Exodus 3:13-22

Hey everybody, welcome back to our study in the book of Exodus.
I’m grateful that you would join us today.
As we continue through the third chapter,
maybe not quite halfway,
we’re at a turning point, a transition.
You remember yesterday Moses receives from God at the burning bush his
mission, “I’m going to send you to Pharaoh,” and Moses says,
“Who am I that I should go?”
God says, “I’ll be with you.” We pick up the story in verse 13 as the question then turns
from, “Who am I?” to really to,
“Who are you?” So let’s read here.
“But Moses said to God,
‘If I come to the Israelites and say to them,
‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’
and they ask, ‘What is his name?
What should I say to them?’
God said to Moses,
‘I am who I am.’
He said further,
‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
‘I am has sent you.’
God also said to Moses,
‘Thus you shall say to the Israelites,
‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors,
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.'”
Won’t we stop there?
Well, let me read,
“This is my name forever and this my title for all generations.” So attack that on there, Michael.
I think, again, most people know this story and they probably know this
moment in it where Moses asks God,
“Who are you?” If they ask me,
“I’m going to go tell them God
said me to you and God told me to let the people go,” and,
“Who are you?” When they ask me, “Who is he?
What do I say to you?” And this is a deeply theological,
deeply biblical answer.
We don’t want to get too far in the weeds here,
but there’s a lot tied into this response.
“I am who I am.”
And in Hebrew, this is the word “Yahweh.” It is literally the divine name,
and that is a version of the verb “to be.”
And as I understand it,
Michael, the thing that makes
this interesting is that it is a verb without tense.
So in English,
“I will run,” or “I ran,”
or “I am running,” we have these ways of indicating if an action is past or present or future.
Well, in this regard,
the Hebrew “to be” here in this version of it,
in this divine name Yahweh,
does not have a tense.
So it is, “I am who I am.” It’s also,
“I will be who I was.” “I was who I am.”
“I am who I will be.” There’s a sense of timelessness in that.
And not only is that a description,
but that literally becomes the way that they call God.
So even down in a couple verses here,
in verse 15, when you see “Lord” in all capital letters,
whenever you see that in the Old Testament,
that is a translation of the word “Yahweh.” That is this very word,
“I am who I am.” And it becomes
shortened throughout Scripture as “I am.”
And it’s a beautiful coincidence or a beautiful use of the
language, Michael, that we have simultaneously,
God answering the question of who He is,
but doing so in a way that only speaks to Himself and doesn’t really answer the question
for Moses.
I don’t need to answer you,
Moses, because I am.
I was.
I will be.
I am the ground
of being.
I am the source of life.
And I don’t need to explain that to you.
Yeah, this may strike us as being a lot to do for not much,
but I think that may be a
misunderstanding of how substantially different this is from the context of other ancient writings
and certainly descriptions of God.
Because if you look at some of the ancient texts,
you see that there tends to be,
as humans at least,
conceive of gods.
We often think of them as being
the strongest or the richest or the most powerful.
Often humans will conjure a god
who is sort of themselves on steroids,
who they wish that they would be.
And here in the Old Testament,
this remembrance of the people of Israel,
you have this encounter between Moses and God.
And instead of God being portrayed as,
“Well, I am Zeus,” or “I’m the one who can throw lightning,”
or “I’m the one who slayed the dragon,” or “I’m the one who possesses all the riches,”
or all the wisdom.
God here is not reaching for a lofty title.
God’s not seeking to exhibit some
form of extra worldly power.
What makes this
description of God’s name so spectacular is how
little God is compelled in the midst of it to reach or to impress.
Ultimately,
when Moses asks,
we can almost see his face, hear the pushback.
“Well, God,
you want to send me to do this thing
that surely is going to get me killed?
Who am I supposed to say sent me when I go do this crazy
thing?” And God has nothing to prove to Moses.
When God says, “I am,” we think all the way back
to creation as the one who was before all things,
but also the one who’s immediately
present to Moses and to this circumstance,
to this moment in the burning bush,
this real-life revelation kind of encounter.
And also the God who’s promising to be faithful to Moses and the
people of Israel to respond to those cries that we talked about yesterday.
So, Clint, it’s just a fascinating response here.
And it’s not fascinating so much in just the intellectual sense,
but that this will now become,
for the rest of the entire scriptures,
the shorthand for who God is and God’s
name all the way into the New Testament when Jesus himself will use this language and will set off
just a chain reaction, a firework,
a kind of explosion of anger from the religious leaders as
he himself leans into this name.
So, it’s an incredibly important transition in Moses’ life in particular.
It’s significant for reasons we might not see right off the bat without plumbing
the depths a little bit more.
And it is unbelievably important to the rest of the scriptures.
So, yeah, clearly,
this is an important encounter.
Yeah, I think it is vital.
I think it’s foundational.
And I think it’s one of those things we just simply have to understand if we’re going to make sense
of the rest of the scripture.
God does not hear a character with a name and a title.
God is
being.
God is I am.
Who do I tell them sent me?
I am.
I am with you.
I was before you.
I will be after you.
This is my name forever and my title for all generations.
And again,
you may or may
not know this, but each time you read the Old Testament and you see the word “Lord” written in all capitals,
it is this word,
this word Yahweh, the divine name.
It became so sacred in Israel’s
faith, in the Hebrew faith,
that they refused to write it or speak it.
And so, they did some shorthand with the word and we get it translated “Lord” because it was considered so sacred that
it wouldn’t be given voice.
In fact,
to this day, many who practiced Judaism would not be
comfortable saying or having said that word.
Christians have been more comfortable with the
idea of that kind of familiarity.
But in Judaism, there is still a deep reluctance to say that name
out loud.
And so,
we see vestiges of that in the way that the Scripture is translated,
and particularly when you see “Lord” written in all capital letters.
But here,
God has answered Moses.
And then,
I’m going to read just parts of this very quickly,
the rest of the chapter here,
because what we see next is a foreshadowing of what this journey is going to entail.
So, God has called Moses.
God has assured Moses he will be with him.
God has now revealed himself to Moses with this title,
this name.
And so now,
we read here in 16,
“Go and assemble the leaders,
the elders of Israel,
and say to them,
‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors,
Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me.’ And said,
‘I have given heed to you,
and what has been done to you in Egypt.
I declare that I will bring you out of the misery of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites,
the Hittites, the Amorites,
the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,
a land that flows with milk and honey.
They will listen to your voice,
and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the
king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord,
the God of the Hebrews,
has met with us.
Now let us go
three days’ journey into the wilderness that we might sacrifice to the Lord our God.
I know, however, that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.
So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders that I will perform in Egypt.
After that, he will let you go.
I will bring this people into such favor with the Egyptians that when you go,
you will not go empty handed.
Each woman shall ask her neighbor and any woman living in the neighbor’s
house for jewelry of silver and gold and clothing,
and you shall put them on your sons and your daughters,
so you shall plunder the Egyptians.'” So this is a passage with some foreshadowing in it.
Lest Moses think that the task is going to be easy,
we already begin to see here the tension
that will develop between Egypt and the Hebrews,
Moses and Egypt, God and Pharaoh.
We have seen this brewing since the very first chapters when Pharaoh has essentially declared war on God and God’s people,
and here we have the forecast,
the projection that that tension,
that struggle is going to continue and that God will ultimately have to act out against the Egyptians but will
do so in such a way that not only will the Israelites escape,
but they will plunder,
they will be blessed,
they will take with them as a kind of repayment or as a kind of blessing,
some of the riches of Egypt.
I don’t know, Michael, I mean, I’m not sure there’s a lot in this,
but it opens the door,
I think, to prepare us for what is coming in the rest of the story.
I think there’s even more foreshadowing than that,
Clint. I think you can look here in verse 17 and see
that the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Parazites, Hivites, Jebusites, these are allites to us, and so maybe we read past them,
but it also foreshadows that the people are going to
have issues once they get to the promised land.
It may be a land flowing with milk and honey,
but they’re not going to be the only ones there,
and we who know the story know that it’s not just
the getting there that will be a problem,
and boy are there a lot of problems getting there,
but there’s going to be the problems once they get there,
and then even beyond that.
In some ways,
as God reveals himself to Moses,
he is both communicating the solution to this problem.
In other words, to say that God is going to provide an answer for the people.
He’s going to free them from the heavy hand that is holding them captive,
but then on the other hand of that,
there is this implicit reality.
Well, it’s not even implicit.
I mean, it’s explicit that ultimately this is going to bring its own kind of trouble.
It’s going to have its own difficulties,
and this is another unique way of God revealing.
When God shows up on the scene,
he doesn’t just speak the answer.
He also names the reality that things are not
necessarily going to be all better at all times.
Yes, there’s going to be this sort of blessing and leaving,
this idea you’re going to pillage or you’re going to take with you these goods,
but on the other hand,
it’s going to take a strong hand.
It’s going to take God’s mighty hand against Israel,
and so here we are.
We’re just in a situation where ultimately we find
ourselves encountering this God who gives this timeless name while also recognizing that that
God will work in mysterious,
miraculous ways, but it will not be done in such a way that all
the problems of the people will be completely eradicated,
and that is the beautiful complexity,
Clint, of Exodus, of the Old Testament.
I think the writers don’t hide the nuances of life,
and in that, I think we can celebrate the full nuance of our own lives.
Yeah,
and I think,
Michael, we see in that a foreshadowing of the struggle.
I think we also
see here the promise that hangs over the difficult thing that Moses is asked to do,
that Moses is being sent to a place that he doesn’t want to go to hold accountable a person
he doesn’t want to confront,
and yet he’s being sent in the promise that God will not only be
with him, but that God will enact for the people’s good an outcome that will be world-changing,
that will be life-changing for these people,
and that is the promise that ultimately will sustain
Moses.
Now, it’s going to take him a while to get there.
Tomorrow we’ll begin looking at passages
that Moses is not 100% on board just yet,
but this is the promise in which ultimately he will go,
that God is going to do this thing that he has promised,
that God is going to bring about this
thing that he has said he will do,
and that Moses is going to take part of it.
I think it’s a very
fascinating journey for Moses as to how he gets there and how he ultimately embarks on this.
He’s not ready to do that yet,
and tomorrow we’ll begin to look at the interaction that gets him there.
Final word for me today here,
Clint, is just the name of God matters,
and we as Christians don’t
put, as you’ve already said,
the same kind of weight into the name Yahweh that God gives to Moses here.
We’re willing to say that because of the kind of father relationship that Jesus has
invited the church to have,
but what we want to be clear about is that at the end of the day,
when God introduces himself to Moses, it’s relational,
it’s personal, it’s meaningful,
and here we encounter once again that very promise today,
that the very God who said, it’s true yesterday,
it’s true today, it’ll be true tomorrow.
That’s the very God and the very
promise that now comes all the way down to our own life of faith today.
So wherever you find yourself
and wherever you have seen your life journey go,
however our futures will look, we don’t know,
the thing that we can be confident in is the very one whose name promises a constant presence.
You know,
as Christians,
it’s I think good to be reminded of that.
There’s deep good news in just
the naming that God gives this day to Moses,
and as we continue on the journey through Exodus,
I think it’s a gift that we can carry with us.
Yeah, thanks for being with us.
We’ll continue tomorrow.
Hope you can make it,
and as always, we appreciate your time.
Bye.