Ehyeh

Transcript

so i wanted to share a study tonight uh linking um the hebrew word that we have on the screen here uh with god's name and his purpose and that word is yeah um

and it means i am or i will be um and it was read three times in the passage uh that we actually um four times sorry in the passage that we uh just read in in exodus chapter three um so it's an important word um

that is you know when when you see a reward repeated a number of times i think that's uh uh an important kind of clue that hey we got to pay attention to this word to um

get the message of the story um so we'll get into that um let's see

gotta move and get a little technical difficulty hold on let's see if this works no

i'm gonna try

[Music]

picture well i know i know i can do that

um

so

when um first of all let me start with with uh the a basic important thought that sometimes is lost sometimes we we kind of forget this as we um

as we read our english bibles and as we talk in our everyday language um

we can we can describe a person with a title with a job description we can describe a person with a name um so from for example for myself um my job title is uh chemistry physics teacher uh and today was my uh last day uh before summer break so i'm uh kind of reached a point of you know very very very busy and now i'm about to enjoy the um one of the benefits of being a teacher is that i get i get some time to

rejuvenate and and uh

power up for the the coming year um with a little bit of rest and chance to well a chance to do a lot of work that that got put on the on the back burner around the house uh among other things but um anyway that's that's me now we often think of of of god

as a name um when when we when we talk about god but we need to remember that's it's a title uh for a divine being a divine being is a god we um worship the true god

and the hebrew word for that is elohim

but god has a name his name is yahweh

so remember that yahweh is is his name so we are

we're going to

interact with um

a personal god who has revealed to us his name and he's shared that with us now

we we need to remember you know who it is that we're we're dealing with we're dealing with the the creator of the universe um so when we come to his name um i think it's important to show uh respect and honor that's due um

and if if you you think about the people uh god's people they definitely

have a great respect

for the name

yahweh they um will not typically speak the name um and will replace it with with adonai which which means uh lord and and that's that tradition is is carried over into um the new testament for example where the the greek word curios is used in uh passages quoting the old testament where yahweh would be there curios lord is used instead jewish people today read uh the bible when they come across that name um in fact the vowel pointings are even set up to kind of remind them uh to say adonai rather than than yahweh

um to give you another appreciation of just how much respect uh and honor is given to the name um there's a short story written by an israeli noble laureate in literature named shmuel yosef agnon um who describes a scribe named raphael and the diligent care with which he undertook his work

and and the scribe would customarily rise early at night while the sun was still still not risen uh he would take two ritual baths before he began his work of of copying uh the text of the bible

according from the story he sat secluded and isolated and no one was with him except his name may be blessed and he studied a portion of the talmud in order to tie together the oral teachings with the written ones and concentrated and all the sacred meanings hinted at in scripture

was careful never to write the holy name

without first having purified his body

for this reason he often wrote an entire sheet of parchment but left blank the spaces for the holy name and later he wrote the name in the blank spaces only after having immersed himself again in the purifying ritual bath

he may be thus likened to a craftsman making a crown for a king

does he not first make the crown and that said and then set into it the diamonds and other precious jewels

so here agnon captures the the immense respect and honor that the jewish scribes would give the name uh it was common practice for the scribes to wipe the pen um and wash their entire bodies before writing the most holy name of god each time they wrote it

um

note also below and on the screen now i've got

god's name written twice um the one on the left um well they're written in two different scripts the one on the left is using a block script that that comes from the aramaic alphabet

and it came into use around 300 bc

the scribes who copied the dead sea scrolls they used that script a script like that [Music]

but

every time they came to god's name they ended up using a much older

middle hebrew script that's shown on the right so here's like here's a copy of the dead sea scrolls and actually above the arrow um god's name is there uh where the arrow's pointing to is another instance and the line below that there's another instance um and there's a line kind of cut off on the bottom um

and and you might be able to pick out i mean i guess i read in hebrew i i wouldn't recognize those letters when i when i first saw this i'm like what's going on here and and and then read read into it a little bit and saw that that's that they were using a very very old script that with letters that that are not familiar uh to somebody reading modern hebrew or even reading the masoretic text from the middle ages um

so they they recognize they wanted to give

out of reverence um and even thought that they may have been taking a conservative approach because they thought it might have been a sin to actually write god's

name using these modern letters um

and so they used this uh older script so

that's that's one way that people showed uh reverence to god's name um

so with reverence honor and respect i want us to go to in our minds to the burning bush

to the holy ground where we learn of the name hebrew jewish people will often speak of rather than saying the name will do actually simply say hashem which means the name so let us go to

learn

of the name from the story of moses

when moses was here in exodus 2 at the burning bush

god

you know he asked god you know what should i what should i uh tell the people your you know your your name is when when you send me um and and god explains his name and and gives us some insight into the meaning of his name uh in

verses 13 through 15 of of exodus 3 that butch read for us um

it says

uh moses said to god

um if i come to the people of israel and say to them the god of your fathers has sent me to you and they asked me what is his name

what shall i say to them

and god said to moses i am who i am

or in the hebrew ey

and he said say to this people of israel i am or el has sent me to you

god also said to moses say this to the people of israel the lord yahweh 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

so

god introduces this name uh in verse 14. and we have different translations and i can take care of that

we have things like i am that i am or i am who i am or those are the most popular uh translations um and you might have a side note in your margin that might say i will be who i will be

so why is there this um

kind of unclearness about the uh about the the tense

is it i am or is it i will be um

part of part of understanding why there's that ambiguity is is we need to understand that in english we have we have tenses we have past present and future

so we could say you know i was i for the past i am for the present or i will be in the future

but in hebrew in biblical hebrew there are simply two what they're what are called aspects rather than tenses um the perfect which we would kind of translate the maps somewhat into our past

like i was

and imperfect which could be translated i am or i will be depending on the context um and and it takes some judgment on the translator's part to try to figure out which one would be the best translation and we call this imperfect it's um think about you know when we actually you know and would come across the word perfect in in the king james bible for example we often know that that that typically means complete um so imperfect would be incompleted actions or not completed actions uh perfect would be ones that are completed so past is something that's been completed but something that's currently happening or something that will happen in the future both fit into that imperfect category they have not yet been completed

so yeah

is in that imperfect uh aspect and as a result we don't really know clearly um whether it's you know i am or i will be um we have to use context to try to try to decide

well going back to the passage again uh

i want you to notice that you know in verse 14 and the beginning of 15 you know god said to moses i am who i am and he said say this to the people of israel i am a sent me to you

then it says god said to moses say 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

notice that there's

repetition there [Music]

why is it why is the same essentially the same message repeated twice

and really with two different names um in the top section he says say this to the people of israel i am i sent me to you um and then the bottom section he says say this to the people israel the lord the god of the fathers has sent me to you

why that switch

um

so

the part of the the reason is so homing in on on that that uh

block of of conjugations of of um

english well and actually switching it a little bit to the show the hebrew um the taking just a section of the of the verb table that for for the word which is to be

so think of karate if it helps to help you remember it um haya is is is to be and it can be conjugated in different ways if we want to say um i in the future then we say

basically put an aleph letter in front of hayah and change the vowel pointing and it becomes

i am or i will be in in imperfect tense

in but if we're talking that so that's if it's if it's me okay but if it's if we're going to talk about somebody else in the third person like he

then you would put instead of an olive in the front you put a ud in the front so a yeah becomes yeah

um so a different letter in the front and again different vowels will change it to uh he is or he will be

and so going back to well okay so hey

um i have here

the um it's kind of a mapping the english letters to the hebrews to help so this is actually going backwards aleph uh backwards in english but actually

english came thousands of years later so i would say this is actually the right way and english is backwards but anyway um so aleph uh corresponds with the a sound um the k is the is the h the uh is the y and the the ending uh hey is is like the h here and then the vowel comes in as well so eh is that i will be word so as i said if we're talking about third person when we're talking about he then we we change that that letter in the front so here you can see what i was talking about earlier on the last slide that we just changed that letter in the front and it becomes

which is

he will be okay so just that's that's one of the ways that you can recognize like who the subject in uh in a hebrew sentence uh is um sometimes that there's no separate word for the for the subject of a sentence it's just embedded in the verb other times you will have the subject um and the subject will match that letter in front

and sometimes there's a letter at the end but that helps you see who the subject is now tie that in with yahweh god's name now you can see

the similarity here we got basically the same letters except for that third letter instead of being a yud as a fob the same shape just a little bit lengthened um and that's jave

[Music] which also means he will be

and we'll get into

why

that changing that letter doesn't actually um change it the meaning that it still is still actually means he will be so but kind of coming back to our passage so you can see that i am

um is god speaking he's kind of saying to moses like okay moses is asking who who are you what's your name and god's saying

and then shortened version just a yeah that sent me to you so he's saying i will be is is his name but then when moses is going to the people it would be kind of confusing

for moses to use that first person form i am because god is someone else and moses is not god so

instead i think god is is

converting it to third person for others speaking about him to that he will be formed

so that that is i think the reason why you had that repetition that parallel structure there uh in those two um sections as i laid out uh for there at the top of the slide so this uh is perhaps we've heard this before um

but it's just good good review even if not and if it's

not review i hope it's making sense let me know if it's confusing if anything is unclear

so back to that like why is it um jave instead of

um

let me just see if i can explain that as well so here is that he will be this is a very common word uh in hebrew um he will be that comes from this word um which is kind of like the dictionary form um actually it's also the past form like he was would be written this way um but this is the word the way you would look it up in a strong's dictionary for example

you wouldn't find this kind of like you wouldn't typically look up the word ran um in your in your english dictionary look up the word run

so

there's different forms of a word and there's this is like the dictionary form so anyway yeah he will be now

yahweh

um or yahweh

comes from this

dictionary form

and it's it's a an older word it's not used in the bible very much at all it's only a handful of times but it also means to be

and it's used in in this passage here that we quoted here in genesis 27 29 be lord over your brothers

so here this is this is the word for be um so normally in 99 percent of the time when you when you would say you see um something related to b or was or were um or will be or anything like that it's going to be based on that on the the word with the the you'd hear the little shorter letter but there is this rare word that um that's again older um

that that is in this form here but they're synonymous they mean the same they mean similar things i mean

so that's where what god's name is not kind of the most common version but but there's that play in this conversation with moses and moses would have understood that okay so he's his name is carries that same meaning

so god is the one who will be um the one who is and will be in fact i mean we could we can think about you know how it says in in revelation the one who who was and is and is to be i mean god is eternal he is beyond time um and he is the one who will be into eternity unlike um

people who are mortal unless we are

given uh the gift of immortality from from god who who possesses it

so there's lots we could talk about um you know in terms of

the different perspectives on on what the saying of of god saying you know i am that i am or i will be who i will be different interpretations that have been made over the years um but i want to share with you something that that popped out at me when we um looked at this passage a couple months ago in a wednesday night class

and when i was following along in my hebrew bible

something jumped out at me that i hadn't noticed before and

it was in a couple verses before the the core verses we were looking at in verses 14 and 15 back in 11 and 12. um which reads but moses said to god who am i that i should go to pharaoh and bring the children of israel out to egypt and he said but i will be with you and this shall be the sign for you that i have sent you when you've brought the people out of egypt you shall serve god on this mountain

now the thing that jumped out at me

was this that here um in verse 12 god is using that same word yeah just two verses before he uses it as his name

and it's part of a a message part of a some important words of comfort to moses i will be with you

he's con he's he's giving uh moses confidence

that that he is

going to be with him in this task that he has for him

and that he's going to come back to this very place this place called the mountain of god um which is another interesting study just you know tracing the mountain of god or the mountain of the lord um

and and and seeing that but

but anyway what struck me is that here god is is you know just two verses before he uses this as his name he's using this word as part of his comfort to moses i will be with you

now you might be thinking brian you're making a lot out of a common word it can't be that significant i mean think about am is a pretty common word right if you search in in um

using a bible program the word am

you're going to see 704 times am shows up in the old testament so it's all over the bible right so this shouldn't really be that big of a deal to see that it's that it's here

but consider um the following

hayah or its different forms um

is a lot more rare than you would think um in this same chapter um and when the verse we just looked at when moses said to god who am i that i should go to unto pharaoh

in that

passage um actually in another another another place just a few chapters later um it says wherefore sand are the children of israel i am the lord and i will bring you out from um from egypt basically

now

i'm actually doing something unusual for me i'm in a

presentation i'm quoting here from the king james version i don't usually do that because i think it's it's harder to understand and when you're dealing with 400 year old english there's a lot of chances to misunderstand things um that's a whole other subject but

um

but

here there's there's something unique to the king james version that shows up in in these two passages and many many other passages anybody know what's kind of unique to the king james here

as opposed to other versions

the italics they highlight what's not in the original text yeah thanks jake so um yeah so that italics notice the word am our kind of one of our key words here in this study is in italics so when moses is speaking to god um you know he could have you know he could have said um

ani like who am i using the a yeah word um but in hebrew it's not usually said that way it's usually it's actually just who i if you were to try to translate it literally who i

um that doesn't make good english the am is kind of understood uh in hebrew when it's absent it's not really necessary in hebrew but uh a good english translation puts it in there because we're trying to bring it from one language bring the meaning over to another language and it needs to be understandable so the nice thing about the king james and i i wish that the modern versions um

would have copied the the pattern of the king james of doing this and putting it in italics

because it helps you see sometimes when words are there that are kind of filling in the meaning to help make it smoother english um so and and when god said i am the lord he says literally yahweh or i yahweh um the am is not there but it's understood um but it's perfectly correct for the king james to put the word am there and and for every other version to put the word m in there as well because that's that's how we speak in english

so when you consider that if if you kind of thumb through and look at places where am shows up um most of the cases are in italics and i can show you you know page after page but um

you just take my word for it or take it as a homework assignment do a quick bible search and a bible program in the king james and look for the word am and notice how much or how often it's in italics most of the time by far and away it's in italics um

the bottom one here um

sarah speaking um the word hayah is actually a form of is there but actually the way the wording is in hebrew it's it's kind of like saying worn out is to me in hebrew so the the subject of that verb is uh

is different than um

than sarah speaking the one who's speaking so it's not uh yeah it's not conjugated that way um so even though we bring it into english as i am it's not so

point is it's it's kind of it's not as the word am in hebrew is not as often uh not as common as you'd think so if we search for all the different forms of to be in english in the bible i did a search there's about 18 000 times where in our english translation the old testament we're going to see is was where am are will be

but if you look for the hebrew word in all of its forms you see that there's only 3 500 or so time so basically only one and six times that you see an english to be word verb um version of to be there's actually a hebrew to be behind it

um and then when you uh search for this particular form

the number drops down to just about just over 50 times

so it's actually in this particular form in the imperfect form um in the incompleted action form it's only 50 times that's only about you know just a little over one time on average per book of the old testament

but you know here in exodus 3 in just a couple verses we have it four times

so

a fairly uncommon

form of a word um is is concentrated in this passage in exodus 3. so i think it really is supposed to be linked i think when god reveals his name i think that

that we're supposed to take the message

and when we hear his name yahweh i think that that we should be remembering that

those words of comfort that god gave to moses that i will be with you

that is in the context of of god revealing himself i will be who i will be and you know who he will be is somebody who delivers his people he heard their cry he knew he understood the pain and the suffering they were going through and he was going to be with moses so that moses could deliver his people from the bondage that they were in

now so

maybe you know okay it's right there in the context but is there any more evidence that that you have uh brian for this idea well

that that night during the bible class i did a quick search

of this you know specific form eh yeah and i saw something remarkable if we look at

the torah and in the books of moses it's there eight times um so we just four of them are right there and in

in exodus three

but if we look at the other passages um god speaks to oh first of all only god

speaks and uses that word in all the first five books actually the first six and a half books of the bible it's only god speaking and in the majority of the passages and out of those 50 passages 30 plus of them are god speaking so the majority of the time we see this

word in in in modern hebrew you know you could be using it all the time but in the biblical writings they they kind of gave priority um to using it reserving it more often for god than for other for other um other speakers you know other people did use it job uses it david uses it um other speakers use this word so it's not you um

only used by god but but priority is definitely there and in the books of moses it's only god um and and notice what he says he says to isaac sojourn in this land and i will be with you and will bless you for to you and your offspring oh give all these lands and i will establish the oath that i swore to abraham your father

he says it to jacob

then the lord said to jacob return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred and i will be with you so the context of these two uh you know isaac's in going into exile in gerar um and

jacob is now going to kind of face uh his father-in-law and and bring his wives away from his father-in-law who's been trying to keep him there for as long as possible and he's going to go return to the promised land and so he's got a little bit of a um

you know a challenge up ahead of him ahead of him and god is giving him this these words of comfort i will be with you

and then we came to to moses god says this to moses in the passage we read but i will be with you

um and he says it to moses again in uh chapter well chapter four now go therefore go there for a go and i will be with your mouth and will teach you what you shall speak

um so specifically not just with moses but actually with moses mouth god promises to be so that

moses was worried about you know what's he going to be saying how you know he's going to stumble over his words when he's talking to pharaoh but now god's saying i will be with your mouth

and he says it again and uh three verses later you shall speak to him and put the words in his uh and put the words in his mouth and i will be with your mouth i'm sorry and this is in aaron's mouth and i will be with your mouth moses mouth and with his mouth aaron's mouth and we'll teach you both what to do

so god is saying you know you're unsure i get it moses we're going to bring aaron you can bring aaron along as well he can speak for you but i'm going to be with both of your mouths so you guys can can speak my words to pharaoh i'm going to be with you

so we continue on um at the end of

the the torah in deuteronomy we see uh god speaking to joshua who's about to pick up the baton and and lead god's people the lord commissioned joshua the son of noon and said be strong and courageous for you shall bring the people of israel into the land that i swore to give them i will be with you

and he says it to joshua a number of times again in the book of joshua

no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life just as i was with moses so i will be with you i will not leave you or forsake you

in a joshua 3 verse 7 the lord said to joshua today i will begin to exalt you in the sight of all israel that they may know that as i was with moses so i will be with you

this is a yeah again and again and again and it's the same theme

and judges

going on out of the uh

first six you know beginning judges the beginning

of judges also uses in this way and the lord said to him but i will be with you and you shall strike the midianites as one man so god's promising to be with with gideon as well

so that repeating theme just keeps coming again and again and again to all these israelite fathers and leaders god is promising to be with them as they face difficult trials

as joshua goes into exile as jacob flees his father-in-law to go back to the land as moses faces the powerful pharaoh as joshua and gideon go into battle god is promising to be with them

so elia is reserved

in in these beginning books of the bible to be only used by god and it's it's again all over and over and over again used to reassure his people that he's with them

and he introduces his name

so when you think about that it's surrounded on both sides this

you know

his revealing of his name to moses by these messages of god being with them

i think that

as moses you know reflected on the name as he was writing on that word as he was writing down the books of the bible i think i think that would have popped out that as he was inspired to write

that god's giving this message again and again and again and it's there for us to to see um as well

um so think about the lessons now it's there the lessons are there in the imagery as well the burning bush

there

think about the lesson the burning bush it was it was consumed it was in fire

but not consumed

god is telling moses that yeah you're going to go through a fiery trial right now

this is going to be a challenge but you're not gonna be consumed i'm with you

try you're gonna come through this trial unburned

does anybody know

where the last time before the burning bush

fire is mentioned in the bible

not the cherubim or between the two of them it's with abraham and isaac yeah

yes so

when abraham was called to take isaac his beloved son

to mount moriah

it mentions this little detail that that moses or that what the the wood was placed on isaac's back but the fire

was in the father's hand abraham was carrying the fire so you imagine like a little fire pan um that kept some embers going because you know diamond the diamond match company wasn't set up for business in in

the holy land at this time so you had to kind of make do and and keep fire going in other ways um so he had a little fire pan with some embers to be able to start a fire

that fire was in the hand of the father and if you think about the symbolism of abraham and isaac the father and the son walking together towards the sacrifice

and we know that of course it points forward to jesus the fire of jesus trial was in god's hands and and and similarly all of our trials are in the father's hands he's in control uh as we go through trials

and you could that that message is carried forward as well um so it's there in the burning bush it's there and and hinted at in the in the in the fire pan that that abraham's carrying but think forward to another fiery trial the fiery furnace the three friends of daniel

they went into that fire but god was with them and not a hair of them was singed there was no smell of smoke on them so

god is with us in the fiery trials of our life god is working for good

as paul says in romans for those who love god all things work together for good and for those who are called according to his purpose

you know you think of you know the less as as uh

brother rich when went through the story of joseph and his trials and his suffering in sunday school um a couple weeks ago you know i was thinking about how that resonated with this theme that you know

that in the suffering and the trials that that that joseph was going through um and you know the years of waiting um the hebrew is actually agonizing to me when i when i read that that time when he's in prison he he has this hope he like has these two people that know him they're going to pharaoh uh well one of them's not going to be around very long to be much help for him but but the other you know he's saying remember me remember me and then the next thing in this in the storyline says

for two years of days

he waited i mean here he remember the exact phrasing but but for waiting but basically he he waited um

and there was a long time before that dream came to pharaoh so moses or so so joseph was still in prison for two years of days day after day after day waiting um hoping maybe losing hope um not sure is is you know god i thought this was this was the way that you're going to kind of get me out of here and yet it didn't seem he seems like he's forgotten me um god was working in all of those trials um and in the end in hindsight joseph said to his brothers you know you meant it for evil but god meant it for good uh to save life so god is working in our trials and and here in the exodus

god knew the suffering of his people he heard their cries he is sending a deliverer

to bring them back

so

in in closing i want to bring out um

one other place where this lesson continues in a slightly different way um

we've kind of gone over the eh yeah i will be uh part of of um god's

message that keeps coming back again and again and again um and by the way you know it's also another maybe another interesting study that we could do sometime that the majority of the ending times that uh yeah is used in the hebrew bible it's in the prophets and almost exclusively through the prophets it's used of god i think there's one time maybe that it's not um

and again and again there the message is i will be your god um and it's just repeated again and again and again so it is kind of again reserved for a powerful message um but here in the beginning

it's i will be with you now that's five words in english i will be with you but in hebrew very concise language you can do that with two words

now the second word um

is the with you part um

is the beginning of the word that means with and then you can tack on different endings uh depending on who you're with um so i will be with you

so is um

with you

you can put other things on the end of that you can put me with me you can put imo with him you could put ima with her

so there's different just by by putting a different letter on the end you can you can kind of change who is uh with in the in the message there

there's one that i think you've heard of before

imanu

so imanu el

so imanu

so is god or sorry imanu is is with us with us so we put that anu ending on and we get with us and that's the message that god is revealing through his son as well so imanu l

like elohim means god so god is with us that's the lesson of his son and that's why jesus was was given that name emmanuel

the biggest lesson of all about god being with us was what he taught us through his son

jesus saves us um through through is with us and walking with us and supporting us through our trials think of think of jesus

looking down

on stephen

as he's being stoned

he was at the right hand of god and he normally is sitting at the right hand of god he stood

to watch

watch steven as

as he

held firm to his faith and was enduring great suffering and pain um as the crowd stoned him he's with us in our trials jesus is there

and he is

representative representing god and god is with us as well so they're they have the same purpose and and uh and mission really in working with god's people

so

jesus is with us and jesus like moses

was god's instrument to deliver us from bondage moses delivered god's people from the bondage of egypt and jesus delivers god's people from the bondage of sin and death and what greater

way could there be for god to show us that he is with us than to send his only beloved son

and and to use him as an instrument to demonstrate his love for us that he would undergo the suffering that he did to try to draw us in and to

bring about the covering for our sins and the and are reconnecting us to to god whom we were estranged from

um god is showing us in jesus that he is with us

so

eh yeah imanu um

god will be with us um just like god was with moses god was with the patriarchs god was with joshua um god is with us and i think that's the a really powerful lesson that i was really encouraged to find and

Transcript

I want to do a little bit of a recap because uh I gave this class I think back in the a class back in August uh and Rich recognizes the value of a leap after one week so I think after you know a few months taking a little bit of a a recap would be um helpful

so be but then we'll we'll expand uh from from Beyond uh what we did that that time so just a couple things we'll be focusing in on on on the name of God which he initially or initially calls

Asher and um which is translated I am that I am or I will be what I will

be um but keep in mind that you know this is uh this is really God's name so we we think of God sometimes as a name but remember that's more of a title or a job description that God has that comes from the Hebrew word Elohim and and it's the which is the you know the title for a for a Divine being but his name is is Yahweh which was a name and is a name worthy of honor and

respect and that name uh was was revealed in a special way to Moses at at the burning bush and God explained and introduced his name uh to Moses because or in a way that I mean we see that Divine name showing up early in in Genesis uh two and and in the words of

of people like you know Abraham and Isaac and Jacob but yeah but here in in Exodus 3 we have this explanation that God gives that is really really powerful uh and

it's it we could read it as I will be who I will be um or I am who I am and it's in in some ways it's kind of an enigma it's like God is almost saying like I'm

undefinable I can't really be described simply

um so I'm going to give you this

uh almost um confusing enigmatic name that that only hints at at at the reality of of his being and his greatness uh and his and his ability to bring things uh into being this is the god who created the

universe

um

now

the

thing to understand as well is that to to to recap that that that there's a connection between God's telling Moses uh aser I will be who I will be and the name that he gives a little bit later in in verse 15 when he said say to the people of Israel the Lord in our English versions the god of your fathers the god of Abraham Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you that word

Lord is the more common Divine name that we that we read all throughout the Bible over and over again and we when you see it in all caps like that remember that's the the reminder that that's really not even a translation uh for the for the name Yahweh it's it's really just a substitution because the uh it's partly to to out of reverence and respect for God's name many thought that they it should not be said the Jews Jews vow pointed uh this name with vow pointings for Adonai which means Lord and so most English translators kind of followed suit and and translate it or or represent the name uh as the Lord but the Lord uh but Yahweh which uh at least an attempt to to to to pronounce the name and the true the true pronunciation I would submit is is probably pretty hard to to be confident about there's there's many opinions and on on that

but the I think more important than pronunciation is is the fact that the meaning of that name actually is is connected to uh the I will be concept because this is simply the third person description of God's name because it wouldn't make sense for Moses to say

uh I will be is sent me uh or to regularly talk about God that way because it would sound almost like Moses is calling himself God instead the third person he will be is really what Yahweh is

communicating um so that was the reason why it kind of switches from tell them a has sent me to you and then later he says say this to the people of Israel the Lord or Yahweh the god of your fathers has sent me to you so it's the it's just a kind of a conversion of the name uh to be in the third person to to communicate that idea uh

better

so um we talked about yeah so here is's a little chart to kind of visualize that like a is I am and I will be while ye is the Hebrew word for he is and he will be

but just a slight change in that a an older synonym for for hayya uh which would be conjugated y to be he will be is um hey VAV and that's where um yud he VAV Yahweh comes from so it's synonymous with uh he will be

and we mentioned that there's that this uh well so related to that the the the phrase eh um as I will be uh and well yeah so here I'll spell it out and show you y is he will be and then uh Yahweh is really uh another alternate way of saying he will be

so that's those are Basics uh about some some things that we can gather from God's name knowing a little bit of Hebrew uh and reading uh others explanations of the name but the interesting thing that that hit me about nine months ago or or so was reading this passage uh during a Wednesday night bible class following along in Hebrew that in verse

12 there

was a revelation when that that kind of Pops off the page when you read it in Hebrew uh when God said to Moses in respon well in verse 11 Mo Moses says to God who am I that I should go to pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt and he said but I will be with you and this shall be the sign for you that I have sent you you when you brought the people out of Egypt You Shall Serve God on this

mountain

so that statement I will be with you uses that same word ehed just two verses earlier that where God Reveals His name

so I think we we're taught uh as young people and reminded again and again that context is really really important to understand scripture and I think there's importance here in the context to try to understand God's name because God is saying to Moses just two verses

earlier but he says IM I will be with

you and if to me that

that made me think about well this is is this really part of what God's message is when he gave Moses's name and said

aser was he hinting back to what he had said just just uh moments earlier that I will be with you when you go to Pharaoh um I started thinking about it I think well maybe I'm just making a lot out of a out of out of a very common word maybe it can't be that significant um but part of what we we don't realize at first probably is that the the the phrase I am uh in Hebrew is often a different way it comes across comes comes to our English in from a different way than than the word a because pretty much any verb that's put in a in an imperfect tense will kind of get the helping verb will be or or am along with the verb and it's really built into the verb verb so we don't use the typical the Hebrew word uh to be which is in your upper left corner there

Haya um so there's that but nevertheless hayya is still a very common word if you look up in Strong's um you know concordance you'll see that it's you know used over 30 3500 times um in its different

forms but when you do a search for the particular conjugation which you can't do with the strongest concordance but with with a computer search in the Hebrew you see that actually the I will be form is much much more Uncommon only 55 times in the entire Bible only about once per book in the Hebrew Bible um and here in Exodus 3 we have it four times in just a couple vers three verses or three four verses so that to me said well I think think they really are supposed to be linked

and looking further digging into it a little bit further and looking at some of those other 55 references actually most of those 55 references are used by God so it's almost as if in in the in the Hebrew text of the Bible that that that word is kind of treated with reverence and majority of the time is used by God now I that's maybe overstating it a little bit because it's you know other people use it like David and and and others but the fact that well all of the Torah in the first five books of Moses and all of Joshua the only time you see a is referring to God so there seems to be almost uh in Moses writings and and and a little bit beyond a res reserving of that word for for our heavenly father

but even more remarkable is the way that that word is used in the in the Torah and in Isa uh in um Joshua and and even into judges every time other than the introduction of the name aser and to say a has sent you every other time it mirrors what was said in Exodus 3 12 I will be with you so God's always saying it using the word and again and again and again he's giving the message I will be with you for example to Isaac he said sood in the land and I will be with you and I will bless you uh to you and your Offspring I will give these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father he says it to Jacob then the Lord said to Jacob return to the land of the fathers and to your

Kindred and and I will be with you he says it again um he said it to we said in to Moses two verses before he declares the name I will be with you when Moses had his reservations um

and a chapter

later God says it to Moses again but he says a slightly different way instead of just I will be with you it's I will be with your mouth when Moses said I'm slow speech and heavy of tongue um you know please son somebody else and God said I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak so God promised him he would be with him and he again said it you shall speak to him and put the words uh in his mouth into Aaron's mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach both of you what to do so God is promising again and again and again I will be with you and here he's saying the same message you know in terms of I will be with you and guiding and helping you and what what you're gonna

say uh he says it to Joshua um that I will be with you well Moses uh let's see no sorry the Lord commissioned Joshua the son of no and said be strong and courageous for you shall bring the people of Israel into the land that I swore to give to them I will be with you so he said it to Moses or to Joshua he said it to Gideon uh the and and it's in the prophets as well again and again and again we hear this promise I will be with

you

so there's Joshua um God said repeats it again in Joshua chapter 1 and and he says it in Joshua 3 is in Joshua 6 so again and again and again we have God

giving the message I will be with you and he uses this word and it's the same word he used as his name and and Yahweh is a form of this word so in our community you know there's a lot of uh talk about the memorial name and and the meaning that uh it's putting together uh that with uh Elohim and saying it it means

uh I will be Mighty ones and it's about God manifestation and and so on which goes back to to Dr Thomas

but I when I saw this I started to think you know I really think that you know there there could be an application there I I really should study that a little bit more to draw a firm conclusion one way the other

but but I have a

well yeah um

p and yeah

so

anyway when coming across all of these these verses it to me said you know this I think is the primary meaning of God's name based on the context and based on the fact that again and again and again the message is being repeated I will be with you and and think about where this was happening God was speaking to Moses at the burning bush which was not

consumed and and that's actually there's a whole another study that I've

begun that links there's there's a bunch of linkages between this passage in Exodus 3 which where Moses came with the flock to the Mountain of God well the last time fire was mentioned was when uh Abraham was journeying to the mountain of Yahweh mountain of of God's name and that's in in Genesis uh 22 and fire is mentioned that's the last time fire is mentioned until here in Exodus 3 so if you're reading through the Torah and here you come across fire the the last time you would have encountered that word fire is in the the Journey of Abraham and Isaac for Isaac to be sacrificed and and the message there was that the fire was in Abraham's hand it was in the father's hand and if you think about the the symbolism and the type of of Abraham and Isaac walking together towards Isaac's sacrifice it mirrors and foreshadows God being with Jesus as Jesus ascends to uh Calvary for his for his

sacrifice and I Think Jesus would have seen the message there the reminder there that God is with with me in this most difficult of Trials and I can have trust just like Abraham was there walking beside that the message again and again is is mentioned in Genesis 22 the two of them went up

together God would have Jesus I think God saw to it that Jesus had that Comfort seeing that he God was going to be with Jesus and Jesus wasn't walking alone all forsook him and fled yes but God was there by his side uh and and the fire was in the father's hand so the trial God was in control it's like what Paul says uh that God is working for good uh for all for for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose God was working good even though incredible suffering was going to happen the fire was there the but it would not consume Jesus uh and and the lesson you carries through forward to as well to you know haniah Azariah and mishel the three friends of Daniel who go into the fiery furnace and what's there again is the reminder God was with him there was a fourth one in the fire one who looked like a son of the Gods uh but in in coming from the mouth uh of one of the Babylonians but but that but that phrase could be translated just is easily one like the Son of God so they were fellowshipping the Son of God in their sufferings in the firey furnace and they were not harmed eternally the trials we go through we are not harmed all things work for good because God is with

us so I mentioned that I had some apprehension um about you know when I first saw it I this because I know I'm treading on Holy Ground uh the meaning of God's name you know thinking and considering it and i' never heard anybody teach that that connection or that possible meaning before so I I wondered was I just reading into things well I mentioned that you know the whole of Torah uses

a as saying God is with uh God is with you again and again and again and and Beyond so I felt a little more safe after after seeing that

uh but since then since I since I gave the class on the subject uh I stumbled

upon uh a video by one of my favorite podcasters a rabbi by the name of David Foreman uh he's the one who I mentioned before who gave the ideas that I shared uh one or two classes ago about the three signs that Moses gave to Pharaoh also from this Burning Bush

narrative and and when I and and if you think about it that that that image of God giving Moses those signs from from that last class remember that God was choosing not just magic tricks but particular signs that were to show the children of Israel that God was with them he saw the suffering that they were going through he knows the suffering and he was willing to call out the lies that were being told uh about them and show the truth as he in in the the images of those

signs so anyway as I saying I stumbled across

uh Rabbi foran talking about God's name and the being revealed at the burning bush and it was in the context of reflection reflecting on the October 7th attacks in Israel so Foreman is from uh New York but he was in Israel at the time of the of the attacks and it was clear that the trauma of that event has has made an impact on him and many of the P or maybe all the podcasts and videos since then have been really a response and reflection about what was happening or I should say many probably not all

so what I wanted to do is take a minute and share um that

a a a a clip a portion I guess there's two videos but I'll just show you the first one if we take like 15 minutes to do that um I have to do a little bit of screen share swapping here tested this out and it seemed to work so we'll see if I

can continue making it work yet one more

time um so boom and you'll have to let me know if give me a shout if the sound doesn't work but I think

should be able to make it work screen

share boom

share and

then these maskers that's not really the point that I want you to focus on oops all right so just after that quick

start there uh can can anybody confirm for me that you guys can see and hear yeah we can we can we can see it if you could Turnin it up maybe a little bit but we can hear it as well all

right hey folks I'm back with emu um we wanted you to take a look at another video here too to kind of get some context or some sort of spiritual hand grip of how to deal with Times Like These that were in in the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist Massacre of October 7th of simpas uh this past year um and this is a para video that we put together in parot um which talks about um the Declaration that God makes of the burning bush in the story of the burning bush um one of the things that happens is that mosha asks God's name and God gives us very puzzling reply the reply is oops forgive

me is a which isn't easy to translate often it's translated as I am that which I am sometimes I will be that which I will be on the face of it God's just saying look I'm undefinable um I'm only definable in terms of myself the definition of a definition is that if I try to define something you can't use the word you're trying to Define uh in your explanation of the word so when God says I am that which I am he's basically saying there's nothing in your experience that you can reach to when trying to figure out who I am I'm utterly unique and that's the simple way of understanding I am that I am but what you'll see this video is a

um a beautiful piece uh from Rashi quoting the the sages on a midrashic understanding of I am that which I am almost as if the Sages took that idea in shot which is that God is utterly unique and uh so let me do a little translation uh when he mentions takes that verse in pasat um typically when Jews interpret scripture they they do it on two levels they'll do a pasat which means like the simple level the simple interpretation but then something called a d or midash trying to inquire deeper into the text to try try to see what kind of uh deeper meanings might be there so

um and the

um also mentioned U so so he's mentioning Rashi so the fact that this is something that goes back quite a ways uh and and and Rashi is quoting earlier uh Scholars and so this is something that not something that I'm vered as govern by any means and others have meditated on it have come up with uh even more powerful messages and that's partly why I wanted to share this with you uh because it's an even deeper meaning can be can be conveyed when you when you think of both that simple meaning of the Enigma of God's name I will be who I will be you know what is that it's undefinable in a sense who God is uh a name can't even capture just how immense and Powerful all powerful God is is but also uh we'll see that if you combine that with the with the I will be with you message it's like even more powerful so I'll mention one other thing that so Rashi will and maybe the earlier sages to do a little bit of imagining a conversation between Moses and God uh and maybe I don't know I'm a little bit uncomfortable with like kind of putting too much weight into into into that but the message is clearly there I think even even without that aspect of it but but give it a

listen gave their own spin on the nature of that uniqueness how it is that God is different from humans this video talks about the question sort of philosophical question of whether God has emotions he doesn't have emotions how God relates to other other people other creatur es in this earth in terms of the question of emotions it's an interesting philosophical question that for the purposes of now of sort of spiritually grappling with what's going on in the aftermath of this of these kidnappings and these these massacres that's not really the point that I want you to focus on but watch this video um and in particular this point

about how Rashi understands that how kazal understand it how it plays off of the uniqueness of God and um God being undefinable in Human terms that I think has something to speak to us about this time and uh emu you know let's come back and and let people take a look at this and talk about at least what it means to us and we can hear the comments that would if I may I'll add one more thing before we go which is like to me what's what's surprising about why are we watching a burning bush video um what would that have anything to do with um the current conflict that and the current tragedy that we're facing I think it's just important to recognize that burning bush is the grand Intervention when our people were suffering in Egypt there there was a brand National crisis that was um you know an oppressor doing violence to our people um and there was a moment where God himself chooses to see and hear the the terrible anguish and suffering um and that moment where things uh are about to change for the people of Israel is that Burnie Bush moment that's that's all I really want to say and saying before I I let you go and experience this video is is to remember that there was another time uh of uh God talking to us uh after uh in responding to Great Cal

catastrophe so just a quick comment on that like so I talked about how the context help helps us understand uh you know God's name but uh emu is mentioning the context the actual situational context of of when God is talking to Moses here as well this situation is God is is seen the suffering and was about to intervene so that's very very important when we think about the message as well yep I I'll take that too so let's let folks watch this and and we'll come back and and kind of process it see the end of the video I want to consider a philosophical puzzle with you does God have emotions one of the things that great thinkers like my Mones have always said about God is that God is Not comprehensible we can say nothing about the essence of God we can describe how God acts with us he says but we can't talk about who he is in his Essence because his Essence is utterly Beyond us which means also that any traits that we talk about any human traits you can't really expect those to app to God human traits human feelings are human feelings they're not God feelings so we might well conclude you know God doesn't have emotions but here's the problem are you comfortable worshiping a being that cannot experience love love is an emotion compassion is an emotion are we really comfortable with just saying that God acts compassionately acts as if he loves us that the feeling of love and compassion is utterly alien to God what if you felt that your mother acted lovingly towards you but didn't feel any love in her heart it wouldn't feel so good is that the way you're supposed to feel about God so this is the puzzle that I want to talk with you about today and I want to talk with you about it through the lens of a fascinating mic statement in this week's par mosha asks God what his name

is he says I will be that which I will be and then God adds something

else tell them that I will be sent you to them before we even get to the midic analysis of these words let's spend a few moments just talking about the the simple meaning of what's going on here what would you say the simplest most basic understanding of this conversation between God and Moses is what did God mean when he said or I will be that which I will be you know the simple understanding pretty much is God says look leave me alone I'm not going to tell you my name I am what I am I'm going to be what I'm going to be I'm the one who just is and to explain that just think a little bit about what it is that we mean when we ask for the name of something we're trying to come to grips with it to Define it somehow and if someone defines themselves in terms of themselves they're actually sort of breaking the very first rule of definitions which is you never Define something in terms of itself you can't say what's the color purple oh The Color Purple is sort of purplish proper way to define something like The Color Purple is well you take a little bit of red you take a little bit of blue mix it together and you get a purple if you actually choose to define something in terms of itself what you're really saying is that you can't just throw together two or three other Concepts and make this New Concept the thing itself is utterly unique which is what God's saying about himself there is nothing in your world that can explain me I'm not from your work the maker of the world you want to know who I am I'll be what I'll be the only thing you really know about me is that I exist tell them I will be sent you you can almost hear the exclamation mark at the end of I will be I shall be my existence as inscrutable as it may be is the basis of it all everything comes from my being so something like that is what probably the plain meaning of the text is but the rabbis had a midrashic interpretation they pick up on the fact that God first

says I will be that which I will be and then after that says tell them I will be they focus on that discrepancy and they suggest there was a kind of dialogue going on here between God and mosha first God said in answer to moshe's question I will be that which I will be but then the rabbi suggests Moshe objected to that and in response to that objection God relented and just said okay tell them I will be sent you to them what was this debate between God and mosha about well the rabis impute a whole new understanding to what I will be that which I will be means and

my name you want to know my name the one who is with them right now during their times of trouble that's the one who will always be with them in all their times of trouble for thousands and thousands of years

that's I will be that which I will be now to that MOA objected

he said Master of the

Universe what do you want me to tell them about future troubles D they have enough on their minds right now with this trouble that they're in in Egypt to that God said y you're saying good M you're absolutely right just tell them tell them the one who will be with them right now that's my name can leave out the rest now what the rabit are saying is a little bit puzzl there's this dialogue between God and mosha God says something and then supposedly Moses objects where do the rabbis get this idea from at all how do they know to interpret the words I will be that which I will be in such a particular kind of way the one who will be with them now in their time of trouble will always be with them a very interesting interpretation but just seems to come out of the air where are they getting this it turns out that there was a clue that suggested this particular interpretation the clue is the word I am or I will be this is not the first time it's used by God with in this conversation of the bur all the sages were doing was asking us to look at how God used it earlier in order to understand how God is using it now so it turns out that earlier in the conversation by MIM mosha had said to God me who am I that I should go to Pharaoh I totally cannot do this what was God

respond because I will be with you god understood that mosha felt in battled how is he going to go stand before pharaoh and get the Jews out of Egypt he can't do that alone God says you won't be alone he I'm GNA be with you the whole time so all the SS are saying is that the next time God is using these words he means the same thing mosha you felt yourself to be in a time of trouble listen to how I reassured you I told you it's going to be okay I will be with you you're never alone in your times of trouble I'm with you now you want to know what to tell the embattled people of Israel tell them the same thing I wasn't just there for one individual you motion I'll be there for them I'm with them in their times of trouble now and

always and now think about how this interpretation relates back to the simple meaning of the text I've often talked about the relationship between medish and the simple text is kind of like the relationship between Harmony and Melody the simple meaning of the text is like Melody the medish is kind of like Harmony you listen to Harmony on its own it doesn't seem to make that much

sense but you listen to it in connection to the melody it's playing off the melody and all sorts of intriguing

ways here what was the melody what was the simple meaning of the text God was saying to Moshe I'm the master of the universe and you're a human being you want to know who I am you can't know who I am I'm utterly inscrutable but what's the harmony the harmony is a mirror image of this what I can give you is the most familiar thing in the world need the most human thing in the world need I can give you empathy I can be there with you in your times of trouble the unknowable being can give you the most human most familiar thing of all can give you love but you know what the Ser just say there's another strain in the Harmon that's actually something about God's love that is so deep that it's actually unknown the plain meaning of yeah sure I am unknowable the trash is I am unknowable too there's something about my love that's unn think about the

conversation between God and God spoke of a love so vast that the people couldn't comprehend it I will always be with them now and forever in every one of these

troubles mosha represents the human you betray all human beings they can't absorb all of that in their mind God says I know what I just told you was the absolute truth you tell them what they can hear and I will be with them right

now you know when we talk about this question does God have emotion what answer are the same is really given let me give you a bit of an analogy I want to share with you an interesting pattern that seems to hold when we talk about love between parent and child take an amoeba an amiba divides now there's two amibas what's the emotional connection between amoeba a and amoeba B not very much right an ant has a child what's the emotional connection between mother ant and child ant I imagine maybe it's a little bit more an amoeba a to Amoeba b a bird makes a nest brings home food for it chicks so You' say mother bird to Little Bird probably a little bit more connected than mother end to Little Ant let's continue let's talk about humpback whales I once brought home a documentary for my children nice g- of documentary my kids are watching and there's this scene there are two killer whales stalking a mother humpback whale in her baby calf the mother is willing to give up her life for her calf it's putting herself between the camp and the killer whales the hunt goes on for hours to find finally the killer whales break through the calf is killed the mother proceeds ahead slowly warly my kids were like I gas get us out of here this is worst of the worst horror movie the sadness of the mother was palpable and now imagine a human mother for baby for child to anything for a baby another level on to complexity and richness of love so there's a pattern here right the more complex the being the more complex Rich the feeling of love and now take it one step further a higher life form even than us that would be God does God have no emotion we just no emotion we can understand of course God has emotion utterly inscrutable emotion God possesses a richness and complexity of love which is completely Beyond us the same way that you can't expect an ant to understand the love of a bird you can't expect a human to understand the love of God you can use the words love but it doesn't do justice to the richness the tension of an experience that's completely out of relue God's love is the

inscrutable I will be that which I will be human beings can only hear a piece of that love so God says tell them I will

be

so I you know the last thing you mentioned is this notion that here's this great oppressor there's pharoh and there's God and one way that so I found that to be so powerful um to think about that on that on those two

levels

and uh

when uh you do that you recognize just how great

God's compassion his love his empathy for us is

um that it it really was kind of mind-blowing I mean I've been thinking about this passage for for quite some time and and and then I came across that presentation and and and it really made me think

of uh the that that really was helping me understand that a deeper level the words of Paul when he said blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ the the father of mercies or compassions uh I think is a better translation and and God of All Comfort who comforts us in our Affliction so that we may we may be able to comfort those who are in any Affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God for as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings so through Christ we share abundantly in Comfort too if we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation if we are and if we are comforted it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer Our Hope for you is unshaken and for we know that as you share in our sufferings you will also share in our

comfort and uh you know the you know taking this understanding it allows us to rely on God uh the there and it's funny that you know in this time period as well as I've been reflecting on this

um on this passage and in this message uh my son Jacob gave me this this wristband that I've been wearing for I don't know four or five months now and one of the things on it that it says I will never forsake you um God and and that's uh a reference to this passage uh in Hebrews 13:5 keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have for he said I will never leave you nor forsake you so we can confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me so here the you know the the writer to the Hebrews is is is taking he's quoting an Old Testament passage that we can look at in a minute but he's applying it to a new context a context of being able to trust God whatever we're going through we don't have to put confidence we can't there's no there's no point to putting confidence in money money will riches will will fail us even if you know we we get great Mass great amounts of wealth it's not going to bring satisfaction or Comfort um

even yeah and and and and often it will just let you down so instead we can be content with what we have knowing that God is in control and will take care of us uh taking the lessons of Jesus from The Sermon on the Mount and trusting in our heavenly

father knowing that he will not leave us or forsake us and and he's quoting

here the words of of Moses to Joshua when he said the Lord will give them over um the Lord will give them over to you the people of the land and you shall do to them according to the whole Commandment that I have commanded you be strong and courageous do not be do not fear or be in dread of them for the Lord your

God it's it is the Lord your God who goes with

you Yahweh your God who goes with you notice Moses I think Moses is thinking back to that time when God revealed his name to him because you have those two elements there together again he will not leave you nor forsake AK you so it's in that in that context and it continues then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel be strong and courageous for you shall go with his people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them and you shall put them in possession of it it is the Lord it is Yahweh who goes before you he will be with you he will not leave you nor for or forsake you so do not fear or be dismayed

he will be with you that here Moses is

saying he will be with you he's using that same like third person phrase that gets it's modified ever so slightly to to become uh God's name and he's he's he's making that statement he will be with you so and I see places like this pop up um over and over again um and what's that that image of the Lord going before you brings back that beautiful image of in Exodus 13 as the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way and at night a pillar of fire to give them light that they might travel by day and by night so that that uh image of God's presence God being with his people it it it's so powerful

and uh you know that the first e that comes after the Torah uh was God now so Moses made those that statement to God well God reiterates it in Joshua 1 after Moses died um God said Moses in verse two Moses my servant is dead now therefore arise go over this Jordan you and all this people into the land that I am giving them to the people of Israel and he lists the places in verse skipping to verse 5 no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life just as I was with Moses

so imach I will be with you I will not leave you nor forsake you be strong and courageous uh for you shall cause this people to inherit the land I swore to the fathers to give them um and jumping down to verse N9 have I not have I not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for Yahweh your God is with you wherever you go it's it's just reiterated again and again um and so that's what allows us to you know to have that confidence that God's not going to leave us uh that promise is carried forth into the into the New Testament and applied to the body of Christ and and that phrase you know what can man do to me

that that that confidence the confidence of knowing God is with you is the confidence that that David had in that passage that where he

said to to Saul let no man's heart fail because of him because of Goliath your servant will go and fight with this Philistine and Saul said to David you're not able to to go against this Philistine and fight with him for you're but a youth and he's been a man of war from his youth but David said to Saul your servant used to keep sheep for his father and when there came a lion or a bear and took a lamb from the flock I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth and if he rose against me I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him your servant has struck down both lions and bears and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them for now up to that point you might think oh is David just being confident here in himself no because he said for he Goliath has defied the armies of the Living God and David said the Lord who delivered me Yahweh think of the meaning of that name the one who is with us he delivered me from the Paw of The Lion and the Paw of the bear he will deliver me from the hand of this

Philistine and Saul said to David go and Yahweh be with you so it's it's there again and again and again again um in uh in these passages and it's just I think it's it's exciting

um there's a you know another another uh kind of powerful thing I'll just uh take real quick to say that those three forms of of of um the word that have to do with God was and God's being and and God will be uh those three words in Hebrew notice that if you overlay them on top of one another you get you get God's name Yahweh and and I think that's what's the the point of um in Revelation four the four living creatures with the six wings full of eyes all around and within and day and night they never cease to say holy holy holy is the Lord is Yahweh God Almighty who who was and is and is to come you know God's presence with his people has promised to be there is something in the past we can look back on and have confidence in and it's something that we have currently in our present need and it's something we can rely on for the future God is with us and like father like son the second thing on my bracelet that Jacob gave gave me um comes from Matthew 28 when when Jesus brought the disciples to to the mountain and um skipping to verse 19 go therefore and Make Disciples of all Nations baptizing them name in the F in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold I Am With You Always to the end of the

age Jesus is with us too

um and we made the point before that that is actually the meaning um well and the meaning the power and the meaning of of jesus' name as well is again emphasizing this message that

Immanuel that IM IM with you becomes with us in the name Emmanuel IM Anu is we or us L God God Is With Us Jesus

life and his salvation that he wrought for his people through God sending him that is is a is a a gift from God that teaches us that God is with us even to the point of rescuing us like Moses rescued the people from Egypt God God rescues us from sin and death through Jesus God is with us so thank you uh for what at times I'm sure maybe a little bit of technical

uh presentation when I get into some of the Hebrew things there and and definitely I know Rabbi Foreman's reading in Hebrew didn't help too many of us but um the message hopefully came through that that God is with us in our sufferings in our trials he is with his people and his compassion and his empathy for us is is just unknowable

Transcript

so good evening everybody um I'm excited to to share with you guys uh more things that I found that really came sprung from like trying to dig in a lot to the the passage in Exodus 3 with Moses at the burning bush and some of the things that that uh came to me from that passage well you know I've been sharing in other classes uh a lot of the ideas that have just kind of been like really exciting to me have been have come by way of Rabbi David Foreman who I mentioned um early before and that's that's the case tonight as well so um I will not take credit for these insights for the most part um I've made some further connections but but the the uh the bulk of it is coming from from uh a study he did on shared with connecting

the Moses at the burning bush with the ten commandments so let's take a look let's let's dig in

um

and I

L so I got to move my mouse maybe to here no Works no there we go okay so if we look at so you want to keep your your finger in Exodus 20 and if you're following along your Bibles in Exodus 3 we'll be flipping back and forth between Exodus 3:4 3 and 4 and Exodus 20 because that's really what the class is uh built on here is a comparison and a connection between those

two so we read in Exodus 31 that 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 so the beginning of the the the burning bush episode has Moses bringing this this flock uh to the flock of his father-in-law to what's called God's Mountain really the Mountain of God

now uh how does that do that connect in any way to to to something later in in in Moses life well if we look at Exodus 19 verses 1 and two we read that on the third New Moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt on that day they came to the Wilderness of Si they sent set out from refidim and came to the Wilderness of Si and they encamped in the wilderness there Israel encamped before the mountain so thinking about those two passages uh separated in in time here we there's there's a lot of parallels and and uh Reflections that go back and forth between the two first uh youve got Moses the shepherd bringing the flock of his father-in-law in Exodus 3 and if you jump forward to Exodus 19 again just just building up to the The Ten Commandments we have Moses the shepherd bringing uh some sheep the sheep of the people of Israel to his F the Sheep of his father in Heaven to the to the same Mountain Mount horb is another name for Mount Si so there it's it's like one passage is is pointing forward to to the other so the the mountain of of well this the shepherd this that kept the flock uh is the same Shepherd that brings the flock of God's people to the same

Mountain so when when they're parallel events in Scripture that that seem to mirror each other I think God has inspired the record to have these connections to make us think about and reflect about them and and gain better insight and depth of understanding on one passage or the other or both sometimes and so let's let's take let's take a look at that thinking about how the the burning bush

really Echoes and or or foreshadows hyperlinks forward to

the the giving of the ten

commandments

so uh before drawing to any conclusions though let's let's look is there any more evidence for connecting these two events is there any other hints that is it you know just happen to be you know

two uh cases of of of a flock am I stretching it a little bit by saying Moses is bringing a flock here in this in the second situation or or is there really some some further basis for this well let's consider one of the key things in in the burning bush episode is is the bush itself the Hebrew word for Bush is snay and the if you look at the letters there U on the top s there's there's three Hebrew letters of three uh consonants the last one though the hey at the end is on the left side is is sometimes thought of as a as a weak letter that drops out sometimes in different versions uh of of a word

and you see that the same the those so the other two consonants are stronger and they they hold and they hold in the name Sinai or as we say in English Sinai and and so really there's a there's a linguistic connection between the book Bush uh and the mountain itself in fact some think that the name horb kind of became Sinai because of uh because of the Bush that was there and and then the name was kind of being reflective of that the location of the Bush so let's look at another another uh piece of evidence um in verse two of chapter 3 we see that the angel of the Lord appeared to him Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the Bush of a bush he looked and behold the Bush was burning yet it was not

consumed well if we look forward to the second event we read now Mount Si was wrapped in Smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire the smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln and the whole Mountain trembled

greatly so first it was a bush that was burning but yet not consumed and now now we have the whole Mountain enveloped in in Smoke and fire and it's burning but it's not

consumed so um well so let's and there's another the links continue so if we look at chapter chapter 3 verse4 the second part of the verse it says God Called to him to Moses out of the Bush Moses

Moses um the God was calling to Moses out of the burning Bush and that parallels in Exodus 19:19 that as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder Moses spoke and God answered him in Thunder so God first was speaking to Moses out of a burning bush and now God is speaking to Moses out of the the smoke of a burning

Mountain so again I think pretty pretty strong evidence so uh uh to make it even more

clear um if we look at the the account in Deuteronomy where Moses is recounting the event to the people in Deuteronomy 5:4 it says the Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain out of the midst of the fire so Moses makes the link even stronger when he's looking back on those

events so another piece of evidence the first time in in Exodus 3 we read in verse 5 that he saido not come near take off your sandals off of your feet for the place on which you are standing is Holy Ground so Moses was warned not to come near the bush until the sandal removed in the second uh count we're reading in verses uh 12- 13 of chapter 19 and you shall set limits for the people all around saying take care not to go up to the into the mountain or touch the edge of it whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death no hand shall touch him but he shall be stoned or shot whether Beast or man he shall not live when the trumpet sounds a long blast they shall come up to the mountain um just a side note an interesting study that

uh that about that particular verse that that that translation up to the mountain

I think is better translated by a number of uh versions than the new RSV the N RSV the ne the JBS and the reb all JPS all uh translated as up onto the mountain God was actually calling his people to ascend the mountain and to uh come to intimacy with God on that mountain to have intimate contact really it's coming back to what was lost in the Garden of Eden but they actually were well they they were too afraid when when the sound came up to actually go up and only Moses did but you know that more could be said on that but just I'll wet your appetite on that one um with that so looking at all those parallels I think we can see the connection is pretty clear the place is the same the parallels and the events uh are there pretty convincingly I think that God saw to it and that that the words of scripture were recorded to show those parallels between these two events to draw us to consider what God wants us to see so what is he

communicating well I think that we'll we'll find out if we actually consider his communication with Moses in these two events I think we'll see the answer and and I think the answer is all about our response to God's

Deliverance The Burning Bush was Moses prep preparation and call before the Deliverance of The Exodus Sinai is after that Deliverance when God is calling his people into Covenant relationship to him and and in between there's the miraculous Deliverance of God's people through the plagues and the the Passover and and The

Exodus and so it's it's really a a reflection from before the miraculous deliverance and now looking back on it and and and giving the people a chance to respond to draw near to God and to to show uh or to build that relationship that Covenant relationship to him so so we're going to look at those at the communication the communication that God gave to Moses at the burning bush uh he had with Moses said the burning bush and we'll see what God communicated in the Ten

Commandments well first before we get into it let's make I'll make a quick note about structure the Hebrew Bible is is is filled with so many structural elements that that that help see you know interesting patterns and insights um what and a note on on that'll help us see the structure is that what we have recorded for us that Moses received in Exodus 20 what we call the 10 commandments are not really called that in the Bible instead if we look at Exodus 20 verse1 um we we instead see the introduction and God spoke all these

words and

when it does in our English Bible say the 10 uh Commandments um it's actually using the word darim the same word that's used as the introduction here in verse one to describe them uh so they're really the 10 words if you wanted to be literal or the 10 thoughts or sayings or the 10 things that's the idea uh that's being communicated when when the Bible is talking about this event so in our English Bible we we have this translation

Commandments Ten Commandments there are Commandments within uh this Revelation to Moses but the description of the Bible about this about these words is is that there are 10 sayings uh rather than 10 uh Commandments and there's a there's a name uh that you I've come across I can't remember I haven't seen it recently but it's stuck in the back of my head that it's sometimes called the decalogue um which is a a good way of capturing from a Greek perspective of of what what the Bible says about this this this passage Deca meaning 10 and and logos the word for word uh is is a kind of equivalent to the Hebrew word darar so Deca logos would be um turned into into English is decalogue the 10 sayings so when we read about uh well yeah in Exodus 34 when they're looking back that says that he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights he neither ate bread nor drank water he wrote on the tablets the words of the Covenant The Ten Commandments the Hebrew there is the 10 words or the 10 10 things so that's Point number one is that we should probably call it the decalogue or the or the tenens things more accurately than the Ten

Commandments and when we do that it frees us up a little bit to kind of see a different way of viewing the the the counting of the 10 because of our English idea of Ten Commandments we tend to think that Exodus uh uh 20:2 is or well s yeah 20 verse2 is is really just an introduction to the first Commandment that we have in verse three you shall have no other gods before me so verse two I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery is is kind of like the prologue to the first commandment you shall have no other gods before me in Christian tradition that is what we encapsulate as commandment number one but in Jewish tradition Breaking Free from the mtitle of the Ten Commandments um we can see that verse two is is thought of well I can just tell you that verse two is thought of in in in Jewish tradition as being the first saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery and then verse three you shall have no other gods before me is the second

saying um but then what we think of as the second saying is really part of so verses uh 4 through six get grouped together with uh verse three rather than verse two in the Jewish tradition so if you think about it you shall have no other gods before me you shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness so it's all about idols and that's what other gods are they're just Idols there are no other true Gods I am the Lord there is no other God says again and again in Isaiah that other so-called gods are just engraved images and and Idols that that uh have no reality have no

power so to consider seeing the connection U I'll be using the the the Jewish tradition for the ordering not the Ten Commandments but the 10 sayings

um also um it's interesting to see that that the that when you think of it that way there actually are some interesting con connections if you think about the the the 10 sayings being on two tablets that would seem to imply that there's U two groups of five which invites us to explore parallelisms between the first and the fifth the the second and the sixth and so on so let's look at that so using that the Jewish tradition of of verse two being the first saying I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of

slavery think about the parallel you shall not

murder well that parallels very well with what they were brought out of they were brought out of the house of slavery where Moses uh was almost murdered and many of his you know uh people born in that in that same time frame they were literally murdered by being thrown into the into the the Nile and so the parallel is okay you were brought out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery and out of a murderous

situation so now the response you should not be murdering obviously it doesn't it just follows that you you've been freed from that don't become murderers

yourselves well what about the second saying you shall have no other gods before me well how does that con connect with uh sorry so the sixth one you should all not murder seems to connect with the first saying the seventh you shall not commit adultery adultery is spiritual idolatry it's spiritual spiritually having other Gods uh having other wives or or having another woman that is not your wife that would be

adultery in the human sense but adultery with God would be having other gods and and making Idols so there's a Clear Connection there when you look at those two um looking at the Third saying you shall not take the Lord the name of the Lord your God in vain uh for the Lord will not hold him Guiltless who takes his name is in vain um you can see a connection um you shall not steal uh if you think about the the idea of taking the name of the Lord um well this one maybe a little bit harder to explain but the you know you've been you've been given the name of the Lord I think taking the name of the Lord is not really about about swearing U profanity it's it's it I think it's more about the idea of bearing the L the littleit word there is the word for bearing or carrying the name of the Lord um when that name is upon us we shouldn't be stealing that and and and and living a life that that uh doesn't honor the fact that we are bearing the name of the Lord um I need to work on that one a little bit more for explanation but

um again looking continuing on

uh two three this

is um number four remember the Sabbath day keep it holy and it's about bearing witness uh to God's creation in six days the Lord the the reason why is because uh on it you shall do no work you you son your daughter your main servant your female servant uh for because in verse 11 for in six days the Lord made Heaven and Earth the seed and all that all that is in them uh

that truth about God being the creator of the world and of the universe is is testifying to that truth so think about the parallel and you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor that would be an untruth it's saying fault witness W witness about a human person kind of like not remembering the Sabbath would be bearing false witness against God and not not remembering and honoring uh the day that he set aside for remembering that truth and then um honor your father and mother that your days may be long um in the land that the Lord your God has giving you think about that in terms of

covetousness uh is there a parallel there

well part of what I think we're going to see when we get into this into the the connections to Exodus 3 and 4 as well is

that your your mother and father have given you a set of gifts and and some deficiencies we have we all have strengths and weaknesses that that come from our genetic makeup and sometimes we feel like oh I wish I could be like that person or I could you know be taller or I could you know we see other people and we we want to be like them um well that's really a form of covetousness so for honoring our father and mother then we're appreciative of the gifts that that God has given us through our parents um and we try to make the most of our lives that we

have in honor um in honor to the the ones that that gave us life to our Earthly parents and to our Heavenly Father

so anyway those those those are thinking about that structure now when we do that then think about as as we look at how Moses interaction at the bush points to there's five interactions five discourses between Moses and God at the burning bush those link up very strongly with the first five of the 10 sayings of the

decalog but since those five first five are connected to the second five then then really it's it's all they're all connected in a way

so um basically the five the the the meat of the class here is we're looking at the five discourses that point forward to the first five of the sayings so let's get into that uh we read in Exodus

3:6 God's speaking to to Moses says I am the god of your father the god of Abraham the god of Isaac and the god of

Jacob now when we read that at first we think um well well first let's look and forward let's see do we have a link uh to to Exodus 20 and and look look and see in the first saying I am the Lord your God and and the Hebrew there I am uh is one Hebrew word um that and and and but I didn't notice but was here today I guess not um but somebody with a King James could could verify by by seeing or you can all check that the word am is an italics which indicates that it's not really there the word anoi is really um just I so it's I and the am is kind of implied apologize for for the grammar but uh that's the same thing that's going on here in Exodus 20 and so it's really I the Lord your God um the god of your father but in English we we we need that helping word am in there but it's not necessary in Hebrew last y verified thank

you so I'm not misleading you Jim Jims backing me up so last week our Focus was on the word eh which is also translated I am uh it was used later in Exodus 3 as part of God's name there we were looking at a verb where the pronoun I was kind of B bundled in with the verb together in one word uh here we have just the pronoun without a verb um so but a verb isn't isn't needed here so this is a a different phrase then than we have in Exodus 3:14 but but notice the linkage is very strong with Exodus 20:2 okay well it doesn't stop

there um notice notice notice uh also a difference so when we have parallelism sometimes there there they definitely linkages to bring your eyes to bring the connection there to help you see the connection but oftentimes there are differences to help us reflect on H you know this has changed what does that

mean uh and if you look at

this you see that there is a difference uh the difference being

that before The Exodus it'si am the god of your father the god of Abraham the god of Isaac the god of Jacob and now after The Exodus I am the Lord your

God

so he's become not just the god of their fathers he's become their personal God this is the god who delivered them out of bondage out of slavery in Egypt to a new life of Freedom uh in a discussion group a couple weeks ago a comment was made about baptism being a point where you're you're going Beyond just having the the faith of your fathers but you're or your parents but you're you're making it more personal it is you're making it your faith um and and here we have a parallel this new nation baptized into the sea with Moses now have a God not just the god of their fathers but a God who is their own because of the miracul ulous Deliverance that he has

provided

so went from being the god of your father to the Lord your

God so sometimes there's parallels but sometimes there are important differences you think of them as a foil uh maybe in some way well I don't know but somebody else will have to help me with the proper literary terms but that that difference there I think is important now let's let's continue looking at the first discourse in Exodus 3 in verses 7-10 God

expresses his care and compassion for his people he says I've surely seen the Affliction of my people who are in Egypt and I've heard their cry because of their taskmasters I've known their sufferings I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the

Egyptians uh and to bring them up out of that land to a good and Broad land to and flowing with milk and honey 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 oppressed them come I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people the children of Israel out of

Egypt so if we look at the like the first saying again it's I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery so we see that connection

again in in the saying that links back now notice the difference here now it's it's it's been fulfilled so it's who has done this God has delivered you it's it's pointing back to that promise and and saying it's been fulfilled God has God has um has done that now thinking about us you know thinking about our Deliverance out of out of bondage out of Egypt out of Slavery to sin you know we have been brought out and we can look back in thankfulness having been baptized into Christ we have we can kind of have a mirror of this as well in our lives

and and we can look back recognizing with thankfulness that God has done that he's delivered us from the house of

slavery

uh so the parallels exist very strongly of this Deliverance the promise of Deliverance and looking back and seeing that the promise has been

fulfilled but what about the middle what about the middle part that we read um well that we that we didn't read I actually I skipped it um I had the dot dot dot forgive me I should have mentioned that I'm not reading the whole thing but if I put that in there now and now Now Behold The Cry of the people of Israel has come to me and I've also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them in that middle section God

explains um why he was going to deliver this people because that cry that cry had come up to him he had care for his people and their suffering and he wanted to deliver them so why is that not paralleled in Exodus 20:2 in the first

saying um we have I am the god of your father um paralleled with I am your God and then we have the the the the Deliverance that I've highlighted in red but what about that underlined part is there why does that get skipped in the in the echos back to uh Exodus 3 maybe actually it didn't though

because what's in between the yellow and the red or well in the middle of the yellow I guess in Exodus 20 it's the lord it's all cap so Yahweh so if you think back to what we discussed in our class last week this is the god whose name really is an expression of I will be with you I will be with you the link to eh uh which which God says two verses before he says aser he says to Moses IM I will be with you and and so when he says aser I will be that which I will be yes it expresses God's Transcendence and that you can't even really put into words

just how great and magnificent he is and how powerful he is but yet that great powerful God also has

an amazing powerful compassion and care and empathy for his people in our needs he's with us that's expressed here in Exodus 20 in the first saying Yahweh in just a word we have that care that was expressed when he said I heard of or the Cry of the people has come to me I've seen the oppression where God's heart is is there with his people as they're suffering he suffering that's expressed in his name so that's the first discourse we see some interesting lessons as we look at the parallels well about the second uh the second discourse has uh Moses says to God who am I in this this case he's using the word anoi that we had in the first discourse but it's me anoi who am I that I should go to pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt you know you are anoi you're Elohim you're you're God but who am I what can I do and that's when God gives his response that we mentioned from last week but I will be with

you IM I will be with you

God's love and compassion and and willingness to be there in our times of trial and difficulty and suffering uh is is just an amazing thing that we can hold on to to and and

um and it it can change it change our situation when we know that we're not alone we're not

alone and to think about how that mean you know the connection to that the natural consequence of that is that we should be fiercely loyal to this God this God who is with us in all of our trials and all of our sufferings who's there to help us get through what we go through we should have no other gods before us it just it just totally makes sense you shall have no other gods before me uh the Hebrew there uh connects as well

Lo the the first two words uh which I don't I'm not gonna even bother um pointing to um

are that that ye is that word uh he will be um there there but in this case it's there will be uh no other God so this is in contrast to the the one who will be with us there won't be these other gods they you know it's it's and you can think of it as a command yes but it's also a statement of Truth there won't be any other gods before him there are no other gods that that even can compare everything else is just you know myths and and idols and and worthless things so um so that second discourse when we know when we recognize sorry that that God is is

the

um who he is The God Who says I will be with you

then it's just a natural consequence that that we would want to be fiercely loyal to God and have no other Gods uh before us that by loyalty is a natural result of of God being with his people in their trial with Moses when he thought he was nothing uh you know who am I but God says I will be with you that God who is with Moses who was with the Israelites who's now with us as well then it just makes sense that we would worship and honor him

alone so looking at the third discourse actually Brian you had Hebrew on the on the last slide second command yeah second saying yep did you want to make a point or did you just want to impress us no I did want to make a well I was trying to say that the first two words there which start on the right hand side uh is the word low which means no or not a negative thing and then Y is that you can see almost the resemblance to to God's name you he V only here it's yud yud which is that word that really is an equivalent uh to Yahweh only it's using you know Yahweh is kind of using the ancient word for being and this is the the the more normal word for Hebrew for being so there there's that Echo that connection is is what I wanted to mention than

yep

so the uh third discourse uh we read in Exodus 3 that Moses said if I come to the people of Israel and they and say to them the god of your fathers has sent me to you and they asked me what is his name what shall I say to them and this is where God Reveals His name I am who I am

aser and he says say this to the people of Israel I am or eh has sent me to you this is where God reveals that that his name and and again when you see it in the context you see this beautiful picture of the Transcendent God uh who is beyond time and space and the one who is who was who is and is to be uh the one who's created the universe this same God who's Beyond Compare Beyond description even is the one who loves and cares for us and Promises to be with us that was the the power of this this third discourse and and God's name when we take that first person a that's here in in in uh verse

14 um the bottom section here of this quote and you take it Forward he later says he kind of translates that into when Moses is speaking he puts it in third person and that's where we get the word

Yahweh so that parallels notice this the third discour third uh saying says you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain this is not just coincidence the the name idea is what God revealed in the third discourse and now here we're not to take the name of the Lord Our God in

vain and and as I hinted at a little bit before when I was talking about the structure that the idea of taking the name of the Lord in vain is not really about I think about like about profanity it's not about uh swearing an oath perhaps I mean although that's a commonly thought of uh meaning behind behind it I think that the word the word NASA there that is is being used is about lifting up or bearing or carrying and if you look at in the in the general region of Exodus there that we're in also revealed to to Moses um on sin we see this word translated bear and and um in verse well 23 verse one skipping down a little bit but you should not spread as false report I think that's where we get our word tail Bearer you're you're bringing you're bearing the tail and bringing it to the next person and and passing it on um it's also used for forgiveness uh in verse 21 of chapter 23 um it's used of carrying things like carrying the arc with the with the poles um and so on but notice that if you go back to the top two you shall set two stones on the shoulder pieces of the ephod stones of remembrance for the sons of Israel and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord on his two shoulders for remembrance so this is talking about the ephod that that Moses was wearing had these stones of remembrance and in verse 29 Aon shall bear the names of the sons of Israel on the breast piece that had the 12 Stones that were um placed near on his heart when he goes into the holy place to bring them into regular remembrance before the Lord and you have this picture of the the high priest bearing the names of the tribes of Israel foreshadowing our lord Jesus who holds the names of his people his disciples his and and all who have learned the message through their their professing of the Gospel we're all held close to the heart of our Lord Jesus as well and and we're being being born or being lifted you know being held on our shoulders well the high priest also bore the name on the miter um Holiness belonging to God that name was was was U part of what he

bore so I think that you know that

meaning you think about bringing forward to us

we are bearing the name of God as well and this this people this chosen people that God had delivered from Israel they were now a witness to God they were bearing God's name to the world around them um and that's what we are to do as well that I'll have to look into this a little bit more but the NIV translation here I mean it's not in the sepagan and the Amos trans Amos verse that this is quoting um the sepagan matches but the but the the the Hebrew doesn't really match the same word as as uh ing in Exodus 20 but nevertheless I think the idea is here that if you look to verse this is uh James speaking about you know the Gentiles and and and verse 14 it says Simon Peter has described to us how God has intervened to chose Cho choose a people for his name from the Gentiles and the words of the Prophet are in agreement with this as it is written after this I will I will return and rebuild David's Fallen tent it's ru ruins I will build and I will restore it that the rest of mankind May seek the Lord even all the Gentiles who bear my name says the Lord Who does these things things known from long ago so this idea of the Gentiles now bearing God's name not just natural Israel but those who've been grafted in uh because of the work of Jesus we too bear God's name and we shouldn't do that in vain because when we recognize that this is the god of empathy The God Who is with us who cares for us in our trials and our sufferings then we should gladly bear that name and let it change our lives and and and we should be an effective witness because it's it's changed our hearts and it's changing our minds uh to be a different people because we've been saved we've been delivered out of sin and bondage

so the fourth one I'll do the last two pretty quick the that remember the that it was all about the signs Moses was like doubting that the people would believe that Yahweh sent me um and God responds with well I'll give them three I'll give you three signs and then they'll see so remember those signs they were a testimony to the truth in a previous class I gave uh about the Israelites the truth about the Israelites in contradiction to Pharaoh's lies lies about the people being subhuman like snakes um lies about the stillborn that leprosy was actually connected in the Torah to uh still being still born and and it was put back in in in the cloak and pulled out and it was restored whole the truth was that the the babies were not still born that was a lie they were really um they were really killed um being killed by by the Egyptians God test testifies to the truth um and and that the truth of of the of the the Nile having the blood um that was the Nile was hiding the blood of the the that killed Israelite babies and and in in the foreshadowing of the of the plague where the Nile turned to blood where God was making clear he didn't just come up with just magic tricks he was showing that he knew and cared about the situation Israelites were going through and he was proclaiming the truth as well as promising to deliver them well that connects to the fourth saying of remembering the Sabbath day now Israel is being invited to proclaim the truth about God being the creator of the universe and and recognizing that seventh day and keeping it holy they're testifying to the truth about God they're given that opportunity in this relationship ship with God not it's not just that um that that uh they're just takers in the relationship God has done things for them but they have the opportunity to to speak the truth about

God and then the fifth discourse

um in in the ESV and the NIV which are two versions I spend a lot of time in they both dro the ball on this one um there's a key word transl in in the Hebrew that's duplicated

the nasb does duplicate it as do many other translations so I'm I'm quoting here instead of my normal ESV uh the nasb the Lord said to to Moses said to the Lord please Lord I have never been eloquent neither recently or in time past nor since you've spoken to your servant for I am slow of speech and slow of

tongue and um there's a word that slow the word that's translated slow you can see is the you can see a repetition the second word and the second to last word have the same three letters and that word actually more literally is is heavy so heavy of of heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue is really the literal Hebrew there well that those three letters and remember the letters are really what's the original Hebrew text the vowels were added later um sorry there are highlight to make it more clear those three letters are in of course wouldn't wouldn't you know in the fifth saying in the word honor honor your father and your mother in the days and that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God has giving you and there the vowel pointing is different it's kabed instead of um uh kavad

but there's a there's a similarity of meaning if you think heaviness

um and honor is to is to is to give something weight uh to recognize its importance to recognize the importance of your of your

parents so the lesson I think is that you know God has made us he knit us together in our mother's womb he's given each one of us strengths and weaknesses he's given us tools and gifts to live a successful life um you know and so that I think is what God's response to Moses is all about who made man's mouth who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind is it not I the Lord so you can parallel that with that that honor command because we can't blame our parents when we feel short changed about you know what we do or don't have for for gifts and

weaknesses that we should honor them for what they've genetically and and time and money and energy have given to raise us

so too with our heavenly father um I think of the words of Paul um you know my when he said the Lord Jesus said to him my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ May W rest upon

me so really when you reflect on these parallels I think the lesson is that we have a opportunity to have a response to the Salvation we've been given salvation comes first for the children of Israel they're delivered from bondage to Egypt and then um and God shows his compassion his love his empathy for his people those that's all throughout the the the message of of Exodus 3 and4 it's really that Common Thread that that runs through that whole burning bush episode

and

now these laws mirror back to that so these laws which come afterwards it's not like do this and then you'll be saved um you got to do this and then you get to tick it out of Egypt not at all it's it's it's not works righteousness it's it's a call for a thankful response to the rescue that they've been given so when we reflect on those parallels between Exodus 34 and Exodus 20 those connections are there to teach us God has given us an empathetic and and loving deliverance and we have an opportunity to respond uh in in awesome Wonder for The God Who has saved us who cares for us who's called us to be in a loving relationship with him to respond and and to and to to come into Covenant and and and connect with over the course of a life together just as Israel had that opportunity

so thank you for for your patience and uh I hope that it was uh encouraging

and as it as it has been for me to see these things