Moses and the Burning Bush, Exodus 3:1 -15

The story of Moses comes about after Genesis, were the covenant is to be continued through him and God 's people. The story starts with Israel still in Egypt since Joseph 's time. The Israelites have been prospering, and because of this the Pharaoh is feeling threatened. In result of this, the Pharaoh orders the murder of all male baby Israelites. With the midwives to follow through with these orders, they refused. They refused to kill the newborn boys in fear of God, which is where Moses comes into the picture. After hiding him for three months his mother decided she couldn 't hide him any longer. She then put Moses into a basket and sent him down river. As the daughter of the Pharaoh was bathing in the river she found Moses. Feeling pity for him she took him in and card for him as her own child. Once Moses became a man, he walked among his people. While walking, he witnessed an Egyptian beating a Hebrew. Moses killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. After the Pharaoh heard of this, he wanted to kill Moses. Moses fled and found himself in the land of Midian. He defended the daughters of the priest of Midian, the priest then giving him one of his daughters as gratitude. Shortly after this is when Moses comes upon the burning bush. Moses was keeping a flock when he is approached by the angel of the Lord. It was in the form of a burning bush, but the bush wasn 't being consumed by the fire. Moses became curious, so he turned to see why it wasn 't being consumed. When God had seen that Moses was approaching the bush he called out to him. As Moses finally got close enough to the bush, he was told to take his sandals off because he was standing on holy ground. This is where he is told to help the Israelites. God tells him to go to the Pharaoh and bring his people. God then did something that he had never done, he gave Moses a name to tell the Israelites, that name was YHWH, which meant I am who I am. God then explained to Moses that this is his name forever, and that that will be his title for all generations. After reading the passage it becomes clear to me that the author would have to be someone who could have watched this event take place, someone that had faith in God, or had faith in Moses, that would want to share the story of Moses. The audience of this passage would be the believers of God, or even those who are trying to form a relationship with him. I believe that the passages in the bible have been written for the people that have faith in God, and those who believe that they should use the bible and believe in it as a guide to how they should live. The overall theme of this writing is to believe in God even when you are scared, even when you feel as though god may be putting you through a test, you must believe that he isn 't putting you through something he 's going through it with you. This is a reoccurring theme so far in what we have read from the bible. You can see it with every person that the covenant has been passed through. It started with Abraham and now it is going through Moses to the people of God. The story of the burning bush belongs to a bigger unit of the bible. It belongs to the Exegesis section. It is very important in how we understand the passage. It contributes to the passage because it has a theme. The theme is shown when God

approaches an individual and offers them a covenant if they will trust in him. This is shown multiple times, not only in past passages but in this passage. This passage stands out to me more then any other passage that we have read so far. There is a single word that is in this passage that doesn 't appear in any other one. The word YHWH appears. This word means "I am who I am". It was the name that God gave to Moses to tell the Israelites, so that they would trust in him and follow him. The word YHWH alone brings the people of God closer to him. This word sheds light on the meaning of the passage. The word YHWH is God and God shows himself to Moses as a burning bus. This was communicated to the original hearers differently then how it is communicated to present readers. People back then would take the words of the bible to heart. Faith was a lot more common back then. People now don 't have as much faith as the people of biblical times. More people then less think of the bible as fictional stories were I would like to think of it as a historical book. I personally believe that the bible is a gathering of historical events. It is all in how much faith you have. One person could believe in the bible word for word, but another could dismiss the entire bible as a collection of fictional stories made to help further a faith.

The story of Moses and the Burning Bush is very important. It is important in the understanding the entire bible, because it conveys a reoccurring theme, but with a twist. God has now given a name to call him and the covenant has now come full circle after hundreds of years and has almost been completed. The value of the text between two religions could be very different. The religions alone are extremely different, so when both religions read the same stories from the bible many of the readings could be interpreted differently.

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