The Burning Bush: I AM WHO I AM

Moses is tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro in the wilderness beyond Horeb when he sees something strange: a bush on fire that does not burn up. He turns aside to look — I will turn aside and see this great sight — and in that turning, in the choice to investigate rather than pass by, the encounter becomes possible.

God calls his name from the bush: Moses! Moses! He answers: Here I am. The ground is holy. He must remove his sandals. The voice identifies itself: the God of his father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses hides his face; he is afraid to look at God.

The speech that follows is one of the pivotal texts in the Hebrew Bible. God has seen the suffering of the people. God has heard their cry. God has come down to deliver them from Egypt and bring them to a good and broad land. And God is sending Moses to do it.

Moses pushes back immediately. Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? God does not answer the question directly — does not reassure Moses of his qualifications — but simply says: I will be with you. This will be the sign: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.

Moses presses further: when I go to the Israelites and they ask who sent me, what shall I say? And God gives the answer that philosophers and theologians will analyze for three millennia: Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. I AM WHO I AM. Or: I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE. A name that is a verb, that refuses to be a noun, that insists on presence rather than category: Tell them I AM has sent you.

This is the disclosure of the divine name YHWH, connected here to the Hebrew verb to be. It is not a proper name so much as a statement about nature: the God who is, who was, who will be — the one whose existence is not contingent, who cannot be grasped or defined or managed. Moses came to look at a burning bush and received a commission he cannot refuse and a name no human language can contain.