experiences as might come to any of us. But now he is face to face with an extraordinary experience, a sudden and unexpected test. The burning bush was to Moses what both miracles and parables were to those who came into contact with Jesus. To some the miracles were mere wonders; to others they revealed an open door of communication with God. To some the parables were only aimless narratives, mere story-telling. To others the Divine Teacher was able to say, "It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 13:11). And, in a similar way, when Moses came suddenly upon the burning bush, there was also a sudden revelation of the state of his heart. He did not treat the phenomenon as a delusion; did not begin to suspect his own sanity; did not seek his kindred, that they might come and gape at this new wonder. It was impressed upon his mind exactly as it was meant to be impressed. He asked the very question that above all others needed to be asked - why this bush was not consumed. For observe that it was something which in ordinary circumstances would be easily and quickly consumed (Exodus 22:6; Ecclesiastes 7:6; Matthew 6:30). It was not some metal well used to the fire, but a bush actually burning yet not burning away. And as this burning bush was thus a test to Moses, so the record of it is also a test to us. Let us suppose the question put all round, "What would you have done if you had been there?" We know well the answer that would come from one class of minds: "There was no such thing; it was all Moses' own imagination." Thus the test comes in. As God tested Moses in exhibiting the burning bush as his messenger, so he tests us by the record of this and all other unusual occurrences with which the Scriptures are crowded. If we say at once concerning the burning bush and all that is supernatural that it is but delusion, then God's way to our hearts and our salvation is blocked at once. We must be loyal to fact wherever we find it. The very evidence of our own senses, and the accumulated testimony of honest and competent witnesses, are not to be sacrificed to so-called first principles of rational inquiry. The right spirit is that shown by Peter and his companion in the house of Cornelius. They saw with their own eyes that the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household; and Peter made his inferences and his action to depend on this indisputable fact (Acts 10:44; Acts 11:18). When Moses turned aside to see the great sight his eye was single; he did not quibble and despise; and therefore his whole body was filled with light.

III. GOD MEETS A PROPER INQUIRY WITH PROPER TREATMENT. Moses is approaching the burning bush to investigate the difficulty by his natural faculties, when God at once arrests him, making known his own presence, and enjoining such outward marks of reverence as became the place and the occasion. And Moses, as we might expect, is immediately obedient. Those who have in them the spirit that seeks for truth, the spirit of faith and right inquiry, will also show a spirit ready at once to respond to the presence of God. Moses must have had those principles in his life which pointed on to perfect purity of heart. That purity he had in its beginnings, or he would not have gained such a sense of God's presence as was here bestowed on him. Note next, that God does not proceed to answer the inquiry of Moses. There was really no occasion to answer it. When Moses knew that the presence of God had to do with the miracle, he knew enough. To know exactly how God had done it was beyond him. Even God cannot explain the inexplicable. The secrets of creation cannot be penetrated by those who lack creative power. Man can make machines; therefore the man who makes a machine can explain the purpose and the parts of it to another man. Human beings are the parents of human beings; but as they have no power to make intelligently any living thing, so they cannot understand either how living things are brought into existence or sustained in it. God calls Moses now, not to explain why. the bush is burning, but to subdue his mind into appropriate reverence and expectation. The search for truth must not degenerate into curiosity, nor be pursued into presumption.

IV. THOUGH GOD LEAVES THE INQUIRY FORMALLY UNANSWERED, YET THE BURNING BUSH DOES SERVE SOME FURTHER PURPOSE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INSTRUCTION. There was much teaching in this burning bush. If the aim had been merely to arrest the attention of Moses, then any wonder would have served the purpose. But the wonders of God not only test; they also teach. They must be something unusual, or they would not test sufficiently; they must be something more than merely unusual, else they would not teach. The bush was Israel in the flame of Egypt. That bush had been burning now a century, more or less, yet it was riot consumed. All that was essential to its nature, its growth, and its fruitfulness still remained. What was permanent in Israel was no more affected than the tree is by the fading and falling of its leaves in autumn. The leaves die, but the tree remains. Its roots are still in the soil and the sap still in the trunk. Thus, by this exhibition of the burning bush, God brought before Moses the great truth that, however natural forces may be gathered against his people, and however they may be intensified in their attack, there is nevertheless a power from on high which can resist them all - a secret, countervailing power in which we may ever put our trust. And this power is not only for preservation in the midst of affliction, but for ultimate deliverance from it. The power by which God can keep the bush from being consumed, is a power by which he can take it out of the fire altogether. Believe in this power, and trust it more and more, and God will lead you into sublime conclusions, and endow you with most precious privileges. - Y.

I. THE PROPHETIC VISION. When God calls to the prophetic office, there is usually some vision or appearance, through which the call is emphasised and its significance suggested. Cf. Isaiah 6:1-7; Jeremiah 1:11-13; Ezekiel 1:4; Matthew 3:16 to Matthew 4:11; Acts 9:3-6. So here:

1. The vision. A dry acacia bush on fire, not very singular. What is singular is that the bush seems to flourish amidst the flame! The mystery explained, vers. 2,4. The bush is in the midst of the flame, but the angel of Jehovah is in the midst of the hush.

2. Its significance. Israel "a root out of a dry ground." In the furnace of affliction, yet flourishing amid the furnace (cf. Exodus 1:12). When Moses had "turned aside to see" forty years before, he had supposed that his brethren would have recognised in him their deliverer; had not sufficiently recognised himself that it was God's angel in their midst who was really preserving them. Trouble, sorrow, persecution may consume and practically annihilate; whole peoples have been killed off and left hardly a trace in history. Though "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," yet there is no specially conservative power in suffering; it is only when God is with men that they can "walk through the fire and yet not be burned" (cf. Isaiah 43:2).

II. THE DIVINE REVELATION.

1. Preliminary condition: ver. 4. "Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see."

(1) Revelations are not for the unobservant. God will give us eye-guidance if we will have it (Psalm 32:8), but we must be alert to catch his glance.

(2) Revelations are not for the cowardly; where one turned aside to see, nine might have turned aside in sheer terror to escape seeing. He that would hear God's voice must fight with and overcome his fears, otherwise he is likely to be classed with the unbelieving and the abominable (Revelation 21:7, 8).

2. The call heard and answered. To the man ready to receive it the call comes. God is going to reread his own name to Moses, but calls Moses first by his name. The conviction that God knows us is the best preparation for learning more about him. Moses is on the alert; eager to listen, ready to obey.

3. Reverence secured: ver. 5. Interviews with God need preparation. Even when God calls, man cannot hear his voice aright save in the hush of utter reverence. To attain this for those who are in the body, material aids must not be despised; so long as men possess senses there must be a sensuous form for even the most spiritual worship.

4. God declares himself: ver. 6. Cf. Matthew 22:32. God in the midst of the nation, as in the midst of the bush, was preserving it in its entirety. Not like a bundle of green twigs, the relics of a perished stem. Stem and twigs, the ancestral stock no less than the offspring, all alike preserved - kept by him who can say, "I am their God." Application: - Has God ever declared himself to us? If not, whose the fault? Have we been on the outlook to catch his signs? Have we used due reverence in listening for his voice? - Have we been ready to obey even the lightest indication of his will? Attention, reverence, obedience - all needed if we would hear God speak. We must be as Moses was - self stifled, the world silenced, a-hush to hear the Divine voice. - G.

I. THE TIME. A solemn undertone in ver. 1. A great soul wandering under the starlight of a partial revelation.

1. In the life of the Church. A time of trial; Israel like leaves in autumn, like the foam of the sea, and that for long. Of deepening trial, see Exodus 1. Deliverance apparently impossible. The government of the new Pharaoh now firm and strong. For evidence of depression see Exodus 6:9.

2. In the life of Moses. Eighty years of age. Acts 7:23, 30. Yet hardly any history of the man. In fact we have no continuous history. Died at 120. First forty years? Blank. So with second and third. A history of four crises! Birth; decision; entrance on service; death. Learn:

(1) Crises in all lives. Divergent roads] Crises fix what we are to be and do. Illustrate from life. Watch for them. Pass them on your knees. "Hold up my goings," etc.

(2) God determines them. This came on Moses unexpectedly. Where? On the line of common duty. "He led the flock," etc. "So, rest in the Lord," etc.

(3) Leave life to God.

II. THE SCENE. The following should be carefully observed, with the view of vivifying and realising this story of Divine manifestation. The scene was laid -

1. In the desert. See Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine,' pp. 12-14, for the general characteristics of the desert.

2. In the Midian section of the desert. For exact definition of this, see "Midian," in Smith's 'Bibl. Dict.' 356a.

3. In the Horeb range. Horeb designates the range of mountains about Sinai; Sinai the solitary grandeur of Jebel Mdsa. 'Desert of the Exodus,' p. 118.

4. At Sinai. Probably in Er Rahah, the wide wady north of Sinai, with the mighty pile of Ras Sufsafeh towering on the south.

5. Generally - amid mountains: where oft, as on the sea at night, God seems so near. His face towards the sun, Sinai in grand altitude of shade before him, Moses saw the brightness and heard the word of the Logos, the manifested God.

III. THE VISION. Observe here two elements: -

1. The subjective. Moses' state of mind. This would be determined by the known circumstances of Israel, and by his own: he was away from his people, seemingly out of the covenant, the Divine promise forgotten.

2. The objective. A lowly plant; not a tree. Fire. No consuming; no smoke, no ashes, no waste. In the Fire (ver. 4) the Angel-God of the Old Testament. Symbol of the Church of all time. Isaiah 43:2, 3.

IV. THE FIRST EFFECT. Intellectual curiosity. "I will now... why the bush," etc. This attention was better than indifference, but was probably nothing more than an intelligent curiosity. Still, this was not enough.

V. THE CHECK: vers. 4, 5. The attitude of the mind should be that of reverent attention, face to face with Divine manifestations. "The word of the Lord always went along with the glory of the Lord, for every Divine vision was designed for Divine revelation." This the more necessary because over every revelation there is a veil. Habakkuk 3:4. Distance becomes us. "Draw not nigh hither]" So in Science, Psychology, History, the revelation of the Christ. The aim not to satisfy the curiosity, but to enlighten and empower the conscience, and direct the life.

VI. THE DRAWING into covenantal relations, notwithstanding the momentary check. This by making known -

1. The Divine Name: ver. 6. The God of thy father; of the immortal dead too; therefore thy God. The effect of this tender revelation: "Moses hid his face," etc.

2. The Divine sympathy. "I know." Sense of the Divine Omniscience alone is an awful pressure from above on the soul; but there is a restoration to equilibrium, by a pressure from beneath supporting, i.e. by a sense of Divine sympathy - "their sorrows." See Maurice, 'Patriarchs and Lawgivers,' p. 162.

3. A Divine salvation. "I am come down to deliver."

4. Possibility of Divine service. "Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh:" ver. 10. - R.

1. For their protection. A fire flaming forth to consume the adversaries.

2. For their purification. God was in the fires that tried them, as well as in the power that upheld them. The fire was thus a figurative representation at once of destroying punishment and of refining affliction. But the bush, while burning, was not consumed. This involves the principle that nothing, however weak and perishable in itself, with which God connects his presence, or which he wills to continue in existence, can by any possibility be destroyed. From this point of view - a thoroughly legitimate one - the emblem admits of various applications, and directs our attention to a series of supernatural facts yet greater than itself, and well deserving our turning aside to see.

1. There is the obvious application to the Church, which to a thoughtful' mind, pondering as it should the facts of history, is a veritable repetition of the wonder of the bush "burning but not consumed." The bush is an emblem of the Church in the other respect of outward plainness and unattractiveness. And it is noteworthy that the times when the Church has forgotten her calling to be meek and lowly in heart, and has aspired to great outward splendour, and been ambitious of worldly supremacy, have invariably been times of marked decline in purity and spirituality. She fares best when content with modest outward pretensions.

2. A second application is to the nation of the Jews - also a "sign and wonder" in history (see Keble's hymn, "The Burning Bush').

3. A third is to the Bible. What enmity has this book encountered, and what fierce attempts have been made to disprove its claims, destroy its influence, sometimes even to banish it from existene! Yet the miraculous bush survives, and retains to this hour its greenness and freshness, as if no fire had ever passed upon it.

4. Yet another application is to individual believers, against whom, while tried by fiery trials (1 Peter 4:12), neither the enmity of man, the assaults of Satan, nor providential afflictions and calamities (Job 1.) are permitted to prevail, but who, under all, enjoy a support, a peace, a comfort, plainly supernatural - "dying, and behold we live" (2 Corinthians 6:9). Flippant observers may see in these things nothing worthy of peculiar attention - nothing which cannot be explained by ordinary historical causes; but sober minds will not readily agree with them. They will regard the facts now referred to as truly "great sights," and will, like Moses, reverently turn aside to inquire into them further. Note -

1. The true glory of the Church is God in her midst.

2. The outward weakness of the Church enhances the wonder of her preservation.

3. The Church has most reason to glory in those periods of her history when she has been most despised and persecuted (Matthew 5:11; 2 Corinthians 12:9; 1 Peter 4:14). - J.O.

I. How MOSES MET WITH GOD.

1. The marvel was marked and considered. He might simply have glanced at it and passed on; but he observed it till the wonder of it possessed his soul. There are marvels that proclaim God's presence in the earth today. Creation, the Bible, Christ's saving work. The first step towards conviction is to consider them.

2. "He turned aside to see." It was a matter to be inquired into and probed to the bottom.

3. God meets the earnest, sincere spirit: "When the Lord saw," etc., "God called unto him." The eunuch reading in his chariot, and Philip, etc. We cannot turn aside to consider these things with a sincere desire for light, and not meet at last with him who is Light. To all true seekers God will reveal himself.

II. WHAT FITS FOR GOD'S SERVICE.

1. We must rise from a mere seeking after God to the knowledge that we are known of God: his heart was thrilled by the cry, "Moses! Moses!" The cry proclaimed not only that God knew him, but that he was his God. The 'Lord claimed him in that cry as his servant, his son. Have we heard it? If not, we do not know God as the living God, as our God, and how can we serve him?

2. The sense of God's holiness and majesty, hallowing all things for us (ver. 5). The depth of our trust and our love may be measured by the depth of our adoration.

3. The vivid realisation of what God has done in the past (ver. 6). That is God's revelation of himself. The story of the past must yield strength to the present.

4. The assurance that God's purpose of redemption is behind our efforts: that we speak and labour because he has surely risen to redeem (vers. 7-10). - U.

I. GOD CONNECTS HIMSELF WITH THE DEAD PATRIARCHS. They imply -

1. Continued existence; for God, who says here, not "I was," but "I am, the God of thy father," is, as Christ reminds us, "not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). The personal relation was not dissolved. The patriarchs still lived to him.

2. The resurrection of the body. This will not appear a far-fetched inference, if we consider the nature of the Bible hope of immortality. The Bible has little or nothing to say of an abstract "immortality of the soul." It nowhere regards the disembodied state as in itself desirable. The immortality it speaks of is the immortality of the "man" - of man in his whole complex personality of body, soul, and spirit. This implies a resurrection. The life forfeited by sin was a life in the body, and so must be the life restored by Redemption. The covenant-promise could not fall below the hopes of the heathen; and even Egyptian theology held by the notion of a revival of the body, as essential to perfected existence. Hence the practice of embalming, with which compare the care of the body by the patriarchs.

II. CONNECTS THIS REVELATION WITH FAST REVELATIONS, AS ONE OF A SERIES. It introduces what is to be said as the fulfilment of what had been already promised.

III. CONNECTS HIMSELF WITH THE EXISTING GENERATION. The God of the fathers is, in virtue of the promise, the God of the children. - J.O.

I. CONSIDER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS NAME TO MOSES AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.

1. It was a confident reference to the past. Moses might look back on his own career, or that of he people to whom he belonged, with a measure of shame, doubt, humiliation, and disappointment; but God could point back to all his dealings with men as consistent, glorious, and worthy of all remembrance.

2. It provided a certain kind of mediatorship in the knowledge of God. It gave the best way for Moses and Israel to think of God, at that particular time. It was as if God had said to Moses, "You are to gain your chief sense of my nearness to Israel and abiding interest in them by thinking of my actual, repeated, and recorded dealings with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." No devout Israelite could become acquainted with that section of Genesis, from the time when God first appeared to Abram down to the death of Jacob, without feeling that the God of these three men was even a more prominent figure in the history than they are themselves. We could as easily leave out the name of Abraham from the narrative, as leave out the name of God. What we are told of Abraham is nothing, save as the effect and expression of the will of God. Abram is as a mere name, till God comes in contact with him. It is not so much a life of Abraham we are reading, as a history of how God's purposes and power became manifest in his experience.

3. It kept before Moses the connexion of God with the lives of individuals. God made separate appearances to each of these three men, dealing with them according to their Circumstances and their character. He showed his continual and unfailing observation of their lives, by revealing his presence at every critical point.

4. There was a connexion of peculiar importance which God had with some individuals rather than with others. He was the God of Adam, of Enoch, and of Noah; why not have associated himself with these illustrious names? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob stood towards Israel in the relation of one who had made large promises, allowed himself to become the source of large expectations, and imposed strict requirements. He was not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, taken separately, but Of these three men, bound together in a very peculiar way. Not only did they stand in a lineal succession, Abraham being father to Isaac, and Isaac father to Jacob, but that succession was contrary to natural expectations and customary arrangements. Isaac was the son of Abraham, but also a son born when the resources of nature were exhausted. Jacob was the son of Isaac, but also the younger son, on whom, contrary to custom, the privileges of the firstborn alighted. Thus it became impossible to describe God as the God of Abraham and Ishmael, though in a certain sense he was the God of Ishmael (Genesis 17:20). Nor could he be called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau, though assuredly he was the God of Esau also. The only name which would indicate to Moses all he had to bear in mind, was the name which God here employs.

5. He was the God of these men in spite of great defects of character and great blots on conduct. They were men in whom he found much that was evil, much that indicated a low moral state, but he found in them all, and particularly in the first of them, a spirit of faith which enabled him to begin, as from a certain definite point in history, that work which is to end in all nations of the earth being blessed. Already he had made a great nation out of Abram - a persecuted and oppressed nation indeed, but none the less a great one. And had he not spoken to Abram concerning this very bondage in Egypt? (Genesis 15:13, 14). Some such revelation as this at Horeb, to some deliverer or other, might now be expected. It must surely have been often a perplexity to Moses, what had become of this God who had done so much for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

II. CONSIDER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS NAME TO US, We are not mere spectators of the way in which the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob approved himself as also the God of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt and in the wilderness. To speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is only another way of speaking of the God of those who really believe in him. Whenever a real believer ponders this name, then it becomes one of precious associations; it leads by the very mention of it, further and further onwards in subjection to the invisible. But after all, this name, so deeply impressed on Moses, is chiefly valuable to us as suggesting a name far richer in meaning and in power. We have a look into the past which Moses had not. He looked backward and saw God's dealings with Abraham, and found in them everything to inspire faith in God and expectation from him. We look backward and see, not only Abraham, but Christ; not only Isaac, but Christ; not only Jacob, but Christ. When we look back to these men of Genesis, we see faith standing out like an isolated mountain in the midst of a plain; but we see much also that we would rather not see. Whereas, when we look back to Christ we see not only a full believer, but a flawless life. In him there stands the chief of those that walk by faith, the facile princeps of them - he who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. His faith was such a full, exalted element of his character, that it needs much effort on our part to grasp the fact that, while here below, Jesus, as much as all the rest of us, needed to walk by faith, and was constantly compelled to struggle with unbelief. The great Jehovah is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; also the God of Paul and every true apostle. Suppose Moses could have had the spirits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appear to him in Horeb, and assure him that the God of the burning bush was the God who had dealt with them in the days of their flesh; would not this have Been reckoned a most confirming and exhilarating testimony? And we, practically, have a testimony of this sort. We read of Jesus regarding God as his Father, habitually and in the most appropriating way. We have his actual experience for our comfort, our inspiration, and our guide. If an Israelite was asked what God he believed, tried to serve, and had his. highest expectations from, his best answer was, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." So we, if asked a similar question, can give no better answer than "The God of Christ and the God of Paul: the God who has ever been the same through all vicissitudes of his Church; ever loving, faithful, and sustaining," - Y.

I. GOD IS EVER IN SYMPATHY WITH THE OPPRESSED, AND AGAINST THEIR OPPRESSORS (vers. 7, 9). This is now, thanks to the Bible, made as certain to us as any truth can be. God's sympathy may be viewed -

1. As implied in his moral perfection.

2. As certified to us by the pity of our own hearts. He who put pity in these hearts must surely himself be pitiful. Yet, so much is there in the world which bears a different aspect, that -

3. It needs revelation to assure us of it - to put the fact beyond all doubt. And the revelation has been given. No student of God's character in the Bible can doubt that he compassionates.

(1) His words declare it.

(2) His deeds attest it.

(3) The Cross demonstrates it.

And, whatever mystery surrounds God's ways at present, he will one day make it plain by exacting a terrible retribution for all wrongs done to the defence-less (Psalm 12:5; James 5:4).

1. Comfort for the oppressed. Not one of their sighs escapes the ear of God.

2. Warning to the oppressor.

II. GOD IS PECULIARLY IN SYMPATHY WITH THE OPPRESSED, WHEN THE OPPRESSED ARE HIS OWN PEOPLE (vers. 7, 10). Israel was God's people -

1. As Abraham's seed - children of the covenant - far gone indeed from righteousness, yet beloved for the fathers' sake (Romans 11:28).

2. As retaining, in however corrupt a form, the worship of the true God. They were his people, in a sense in which the worshippers of Osiris, and Thoth, and the other gods of Egypt, were not.

3. As containing many true believers. There was a-spiritual Israel within the natural - an "holy seed" (Isaiah 6:13) - "a remnant, according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5). Therefore, because Israel was God's people, God was deeply interested in them. He knew their sorrows. He was zealous on their behalf, as One whose own honour was concerned in what they suffered. And as in all their affliction he was afflicted (Isaiah 63:9), so when the time came, he would avenge them of their adversaries. Believers have the same consolation in enduring trial (2 Thessalonians 4-10).

III. GOD'S SYMPATHY WITH THE OPPRESSED IS SHOWN BY HIS MERCIFULLY INTERPOSING ON THEIR BEHALF. As he interposed for Israel - as he has often interposed for his Church since - as he interposed for the salvation of the world, when, moved by our pitiable state under sin - afflicted and "oppressed of the devil" (Acts 10:38; Acts 26:18; Ephesians 2:2; Colossians 1:13) - he sent his Son that "we should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John 3:16). His sympathy with his Church is shown, not only in the comforts he imparts, and the grace by which he upholds, but in the deliverances he sends; on which remark -

1. God has his own times for them.

2. Till the time comes, his people must be content to wait.

3. When it comes, no power can hinder the execution of his purpose.

4. The deliverance will bring with it compensation for all that has been endured - "a good land," etc. The ultimate compensation, when God has brought his people up out of the Egypt of all their afflictions, and planted them in the land of perfected bliss, will be such as to clear his character from all imputations of injustice and unkindness. - J.O.

I. THE GREAT NEED. It is a need carefully observed by God and well known to him. This has been recorded already, although hardly so emphatically, in Exodus 2:23-25. It is one thing to have intelligence of God's interest communicated by some third person; quite another to hear the words of pity warm and tender from God himself. Moses and many of the Israelites may have thought that they knew the need only too well, bitter as their experiences had been; but, with all their experiences, they knew not that need as God knew it, looking down from heaven, seeing all things with his searching eye, and having a correct and complete knowledge of them. It is with great force that God represents himself seeing as well as hearing. Hearing indicated that he noted the representation of their troubles and needs which the people themselves made; seeing indicated the investigation he made for himself. God was not dependent upon the complaints of the people for his knowledge of their troubles. The cries of men are not always worthy of pity, any more than the cry of a spoilt child. Such cries can only be left unheeded, with the hope that they may end in wisdom and submission. But the cry of Israel was the cry of the oppressed, the cry of God's people; and, as God saw their state, there was ample evidence of the oppression and the cruelty. When he came down to meet Moses at Horeb, he needed not to listen to a long account of Israel's troubles; he came not in order that he might inquire, but because of what he already fully knew.

II. THE LARGE PROMISE. God may be long unmanifested, but, when he appears, it is with indubitable proofs of his presence; he may be long silent, but when he speaks, it is with statements and promises worthy of himself. He does not merely utter an expression of sympathy with suffering Israel; that expression is only the starting word of a large undertaking for the future. He repeats, emphatically, the essence of all he had ever said to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concerning their posterity. He has distinctly in view, not only the removal of a burden, but a future of liberty, independence, and blessedness. Thus it became manifest that the deliverance had not come earlier in time because the matter of deliverance was not the only thing in question. It had to be considered how liberty should be used when acquired. Israel needed a leader, and the leaders whom God approves are not made in a day. Israel had to wait while Moses went through his eighty years of varied discipline, Then, moreover, the people were going into a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of rich pastures and great fertility, a land inhabited by six strong and warlike nations; and therefore they must not go as a handful of people. Thus, while the people were going through these great afflictions, groaning as if in despair, God was doing two things of the greatest moment. He was training Moses and increasing Israel in numbers. What a lesson to us in the midst of our afflictions, with all their consequent murmuring and unbelief! If God seemed to have little to do with Israel during these years of oppression, it was that he might have all the more to do with them, manifestly, in the years to come. Little did either Moses or Israel dream how closely God would keep to them in the future. By the word of God to him here, the thoughts of Moses were brought as at one bound from the darkness of midnight to the blaze of noonday. God does not confine himself to telling Moses that he will deliver Israel. Deliverance for its own sake was as nothing; it was for the sake of what lay beyond it. He does not say that he will deliver, and wait till the time of deliverance comes, to speak of the glories and blessings of Canaan. All these things had been spoken of generations before. God was but taking, as it were, out of some muniment-room, his old plan, first shown to Abraham; unfolding it, and showing also to Moses that it still remained in all its integrity. - Y.

1. Conscious unfitness for our work is one of the best preparations for it, The greatest of God's servants have had this feeling in a remarkable degree. They needed to be "thrust forth" to the harvest (Matthew 10:38, Or.).

2. Conscious unfitness for work grows with the clearness of our apprehensions of the Divine call to it. The nearer we are brought to God, the less we feel fit to serve him (Isaiah 6:5).

3. God's call and promise are sufficient reasons for undertaking any work, however deep our consciousness of personal unfitness. "Our sufficiency is of God" (2 Corinthians 3:6). The sign in ver. 12 was a pledge to Moses that God would "make all grace to abound toward" him (2 Corinthians 9:8). - J.O.

I. CONSIDER THE RECEPTION WHICH MOSES GIVES TO GOD'S ANNOUNCEMENT. Observe -

1. The point on which Moses expresses no doubt. He says no word of doubt as to the possibility of Israel being delivered from Egypt. The achievement is from the human point of view a great one, and how it is to be managed he has not yet the slightest clue, but he does not doubt that it will be managed. He might have asked, "How can a thing so great as this be done, and the thraldom of generations utterly cast off?" but he had profited already by the lesson of the burning bush, and no such question crossed his lips. For whether is easier, to preserve a bush amid the fierce flames, or to deliver a nation from bondage? The power that can do the one can do the other.

2. The point on which he is full of doubt. "Who am I?" etc. His mind is turned at once to his own qualifications. And what wonder? It was a great leap from being a shepherd in the wilderness to being an ambassador to. a king, and a leader of men. The fact that Moses questioned his personal ability and personal worthiness is, though it may not at first appear so, a great indication of his very fitness for the post. He did not jump at the chance of distinction. He had a remembrance of his bad odour in Egypt. He had lived, too, at court, and knew how hard it is to get at kings. We can hardly call this doubt of Moses blameworthy, for he was spoken to as a sinful man, and God did not expect from him at this first opening of the interview a response such as could only come fittingly from an angel, ready at once to fly on any errand of the Almighty. A Gabriel would not have said, "who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?" for angels cannot be spoken of as either humble or proud. But Moses was deeply conscious of his own faults. Indeed, if he had not been, God would not have chosen him. Men of a different sort, self-complacent and self-confident, were the last God would have looked to in such circumstances. The men he wants are such as feel keenly all natural defects - sensitive, may be, to criticism and harsh words of every kind; men, too, who for their own inclination, love the quiet and shady nooks of existence, and do not care to leave them, save under the pressure of some manifest public claim or some persistent voice of God to the tender conscience within. Such men are generally called, upon their first emergence into public, presumptuous, meddlesome, and fanatical; and they have to lay their account with these hard names. They are apt to meet with a great deal of gratuitous counsel, given on the grounds of what is called common sense. Moses well knew the difficulties that would come in his way. The one thing he had yet to learn was that God knew him far better than he did himself.

II. CONSIDER THE ENCOURAGEMENTS GOD GIVES TO MOSES. There is no word of rebuke in any way, but immediate and abundant encouragement.

1. The emphatic assurance of God's presence and companionship. The "I" of Moses is met by the "I" of God. Moses was to go to Pharaoh strong in the consciousness that the God who sent him was also with him. There would not be about him anything that ambassadors usually had - rich personal adornments, pomp of attendance, great profusion of presents, distinguished earthly rank. But the absence of these things only makes more manifest the presence and dignity of the invisible God. The less of earth was seen, the more of heaven; the less of man, the more of God. If God be for us, who can be against us? If God be with us, what need we care who forsake us? Because Moses felt his own deficiencies, compared with the greatness of the work before him, God gave him this promise, and the fulfilment of it gave both needed and sufficient strength during all his conflict with Pharaoh. What about our relation to Christ's promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world?" The mournful truth with respect to us may be that we do not feel, either the greatness of the work before us, or our utter lack of strength to do it. We must know the burdens and the bonds, the smitings and the contumely, the sighing and the crying, of spiritual Egypt, before we can appreciate the necessity and graciousness of Christ's parting promise to his people.

2. God adds something even more noticeable than the promise of his presence. We do not say it is more important, but it is certainly more noticeable. He makes an intimation of a very helpful token to be exhibited in the future. Moses needed no more tokens of God's power at present; he had a sufficient token in the burning bush. If this had failed to impress him, neither could he have been persuaded by any additional wonder. But God gave to Moses a word which would keep in his mind the prospect and hope of a great sign in the time to come. What a thought to take with him through all the dismal succession of the plagues, through all the steady progress towards deliverance - that somehow or other God would bring the large host of Israel in this very mountain; to this lonely place where few people lived, because few could live! Moses would need a token by-and-bye even more than he bad needed one now. His greatest difficulties were to be, not with Pharaoh, but with Israel; not in getting them out of Egypt, but in leading them onward to Canaan. Some difficulties doubtless he would expect, but all the stubbornness, waywardness and carnality of Israel he did not yet foresee. So the Apostle found his greatest difficulties and sorrows, not from those who stoned him at Lystra, imprisoned him at Philippi, and conspired against him at Jerusalem; but from the fornicators, the litigious, the schismatical, the deniers of the resurrection at Corinth; from the pliable yielders to Jewish bigotry, in Galatia; in short, from.all who, having professed to receive the truth, acted in a way incompatible with their professions; and thus we see God keeping Moses, as it were, ahead of the people. He was forty years ahead of them already. The creature comforts of Egypt, for which Israel lusted so in the wilderness, were no temptation to him, seeing he had become used to the wilderness. And so, when he came again to Horeb, with all this vast host in his charge, it was to rejoice in the strength that came from a fulfilled promise of God.

III. CONSIDER THE EXPECTATION FROM ISRAEL WITH WHICH GOD LOOKS FORWARD TO THE GIVING OF THIS TOKEN. Not only will God bring Israel to this mountain, but when they reach it, it will be to serve him. He says very little; only, "Ye shall serve God," but that little would be enough to set Moses thinking. And yet, with, all his anticipations, they must have fallen far short of the reality. One small word from the lips of God has behind it a fulness of meaning far beyond present thoughts. We learn, by the time we come to the end of this book, that serving God meant gathering in solemn and timid awe around the smoking mount; meant for Moses himself forty days and nights of retirement with Jehovah; meant the construction of the Tabernacle with all its holy contents according to the pattern shown in the mount. What a difference in the knowledge, the obligations, and the outlook of the Israelites when they left Sinai! And if the word "service," looked at in the light of past experience, was a word of meaning so large with respect to them, is it not incumbent on us to do all we can for ourselves to fill the great terms of the Christian dispensation with the fulness of their meaning? Faith - atonement - the blood of Christ - regeneration - love - holiness - heaven: let these words represent to our minds an ever-growing, a devout and correct experience of the great body of the truth as it is in Jesus. - Y.

1. THE HINDRANCE FOUND IN THE SENSE OF OUR OWN WEAKNESS (vers. 11, 12).

1. Moses knew the pomp and pride of the Egyptian court. He remembered how Israel had rejected him when he was more than he was now. Once he had believed himself able for the task, but he was wiser now: "Who am I?" etc. He might serve God in the lowly place he held, but not there. Moses in this the type of multitudes. God's call for service is met on every hand by the cry, "Who am I that I should go?"

2. How God meets this sense of weakness.

(1) By the assurance of his presence. It was not Moses only that should go, but God also. The conviction that he is with us, and that we speak for him, makes the meekest bold, the weakest strong.

(2) By the assurance of success: "Ye shall serve God upon this mountain. He is armed with faith and hope. From self let us look to God and his pledged word.

II. THE HINDRANCE FOUND IN THE SENSE OF OUR IGNORANCE (vers. 13-17).

1. His own thought of God was dim. How then could he carry conviction to the hearts of the people? The same lack of clear, living thought of God keeps tongues tied to-day.

2. How it may be removed.

(1) God is THE UNCHANGING ONE. He had revealed himself to their fathers: he was all this still. It was his memorial for ever. Grasping this thought, all the past is God's revelation.

(2) He takes with him a gospel for present need (vers. 16, 17), and these two things will be God's full revelation. We must make men apprehend the revelation which God has given of himself in the past, and proclaim him as the God of to-day. I have surely visited you, and I will bring you up out of the affliction." - U.

I. HOW IT WAS THAT THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH A QUESTION WAS SUGGESTED TO HIS MIND. All the deities of the other nations had names, and doubtless the gods of Egypt were well known by name to the Israelites. Part of the glory of each nation came from the fact that it was under the protection and favour of so renowned a being as its God. The feeling of Moses in asking this question may be illustrated from the clamour of the Ephesian mob against Paul. The Ephesians felt that it was a great deal to be able to say that Diana had a special interest in them. And so it seemed to Moses a reversal of the proper order of things to go to his brethren with no more indication of the Being who had sent him, than that he had been historically connected with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses could not believe that his own people would rest contented with such a representation as this; indeed, we may very reasonably go further, and assume that he himself was anxious to know the name of this unnamed God. He was not yet filled with the light and power of the pure monotheistic conception. Certainly he had just felt what real might there was with the God of his fathers, and probably there was no shadow of doubt in his mind that this God was powerful far beyond any of the rest; but he had yet to learn that he was God alone, and that all other deities, however imposing, were nothing more than the fictions of degraded and wayward imagination. When we bear in mind that Moses was only at the beginning of his personal acquaintance with God, then we shall see that there was nothing wonderful or unreasonable, from the point of his attainments at the time, in asking such a question. Observe also that the very question is a revelation of how ignorant the Israelites were of God. How clear the proof is that the thought of God, as Jehovah, came down from above, and did not rise out of the corrupted hearts of men. When we have much to do with persons, it is a matter of necessity to have names for them, and if they give us none, we must make them for ourselves. But the Israelites had no transactions with God, save as he came down and pressed his presence upon them; and even then all that they could see was such power as became manifest to the senses. It is very certain that if God had not revealed this name, there was no faculty among the Israelites to invent it.

II. THE GIVING OF THE NAME. We must bear in mind the purpose for which the name was given. The question at once suggests itself - Would God have given this name, if he had not been asked? To this perhaps the best answer is that the difficulty out of which the question rose was sure to be felt, even if the question itself was not asked. Some name of the kind assuredly became needed for distinguishing purposes. It was a name as helpful to the people of idolatrous nations as to Israel itself. An Egyptian or a Philistine could say, "The Hebrews call their God Jehovah." What the Israelite understood by the name in itself, is, we may fairly say, a point impossible to settle. The wisdom of God is certainly evident in giving a name which, while it so well served a temporary purpose, remains still to suggest matters which no lapse of time can ever render indifferent. It is vain to discuss the form of the expression, with the aim of tying it down to mean some particular aspect of the Divine nature, to the exclusion of others. Far better is it for Christians to take it - and thus, surely, devout Israelites would take it - as suggesting all that it is fitted to suggest. There is the name; some will put into it more, and some less, but no one can pretend that he has filled it with the fulness of its import. It would be very helpful for the Israelites always to bear in mind the occurrence of the first person in this great distinguishing name. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is one who can say "I." He is not represented by some dumb idol, voiceless save through the traditions of those who worship it. He who says "I am" thus registers in Holy Writ an expression which will have meaning and suggestiveness in every language under heaven. What an intimation is given to us of the permanent value of the expression when we come upon it so suddenly in the discussion between Jesus and the Jews! They had spoken haughtily concerning great names in the past - the dead Abraham and the dead prophets; when straightway, as by the breath of his mouth, Jesus shrivels up the glories of all mere mundane history by his declaration, "Before Abraham was, I am." (John 8:58.) Abraham and all the rest of us have come into existence. But Jesus is one who, even here below, with the knowledge of what happened at Bethlehem, has that in him whereby he can say, "I am."

III. THE GIVING OF THIS NAME MADE IT NEEDFUL TO REITERATE AND EMPHASISE THE NAME ALREADY GIVEN. There is nothing to indicate that the name for which Moses asked was to be mentioned to the Israelites unless they applied for it. The real necessity and value of it belonged to the future rather than the present. The name already given was the name of urgent importance for the present need. It could not for a moment sink into the background even before the name "I am." The one thing needful for Israel, at this time, was to get them into the past, and to bring before their minds with all possible freshness and impressiveness, the actions, the purposes and the claims of the God who had dealt with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Of what avail is it to know that there is an eternal immutable God, unless we, in our mutability, in our melancholy experiences of time, are brought into helpful connection with him? We may ponder over the name Jehovah without coming to any knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; but if we only begin by a devout consideration of the narrative concerning these men, then assuredly we shall come at last to a profitable and comforting knowledge of God. There are many good purposes to be served by studying the differences between created and uncreated existence, and by making ourselves acquainted with those subtle speculations concerning the Divine nature which have fascinated and too often tantalised the greatest intellects among men; and yet all these are as nothing unless from our acquaintance with them we advance, still searching and seeking, to a personal knowledge of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is well to have our minds lifted up to lofty conceptions; it is better still, coming to the Father through Christ, to have our hearts nourished, gladdened and consoled. - Y.

1. THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE CHURCH ver. 2.

2. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ANGEL-GOD. Note in vers. 2-4 that "The Angel of Jehovah," "Jehovah," and "God," are one and the same.

3. THE RESTRICTION OF JUDAISM CONTRASTED WITH THE FREEDOM OF THE GOSPEL: ver. 5. For valuable hints on this, see 'Moses the Lawgiver,' by Dr. Taylor of New York, pp. 46, 47.

4. THE DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT: ver. 6, comp. with Matthew 22:31, 32.

5. SHRINKING AT THE DIVINE CALL. The reluctance of Moses; his four reasons - incompetence, ver. 11; ignorance of the proper name of God, ver. 13; incredulity of the people, Exodus 4:1; want of speaking power, 4:10 - and how they were severally overcome.

6. OUR LIFE WORK - Preparation for it and possible late discovery of it: ver. 10. It is in connection with the second disability of Moses that the Deity gives his proper name. Note, that whilst Elohim and other names are generic, this name "Jahveh," or more commonly "Jehovah." is the distinctive proper name of God. See Isaiah 42:8, in Hebrews As a foundation it will be needful to exhibit, in a popular way, the connection between the Hebrew form for "I am" and "Jehovah." See exegesis of vers. 14, 15 above, and also the valuable Dissertation on the Divine Name, by Russell Martineau, M.A., in Ewald's 'History of Israel,' Eng. ed. vol. 2:433. The writer of the hymn, "The God of Abraham praise!" speaking of "Jehovah, great I Am," showed that he had perceived the etymological relation. The fundamental idea in the name is that of "Being," but around that idea plays many a prismatic light, something of which will now be exhibited. There are associated with "I am," "I am what I am," "Jahveh," the following ideas: -

I. EXISTENCE. How calm and solemn is this Divine affirmation in the silence of the desert, as in it God protests against being confounded with -

1. Idols. Material or intellectual. Over against the teaching of the atheist positivist, pantheist agnostic, polytheist, God places his "I am.

2. Mere phenomena. Who can separate always surely in nature between reality and appearance; or within the realm of mind, between certainty and illusion or delusion? But behind all phenomena is the Existence - God.

II. ETERNITY. The Existence is absolute, without any limit of time; so much so, that many are anxious to translate Jahveh," or "Jehovah," everywhere by "The Eternal" See same idea of God in Revelation 1:4-8. In opening out the eternity and consequent immutability of God, we expound it, not metaphysically, but experimentally, that is, in relation to the actual experience of men, who need beyond everything the assurance of an unchanging Saviour and Father to trust, and love, and serve - "the same yesterday, to-day," etc.

III. CAUSATIVE ENERGY. "Jahveh," or "Jehovah," is from Hiphil, the causative form of the verb. Carries, then, in itself, not only the meaning "To be," but "To cause to be." The idea is not however merely, having once for all caused existence, but that of constantly creating. Note this mighty causative force operating -

1. In nature, which is the momentary work of the ever-present God.

2. In creating a people for his praise, as now about to do in the desert of Sinai.

IV. PERSONALITY. The transcendently sublime egoism, "I am!" It is not necessary that we should be able to answer the question, What is a person? to know what personality is, or to be sure that there is personality in God. On this point see Wace's Boyle Lectures on "Christianity and Morality," p. 62, and, indeed, the whole of lecture

4. on "The Personality of God." "The question of immediate practical importance is, not what God's nature is, but how we may feel towards him, and how we may suppose him to feel towards us. The simple and perfectly intelligible answer given to these questions by the Jews was, that they could feel towards God in a manner similar to that in which they felt towards other beings whom they considered persons, and that he felt similarly towards them." Our true knowledge of personality is quite independent of our ability to define it in words. This meeting of the personality in Moses with the personality in God constituted for Moses a crisis in his history. So is it ever - the confronting of my spirit by the Spirit of God is the supreme moment of existence.

V. FIDELITY. The words in ver. 14 may be read: "I shall be what I shall be." From future to future the same; not like the gods of the heathen, fitful, capricious. What God was to the fathers, that he will be to children's children; not a promise broken or a purpose unfulfilled.

VI. COVENANTAL GRACE. Evidence that "Jahveh," or "Jehovah," is the covenantal name of God is accumulated in abundance in Smith's 'Bib. Dict.' under word "Jehovah," (sect. 5.) p. 957. To the many striking illustrations there, add, that Jesus is equivalent to Joshua - Jehovah that saves.

VII. MYSTERY. God we may apprehend, never comprehend; touch, as with the finger, never grasp or embrace. "I am what I am." Job 11:7-9; Psalm 77:19; Habakkuk 3:4. - R. Observe generally on the name:

1. It was then new: Exodus 6:3. Not absolutely new, but practically so.

2. It became sacred. The Jew never pronounced it. This savoured of superstition, and its ill effect is to be seen in the suppression of the name Jehovah, even in our English Bibles, and in the substitution for it of LORD in small capitals. We will enter into their reverence without showing their superstition. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty."

3. The name is a root-designation in the revelation of God. Assumed universally in Judaism and Christianity, see Maurice's 'Patriarchs and Lawgivers,' pp. 165, 166.

4. The name sets forth objective truth. "This is my name for ever." It is the sign-manual of the Almighty across nature, in providence, on the cross. The name gives us a true idea of the Deity.

5. The name should be subjectively cherished. "This is my memorial to all generations," God's forget-me-not in the believer's heart. The name by which he would be remembered. - R.

I. THE NAME ASKED (ver. 13). Moses expected that this would be the first question the people would ask him - "What is his Name?"

1. It was natural to expect that a Being announcing himself, would do so by some name, either a name by which he was already known, or a new one given in the revelation.

2. It was probable, in analogy with past history, that the name would be a new one, and would serve -

(1) As a memorial of the revelation;

(2) As an exponent of its signfificance;

(3) As a clue to God's purpose in it; and

(4) As a name by which God might suitably be invoked in the new crisis of their nation's history.

And

3. It was certain that the people would ask this question, familiarised as they were in Egypt with the practice of invoking the gods by the one or other of their many names which bore particularly on the wants and circumstances of the worshippers. To Moses, however, this request for the Name had a much deeper significance. It originated, we may believe, in the felt inadequacy of all existing names of God to syllable the deep and powerful impression made on him by this actual contact with the Divine. Cf. Jacob at Peniel (Genesis 32:24 30). God in that hour was nameless to the spirit of Moses - his experience of God went beyond any name he knew for him. A multitude of ideas crowded on him, and he could not fix or express them. Language thus fails us in moments of extraordinary experience, not always because none of the words we know would suit our purpose, but because language tends to become conventional, and the profounder meaning which lies in words gets rubbed off them. The name which God gave was after all not a new one, but an old name with new life put into it.

II. THE NAME GIVEN (vers. 14, 15). God grants his servant's request. The name is given first explicatively, - "I am that I am" (ver. 14), then as a denominative - "Jehovah" (ver. 15); while he who gives it expressly claims for himself, as formerly (ver. 6), that he is the God of the old covenants - the "Jehovah God" of the fathers (vers. 15, 16).

1. The name, as above remarked, while new in this relation, is itself an old one. This is already implied in the expression - "Jehovah God of your fathers" (ver. 16); and is proved by its occurrence in the earlier history, and by the name of Moses' own mother - Jochebed (Exodus 6:20), "she whose glory is Jehovah." This old and half-obsolete name God revives, and makes it the key-word of a new era of revelation.

2. He who assumes the name is the "Angel of Jehovah of ver. 1. The Angel - a self-presentation of Jehovah entering into the sphere of the creature, which is one in essence with Jehovah; and is yet again different from him" (Oehler). The soundest view is that which regards the "Angel" as the Pre-incarnate Logos - the Divine Son.

3. The name was eminently suitable and significant. The ideas awakened in Moses by the revelation he had received would be such as these - God's living Personality; his enduring Existence (the same God that spoke to the fathers of old, speaking to him at Horeb); his covenant-keeping Faithfulness; his Self-identity in will and purpose; his unfailing Power (the bush burning unconsumed); his Mercy and Compassion. All these ideas are expressed in the name Jehovah, which represents the highest reach of Old Testament revelation. That name denotes God as -

1. Personal.

2. Self-existent.

3. Eternal.

4. Independent of his creatures.

5. Self-identical.

6. Self-revealing and gracious.

Hence -

1. Changeless in his purpose.

2. Faithful to his promises.

3. Able to fulfil them.

4. Certain to do so. - J.O.

I. THE MESSAGE TO THE ELDERS OF ISRAEL (vers. 16-18). Moses was to go first to the elders of the people. First - before he went to Pharaoh; and first - before communicating with any of the people. This arrangement was -

1. Necessary. The people's consent must be obtained to their own deliverance. God would have them co-operate with him -

(1) Freely.

(2) Intelligently; would carry them with him as free agents in all he did.

This applies to the higher Redemption. Men cannot be saved without their own consent. We must, in the sense of Philippians 2:12, work out our own salvation - must co-operate with God, by freely adopting and falling in with his method of grace. There must be free choice of Christ as our Saviour, free compliance with the directions of the Gospel, free co-operation with the Spirit in the work of our sanctification.

2. Wise. The elders were the representatives of the people. They had a claim to be approached first. They were men of experience, and were better able to judge deliberately of the proposals laid before them. They had exceptional facilities for diffusing information, while communication with them would have the additional advantage of greater privacy. If Moses could satisfy the elders of his Divine commission, and could gain their intelligent consent to his proposals, the consent of the people would readily be forthcoming. So Paul, in going up to Jerusalem, communicated the Gospel he had received "privately to them which were of reputation," - to "James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars" (Galatians 2:2-9). And it was not till Jesus had been decisively rejected by the authorities in Jerusalem that he commenced a popular ministry in Galilee. Learn lessons -

(1) Of the respect due to constituted authorities.

(2) Of the value of representative institutions.

(3) Of the need of prudence and caution in the initiation and conduct of public movements.

3. Kindly. No time was to be lost in carrying to the Israelites the tidings of approaching deliverance. The message brought to them was a true gospel. Mark its nature. It told how God had seen their affliction, and had visited them, and would redeem them from bondage. This gives no sanction to Ewald's theory, that the Exodus had its origin in a powerful movement in the nation itself - "the most extraordinary exertions, and most noble activities of the spirit wrestling for freedom." The narrative says nothing of this mighty spiritual movement, but represents the people as lying hopeless and helpless till God visited them; their help did not come from themselves, but from God. The two views well illustrate the two ways of conceiving the possibility of man's deliverance from the woes that oppress him. The one - the humanitarian - trusts to recuperative powers inherent in the race, to its own "extraordinary exertions" and noble spiritual activities - and predicts for it a glorious future wrought out by its own efforts. The other - the Christian - has no such hope. It views the race as lying in a state of moral and spiritual helplessness, and recognises the necessity of a salvation coming to it from without. "We look," says Neander, "upon Christianity, not as a power that has sprung up out of the hidden depths of man's nature, but as one which descended from above, when heaven opened itself anew to man's long-alienated race; a power which, as both in its origin and essence it is exalted above all that human nature can create out of its own resources, was designed to impart to that nature a new life, and to change it in its inmost principles."

II. THE MESSAGE TO PHARAOH (ver. 18). Moses, with the elders, was to go to Pharaoh, and demand of him that the Hebrews be allowed to take a three days' journey into the wilderness, there to sacrifice to Jehovah. Note on this request -

1. Its honesty. The ultimate design was to lead Israel out of Egypt altogether. If this first request was studiously made moderate, it was not with the intention of deceiving Pharaoh, but that it might be the easier for him to grant it. The demand was made in perfectly good faith. What was asked sufficed to test the king's disposition. Had Pharaoh yielded, no advantage would have been taken of his compliance to effect a dishonourable escape from Egypt. New announcements would doubtless have been made to him, rewarding him as amply for obedience to this first word of God as afterwards he was punished for disobedience to it, and informing him further of the Divine intentions.

2. Its incompleteness. For this demand bore on the face of it that it was not the whole. It told Pharaoh his immediate duty, but beyond that left matters in a position requiring further revelation. Whatever was to follow the three days' journey, it was certain that "the God of the Hebrews," who had met with them, would never consent to his worshippers being sent back again to bondage. That Pharaoh must plainly enough have perceived, and Moses made no attempt to dissemble it. Learn -

(1) God's counsels are revealed to men bit by bit.

(2) When present duty is revealed to us, we ought to act on that, though ignorant of all that is to follow.

(3) God partially hides his counsels from men, that the spirit of obedience may be tested.

(4) The gravest consequences may hang on first acts of obedience or disobedience.

III. PHARAOH'S REJECTION OF GOD'S MESSAGE (vers. 18-22.)

1. It was foreseen by God (ver. 19). Yet -

2. It did not hinder the execution of God's purpose (ver. 20). Whether Pharaoh willed or not, the Exodus would take place. If not with his consent, then against it, and "by a mighty hand." Pharaoh's disobedience would be overruled

(1) To God's glory. The clay cannot escape from the hand of the potter (Jeremiah 18:6; Romans 9:21). If Pharaoh will not be made a vessel unto honour, he will be moulded into a vessel unto dishonour, and made to subserve God's purpose in another way (Exodus 9:16).

(2) To his own hurt (ver. 20). His disobedience would bring on him wrath and destruction. "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!" (Isaiah 45:9).

(3) To the enrichment of the people (vers. 21-22). The Egyptians would be glad in the end to give the Hebrews whatever they wished. So would they "spoil the Egyptians." Believers' trials tend to their ultimate enrichment (2 Corinthians 4:18). And it is the saints of God who shall yet inherit the earth. Learn also that whatever is valuable in the world's learning, science, literature, or art, is not to be despised, but to be freely appropriated by the Church, and used in God's service. - J.O.

I. THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR APPROACHING PHARAOH. Moses was not left to approach Pharaoh in any way that might seem best to himself. God ordered who the suppliants were to be, and what the exact petition they were to present.

1. The suppliants. They are Moses and the elders of Israel. There is a due, general and dignified representation of the whole people. Moses is to go, not only as the messenger of God, but undeniably as the spokesman of his enslaved brethren. God assures him that he will win the companionship and support of the older and experienced men among them. It is not to be some hot, rebellious crowd of youths that will seek to break in upon Pharaoh. A representative body, most if not all of them well up in years, and headed by a man of fourscore, are to approach him in a dignified way, respectful to him and respectful to themselves. Those who are the advocates of a righteous cause must not spoil or dishonour it by a rash, provocative and boisterous line of conduct. Pharaoh is to be made conscious that he is dealing with those who have every right and competency to speak. If he meets them in an angry, unyielding spirit, he will be left with no chance of finding excuse for himself in the spirit in which he has been approached.

2. The petition. The petitioners are to ask for only a small part of what is really required. The request has been called by some a deceptive one. It is wonderful how quick the worldly mind is, being so full of trickery and deceit itself, to find out deceit in God. If this had been purely the request of Israel, then it would have been deceitful, but it was emphatically God's request, and it served more purposes than one. In the first place, the character of the boon desired indicated to Israel, and especially to these responsible men the elders, what God was expecting from them. He who had told Moses, in direct terms, concerning the service in "this mountain" (ver. 12), was now intimating to them, indirectly, but not less forcibly, something of the same kind. God has more ways than one of setting our duties before us. Secondly, the request was a very searching test of Pharaoh himself. It was a test with regard to the spirit and reality of his own religion. If to him religion was a real necessity, a real source of strength, then there was an appeal to whatever might be noble and generous in his heart not to shut out the Hebrews from such blessings as were to be procured in worshipping Jehovah their God, and the request searched Pharaoh's heart in many ways besides. God well knew beforehand what the result would be, and he chose such an introductory message as would most completely serve his own purposes. These threatened wonders were to start from plain reasons of necessity. We must constantly bear in mind the comprehensiveness of the Divine plans, the certainty with which God discerns beforehand the conduct of men. If we keep this truth before us we shall not be deceived by the shallow talk of would-be ethical purists concerning the deceptions found in Scripture. We must not argue from ourselves, wandering in a labyrinth of contingencies, to a God who is above them all.

II. GOD NOW SEEKS TO MAKE CLEAR TO MOSES THAT WHAT PHARAOH EMPHATICALLY REFUSES TO GRANT AT FIRST, HE WILL BE COMPELLED TO GRANT AT LAST. Thus God makes luminous another important point in the future. That future now stretches before Moses, like a road in the dark, with lamps fixed at certain intervals. Between the lamps there may be much darkness, but they are sufficient to indicate the direction of the path. God had lighted one lamp to assure Moses of a favourable reception by his own people; another to show the kind of treatment which would have to be adopted towards Pharaoh; a third to show the complete success of this treatment; and a fourth shining all the way from Sinai, to make plain that in due course Moses and his liberated brethren would arrive there. God was quickly adding one thing after another, to increase and assure the faith of his servant, and make him calm, courageous, and self-possessed in the prosecution of a momentous enterprise. Only let Moses be faithful in certain matters that are comparatively little, such as making a prompt return to Egypt, and then delivering his messages, first of all to Israel and afterwards to Pharaoh; and God will take care of all the rest. At the beginning Pharaoh will thunder forth a decided and apparently decisive "No!" - but in spite of all his present resolution, the end will see Israel hurried out of the land by a nation smitten with universal bereavement and terror. And, to make this point clearer still, God gives to Israel the marvellous assurance that Egypt will rush from the one extreme of pitiless extortion to the other of lavish generosity. God would secure to Israel much of its own again, even in the secondary matter of external possessions. The Egyptian wealth that had been gained by oppressing the people would be largely disgorged. They were not to go out as impoverished fugitives, but as bearing the rich spoils of God's own great battle. Thus does God invite his servant to bear in mind this mighty compelling force. Pharaoh is great and rich and strong, but God is about to do things in the midst of his land which will force him to confess that there is One far greater and far stronger than himself. - Y.

I. THE REMOVAL OF MOSES' FEAR. His mission will be successful.

1. He will win the people's trust for God. They will not refuse to hear.

2. Their elders will accompany him into Pharaoh's presence: his request will become the people's.

3. The Lord will lead them out laden with the spoils of Egypt. Going on God's errand there is no possibility of failure. The fears which rise as we measure the greatness of the task and our own strength vanish when we look up into the face of God.

II. OPPOSITION WILL BE MET WITH, BUT IT WILL ONLY HEIGHTEN GOD'S TRIUMPH. "I am sure that the King of Egypt will not let you go... and I will stretch out my hand and smite Egypt with all my wonders."

1. We are not to expect that we shall sail over an unruffled sea, and that labour for Christ will be a continuously triumphal progress. "In the world ye shall have tribulation."

2. It is the occasion of the revealing of God's mighty power. Trial is God's school for deepening and purifying trust in himself. The triumph of Christianity in the first ages a consecration of the Church and a proof to the world of the Divine origin of our faith.

III. THE PLAN GOD FOLLOWS IN EFFECTING HIS PEOPLE'S DELIVERANCE.

1. A small demand is made: permission to go three days' journey into the wilderness. Great promises are given to the Church, but it does not now demand that the silver and the gold should be yielded for the service of God, and that the mighty should come down from their thrones and give them to his saints. It asks only for liberty to serve God and to declare his will.

2. The world's refusal brings down God's judgments; and then comes the glory and the enrichment of the sons of God. - U