Keluaran 3:4

3:4 When the Lord ¹  saw that ²  he had turned aside to look, God called to him from within the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” ³  And Moses ⁴  said, “Here I am.”

Keluaran 2:2-6

2:2 The woman became pregnant ⁵  and gave birth to a son. When ⁶  she saw that ⁷  he was a healthy ⁸  child, she hid him for three months. 2:3 But when she was no longer able to hide him, she took a papyrus basket ⁹  for him and sealed it with bitumen and pitch. She put the child in it and set it among the reeds along the edge of the Nile. ¹⁰  2:4 His sister stationed herself ¹¹  at a distance to find out ¹²  what would ¹³  happen to him.

2:5 Then the daughter of Pharaoh ¹⁴  came down to wash herself ¹⁵  by the Nile, while her attendants were walking alongside the river, ¹⁶  and she saw the basket among the reeds. She sent one of her attendants, ¹⁷  took it, ¹⁸  2:6 opened it, ¹⁹  and saw the child ²⁰  – a boy, ²¹  crying! ²²  – and she felt compassion ²³  for him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

Ulangan 33:16

33:16 with the harvest of the earth and its fullness

and the pleasure of him who resided in the burning bush. ²⁴ 

May blessing rest on Joseph’s head,

and on the top of the head of the one set apart ²⁵  from his brothers.

Markus 12:26

12:26 Now as for the dead being raised, ²⁶  have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, ²⁷  how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the ²⁸  God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? ²⁹ 

Lukas 20:37

20:37 But even Moses revealed that the dead are raised ³⁰  in the passage about the bush, ³¹  where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. ³² 

Kisah Para Rasul 7:30

7:30 “After ³³  forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the desert ³⁴  of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning bush. ³⁵ 

[3:4]  ¹ tn The preterite with the vav (ו) is subordinated as a temporal clause to the main point of the verse, that God called to him. The language is anthropomorphic, as if God’s actions were based on his observing what Moses did.

[3:4]  ² tn The particle כִּי (ki, “that”) introduces the noun clause that functions as the direct object of the verb “saw” (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 81, §490).

[3:4]  ³ sn The repetition of the name in God’s call is emphatic, making the appeal direct and immediate (see also Gen 22:11; 46:2). The use of the personal name shows how specifically God directed the call and that he knew this person. The repetition may have stressed even more that it was indeed he whom the Lord wanted. It would have been an encouragement to Moses that this was in fact the Lord who was meeting him.

[3:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “And he said”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:2]  ⁵ tn Or “conceived” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[2:2]  ⁶ tn A preterite form with the vav consecutive can be subordinated to a following clause. What she saw stands as a reason for what she did: “when she saw…she hid him three months.”

[2:2]  ⁷ tn After verbs of perceiving or seeing there are frequently two objects, the formal accusative (“she saw him”) and then a noun clause that explains what it was about the child that she perceived (“that he was healthy”). See GKC 365 §117.h.

[2:2]  ⁸ tn Or “fine” (טוֹב, tov). The construction is parallel to phrases in the creation narrative (“and God saw that it was good,” Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 17, 21, 25, 31). B. Jacob says, “She looked upon her child with a joy similar to that of God upon His creation (Gen 1.4ff.)” (Exodus, 25).

[2:3]  ⁹ sn See on the meaning of this basket C. Cohen, “Hebrew tbh: Proposed Etymologies,” JANESCU 9 (1972): 36-51. This term is used elsewhere only to refer to the ark of Noah. It may be connected to the Egyptian word for “chest.”

[2:3]  ¹⁰ sn The circumstances of the saving of the child Moses have prompted several attempts by scholars to compare the material to the Sargon myth. See R. F. Johnson, IDB 3:440-50; for the text see L. W. King, Chronicles concerning Early Babylonian Kings, 2:87-90. Those who see the narrative using the Sargon story’s pattern would be saying that the account presents Moses in imagery common to the ancient world’s expectations of extraordinary achievement and deliverance. In the Sargon story the infant’s mother set him adrift in a basket in a river; he was loved by the gods and destined for greatness. Saying Israel used this to invent the account in Exodus would undermine its reliability. But there are other difficulties with the Sargon comparison, not the least of which is the fact that the meaning and function of the Sargon story are unclear. Second, there is no outside threat to the child Sargon. The account simply shows how a child was exposed, rescued, nurtured, and became king (see B. S. Childs, Exodus [OTL], 8-12). Third, other details do not fit: Moses’ father is known, Sargon’s is not; Moses is never abandoned, since he is never out of the care of his parents, and the finder is a princess and not a goddess. Moreover, without knowing the precise function and meaning of the Sargon story, it is almost impossible to explain its use as a pattern for the biblical account. By itself, the idea of a mother putting a child by the river if she wants him to be found would have been fairly sensible, for that is where the women of the town would be washing their clothes or bathing. If someone wanted to be sure the infant was discovered by a sympathetic woman, there would be no better setting (see R. A. Cole, Exodus [TOTC], 57). While there need not be a special genre of storytelling here, it is possible that Exodus 2 might have drawn on some of the motifs and forms of the other account to describe the actual event in the sparing of Moses – if they knew of it. If so it would show that Moses was cast in the form of the greats of the past.

[2:4]  ¹¹ tn Or “stood.” The verb is the Hitpael preterite of יָצַב (yatsav), although the form is anomalous and perhaps should be spelled as in the Samaritan Pentateuch (see GKC 193 §71). The form yields the meaning of “take a stand, position or station oneself.” His sister found a good vantage point to wait and see what might become of the infant.

[2:4]  ¹² tn Heb “to know”; many English versions have “to see.”

[2:4]  ¹³ tn The verb is a Niphal imperfect; it should be classified here as a historic future, future from the perspective of a point in a past time narrative.

[2:5]  ¹⁴ sn It is impossible, perhaps, to identify with certainty who this person was. For those who have taken a view that Rameses was the pharaoh, there were numerous daughters for Rameses. She is named Tharmuth in Jub. 47:5; Josephus spells it Thermouthis (Ant. 2.9.5 [2.224]), but Eusebius has Merris (Praep. Ev. ix. 27). E. H. Merrill (Kingdom of Priests, 60) makes a reasonable case for her identification as the famous Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I. She would have been there about the time of Moses’ birth, and the general picture of her from history shows her to be the kind of princess with enough courage to countermand a decree of her father.

[2:5]  ¹⁵ tn Or “bathe.”

[2:5]  ¹⁶ sn A disjunctive vav initiates here a circumstantial clause. The picture is one of a royal entourage coming down to the edge of a tributary of the river, and while the princess was bathing, her female attendants were walking along the edge of the water out of the way of the princess. They may not have witnessed the discovery or the discussion.

[2:5]  ¹⁷ tn The word here is אָמָה (’amah), which means “female slave.” The word translated “attendants” earlier in the verse is נַעֲרֹת (na’arot, “young women”), possibly referring here to an assortment of servants and companions.

[2:5]  ¹⁸ tn The verb is preterite, third person feminine singular, with a pronominal suffix, from לָקַח (laqakh, “to take”). The form says literally “and she took it,” and retains the princess as the subject of the verb.

[2:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and she opened.”

[2:6]  ²⁰ tn The grammatical construction has a pronominal suffix on the verb as the direct object along with the expressed object: “and she saw him, the child.” The second object defines the previous pronominal object to avoid misunderstanding (see GKC 425 §131.m).

[2:6]  ²¹ tn The text has נַעַר (na’ar, “lad, boy, young man”), which in this context would mean a baby boy.

[2:6]  ²² tn This clause is introduced with a disjunctive vav and the deictic particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, “behold” in the KJV). The particle in this kind of clause introduces the unexpected – what Pharaoh’s daughter saw when she opened the basket: “and look, there was a baby boy crying.” The clause provides a parenthetical description of the child as she saw him when she opened the basket and does not advance the narrative. It is an important addition, however, for it puts readers in the position of looking with her into the basket and explains her compassion.

[2:6]  ²³ tn The verb could be given a more colloquial translation such as “she felt sorry for him.” But the verb is stronger than that; it means “to have compassion, to pity, to spare.” What she felt for the baby was strong enough to prompt her to spare the child from the fate decreed for Hebrew boys. Here is part of the irony of the passage: What was perceived by many to be a womanly weakness – compassion for a baby – is a strong enough emotion to prompt the woman to defy the orders of Pharaoh. The ruler had thought sparing women was safe, but the midwives, the Hebrew mother, the daughter of Pharaoh, and Miriam, all work together to spare one child – Moses (cf. 1 Cor 1:27-29).

[33:16]  ²⁴ tn The expression “him who resided in the bush” is frequently understood as a reference to the appearance of the Lord to Moses at Sinai from a burning bush (so NIV, NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT; cf. Exod 2:2-6; 3:2, 4). To make this reference clear the word “burning” is supplied in the translation.

[33:16]  ²⁵ sn This apparently refers to Joseph’s special status among his brothers as a result of his being chosen by God to save the family from the famine and to lead Egypt.

[12:26]  ²⁶ tn Grk “Now as for the dead that they are raised.”

[12:26]  ²⁷ sn See Exod 3:6. Jesus used a common form of rabbinic citation here to refer to the passage in question.

[12:26]  ²⁸ tn Grk “and the,” but καί (kai) has not been translated since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.

[12:26]  ²⁹ sn A quotation from Exod 3:6.

[20:37]  ³⁰ tn Grk “But that the dead are raised even Moses revealed.”

[20:37]  ³¹ sn See Exod 3:6. Jesus used a common form of rabbinic citation here to refer to the passage in question.

[20:37]  ³² sn A quotation from Exod 3:6.

[7:30]  ³³ tn Grk “And after.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and contemporary English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:30]  ³⁴ tn Or “wilderness.”

[7:30]  ³⁵ sn An allusion to Exod 3:2.