3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

This is forty years after Moses had been living with the royal family in Egypt, and had tried to free his people by his own means (Exodus 2:11-15).

2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.”

From what I'm told, it is not necessarily uncommon in the dry deserts of Egypt for a dry thorn-tree to combust on its own. However, the interesting thing about this tree, and the thing that grabbed Moses' attention, was that it was burning yet it was not consumed.

The burning bush can be seen as a symbol of the nation of Israel itself, which has burned and suffered tribulation, but which has not been consumed. It also is a striking picture of the life of a Christian who is abiding in Christ. When we are connected to the true vine (John 15:5) we will burn with His power, and will not be consumed. And, like Moses, many in the world will marvel to see such a sight.

From Guzik:

The bush burning but not being consumed was a magnetic sight to Moses - it drew him in for a closer examination. Some say the burning bush here is a picture of God's grace that draws us to Him. In this picture, you have a thorn-bush (the original Hebrew word comes from the word "to stick or to prick," this meaning a thorn-bush or bramble) which is a figure of the curse (Adam was cursed to bring forth thorns and thistles from the earth, Genesis 3:18). The "curse" is burned (a picture of judgment) without being consumed - therefore, a picture of God's mercy and grace.

4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

I think it's important to note that God knew Moses' name, even though, as we shall see, Moses did not know God's name.

Guzik writes:

Take your sandals off your feet: Removing the sandals showed an appropriate humility, because the poorest and most needy have no shoes, and servants usually went barefoot. It also recognized the immediate presence of God. In many cultures, you take off your shoes when you come into someone's house, and now Moses was in God's "house," a place of His immediate presence.

6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.7 Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, 8 and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

God sees our affliction. He knows our taskmaster, sin, and He has heard our cry. God is salvation.

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” 12 He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”

I love God's response to Moses' question. Moses asks, in essence, "Who am I to do this? I'm a nobody." Look at God's response: "But I will be with you."

Also, the majority opinion appears to be that Mount Horeb and Mount Sinai are one in the same. Therefore, God fulfilled this promise when He delivered the law to Moses on Mount Sinai.

13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

Moses asks, basically, "Who will I tell them has sent me?" The Hebrews were living in a pantheistic society in Egypt, and Moses needed a name. And so God tells him to tell them "I am who I am". The word translated "I am" (ehyeh, a form of hayah, "to be") is connected to God's name YWHW (Yahweh). The proper name YWHW is found in verse 15 translated as "LORD" with all capital letters in most bibles.

From Guzik:

Cole on: I Am Who I Am: "This pithy clause [ehyeh asher ehyeh] is clearly a reference to the name YHWH. Probably 'Yahweh' is regarded as a shortening of the whole phrase, and a running together of the clause into one word." In verse 15, when God says: Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: "The Lord God of your fathers . . .", God is referring back to the phrase I Am Who I Am.

Yahweh was not a new name, nor an unknown name - it appears more than 160 times in the book of Genesis. Moses' mother's name was Jochabed meaning, Yahweh is my glory. Moses and Israel knew the name Yahweh. God did not give Moses a "new and improved" name of God, but the name they had known before. God called them back to the faith of the patriarchs, not to something "new."

How did this name come to be pronounced Jehovah? The pious Jews of later years did not want to pronounce the name of God out of reverence, so they left the vowels out of His name and simply said the word Lord (adonai) instead. If the vowels of the word adonai are put over the consonants for YHWH, you can get the name "Jehovah." All this came about much later; in the days of Bible, the name was pronounced Yah-weh or Yah-veh.

There are many implications to this name, YWHW. One of the first is that it speaks to God's self-existence. Unlike us, who live due to the reproductive actions of our parents and within a vast web of interdependencies with other creatures, oxygen, sunlight, chemistry, gravity, quantum physics, etc, God did not spring from another, and has no need of another. He IS.

From Guzik:

Also inherent in the idea behind the name I Am is the sense that God is "the becoming one"; God becomes whatever is lacking in our time of need. The name I Am invites us to fill in the blank to meet our need - when we are in darkness, Jesus says I am the light; when we are hungry, He says I am the bread of life, when we are defenseless, He says I am the Good Shepherd. God is the becoming one, becoming what we need.

From John Piper:

The most common and the most important name for God in the Old Testament is a name that in our English versions never even gets translated. Whenever you see the word LORD in all capital letters you know that this name is behind it. In Hebrew the name had four letters -- YHWH -- and may have been pronounced something like Yahweh. The Jews came to regard this word with such reverence that they would never take it upon their lips, lest they inadvertently take the name in vain. So whenever they came to this name in their reading they pronounced the word "adonai" which means "my lord." The English versions have basically followed the same pattern. They translate the proper name Yahweh with the word LORD in all caps.

This is not a very satisfactory thing to do, because the English word LORD does not communicate to our ears a proper name like John or Michael or Noël. But Yahweh is God's proper name in Hebrew. The importance of it can be seen in the sheer frequency of its use. It occurs 6828 times in the Old Testament. That's more than three times as often as the simple word for "God" (Elohim -- 2600. El -- 238). What this shows is that God aims to be known not as a generic deity, but as a specific Person with a name that carries his unique character and mission.

(Note: The word Jehovah originated from an attempt to pronounce the consonants YHWH with the vowels from the word adonai. In the oldest Hebrew texts there are no vowels. So it is easy to see how this would happen since whenever YHWH occurred in the text the word adonai was pronounced by the reverent Jew.)

. . .

One final implication of this magnificent name, I AM WHO I AM, is that this infinite absolute self-determining God has drawn near to us in Jesus Christ. In John 8:56-58 Jesus is answering the criticism of the Jewish leaders. He says, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad." The Jews then said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly! I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM."

Could Jesus have taken any more exalted words upon his lips? When Jesus said, "Before Abraham was I AM," he took up all the majestic truth of the name of God, wrapped it in the humility of servanthood, offered himself to atone for all our rebellion, and made a way for us to see the glory of God without fear.

In Jesus Christ we who are born of God have the unspeakable privilege of knowing Yahweh as our Father -- I AM WHO I AM -- the God.