Exodus 3

Call and Commission of Moses, Exodus 3:1 to Exodus 4:18.

INTRODUCTORY.

At last the people and the deliverer were ready “the iniquity of the Amorites” and of the Egyptians was “full” events had ripened for another epoch of Providence to disclose itself and the Divine Voice, which had been silent for centuries, was heard once more. The forty years’ trial of Moses reminds us of the forty days’ temptation of Jesus, also in the wilderness, before he began to break the bondage of which the Egyptian servitude is a constant Scripture symbol, and to announce the law for which the Sinai statutes were a preparation; himself, like Moses, “despised and rejected” by those he came to save. There are deep correspondences and divine symbolisms in these ways of Providence, which cannot be logically demonstrated but are readily accepted, when fully understood, by the truly believing spirit.

CONCLUDING NOTE.

The Memorial Name. Exodus 3:14-15; Exodus 6:3. The translation of this passage in the Anglican version, I AM THAT I AM, is wholly unsatisfactory, for, as Murphy says, any being might affirm that he is what he is . It is usually understood as affirming God’s inscrutable and immutable nature; but though this is in the Hebrew, it certainly is not in our translation . Murphy suggests “I AM FOR I AM,” which he ably defends, but we judge that the translation suggested in our note is far better . It is perfectly literal, and, we think, just covers the Hebrew thought . Bunsen follows the Arabic in rendering “THE ETERNAL,” but this fails to bring out the covenant riches of the Name. Revelation 1:4 evidently paraphrases this name “I AM” in the sentence “HE WHO IS, AND WHO WAS, AND WHO IS TO COME . ” Clement of Alexandria ( Paedag . , i, chap . viii) says that “the One Name” means “WHO IS,” and (Strom . i, chap . 30:25,) renders Exodus 3:14, “HE WHO IS, sent me . ” So Theodoret and Epiphanius . See Ewald’s Hist . Israel, ii, App .

Jacobus, M’Whorter, and others, follow Oleaster, Luther, etc., in rendering the word as a proper future, “I WILL BE,” and JEHOVAH as “HE WILL BE,” and understand the meaning to be “I WILL APPEAR,” and “HE WILL APPEAR,” or “WILL COME,” and so paraphrase the Name as “THE COMING ONE,” that is, the MESSIAH. Now Christ was, of course, the supreme manifestation of the character revealed in this Name, but we have no right to assume, as this translation does, that the patriarchs had definite expectations of the incarnation. Christology is not helped by such assumptions.

Our translators have usually rendered יהוה by LORD or GOD, in small capitals, in only four instances translating it “Jehovah . ” It is most unfortunate that they did not always preserve the Hebrew word . Its real pronunciation is doubtful, although it seems certain that it is not “Jehovah . ” The Jews lost its sound from a superstitious fear of uttering it, always when they came to it in reading pronouncing the name Adhonai or Elohim, and when they wrote it always giving it the vowels of one of these names . Hence our word Jehovah is formed from the consonants of the sacred name יהוה with the vowels of Adhonai, and is quite surely not the true name . Yet it is so settled in our literature that it will probably not be displaced . It seems most likely that the true sound is Jahveh or Jahaveh, the J being sounded like Y, as hallelu-jah, which means “praise ye Jah . ” Ewald and Hengstenberg defend the pronunciation Jah-veh with great force of argument. See Hengstenberg on Pent., Diss. II; Ewald’s Hist. of Israel, ii, App.