Exodus 3:1

JEHOVAH IN THE BURNING BRAMBLE, Exodus 3:1-6.

1. Now Moses kept the flock Rather, Was feeding the flock . The Hebrew word expresses a continued occupation. Reuel-Jethro, or Reuel the excellent, was priest of Midian, and father of Zipporah and Hobab. See Concluding Note, chap. 2.

To the backside That is, the western side, for in the Hebrew orientation the spectator is always supposed to face the east, which is hence called “the front,” while the south is the “right hand,” as in 1 Samuel 23:19, margin, and the north is “the left hand,” as in Genesis 14:15. Moses led his flock westerly or northwesterly, through the desert strip, to the elevated ground of Horeb, where were the most fertile valleys of the peninsula, and where there was water when the lower lands were dry . The desert of Arabia is not a hot, sandy plain, like the deserts of Africa, but a very uneven, rocky, gravel-covered tract, which, except in summer, furnishes fair pasturage for flocks . Perhaps the approach of midsummer caused this movement . The mountain of God. So called from God’s subsequent manifestation there; or, as the Targumists express it, “the mountain on which was revealed the glory of Jah . ” Moses wrote this after the giving of the law at Sinai .

Horeb This was the name of the whole mountain cluster of which Sinai was a single summit. The two words are used interchangeably to denote the Mount of the Law; but before Israel reached the mountain district, as here and after they left it, as in Deuteronomy, when they were encamped in the plains of Moab it is called Horeb, since at a distance the special summit is not particularized; but while before the Mount of the Law it is always (except only in Exodus 33:6) called Sinai, since, while among the mountains, it was necessary to specify the particular peak intended . Moses smote the rock in Horeb (the district) before they reached Sinai, the mountain . Exodus 17:1-6. (ROBINSON, Bib . Res. , 1:120 . )